My New "American Dream"

I do not think I can begin to express how much my views have changed since the beginning of the term. Looking back on our original assignment of what we define as the "American Dream," I originally felt that it was a mutually inclusive idea that everyone wanted. I still think the idea is behind much of what we read; however, I have since learned that the best dream is equality. People simply want to be celebrated for who and what they are. Controversial writers like Allen Ginsberg in "Howl" talked freely about the social destruction taking place around him in order to bring awareness and release the feeling of suppressed liberation. "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night..." (1417). Writers like Gloria Anazaldua in "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" wrote about racism and how it not only affected her culture, but American culture as well. "Their purpose: to get rid of our accents. Attacks on one's form of expression with the intent to censor are a violation of the First Amendment... Wild tongues can't be tamed, they can only be cut out" (1587). Writers like Gertrude Stein in "Tender Buttons" refuted traditional styles of writing in hopes of branching out and creating something new and unexplored. "A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing. All this an ordinary, not unordered in unresembling. The difference is spreading" (765). Without all of these writers, without all of their bravery, we would not be the America we are today. I now view America as a giant ecosystem filled with different genders, identities, races, and sexes all working and flowing together. If one is broken or clogged, the others cannot run smoothly to create a healthy, viable system. All and all, I have learned that the "American Dream" does not need to be complex. It can be as simple as having the freedom to be who you are.