I can’t really give an academic answer but I can give one that is hopefully non-dogmatic. I think I have told this story before here but I’ll do it again. It think the American dream is a reality, or more precisely, the possibility of it is a reality.
I had the following experience when I lived in Austin, TX. I was open up a checking account at one the smaller local banks and while I filling out the paper work the bank officer pretty much told me the story of her life. I don’t know how we got started on it but I think the woman was just so proud of her daughter. The woman was the daughter of Mexican migrant farm workers who worked in the fields in Texas. She and her brothers and sisters sometimes worked beside them but she said her parents made sure that their kids took advantage of the education opportunities in the schools that were sometimes provided for the migrant workers kids. And when her parents weren’t working in the fields they were out collecting bottles and cans for a little extra money for the family. Then, obviously, when she grew up, she was able to getting a pretty nice middle class, white-collar job at a bank that allowed her to send her kids to college. Her daughter had graduated from college and had been accepted into medical school and between loans and scholarships, what the mother could provide and some assistance from her employer, the bank, her daughter would be able to go.
So in a couple generations the family went from being migrant farm workers to producing a doctor. That’s sounds a lot like the “American Dream” to me.
I saw that kind of thing with a fair number of third-generation Mexican-Americans in Texas. I had a friend with a similar story. Her grandparents emigrated to the U.S. with next to nothing. Then her parents started a small tortilla business out of their home that grew into a large and very successful tortilla manufacturing business. She used to call herself the “tortilla princess.” Her parents were able to send all their kids to college and they’ve all been pretty successful. My friend is in the process of getting her Ph.D at U.T. Austin now.
Can or will the “American Dream” happen for everyone; for every family? No, I don’t think it will, but I don’t think that it’s a myth. I think it’s still a really possibility for many people. And that’s what makes it uniquely “American” I think. That it is always at least possible here. There are a lot places in the world where it isn’t even a real possibility that things will be much better for your children and theirs than it is for you. And certainly there are other places where the same kind of thing can happen, I just don’t think the notion is built into the fabric of the culture the way it is here and that believing that there really is the possibility of attaining the “American Dream” makes people more willing and motivated to strive for it.
I love not being cynical about everything, all the time.