The Great Gatsby Journal Feb. 21

3. Last Thursday, we watched two movies about migrant workers in the United States. These movies, and the discussions that followed, didn't really change my views on the idea of the American Dream; they actually solidified my ideas. Before the movie, I thought that the American Dream was not really possible because our society is set up in such a way that it is extremely hard to move from the lower class to the middle class or to the upper class. I believe that the reason it is so hard to move from one social class to another is because the differences in the social classes are so grand. This movie, as I said before, solidified my beliefs about the American Dream. It showed me that the life of poor worker families is cyclical. For example, the parents will work long days and make little money. When they have children, they will promise that the children's generation will be the one to break the chain of farm working by going to school and getting an education. However, the children are usually not able to get a proper education because their family is constantly moving around. Because of this, the children tend to become farm workers just like their parents, and the cycle repeats. It is extremely hard to escape from poverty because many of the things that one might need to escape from poverty are things that are only available to the rich.