American Dreams (Longman Topics Reader)

American Dreamsexplores the evolution and multiple meanings of “the American Dream,” inviting students to consider how the concept has changed over time, which groups have—and have not—been included in the dream, and how rhetoric has enabled the dreams of a few to be shared by millions.

Table of Contents:
  Section I: Founders’ Dream/Dreamers Found Introduction The Origin of the Longhouse—Seneca Legend, Arthur Parker The Mayflower Compact A Model of Christian Charity (“City on a Hill”) excerpt, John Winthrop  “Give Me Liberty or Give me Death!” Patrick Henry The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson  “Common Sense,” Thomas Paine, Letter to John Adams: Remember the Ladies, Abigail Adams Response to “Remember the Ladies,” John Adams Constitution of the Iroquois Nations, Dekanawidah  “Star Spangled Banner,” Francis Scott Key “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” Samuel F. Smith Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles (excerpt), David Walker Democracy in America (excerpt), Alexis de Toqueville  “Simple Gifts,” Elder Joseph Bracker “America the Beautiful,” Katherine Lee Bates “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” James W. Johnson “This Land is Your Land,” Woody Guthrie For Further Research and Writing   Section II:  Dreams Deferred   Introduction Seneca Falls Declaration, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Chief Seattle’s Speech of 1851 “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?” Frederick Douglass The Planter’s Northern Bride, Caroline Lee Hentz ChinaMen, Maxine Hong Kingston “Graduating Address at Yale College,” Yan Phou Lee How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois  “Eyes on the Prize,” “New York Fire Kills 148: Girl Victims Leap to Death From Factory” Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry “The Ballot or the Bullet,” Malcolm X “The American Dream,” Martin Luther King, Jr. “The Ten-Point Program,” The Black Panther Party  The National Organization for Women’s 1966 Statement of Purpose, Betty Friedan "Trail of Broken Treaties – 20-Point Proposal,” American Indian Movement  “America,” Dr. Tolbert Small  For Further Research and Writing   Section III: Streets Paved With Gold   Introduction A New Home—Who’ll Follow?  Caroline Kirkland “The New Colossus,”  Emma Lazarus  “The Road to Business Success,” Andrew Carnegie “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,”  Frederick Jackson Turner  I Came a Stranger, Hilda Satt Polachuck “Trans-National America,”  Randolph Bourne  The Promised Land, Mary Antin Black Boy,  Richard Wright  Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez,  Richard Rodriguez  Messages From My Father,  Calvin Trillin “Stuck in Between,” Pao Her (pseud.) “The Pineros,”  Tom Knudson  “The Day an Immigrant Refugee Can Say “I’m an American,” Helene Cooper For Further Research and Writing   Section IV:  Sustaining the Dream   Introduction  “Little Boxes,” Malvina Reynolds “Address at Rice University on the Space Effort,” John F. Kennedy Great Society Speech, Lyndon B. Johnson “On Being Asian-American,” Lawson Inada “My American Dream,” Rafael Rosa  “Take Back the Power,” Rage Against the Machine “Kids in the Mall,” William Severini Kowinski “Argument in Favor of Proposition 227” Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich  “What Sacagawea Means to M,” Sherman Alexie “The Death of Horatio Alger,” Paul Krugman “All Falls Down,”  Kanye West  “Superman’s an Illegal,” Jorge Lerma “The Power of our Pastime,” Marc Gellman “Special Comment of October 18, 2006,”  Keith Olbermann   “I Have a Dream,” Common (Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr)  For Further Research and Writing