“To be American (unlike being English or French or whatever) is precisely to imagine a destiny rather than inherit one; since we have always been, insofar as we are Americans at all, inhabitants of myth rather than history.” In the context of this quote attributed to Leslie Fiedler, being American means subscribing to a socially constructed national identity--to the collective American Dream. This observation expresses a core truth about Americans, and about an American greatness that is in fact exceptional, but it is also problematic in several ways. First, the public has never felt compelled to fix the meaning of the American Dream, a term that presumably everyone knows. Second, while Fielder’s assertion is true of Americans, it is not uniquely so: All people, in some sense or another, inhabit myths. Finally, while Americans have certainly imagined destinies for themselves, they also live in history. Everyone does. The American Dream is neither a self-evident falsehood nor a scientifically demonstrable principle. Beyond the abstract belief that anything is possible if you want it bad enough, there is no single American Dream. The theoretical basis for the American idea incorporates an explicit allegiance to the concept “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” But as the history of slavery and the struggle for women’s rights make clear, the rights belonging to “all men” have not always been extended to all Americans. Similarly, those who have been Americans for a few generations have not always cherished the “fresh start” for newer immigrants. Moreover, while the American Dream emphasizes individualistic pursuits, the country in fact has defined aspirations in terms of collective welfare, often adding government assistance