The American Dream as el Sueño Americano: Lost in Translation?

Tomasz M. LEBİECKİ

Article Details

The American Dream as el Sueño Americano: Lost in Translation?

Authors:

Tomasz M. LEBİECKİ

Publisher:

American Studies Association of Turkey (ASAT)

Journal:

Journal of American Studies of Turkey 2004 Issue 19, pp.89-105

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

3/2004

Document Language:

English

Document ID (Org No.):

2000734968

Frequency:

Bi-Annual

pISSN:

1300-6606

Abstract:

 

If there has ever been a Promised Land on this Earth then for many,  undoubtedly, it has been America. For the dozens of millions of settlers,  refugees, and immigrants who since the foundation of the first colonies have  been storming its shores regardless of the often formidable obstacles and  hardships they were to face – from the sheer costs and life-hazards of the  journey to the permanent loss of family ties – the land must have always  been, apparently, a promise worthy of such sacrifices. And a promise it was –  of a life in a society that always prided itself on being the very embodiment  of meritocracy, in which people could feel free from the fear of political and  religious persecutions and unbound by the constraints of aristocratic and  caste systems. A promise of economic opportunities offered to them freely by  a scarcely inhabited continent where lands were cheap and the soils fertile. A  promise of a dream-come-true waiting for all those who would only venture  and dare to reach for it; or so the popular myth has it. A myth, because now,  at the dawn of the 21st century, much of what used to constitute the context  in which the American Dream could proliferate already belongs in the  museum.

Article Details

The American Dream as el Sueño Americano: Lost in Translation?

Authors: Tomasz M. LEBİECKİ

Publisher: American Studies Association of Turkey (ASAT)

Journal: Journal of American Studies of Turkey 2004 Issue 19, pp.89-105

Document Type: Article

Publication Date: 3/2004

Document Language: English

Document ID (Org No.): 2000734968

Frequency: Bi-Annual

pISSN: 1300-6606

Issues

Authors:

Tomasz M. LEBİECKİ

Publisher:

American Studies Association of Turkey (ASAT)

Journal:

Journal of American Studies of Turkey 2004 Issue 19, pp.89-105

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

3/2004

Document Language:

English

Document ID (Org No.):

2000734968

Frequency:

Bi-Annual

pISSN:

1300-6606