Summary and response by Paulo

For immigrants, living the dream is getting tougher

By Judy Keen, USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-06-15-immigrants_N.htm

Summary

From the article titled “For immigrants, living the dream is getting tougher” by Judy Keen published on The US today news. For immigrants the principal value of the called “American Dream” is work hard = good life. However, immigrant entrepreneurs are now asking themselves if the dream is still true. Raudel Sanchez, an immigrant from Mexico who came in the 1967 to Texas, had the only intention to become his American dream true by working hard; therefore, he started by working as much as 14 hours daily for a very low income. Thanks to it, later on he started opening new small businesses that helped to started making his dream reality. After a time, his businesses were going well; however, later on with the global economic problem his sells started decreasing. Now, his businesses aren’t self-sustainable anymore, but Sanchez still believes in the American Dream and he’s sure his children and grandchildren will have better futures.   Niall Freyne, Irish immigrant, opened his own business as well as Sanchez. However Freyne hasn’t had the same results from the beginning. He had to close his Irish pub very soon, “the economy killed me” he says. Now, he wonders how he will support his wife, children and 42 employees. He’s not as confident as Sanchez and believes that it will be hard for small immigrant businesses to recover after the recession.

  Other example is Susan Patel. She got her desire for the American dream from her Indian grandparents, who came to the US following their dreams.  They opened a chain of businesses, and now Susan administrates them as well as she is in charge of new business that she’s opened in the time. Even though she’s seen people having to give up their businesses because the recession has hit them hard, she still thinks she will pass over it because luckily her family has saved money to face situations as it, so she thinks keeping her business open would help improve her neighborhood economy.  Finally, a Greek family conformed by mom and son still believe in this dream. They own a bakery that still works very efficiently. They think what people call “American dream” will never die. They believe the recession is not enough to affect the work of many immigrant dreamers. Even though they have left behind friends and family they consider there is no better place to be than America, because it’s offered them the freedom and opportunities that any other country could have offered them.

Response

I think there are many different views of the “American Dream.” All people have different desires, so what could fit someone cannot be sufficient to other.  However, from the article I’ve found that most of the people still believe in this dream as alive. However, even though I don’t know a lot about economics, I would say times have changed and it is not as easy as it was to make this dream possible.  I think people who have already established own businesses can find ways to support and pass over the recession. However, the new waves of immigrants will not have the same opportunities and possibly their American dream will get broken.