Does the American dream now work better for immigrants than for natives? This is the larger question Ive been contemplating for the last few years as I wrote The True American. Now, having published the book, Ive had an opportunity to step back and reflect on the question more broadly. The result is on todays cover of the Sunday Review of The New York Times: an essay arguing that immigrants flourish in the hardest parts of America in part because they balance traits of self-reliance with community-mindedness. The American dream still works, I believe. But it requires people to lean on from time to time. What we can learn from immigrants, and from the poor in the developing world, is that solitude is an extravagance.
Posted on: Sun, 25 May 2014 15:50:08 +0000