Kayla Roh, Fairmont Preparatory Academy 10th grade
Who is America? A family finishes dinner and cleans up, carelessly throwing away their uneaten leftovers. Somewhere far from this scene, another family runs through the rain to a fast food restaurant, reminding each other to eat every last scrap. Somewhere far from this scene,another family gathers close, grieving their lost meals and the lives they left behind.
The American Dream promised the people a great land of opportunity to grow and liberty to become whatever they might wish, yet many Americans are simply dealt better hands than others. Thus,in order to face reality, America must wake from its dream – there is still a long way to go before achieving equality, for all people in all situations.
Specifically, a major and relevant complication regarding inequality faces Americans of racial minorities. Racism has been a problem in America throughout history, with the legacies of slavery and other past discriminations still holding a grip on the present. For example, a study conducted by the Harvard Business School (2017) shows that twenty-five percent of Black candidates received callbacks if they submitted a a resume that removed any references to their race, while only 10 percent got calls when they left ethnic details intact.
Among Asians, 21percent got calls if they used whitened resumes, whereas only 11.5 percent heard back if they sent resumes with racial references. Even after employment, the disparities still show through wide racial wage gaps. For every dollar a white worker makes, the average Black worker makes 76 cents, the average Native American worker makes 77 cents, the average Hispanic worker makes 73 cents, and the average multiracial worker makes 81 cents, as stated by the US Department of Labor (2023). Such injustice and discrimination still affects the opportunities of Americans today, leaving many on uneven ground.
Who is America? Are we not all America? There is not a single person who is not promised the liberty of the American Dream, and not a single person who deserves to be left out of it. Despite this, friends, family, neighbors, continue to live through cruel injustices daily,infringing upon their freedom, and watch the very perpetrators of such inequality justify themselves with twisted patriotism, falsifying the American Dream into an illusion only within reach of the most privileged. Will America ever fulfill its own dream, and set its people free?
Hopefully, sometime in the future, after all these hundreds of years of pain and discrimination,we can finally find a way to unite.
