America turns 250 today. I am only five days and two hundred years younger. So I have always felt a familial bond.

Such milestones compel evaluation of what was promised and what is delivered. These days people say the American dream is dead. Before judgement, let us look at the evidence.

The American dream was never one dream. It was always several dreams living under one flag. It was the immigrant's dream of arrival, work, children and education. It was the inventor's dream of garage, lab, startup, failure and retry. It was the dissident's dream of speech, protest, lawsuit and reform. It was the worker's dream of wages, weekends, dignity and a child who rises higher. It was the student's dream of campus, library, mentor and widened life. It was the refugee's dream of safety, papers, school and ordinary days without fear. It was the builder's dream of making something large without permission from king, party, cleric, landlord or inherited elite. It was the family dream of home, school, dignity and upward motion. It was the reinvention dream: that a human being is not imprisoned forever by the first version of himself. And it was the correction dream: that injustice can be named, contested, litigated, voted against, amended, and slowly slipped into the unfinished work of a more perfect union.

With immigration raids, nativist movements, pushback against refugees, bottlenecks for international students, foreign workers, would-be immigrants and, above everything else, predatory banking practices including foreclosures, some aspects are undoubtedly under stress. But do not let these flashes in the pan obscure that the country still........

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