South Asians and the American Dream: Identifying Common Perceptions and Redefining the Term

Abstract

This paper identifies and analyzes perceptions of the American Dream in the South Asian immigrant community of Northern Virginia. The American Dream is a deeply complex ideology with many differing perspectives based on person to person. Ignoring the nuance of the concept, modern day media and current research characterizes the American Dream as acquiring success or simply being successful. Opposingly, it is evident that the idea of the American Dream goes far beyond the constraints of success. Studies indicate that in Hispanic and Latinx communities (which are widely studied), the most common perceptions of the American Dream consisted of Economic and Materialistic fortune, Job Opportunity, Family Wellbeing, and Personal Happiness and/or independence. These categories of perceptions are backed up in validity by various authors such as Perman, Akshar, and Del Sid and their individual studies. This paper aimed to apply these categories to South Asian immigrants - a group that isn’t commonly studied in this context - and use the results to broaden the definition of the American Dream adapted by the media. To achieve this, research surveys and interviews were carried out with South Asian immigrant adults in Northern Virginia. Through a quantitative content analysis and qualitative thematic analysis of the results, this study identified that one of the most common perceptions of the American Dream is connected to the desire for more job opportunities.