This week my blog is about the American Dream. What is the American Dream? Is it real? The American Dream hasn't been talked about so much and debated so much since the late 1970's.
Is the American Dream over? Will our future be worse than our past and present?
My American Dream came full-circle on New Year's Day 2012 when I made my first trip to Ellis Island. Four years ago the idea of visiting Ellis Island and and reconnecting with my roots and Irish relatives were the last thing on my mind. Yet a surprise or really a miracle was about to shake up my life. I had grownup with no connection to Ireland and no knowledge of my family there. Due to a conflict between my mother and her sister in America i also grew up with no contact with any relatives. My family consisted of only my mother and my brother. Then in a New York minute everything changed.
My niece called me and said my cousin in England had emailed her and was trying to find her family who came to America. After some back and forth communication I discovered my mother's youngest sister was alive in Ireland and was 93 years old. A new door opened up, something I would have never imagined in my wildest dreams. A few months later on St Patrick's Day i attended a reunion of my family in Foxford, Ireland. It was truly a magical trip. I walked through the houses my mother and father grew up in and discovered about their six week journey to America and Ellis Island in 1929 to find the American Dream. The year they came to America in 1929 was a very hard time all over the world but they persisted and gave me my American Dream.
Sailing in the harbor towards the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island I could only imagine how they felt. I was personally in awe and overwhelmed by it. My boat ride gave ea more personal, intimate and powerful appreciation of my families journey and the American Dream.
My life has come full circle. I have visited Ireland three times and have reconnected with my family in Ireland, England, America, Australia, Canada and Germany. I believe that no matter how difficult a period we are going through it was much harder when my parents came here and that we will come through this ride even stronger.
The American Dream is still alive and as the Statue of Liberty remains a beacon of freedom, the American Dream still persists and offers hope to all those willing to create their American Dream. I have a project I am working on called "American Dreamers". It stories of people who against all odds have achieved the American Dream.
So I am a believer in a brighter future and the continuation of the American Dream. Having visited Ireland I am truly grateful for the difficult journey my parents made and for the American Dream I have come to truly appreciate.
I hope you are an American Dreamer too....
-- John Duffy
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