"Chasing the American Dream"

 The "American Dream", a vision of:  hardworking dad, stay at home mom, the perfect children playing in the yard with the family dog, the cozy home, and of course the white picket fence. In the 1950s, everyone was chasing the American Dream which promised freedom and the opportunities for success. In Fences, however, the "American Dream" seems to be a vision only attainable by white men and women.

The American Dream

Author Unknown

It is the American Dream
What we all strive for and imagine
In double-wide trailers to double-wide mansions
In sprouting lakes of fake fish.
Nothing captures its essence
Unbound by time or dust or rot
The things we cherish still are lovingly patted
And brought through the centuries.

It is more than a dream now
It's a reality that the million shave made
Our heart and soul builds the heaven on earth.
A refuge for the sick,
And a shelter for the needy,
It is everything we desire.

In the cherry trucks and laughing children
To indolent teenagers with smoke circling
We see our dream and the actuality
It may not be perfect, but it is our heaven
And so disillusioned we conjure forth our hope.

In the picket fences we see our childhood
In the sky we see our adulthood
And in the middle we see our life.
Suspended, but not contained,
It is the dream that wakes within us all.