The Death of the California Dream Research Assignment (Research Paper Sample)

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The Death of the California Dream
A smaller and newer version of the American Dream, the California Dream refers to the quest of ordinary Californians to realize financial freedom and upper class lifestyles. In the years after the Great Depression, through post-World War II and beyond the baby boomer era, California experienced mass influx of immigrants attracted by the Gold Rush wave and the frontier opportunities that its vast land resources and industrial revolution promised. With limitless open spaces, vast tracts of agricultural land and a Mediterranean climate, California had a magnetic pull for venture capitalists and ambitious professionals looking to build careers in real estate, Silicon Valley and Hollywood. The economic and natural climate was right for those who came to California to dare to dream and nurse ambitions of financial prosperity and family life in the model of the elusive American Dream. The original settlers, the Puritans who sailed to the American coast in search of a utopian society were patient to achieve the American Dream in bits- by accumulating wealth in modest savings year by year. With the Gold Rush euphoria, in contrast, California promised quick fortunes for the lucky and hard working. Thus, those who came to California from the 1930s until the 1960s were financially ambitious and more eager than their Puritan predecessors to live the American Dream tomorrow. However, tomorrow never came; the life they hoped for was a mirage, their experiences the sojourn of a thirst traveler wishing for an oasis in a desert. Like the old American Dream, the California Dream turned out to be an illusion for many new comers who were confronted with the harsh realities of racism, discrimination, homelessness, and financial struggles.
The promise of instant wealth and limitless opportunities in the Gold Rush era stretched the imaginations of many immigrants too far, to the extent of deceiving many that it was a simple matter of travelling west, seeing, and conquering the new frontier. Already indoctrinated with the fantasies of the American Dream, the new economic opportunities that post-war California promised were irresistible to many American families and immigrants looking to live the ideal American family life; a suburban living, financial freedom, and good education for the children. The large open spaces made it possible for home buyers to enjoy the secluded life of gated communities, a contrast to the choking rented-apartment city life. The Mediterranean climate was an allure to holiday lovers, and its endless road infrastructure a perfect setting for family drives through green fields. It is on the promise of these possibilities that California offered an easier-to-achieve version of the elusive American Dream to ambitious Americans and immigrants.
They came in hordes, but the reality froze their dreams. To many Americans moving west for better opportunities, the high living costs and out-of-range property prices prevented many from owning their dream homes and cars. Silicon Valley is no longer the sure destination for fresh graduates seeking blue-collar jobs, and the fairy-tale glamour promoted by Hollywood is out of reach for many ordinary strugglers. With over 37 million residents, there simply is no big enough dream for everyone. The real estate sector has felt and reacted to the pressure of mass influx of new comers, with the consequence that housing has become expensive and the cost of houses surged beyond the reach of middle class families. And yet, the dream’s first tenet is the ability to live in one’s own house. The inability to realize the most basic requirement of the ideal American life in California- a state famed to be the nearest that one can ever get to the American Dream- underlines the illusory nature of the California Dream. Its economic realities are at conflict with the fantasies of the psychological mindset of the crowd that invaded the state in the hope of instant success.
In Their Dogs Came with Them, Helena Viramontes captures the imagination and overambitious expectations of those who moved to California in pursuit of financial success. The dogs are the poor, hopeless immigrants from minority groups who followed White Americans in the mass westward exodus. So powerful and alluring was the California Dream that it even promised Latinos and Black Americans a better life. It was only in California that former slaves could dare to dream to break away from poverty and marginalization. It was California that called people from all works of life, promising a better future through instant wealthy for those lucky enough to hit it big in the mining industry, promising careers for job seekers and Hollywood’s flashy life for the upper class. So big was the California cake that those who came (the rich looking for suburbia lifestyles) could afford to come with their dogs (the poor African Americans and other minority immigrants). However, California’s history with racism meant that there was no space or opportunity for the dogs to cut it. As Viramontes suggest, the authorities soon realized the fears of the white population, and had to protect them from rabid animals- the insecurity threat posed by a rising number of jobless Chicano (Mexican) youths. At night, the roar of aircraft could be heard, and the burst of gunshots pierced the night as the authorities shot the dogs. Through this metaphor of the dogs, Viramontes portrays the discrimination and resistance that minority groups encountered in California, thereby shattering their hopes of achieving the new version of the American Dream.
Chester Himes advances this view of racism as blocking the ambitions of minority groups in his novel If He Hollers Let Him Go. Robert Jones, the protagonist, is consumed by his fear of being a black man in a white society. His constant fears of the white people, more specifically his co-workers and supervisors at work, mirror the fear of all black people during the war years. They understood they were the dogs in Viramontes’ novel who were trying to claim for themselves the leftovers of the cake that was the American Dream. But there were no leftovers for them; the manual and low skill jobs they got in shipyards and industries did little to improve their social conditions. Instead, it exposed them to more forms of racial discrimination and exploitation. At work, Jones is promoted to a supervisor’s position, but Madge, a white woman, could not work under him because he is black, stating that “I ain’t gonna work with no nigger” (Himes 27). This incidence reveals the bitter reality of blacks in war-time America with respect to their career growth. Madge’s refusal to be supervised by a black person symbolizes the existence of white consciousness that the black man is never to be allowed to rise above whites socially and economically. In essence, then, it means that the dream was never meant for the niggers, the dogs who waited on the fringes of society for a piece of the cake. Like Viramontes, Himes portray the racial obstacles that prevented minority groups from progressing socially and economically as to allow them experience the promise of the California Dream. The people intended for the dream (whites) came to pursue it, but alas, their dogs came with them.
Like Viramontes’ Chicano gang of deviant Mexican youths, Chester Himes’s protagonist develops a strong urge to revenge against his white oppressors by shooting a white man and raping a white woman. This reaction to the racism that surrounds him indicates that Jones has lost his ambition to succeed in California. The urge to kill and rape has replaced the ambitions of chasing the California Dream. When he first came to California, race was not an issue for Jones because his mind was focused on saving enough money to buy his ticket to a good life. His attitude reflects the fact that many immigrants who came to California did not anticipate the racial obstacles and financial challenges that will hinder their pursuit of a better life.
The construction of the Pomona Freeway symbolizes the destruction of the California dream not only through the displacement of families from their homes to make way for roads, but also by opening California to the outside world. Viramontes portrays the experiences of Mexican families who lost their homes during the freeway construction period. The loss of homes symbolizes the loss of the California Dream to the families that found themselves homeless as a result of the freeway construction. In one day, she writes, there were neighbors in the houses across the street; in the next day they were empty shells (Viramontes 63). The empty houses allude to the idea that the California Dream had become a hollow, empty hope for ordinary residents. At the same time, the freeway signaled the exposure of Californians to the outside world, and the negative consequences of capitalism and free economy competition. The state was no longer a haven of tranquility and sunny life, but the destination of investors who came to rape the state of its resources, and in so doing, displace those who cannot catch up with the rising costs of living. In a way, therefore, the California Dream, if ever there was one, was hijacked by the businesses that changed the economic and social demographic of the state. It became another New York, the turf of investors and the upper class, thus making it difficulty for ordinary citizens to afford life in California.
The portrayal of insecurity in East Los Angeles, and the authorities’ use of roadblocks to restrict the movement of “rapid dogs” suggest the belief of many White Americans in 1960s California- that immigrants (Mexican Americans) were the obstacle to their achieving the California Dream. Underneath this belief is the deep-roote...