Blog 1: 

Our theme, “Parental Expectations vs Personal Ambition” means what your parents expect of you versus what you’d expect out of yourself. This has been a common issue amongst child-parent relationships because parents always want what they think is best for their children, even if it’s completely unreasonable. This could also be a good thing because if a child and their parents both want the same thing, that serves as additional support on the ambition of the child. In the past few generations, I think that this has become more problematic since things from technology, to new careers, to completely new idealistic lifestyles are arising and changing. This can form problems because a lot of parents teach their children based on their own experience, which doesn’t help a lot when things are constantly changing.

This theme pertains to Behold The Dreamers because both families put pressure on their children to have profitable, prestigious jobs. They also want their children to serve their ideas of an active role in the American Society. Both the Edwardes and the Jongas heavily project onto their children their idea of what it takes to be a successful man, which doesn’t give the children a lot of room to learn what that means on their own. This is important because although a lot of adults are wise and know a lot when it comes to how the ‘real world’ operates, it’s still good for children to still have their own experience, since that’s the best way to learn.

Blog 7: 

“Our people say no condition is permanent, Mr. Edwards. Good times must come to an end, just like bad times, whether we want it to or not.” 

This quote interests me because being new to college, I’ve been undergoing a lot of changes, as I’m sure we all are, both good and bad. It’s hard to understand that bad times aren’t permanent when you’re actually going through them. This quote gives understanding not only to Mr. Edwards, but to me as well. 

American dream (BLOG POST 2)
Jende is one of the main characters throughout the book. He moves to America from Limbe and believes he’s living the American dream because he’s got a good job working for a rich man as his chauffeur. Everything for him seems to be going well because he’s making more money than he was in Limbe as a cab driver. He has enough to pay for his wife and children’s education, to pay the bills, to send money back home, and keep his family fed. Until one day his boss’s wife asks him to write down everywhere that Jende drives him. Jende ends up lying for Mr. Edwards (his boss) to Mrs. Edwards, hoping that he’s doing the right thing. 
Eventually, Clark (Mrs. Edwards) finds out about the lie and orders Mr. Edwards to Fire Jende, which he does. He then tries to go back to his old job as a cab driver. When he gets there, his old boss tells him that there is no work for him. So he goes around Manhattan looking for jobs and eventually finds one as a dishwasher at a restaurant, making barely enough to feed his family and pay for their education. Jende then wants to move back to Limbe, now seeing that the dreams he would find in America were shattering before his eyes. 

Mr. Edwards is Jendes boss. He’s a big-time CEO, has a wife, and kids.Mr. Edwards is always working to keep his family happy, but he never spends time with them. He’s trying to give them the best lives they could possibly imagine, but they can’t see that in him. All they see is a father and a husband who works too much. Instead of Mr. Edwards going to talk to his wife about his problems, he decides to cheat on her instead. Of course, Mrs. Edwards knows nothing about this, but Jende does. Mr. Edwards thought he had it all until he lost it all. 
Clark lost his company in a publicly embarrassing event called the “Lehman brother collapse” which was the name of Clark’s company. Clark eventually lost his wife, Cindy because she found out that he was cheating on her the day the collapse was announced, one of his children moved to India, and the other merely wanted nothing to do w Clark bc if how he treated them. Eventually, Cindy died by overdosing and asphyxiating on vomit due to the stress Clark had put her under. Mr. Edwards lost everything. He was living the “American dream” because he had the wealth, the pretty wife, and the well-behaved children. He then lost his American dream when he lost his job.