THE AMERICAN DREAM: THEN AND NOW

THE AMERICAN DREAM: THEN AND NOW

My early childhood memory of Americans coincided with the immediate post-war reopening of Italy as a destination for ostensibly wealthy tourists, and the great majority of these, at the time, were American.
The impression they then gave was that they came not from another Country, but from another planet. They appeared taller, straighter, prouder than the rest of us. Their clothes were always immaculately pressed, their teeth a brilliant white, their hair glossier than ours, their pockets bulging with treasures, such as chewing gum, which, for us, were almost unattainable. They seemed cheerfully immune to extremes of climate or fatigue, their brow never marred by a drop of perspiration, their smile always ready and cordial, their generous and affable concern ever ready to surface. Left wing Europeans feigned contempt for them (in France a heavily sarcastic movie short called “le Beaujolais des Americains” – i.e. Coca Cola - was instantly successful), but deep down viewed them with respect and more than a touch of envy. They exuded benevolent power for theirs was the “righteous empire”. Their music, their movies, their sporting prowess were conquering the world just as their armies had done only a few years earlier.
In the history of the world, political and social dreams have abounded, and some, such as the Roman Republic, prospered for many centuries while others, such as the French and Soviet Revolutions, though relatively short-lived, cast a very long shadow on the destinies of the world.
The United States of America is only infrequently referred to as a “revolutionary” society, but the fact is that the American Revolution, almost two and a half centuries on, still has its institutional significance and is still capable of directly spreading its message to a large part of the world.
The “American Dream”, is a term closely associated with the American revolution, and the idea survived even the worst of the Great Depression. It was certainly very much alive when, at the impressionable age of 12, I first set foot in the United States, taken there by my father who had been appointed Italian Consul in Los Angeles.
Life, as I experienced it in Southern California, was extremely close to the image of that dream, at least partially inspired by the movies. Cracks did show however, and we were shocked when, having been invited to an exclusive “Country Club” we had to declare, solemnly, that we were “not Jewish”, as, indeed, we gazed in wonder at the emerging McCarthy phenomenon. Incidents all too reminiscent of the recently defeated European regimes. But the dream, at least for large sectors of the population – particularly white and middle class - seemed to have a solid existence.
It certainly lived in the hearts and minds of the many Italian-American families who had settled in Southern California. In spite of the recent hostilities, which had placed many of them under suspicion, and in spite of an often outspoken admiration for Mussolini and Italy’s Fascist regime, Southern California’s Italian Americans were prime examples of successful migration stories. Their attachment to the heir new country had roots well beyond the economic success which would have been absolutely unachievable in early twentieth century Italy. They, above all, savoured the liberty which had been denied them by the Mother country.
Some of the older members of the Italian American community had crossed the Atlantic half a century earlier, and had never thought of going back, keeping, however, in their hearts, a strong, almost romantic nostalgia for the town or village of their origin.



Thus, as young teen-ager in Southern California, I came to understand and believe in the “American Dream”, although, I have to admit, I was too young to be aware of its ethnic and racial limits which, at the time were seldom, if ever, mentioned.

I wonder nowadays, some sixty years on, whether it is still realistic to speak of an “American Dream”, or whether we are now witnessing its waning years, with a much less innocent society continuing to go through the motions, pretending, often in good faith, that “Over the Rainbow” (an American rainbow, to be sure), skies indeed are blue, just as Roman Emperors fuelled the pretence that they still represented and defended Republican values and principles.
To what extent was the “American Dream” a reality, and when, if ever, did it start to founder are questions which appear interesting at a time when the United States, as well as most of the Western Democracies, are in the throes of one of recent history’s greatest economic emergencies, and seem unable to extricate themselves from military conflicts of dubious moral, or even strategic value which grow ever more unpopular at home.