"From Piecework to Peacework: The Gentrification of Idealist Immigrants"

From the inception of the Americas, there has been a (mis)conception that one can go from rags to riches here. In 1876, Irish immigrants fleeing the devastation of the potato famine arrived in Boston seeking fortune, all of whom were under the impression that there were vast tracks of land free for the taking in the pioneer lands. Talk of feast and freedom, autonomy and toleration were abound. However, when they got here they found that they couldn't go much further than Boston. There were few jobs, the land was hundreds to thousands of miles away, and was prohibitively expensive for the poor. Thus, they worked in overcrowded textile factories to make a better future for their children founded on the ideals they found lacking in the United States for them. Generations later, their descendents became the hippies, the yuppies, and eventually, the disillusioned and ineffectual Generation X. But there have been other immigrant groups. This plight has been the trend for the Japanese, the Indian, the Latin Americans, and the continuation of American idealism depends upon the continual influx of optimistic, dare I say, naive immigrants.