Hierarchy Hidden By Dreams

By Ryan Chan / Fall 2020

As a first-generation Asian American along with my older sister, I never understood why my parents pushed heavily on the quality of our education. They were very strict on both of us, spending time, money, and effort to further our education. To what avail? I learned about the American Dream in school, but I was never able to fully grasp the whole idea. The American Dream is the idea or promise that you can ascend the ranks of social hierarchy through hard work as everyone is given an equal opportunity in America. In short, it defines being successful. Being wealthy, owning a home and a family embodied the ‘success’ of the American Dream. After I graduated high school and was self-reflecting upon how I did not take anything in life seriously, especially my education, that is when my epiphany happened. I asked myself one simple question. That question was, “Is this what you want in your life? To mess around and become a bum?” The answer to that question was a firm ‘no’. I realized that the American Dream ideal was just a myth in America. This hoax in America could not be any further than the truth. My parents had financial struggles, but they were hard working. Where was their due in America? They were ‘hard working’ but that did not make them ‘successful’ in America’s eyes. I truly understood why my parents had sacrificed everything for my sister and me. They gave up complacency and comfort in their lives so my sister and I could be able to live a life without any burden. The truth is, they never had a chance at all. However, they risked everything to provide a chance for my sister and I to attain the ‘American Dream’.

The pressure my parents are facing is financial burden. A reason for this struggle is because education over in China and Hong Kong is futile in America. In addition, they emigrated to America when they were adults. As a result of emigrating to America in their adulthood in contrast to childhood, they had to find jobs to provide for the family. Not being able to speak English, and not having a degree in America really limited their occupational choices. My dad works as a chef working twelve or more hours, five days a week. The labor is arduous, and the pay is subpar. But he keeps working tirelessly because he is now the sole provider of my family. Moreover, it is also a stable job and his sacrifice allows my sister and I to continue our education at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego. My mother on the other hand is now retired after being laid off for a couple of years. She tries to make the living conditions at home as comfortable as possible so my sister and I can focus more on school instead. In addition, she also handles all the finances and expenditures of the bills. The cost of having these struggles for my parents is not being able to enjoy their lives. They will continue to work until my sister and I are able to get a high-paying job after graduation. The pressure is ever so high and it is weighing heavy on our shoulders. The burden of continuing the family, building a successful lineage, and carrying on the wishes and dreams of my parents because they knew it was not possible for them. The American Dream for my parents is not about accumulating wealth and being a homeowner. It is rather seeing my sister and I becoming successful in life by clawing our way through the social hierarchy and attaining socioeconomic parity because of our hard work.

I am unable to recall of any surface level views from other people that pertain to my parents’ story on the American Dream, however, I do distinctively remember how shortsighted in their story when I was in my journey to adulthood. School never interested me in the slightest. I was extremely problematic and a big troublemaker growing up. My parents decided to put my sister and I through outside tutoring from sixth grade to high school. They jumped from tutor to tutor, spending about thirty an hour per person to about fifty an hour per person. These tutoring sessions were once a week, and that is what they spent the leftover money after expenses such as bills and rent. Because of my disobedient nature growing up, I always thought they were wasting money to get me tutored when I never put in a shift for school. “What was the point of all of that?” went through in my head countlessly. The more they tried to impose tutoring onto me, the more aggressive I became. These tactics ranged from, “Why are you wasting our hard-earned money by not caring?” to “Don’t you want to go to a prestigious university?”. More or less, it was them guilt-tripping me into caring about something I never asked of them to do.

After high school, I was able to see the lens of what my parents had wanted me to understand earlier in my adolescence. They had given me an opportunity to break out of poverty by providing me with resources to become well-versed in education so we could all one day live without financial instability. My heart sank as I realized how foolish and selfish I was all those years ago. They had given everything to me, and I was throwing that all away. In a sense, when I had asked myself whether if I was going to continue to not take life seriously, symbolically, it reminded me of The Matrix. In the movie, Neo is given two pills by Morpheus. The red pill exemplified self-awareness and the urgency to take matters into one’s own hands. Whereas the blue pill meant staying ignorant and letting things stay the way they are (The Matrix). My parents had figuratively given me the pills. I decided to take the red pill because I did not want to live in poverty again. I want to be able to provide a life of comfort for not only myself, but for my parents because they never stopped working. My purpose for wanting to take matters into my own hands stems from my parents giving me the tools to succeed and to make the ‘American Dream’ a reality because it is not real. The American Dream does not provide equal opportunity to those in America and my parents are the living embodiment of how fictitious the ‘American Dream’ is. According to Arthur Sakomoto, the author of the academic journal “The Myth of the Model Minority Myth” states, “Asian Americans approach socioeconomic parity with whites because of their overachievement in educational attainment” (Sakamoto, 311). This further exemplifies the lack of equal opportunity that is correlated with the American Dream. In the land of opportunities and freedom, it is nothing but a sales pitch with no product. There is something fundamentally wrong in America if ethnic groups outside of white people have to work twice as hard just to reach parity with white people. Looking at it from a wider lens, it still is not equal footing with white people on the sole basis that overachieving is the only way to reach ‘equality’ in social standing. In other words, if I want to ascend to the same heights as white people in this country, I must overachieve in not only my education, but in every aspect because the American Dream was only tailored for white people.

In order to understand why the American Dream is a hoax and how the illusion of equal opportunity has affected my parents, the social hierarchy must be examined. According to Niall Twohig, “Social Hierarchy is an inequitable social arrangement. The group claiming a superior position in any socially constructed hierarchy has greater access to rights, resources, and political power” (Twohig). The American Dream may have once been full of promise and adhered to its ideals, but the way the country is governed at this moment contradicts it. In fact, or it can be interpreted as the American Dream was more categorized specifically for white people in America. My family being of Asian descent did not fit that criteria and thus my parents were not able to fulfil the dream. In the article, “Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems” by George Monbiot, Monbiot indicates Neoliberalism as the peril in America. He defines Neoliberalism as, “competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, …in a world governed by competition, those who fall behind become defined and self-defined as losers” (Monbiot). This hierarchy is the root of inequality that is prevalent in America. Neoliberalism and the cultivation of these ideals is what keeps America from being a free and equal country. It is why the American Dream is a hoax because the social hierarchy prioritizes making money over the health and well-being of its people. My parents have been in America for over twenty years and they have assimilated into American culture. What greatly upsets me is the fact that I have heard my father say a few times that he failed my sister and I by not being able to provide any more than he can. Seeing these neoliberal ideals in him as a result of his assimilation into America pains me because I know that he has done everything he can with what he barely possesses. Neoliberalism is toxic at its core and it is evident to see how it affects the mental and physical health of my parents.

Looking back on my parents’ journey to America and how much of a struggle it was to provide for my sister and I for the chance of a better future is inspiring. Especially with my dad’s unrivaled endurance to keep working despite being extremely tired because of his own family-oriented ideals is surreal to me. Not to discredit my mother’s importance and hard work as well, but the physical labor on my father’s end is mentally exhausting as well. In the article, “Is the American Dream really Dead”, Carol Graham analyzes the inequality amongst white people and minority groups in America. She refers to a study which involves the happiness surrounding poor white people and poor minority groups. Graham states, “psychologists also find that minorities are more resilient and much less likely to report depression or commit suicide than are whites in the face of negative shocks, perhaps due to a longer trajectory of dealing with negative shocks and challenges” (Graham). I would tell both my parents that I am grateful because of their perseverance across the face of overwhelming adversity, they still continue to prevail. Emigrating to a supposed foreign country filled with opportunities because of the American Dream, only to find out there were no opportunities for them is speechless. Especially given the fact they never held any despair towards their situation and continued to make opportunities on their own is motivating.

I am grateful my parents have given me the tools to exert my existence into a country that would not give us a chance at all. I would tell them that my success in life is correlated to their guidance and nurturing. My motivation stems from my own diligence to succeed and because my parents’ sacrifices further empowers me to manifest a life that I worked for. The American Dream implies that hard work will be rewarded by the country, however, I want to attain my own American Dream in which I reward myself for my hard work. I would remind my parents of their hard work and how none of it is going to waste because I am working hard to repay that faith bestowed upon me by them. Moreover, educate them on neoliberalism and the dangers of having such ideologies in mind.

My life aspiration is to become a lawyer and be able to provide for my own family. My parents have taught me how they continued to co-exist in a country that consistently oppressed them. In other words, overcoming a struggle that was persistent in their everyday life in America. Their health wavered, but their determination did not. I feel it is only right to honor my parents’ request and fulfill their dreams by attaining my life aspiration so I can provide them with a life they never could obtain. If my parents can survive this country oppressing them, I can as well. Being able to buy a house for my parents to live in would bring a wealth of happiness and I would dedicate it to my parents.

A goal I would like to work on in the future is to partake in protests that will reform America. According to NPR’s “Class Mobility: Is the American Dream a Myth?”, the article addresses oppression amongst minority groups in America and the social hierarchy in contrast to other countries. The author, Ed Gordon claims, “…a recent mobility study suggests the American Dream may be more style than substance. According to the study, the lower classes of Canada, Britain, Germany and France have an easier time earning their way up the social ladder than their American counterparts” (Gordon). Reforming America and abolishing neoliberalism from this country would be a good first step into the future, albeit a difficult one. However, it is a fight I am willing to participate in because America symbolizes freedom and equal opportunity. Being a victim of neoliberalism and not having equal opportunity compels me to take action so future Americans would not have to face cultivated oppression from their own country. The American Dream should be a reality and not a fictitious myth. There is nothing to be prideful about this country when it does not provide equal opportunities to its citizens. America categorizes itself way too often with slogans such as ‘land of the free, home of the brave’ when the hierarchy ironically contradicts what it stands for. Let the history not define us, but remind us of the neoliberalist America and how we should all work to change the social hierarchy in America.

Works Cited

Gordon, Ed. “Class Mobility: Is the American Dream a Myth?” NPR, NPR, 23 May 2005.

Graham, Carol. “Is the American Dream Really Dead?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 20 June 2017.

Monbiot, George. “Neoliberalism – the Ideology at the Root of All Our Problems.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 15 Apr. 2016.

Sakamoto, Arthur, et al. “The Myth of the Model Minority Myth.” Sociological Spectrum, vol. 32, no. 4, July 2012, pp. 309–321.  doi:10.1080/02732173.2012.664042.

The Matrix. Directed by The Wachowskis, Warner Brothers, 1999.

Twohig, Niall. Lecture Notes. Fall 2020.