Personal Narrative: Two American Families

I believe the American Dream is to have a loving family, a home, food, and reliable transportation. Additionally, most Americans desire enough funding for incidentals that may occur, such as vehicle breakdowns or home repairs. The ideal family would gather at night to discuss the current work and school issues.

Watching the film “Two American Families” I realized I have experienced many of the issues myself. I left the military in 1993 and spent countless hours trying to locate a job that would allow me to adequately support myself and my family. For a long period of time, the only jobs available were food service jobs with very little wages. I worked for several manufacturing plants and seen many of those jobs get transferred

out of the country. I was able to find ways to continue to educate myself through vocational programs and eventually found the one job that put me ahead. Once I got to that point I went on to get my contractors license and then opened my own business. Up until that point, I had only noticed my own problems trying to get ahead. Once I opened my business I got to see how many other people struggled from different walks of life. This is where I was able to see how the Stanley family from the documentary fit within some of my employees struggles. As an employer, I quickly found that there were areas of town I could not send workers in. Racism was the biggest issue and it was rampant. Just as Mrs. Stanley could not receive return calls, my guys were faced with not being allowed in some homes.

One of my jobs was working in Section 8 housing as a maintenance supervisor. At this job, I was able to see the many ways the community attempts to help families out. For example, my complex was awarded an educational center with computers and a full-time employee to tutor residents on basic computer and general education skills. For the younger kids, they were afraid to attend due to being called names by their peers. Eventually, even the adults quit coming and there was no statistical information available to earn further grants to keep the program up and running.

I believe for some Americans there are too many hurdles to achieve the American Dream without help. To provide this help as social workers we can seek to find more educational grants, vocational rehabilitation, or greater access to tutoring in schools for the most at-risk families.