Why can we speak of an US myth?

The US myth is the symbol of liberty, of a new life for those who have dreams for the future. Some people see America as they only hope to survive, to avoid starving and oppression in their native country.

Europeans peoples emigrated to the United State because they were persecuted like in Ireland, also because they were starving, they suffered from food shortage and also for political reasons. For all these people, the united states were a land which could give them a new beginning, a land were any dream become real, where people could become rich, a land of freedom…. For all this reason, USA became an “Eldorado” called the American dream. Today the US myth continues, if you are motivated and if you really want it, you can fulfill your dreams, work hard create your firm and become rich.

In reality there is a gap between the dream and the real life. For example, immigrant who crossed the Atlantic by ship were sick with tuberculosis, cholera and the poorer passengers wouldn't be permitted to land. On the other hand, all these people from many different countries with different customs, religions and languages had to live together. They fear their arrival in immigration station like Ellis Island where they were inspected like animals and sent home if they didn't pass the exam. This tests were hurting for newcomers. Hollywood has glorified a romantic vision of US myth with for example the western films in the cinema. In reality the story of the West is largely based on conquest Hollywood shew us western films with good cowboys fighting barbaric Indians or white victimizing the natives. But the history of the West is more complicated than that: a lot of races had to leave together, and westward expansion was more about making fortune far from the romantic Hollywood version.

In conclusion, the American myth refers to the image it gives to the rest of the world as the symbol of freedom and allows people who have lost everything to have a new chance in life but the reality is much more hard to accept because a lot of things have been embellished and the American myth is much less beautiful than we think.

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