The Elusive American Dream and Female Immigrant Success in America

With all of its myriad promises, the American Dream is notorious for not fully delivering what it sells. There is no doubt that achieving the American Dream is difficult, but it is especially difficult for immigrant women. They must ultimately learn to abandon traditional femininity's passivity without completely sacrificing their Old World ways if they hope to flourish in the United States' cutthroat jungle.

In Mary Antin's The Promised Land, Mario Puzo's The Fortunate Pilgrim, and Danny Santiago's Famous All Over Town, Mary, Lucia Santa, and Señora Santiago differently approach their paths to 'success,' while demonstrating how impossible it is to be ethical, sane, and happy while pushing forward at the same time. These Russian-American, Italian-American, and Mexican-American texts provide examples of coping with everyday life in America as a woman who remembers where she came from and has a clear idea of where she is going.

Before explaining the unique requirements for female immigrant success, it is important to first define such a goal, which is best known as the American Dream. Merriam-Webster defines the American Dream as, "an American social ideal that stresses egalitarianism and especially material prosperity" (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). This definition, however, is full of connotations unspecified in this dictionary definition.

First and foremost, the American Dream calls for a high-paying and stable career, which first involves graduating from college. Sample jobs that American look upon fondly include: lawyer, doctor, engineer, businessman, or college professor. Sample jobs that contradict the American Dream because they lack glamour and large paychecks include: janitor, cage-cleaner at the zoo, slaughterhouse employee, cashier, and garbage collector.

Each one of the three immigrant characters relates to this aspect of the American Dream in her own way: Mary works diligently in school and aspires to become a writer, an approved job by American standards only if the writer manages to create profitable work. Lucia Santa does not attend school or hold an elite job, but she encourages her children in both of these respects. It is a similar case for Señora Santiago, whose son Danny scores very high on a school-administered I.Q. test and has a bright academic future ahead of him if he chooses to work for it. Mary is much younger than Lucia Santa and Señora Santiago when she arrives to America and she is fortunate enough to have the support of her family; it is therefore much easier for her to fulfill this requisition.

The requirements for the American Dream go on; the Dream also demands that you get married, raise healthy, educated children, and keep your family together. You will apparently meet your 'soul mate' one day at school or work and enjoy a beautiful fairytale marriage. Then you will pop out two children who will attend excellent public schools and earn scholarships to prestigious colleges due to their natural intelligence and hard work (and your positive influence upon them.) Of the three characters, only Lucia Santa manages to keep her family together-Mary keeps hers at bay and Señora Santiago dissolves hers-but she does not accomplish this through such storybook strategies.

According to the American Dream, you must also own your own house. It will be a sturdy house with enough space for your family. The house will even overlook a pretty garden, so your children have a clean environment in which to grow and play. Your neighbors will always be friendly and courteous. Again, this is another aspect of the Dream that the immigrant women work toward but fail to actualize. Lucia Santa manages to buy a house for her family, but since The Fortunate Pilgrim ends with her moving out of the city, there is no indication that the house is even close to ideal. It is simply preferable to living in the slums of New York City. Señora Santiago has the opportunity to move out of Los Angeles and to the suburbs, but she simply prefers to go back to Mexico where the rat race is much milder. (Mary, meanwhile, is too young to marry and buy a house so this part of the dream does not apply to her.)

It should be obvious from the previous paragraphs and the reader's own life experience but it merits stating nonetheless: the American Dream sounds too good to be true because it is. Notice how even these hard-working immigrants fall short of the ideals. In the words of Florence King, "People are so busy dreaming the American Dream, fantasizing about what they could be or have a right to be, that they're all asleep at the switch. Consequently we are living in the Age of Human Error." The American Dream, in its purest form, is an illusion. Sweat alone cannot procure such a fable. In order to achieve even a watered down version of the American Dream, immigrants must be willing to sacrifice morals, sanity and happiness.

Morality may vary from society to society but the Golden Rule-treat others as you wish to be treated-is universal. These three women do not prioritize morality, though. They treat others however they need to in order to attain success. If Mary, Lucia Santa, and Señora Santiago clung to ethics, their competitors would leave them crying and rubbing their eyes in the dust. They have to break rules and fashion new ones for themselves because they cannot afford to be the sweet, quiet girls they were raised to be in their home countries.

Mary admits herself that she is not a moral person, but she prefers to point out minor infringements upon ethics, such as stealing sugar, as opposed to her larger sins, like manipulating people. Why does she resort to such a disconcerting tactic? She recognizes that she faces fierce competition in the American school system-and how scrambling to the top of that system can earn her power. If Mary intends to leave an impression, she not only has to fervently study, but also befriend the right people. None of Mary's "friends" are real friends, though. She confuses admirers and fellow pyramid climbers for bosom buddies. After explaining her rapid advancement through the Boston public school system, Mary says: "I never heard of any one who was so watched and coaxed, so passed along from hand to helping hand, as was I. I always had friends. They sprang up everywhere, as if they had stood waiting for me to come" (Antin 169). Note that nobody she mentions seems to like her for her as a human being; they like her for her mind and her ability to get ahead.

There are plenty of other examples of Mary immorally "befriending" people as a means for social mobilization. After listening to a speaker's lecture on Washington's birthday, for instance, Mary immediately writes him a gushing letter. She says:

"You hear a stirring discourse on some subject in your country's history, and you go home with a heart bursting with patriotism. You sit down and write a letter to the speaker who so moved you, telling him how glad you are to be an American, why you love your adopted country so much better than your native land. Perhaps the patriotic lecturer happens to be a Senator, and he reads your letter under the vast dome of the State House; and it occurs to him that he and his eminent colleagues and the stately capitol and the glorious flag that floats above it, all gathered on the hill above the Common, do his country no greater honor than the outspoken admiration of an ardent young alien. The Senator replies to your letter, inviting you to visit him at the State House; and in the renowned chamber where the august business of the State is conducted, you, an obscure child from the slums, and he, a chosen leader of the people, seal a democratic friendship based on the love of a common flag" (Antin 269).

Here Mary outlines her strategy for manipulating people and achieving social advancement rather clearly, even if she does not directly call it that. She wins Americans' hearts with her hyperbolic enthusiasm for the United States. In this case, the Senator finds this ardor endearing. Mary knows that flattery will get the better of people in the Senator's situation and she uses this to her advantage. It might only be a slight exaggeration to say Mary respires only when socially appropriate and advantageous. So long as Mary convinces fellow students, teachers, and administrators that she likes and respects them, she will garner their support and they will make exceptions for her.

Like Mary, Lucia Santa also disregards morality in order to try and accomplish the American Dream. She wants her family to survive and thrive in this new land together. Lucia Santa has no qualms about her eldest son, Lorenzo, joining the mafia, for instance, because she realizes that his affiliation with such a powerful group benefits the family. Their status, economic and honorary, skyrockets thanks to Lorenzo's work as a 'bread union dues collector.' Furthermore, Lucia Santa allows her son Gino to lead a wild, frivolous adolescence while her slightly older son, Vincenzo, wastes away his youth at the office. Lucia Santa knows how ill-suited Gino is for the workplace-he is restless and irresponsible-but she also knows how mature and serious Vincenzo is. If the family hopes to have their fair share of Italian imported olive oil and a roof over its heads, at least one of the boys must work. So long as the family pools in what Lucia Santa has calculated to be a livable amount every month, she apparently figures that the ends justify the means. Vincenzo's circumstance as a fervent worker bee and Gino's ne'er-do-well lifestyle do not balance out, but it is better to have one of them work than have both of them unemployed. Thus, Lucia Santa places Vincenzo on the altar.

One day after talking with her eldest daughter, Octavia, "Lucia Santa took [her daughter's] jacket and folded it over her arm, an act of love that was maternal, that meant possession and dominance" (Puzo 12). This simple act alone alludes to Lucia Santa's strength, which is something she will never allow morality to compromise.

Señora Santiago falls short of sainthood, as well, even if she is less of a worm than Mary and less of a hawk than Lucia Santa. Danny describes his mother's false piety in saying: "My mother was never the religious type except on Ash Wednesdays" (Santiago 219). Furthermore, Señora Santiago cheats her way into Mexico by giving her precious gold earrings to Customs (Santiago 217). The narrator also implies that Señora Santiago at least considers having an extra-marital affair while visiting her childhood town ("My mother had turned off on another path. Somebody was waiting for her there. He would jump her to his saddle and ride her off" [Santiago 235]); in fact, a love interest other than Señor Santiago may be one of the driving forces in Señora Santiago's decision to move back to Mexico. Additionally, Señora Santiago baptizes her baby Dolores without even informing her husband, the supposed father of the child, and aborts what would have been their fourth baby, again without consulting her husband. On the family's drive back from Mexico, Señora Santiago clearly tells her husband (Santiago 265).
As apparent from the previous paragraphs, Mary, Lucia Santa, and Señora Santiago are hardly moral immigrant women, but they also fail to pass the sanity test. From a clinical standpoint, sanity refers to someone who is "free from hurt or disease;mentally sound; especially: able to anticipate and appraise the effect of one's actions; proceeding from a sound mind" (Medline Plus). Here are reasons why Mary, Lucia Santa, and Señora Santiago are all insane:
Pathological perfectionism and anti-social behavior plague Mary to the point that it is impossible for her to be 'mentally sound.' All throughout Chapter 10, "Initiation," of her autobiography, Mary describes her academic acrobats; they result from scary studiousness. She pens a rather impressive short prose piece on snow after having only studied English for four months and Primary Education, an educational journal, even publishes the piece. Furthermore, Mary advances "from grade to grade, without reference to the usual schedule of promotion" (Antin 166) because of her fast-paced learning. She spends hours with her teachers outside of class to master material, from mathematical word problems to English pronunciation. Noticing her unhealthy obsession with schoolwork, Mary's beloved Miss Dillingham suggests that the girl spend more time outdoors with other children (Antin 168), but Mary refuses. Mary devotes substantial time to reading, memorizing, and composing poetry-not for the plain love of perfecting the art of poetry performance and writing, either. In pursuit of the American Dream, Mary relishes competition and constantly compares her verses to Lizzie McDee's, another precocious student in the class (Antin 170). In Russia, Mary was forbidden from such extensive studying because she was female, but in America she transcends that Old World taboo to the point of insanity.

Given the conditions and events of her life, Lucia Santa cannot possibly be mentally sound, either. Like Mary, she cultivates her own obsessions, though none of them involve studying. Instead, Lucia Santa totally commits herself to preserving the order of her family, no matter what the costs. Puzo writes:

"In a dream Lucia Santa entered a land of stone and steel, bedded that same night with a stranger who was her legal husband, bore that stranger two children, and was pregnant with the third when he carelessly let himself be killed in one of those accidents that were part of the building of the new continent. She accepted all this without self-pity. She lamented, true, but that was not the same thing; she only begged fate for mercy" (Puzo 9).

How can Lucia Santa possibly be sane when she was widowed at such a young age with three children to care for all by herself? As the story progresses, the reader learns that Lucia Santa also marries a man who goes crazy, and that a train runs over one of her sons. (It is important to realize that Lucia Santa does not re-marry to have a man who will validate her. This is not about emotional or sexual fulfillment, at least not predominantly. She makes this move for survival.) She frequently has to make heartwrenching decisions about whose turn it is to suffer for the greater good of the family. This is not to mention the fact that she lives in the slums until her eldest son joins the Mafia and, on top of that, has to reconcile her Italian upbringing with her American dilemmas.

Like Mary and Lucia Santa, Señora Santiago is another insane immigrant woman. Gloria Anzaldüa describes part of Señora Santiago's situation as a Mexican-American living in Los Angeles ('border culture') in very unhealthy terms:

"The U.S. Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country-a border culture" (Anzaldüa 25).

Shamrock, the L.A. neighborhood where Señora Santiago lives, is like a blended-up little Mexico dumped into a fishbowl. Many of the people there, from her best friend Virgie to her son Danny's gangbanging friends, speak almost exclusively Spanish and maintain many Mexican customs. Señor Santiago, for instance, is embarrassed that his family is a two-child household, as opposed to the five or six customary in Latin America and most of their neighborhood (Santiago 20). But Shamrock and the rest of L.A. celebrate many American mentalities, as well; additionally, it seems as if everyone is observing his neighbor to see which U.S. customs he adopts and which ones he rejects. One of the reasons why Señora Santiago moves back to Mexico is because L.A.'s cultural mix of contradictions frustrates her so much. Even if she could somehow magically overcome the cultural confusion, Señora Santiago faces a host of other problems that would rock anyone's sanity. She endures physical and verbal abuse from her alcoholic husband and depression due to severe homesickness. She also undergoes an abortion, which has to have an impact on her mental and emotional stability. Any one of these factors taken in isolation would qualify Señora Santiago as less than sane. Her escape from Los Angeles is an effort to preserve what little sanity she has left.
Mary, Lucia, and Señora Santiago not only lack morals and sanity, but also happiness. In the words of Anne Frank, "We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same" (IUN.edu). Happiness never pervades a life completely, but there are ways to live in such a way that you feel happy more often than not. One of these ways involves being confident in who you are. One of the main reasons why it is so difficult for successful female immigrants to be regularly happy is because of the identity crisis they face. They not only have to compromise between Old World traditions and New World novelties to create a new life for themselves, but they also have to navigate their way through gender roles as defined by where they came from and where they are now.

Outside of very basic needs, the first hurdle that the immigrant woman must grapple with is understanding her new identity. But it also remains the last issue to be resolved, assuming it ever is. In the introduction of Immigrant Experience, Thomas C. Wheeler writes about the immigrant's complex predicament :

"For the America of freedom has been an America of sacrifice, and the cost of becoming American has been high. For every freedom won, a tradition lost. For every second assimilation assimilated, a first generation in one way or another spurned. For the gains of goods and services, an identity lost, an uncertainty found" (Wheeler 1).

For the Russian-American, Italian-American, and Mexican-American women in these three texts, they must not only grapple with all of the problems their husbands and fathers face in the new country, they must also carefully contemplate their new gender roles. Mary, Lucia Santa, and Señora Santiago are transitioning from rigidly patriarchal, shame-based communities to more liberated, guilt-based ones with far more educational and professional opportunities. In the United States, the male heads of household often find themselves emasculated, which provides their wives and daughters the opportunity to take leadership positions. Language barriers and the stress associated with transitioning to a new place and culture prove to be major obstacles for the men in these three texts. Mary's father consistently has trouble finding work; Señor Santiago has a very limited understanding of English and even weaker ability when it comes to speaking the foreign tongue; Frank goes so crazy that he becomes a detriment to the family.
Yet in assuming their new leadership positions, Mary's, Lucia Santa's, and Señora Santiago's decision is not quite so simple as killing their old selves, as Mary claims she did upon arriving to America. In talking about the discrepancy between her current and former selves, Mary opens her introduction with the following:

"I was born, I have lived, and I have been made over. Is it not time to write my life's story? I am just as much out of the way as if I were dead, for I am absolutely other than the person whose story I have to tell. Physical continuity with my earlier self is no disadvantage. I could speak in the third person and not feel that I was masquerading. I can analyze my subject. I an reveal everything; for she, and I, is my real heroine. My life I have still to live; her life ended when mine began" (Antin 1).

Yet as much as Mary wishes to cut herself off from her past and establish herself as a 'true American' (whatever that happens to mean in this nation full of immigrants), nobody can completely separate themselves from their past. Mary still remembers snippets of her Russian, Jewish childhood that affect her on at least a subconscious level. When Mary eats dinner at her Christian teacher's house for instance, the thought of eating ham repulses her, even though she has abandoned Judaism and, with it, Kosher dietary laws. In order to make it in America, Mary, Lucia Santa, and Señora Santiago must acknowledge where they came from and find a place for it in their new identity. If they suppress parts of themselves, they will only encounter unhappiness.

Another reason why the women can never be both successful and happy is because they cling to nostalgia. Therefore, their yearning for a past that never really existed will always hold them back unless they learn to transcend it. A certain amount of nostalgia, however, gives people hope. In fact, it seems that the few pleasant thoughts that pop into these women's heads regard their homeland. Mary remembers her little house back in Russia and romanticizes the food of her childhood. Lucia Santa occasionally reminisces about Italy, even if her life there meant being poor, dirty, and oppressed. Señora Santiago is eager to visit Mexico again because time and wishful thinking have let her forget much of the ugliness she left behind. As long as Mary, Lucia Santa, and Señora Santiago long for the past, they will not devote their full energy to the present and living in the beauty of the moment. If they lose that nostalgia, they lose a certain amount of their humanity. The more of their humanity they lose, the less happy they will be.

Mary, perhaps the least 'human' of the three immigrants, specifically is not consistently happy for several reasons. First of all, she is the epitome of Jack, the dull boy who's "all work and no play." She spends the vast majority of her time studying and networking. While those are important habits, she should dedicate more time to forging real friendships, bonding with her family, enjoying art and nature or doing anything else that makes normal human beings genuinely happy. She writes" "..I was so busy from morning till night. My father did his best to make me vain and silly. He made much of me to every chance caller, boasting of my progress at school, and of my exalted friends, the teachers" (Antin 171). It appears that at least one of the main reasons why Antin works so hard in school is because she wants to live up to her father's expectations of her, not necessarily out of any original desire of her own.

The second big source for Mary's unhappiness is the fact that she lacks close, secure interpersonal relationships. First and foremost, she cares about advancing herself within American society. She dreads the thought of anyone confusing her for the destitute, Green Horn Jew that she is. Even her own family becomes secondary to her high ambitions. Her poor sister, who has sacrificed her childhood and adolescence to ensure that Mary continuing attending school, is not a priority in Mary's life. Mary writes of the selfless Fetchke:

"And who took care of us children while my mother tramped the streets with her basket? Why, who but Fetchke? Who but the little housewife of twelve? Sure of our safety was my mother with Fetchke to watch; sure of our comfort with Fetchke to cook the soup and divide the scrap of meat and remember the next meal...there was plenty to do...And Fetchke did it all...And I? I usually had a cold, or a cough, or something to disable me; and I never had any talent for housework" (Antin 115).

As naturally social creatures, humans must crave companionship from time to time. The fact that Mary is a lone wolf shows the truth of the expression, 'It's lonely at the top.'

Mary's case shows how unhappy the journey toward the American Dream can be. America functions as a capitalist society, where more is always better. In a land full of academic, creative, professional, and economic possibilities, you can always achieve more. Mary will never be satisfied because she can always climb higher on the totem pole. She can always learn more, earn a higher academic honor, and network with more powerful people.
While a lifetime imbued with happiness is in and of itself is a myth, two out of the three women stand very far from discovering the secret formula. Mary and Lucia Santa will likely hunt for it for the rest of their existence while Señora Santiago will probably come closest to finding it.

Señora Santiago must plan her every move knowing that she sets an example, good or bad, for her daughter Lena. Because of this, she has to be extra smart and that kind of caution can definitely limit happiness. It means she frequently cannot act on impulse and that she must resist selfish behavior. In the end, though, Señora Santiago abandons such caution and liberates herself from the pressures that the American Dream imposes. By returning to Mexico after the destruction of Shamrock, Señora Santiago shows that not all immigrants want to achieve the American Dream. They may dabble in the idea but ultimately decide that it is not worth it. It takes about twenty years for Señora Santiago to arrive at this decision, after all. For Señora Santiago, the homeland represents comfort, familiarity, and family ties. The longer she pursues the American Dream, the farther she runs away from the Mexico she loves. Señora Santiago is not convinced that achieving the American Dream will make her happy, but she harbors no fear of the unknown about life in Mexico. She has lived there before and, upon visiting for the first-time in years, learns that little about her town has changed. Why continue struggling in an exhausting, lonely 'dog-eat-dog' environment when she feels content in Mexico?

Mary, Lucia Santa, and Señora Santiago recognize the value of delayed gratification: Mary always fantasizes about her future as a writer while Lucia Santa spends years plotting how to buy her family a house and Señora Santiago tries her luck for almost twenty years in Los Angeles before returning home. But Señora Santiago is the only one who seems to realize that happiness is not an end goal. Happiness should occur in everyday moments, not only off in the distance future. Mary and Lucia Santa view life from a Darwinian standpoint, which does not allow for much personal fulfillment. Realistically, working toward the American Dream means delaying happiness until the Dream is fulfilled, but as already discussed, that Dream is impossible to realize in its truest form.

Even if they are not ethical or sane or happy, however, Mary, Lucia Santa, and Señora Santiago are all successful immigrants. In fact, they are successful because they are unethical, insane, and unhappy. Mary is obviously a wunderkind and sets herself up for a brilliant college and writing career. Lucia Santa finally scores the long-anticipated house in the suburbs while still managing to keep her family together and under her matriarchal control. Señora Santiago had the choice of moving to the suburbs as well but she seems to be the only one out of the three women who recognizes the futility of the American Dream; instead of continuing on her path, she runs completely off course and returns to Mexico, where she believes a certain amount of her happiness is guaranteed. If she had stayed in the United States, Señora Santiago's demeanor and wits would have further advanced her toward the American Dream.

Mary, Lucia Santa, and Señora Santiago have so many factors competing for their attention, on both a basic and existential level. At the same time that they scavenge for food, clothes, and shelter, they must reflect upon who they are in their new, American environments. It is hard enough for women who must learn a new language to complete school, find a job, and do everything else necessary for them to support their families when their men are only half as determined as they are. It is even harder for them to combine these tasks with achieving the ambitious American Dream. All in all, life as a female immigrant requires tripping between borders, making sacrifice, value planning, and thriving upon nostalgia. Therefore, it is impossible for the immigrant woman to achieve the American Dream while remaining ethical, happy, and sane. But their fervency for the American Dream may serve as reason enough for their suffering, at least for a time. Remember that the Virgin Mary, mother of sufferers, was a migrant, too.

Works Cited

"American Dream." Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/American+dream Accessed 1 May 2009.

Antin, Mary. The Promised Land. New York: The Penguin Group, 1997.

Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1999.

Frank, Anne. The Diary of a Young Girl. New York: Bantam Press, 1993. http://www.iun.edu/~ode/img/landmarks.swf Accessed 2 May 2009.

King, Florence. "The Misanthrope's Corner." The National Review.

Medline Plus: Medical Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. U.S. National Library of Medicine. http://www2.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwmednlm Accessed 29 April 2009.

Puzo, Mario. The Fortunate Pilgrim. New York: Random House, 1964.

Santiago, Danny. Famous All Over Town. New York: The Penguin Group, 1983.