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Is California Still the American Dream?
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11318 |
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Section : |
SPECIAL SECTION
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1993 |
3,754 Words |
| Author
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K.L. Billingsley
Author and screenwriter K.L. Billingsley first came to
California in 1968 and has been a permanent resident since
1977. He is a media fellow of the Pacific Research Institute
in San Francisco. |
Although there have always been and always will be variations on the American dream, the key component is freedom. Like a magnet drawing iron filings, America has attracted seekers of liberty from the four corners of the world. Liberated from the oppressive conditions that quashed their talents, the new arrivals could flourish, prosper, and practice their various religions without fear of state reprisal or censure. And along the way something else happened. The new arrivals were transformed, and this is the heart of the American experience.
One would be hard-pressed to find a "Norwegian dream," a Japanese, Russian, Iranian, Nepalese, Pakistani, or Ecuadorian dream. Even an English, German, or French dream sounds odd, in spite of the accomplishments of those nations. At home and abroad, the United States is different--an experiment, a new order, a dream.
Immigrants cannot become French, German, or Belgian in the same way they can become Americans. And for most of the nation's history, those who came wanted to become Americans. According to National Geographic, the largest public event ever held in New York's Central Park was the 1944 "I Am an American Day" celebration, attended by an amazing 2.4 million people. It is hard to think of a similar event in another country.
It is not ethnicity but the adoption of American principles that ultimately makes one an American. The result, as British historian Paul Johnson has noted, is a new and different people, a new character. But once they are here, people don't stop dreaming, aspiring, or, certainly, moving. The drift has been largely westward.
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'
No one speaks of a "Rhode Island dream," or a Mississippi, New Jersey, Arkansas, or North Dakota dream, but a California dream seems entirely natural. In this vision, California is a place where you can do and attain what you could not do or attain elsewhere in America. Such is the drawing power of the dream that settlers took incredible risks to get to California, just as their forebears had done in coming to America in the first place. The macabre experiences of the Donner party are but one example.
It was not just a question of climate. Despite truly tropical conditions (California's climate, in the south, is more Mediterranean), Florida and Hawaii are not normally associated with a dream, unless it is one of tranquil retirement. To create a
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