Do the kids think they can achieve the American Dream?
<answer> hese bright, ambitious youngsters just don't believe that talent and hard work are enough to ensure they will ever have a shot at that mythical American Dream. <context> our citizens of every rank". The concept of the American Dream has not stayed static. For European immigrants, like Isabel, fleeing persecution in the first half of the last century, the Dream was about a life without persecution. But somewhere in the middle of the last century the dream changed. As America's post war economy boomed, the new arrivals wanted more than freedom--they wanted a share of the prosperity as well. In the 1950s, TV commercials featured housewives proudly showing off kitchens filled with gleaming appliances. The quest for liberation became a quest for Coca Cola. As the century wore on, the materialistic slant of the dream overtook the political side. Dallas and Dynasty suggested this was a country where it was possible to become not just rich, but filthily rich. Cheyanne Smith was shocked at the deprivation that greeted her in America. She arrived in New York from the Caribbean seven years ago. Having watched endless American TV shows as a child, she thought she knew what to expect when her family moved to Brooklyn. Instead, the deprivation of one of New York's poorest neighbourhoods shocked her. "I thought this is not America because this is not what I see on television," she says. Like Cheyanne, 18-year-old Franscisco Curiel is also ambitious. He came from Mexico City three years ago to go to college here but he's worried that Brooklyn's schools aren't going to give him a good enough education. "The system is broken; we can't get the superior education that they supposedly want to give us," he says. Through the centuries America's immigrants have endured terrible hardship and sacrifice so that they and their children can get ahead. Perhaps it's not surprising to hear the members of the Bushwick youth group lament the multiple, low paid jobs that their parents must do simply to get the rent paid and put food on the table. What is startling is that these bright, ambitious youngsters just don't believe that talent and hard work are enough to ensure they will ever have a shot at that mythical American Dream.