"True" American?

As a society, we are very culturally biased and it is hard for us to understand other cultures and the hardships they endure. We don’t appreciate foreigners and we feel that they should not be given the same opportunities that “true” Americans get. But what is the definition of a “true” American? Someone who was born here? A white person? I feel that this definition is skewed and extremely biased to only a small fraction of the United States population. The U.S. is a very diverse country that holds many immigrants and their future generations. I feel that people need to keep in mind that nobody is actually a “true” American, because at one point, our ancestors came to this country on a boat also, even if they were the first British over here, they were still foreign.

                This country gives many great opportunities that other countries are nowhere near being able to give to their citizens. Our culture and society has grown and adapted to the freedoms and opportunities America presents, which is making it increasingly harder for immigrants to adapt to our society.  Third world countries are not materialistic anywhere near the sense of materialism America has. As  seen in the movie we watched in class, people in Sudan, a war stricken country, have many other things on their minds than money and success.  Here, people are willing to sacrifice their friends, social life, family and leisure to become successful and wealthy.  Having too much down time is far from a good thing, “time is money”, as everyone always says.  Just because someone is foreign doesn’t give us the right to judge and think they can’t make it just as far as we can.  We’re so used to our social norms that we don’t think it‘s fair that someone can come from outside of the country and be just as successful or just as intelligent.  It is a social value in this country that we almost have a “right” to success and wealth if we strive hard enough to achieve that, but the competition to get it is extreme. I think Americans as a culture and society really need to work on our definition of a “true” American and our values of materialism and what America is really all about.