by Meghann

Created on: June 12, 2008   Last Updated: May 12, 2011

The term "Guest worker" just sounds mean. Like we're saying, "Hey, don't get too comfortable." Or, "Don't overstay your welcome here." Seriously, the American dream has pretty much lost it's meaning to Americans, but to illegal immigrants it is the I CHING of dreams.

I was born to two baby boomers who got to experience the true "Change" that paved the way for me to be able to succeed in every sense of the word. Since they had virtually done all the work, I was raised thinking that opportunities had just always been available. So naive, innocent, and spoiled spoiled spoiled! I was brought being told to dream big and to not be afraid of setting goals as opposed to my mother who was part of the "Don't learn too much cuz you're just gonna be a mother and wife someday" generation. She started the change in American culture. She and my dad both continued to move forward by telling my brother and me it was ok to lay my own brick in the road of change for society as we know it. I took American History in high school but it was all about the PAST. "Who cares?" I thought. "Yeah, it sucked back then, but I've got my own goals to look forward too." I was not the only one of my generation to feel this way. Our parents were looking at us like they had done this incredible thing for us (which they had) but since we weren't around "back then" we didn't appreciate it.

Now we are starting to see the magnitude of their achievements because the reality is that we children of the "boomers" had been complacent. Lacking motivation and the drive to work hard, earn little, LEARN a lot. We just want(ed) to be handed success on a silver platter. Menial labor jobs were pretty much out of the question after the age of 18 if you finished high school. A disappointing number of my generation dropped out of highschool because they were itching to be on their own and make their own decisions. Our parents had told us we "Could do whatever and succeed" and we heard so much about this "land of opportunity" too. So, with stroked egos and inflated heads we left the nest only to fall flat on our faces. Instead of growing up in the town of Rock Bottomville and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps like the generation before us, we had to land ... hard ... maybe a couple times there before we realized work was involved in the dream achieving business.

The fact is, we were born and raised with strength and ability imbedded in our DNA. Society had changed for us and we really did have the elusive

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