I, Too, Sing America, By Langston Hughes

In the poem, “I, Too, Sing America,” Langston Hughes says, “I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the in the kitchen when company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table and when company comes nobody’ll dare to say to me “ ‘Eat in the kitchen.’” (13) When the speaker uses the word “tomorrow, ” it shows us that he’s optimistic because although he’s treated bad, he knows sooner or later, there will be a day where things will change for the better and he will be equal. When he says he laughs and grows strong this also shows how someone who is being tortured can still have so much hope and not hold grudges. Tomorrow will always be a better day. In “The Right to Fail,” an essay written by William

Many immigrants have achieved the American dream. There has been people whose stories have become legendary. In the same Obama speech, Obama spoke about his father saying, “Through hard work and perseverance, my father got a scholarship to a magical place, America. That shone as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before.” (78) To put it in another way, he explains how someone who wasn't born in America still had the opportunity to get a scholarship by working hard and becoming someone big in the real world, just like his father did, and his father was a foreign student born and raised in a small village in Kenya. This idea is important because there's so many people in other countries that dream of coming to America for an opportunity to study or work and they feel as if the dream won't come true because they're not from here. I strongly agree with Obama because people should never give up and there's hope for everyone. It all comes back to someone's actions, meaning showing hard work and dedication can get you to many places. In the poem, “Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper,” the speaker, Martin Espada, expresses the pain he went through working at a printing plant and how he is now appreciative of the legal pads he works with. He says, “Ten years later, in law school, I knew that every single pad was glued with the sting of hidden cuts..” (73) This is an important stanza in my

The American Dreams means to be “middle-class” or live a comfortable lifestyle. But these days, that lifestyle is harder to achieve. In “Is the American Dream Still Possible?” an article in Parade, writer David (56) urges, “The traditional American Dream is based on the belief that hard working citizens can better their lives, pay their monthly bills without worrying, give their children an even better life and still save enough to live comfortably until they retire. But many average Americans are struggling--squeezed by rising costs, declining wages, credit card debt, and diminished benefits, with little left over to save for retirement.” It’s tough choosing sides because his argument is also true, because he focuses on how money is the problem we have. There's situations where people live from paycheck to paycheck, fear of job loss, and that’s scary. The general argument by Wallenchinsky is that the dream is no longer possible due to the economy problems that America has. More specifically, he argues that it has gotten harder to achieve the middle-class lifestyle. He surveyed U.S. household residents earning between $30,000 and $99,000 a year and more than 64% agreed that they lived in a comfortable lifestyle, are in good health and have satisfying religious or spiritual life. They also own one or two vehicles and a home- overall, they live a good life, a life of prosperity. In this passage,