The American Dream is all about economic and social opportunity. It is not a guarantee of success, but a guarantee of a fighting chance to improve one’s status in society, regardless of where you start out.

Of course, this opportunity has not always been extended to everyone, and the arc of history in this country has been one of expanding this opportunity to ever more people.

Our history is a slow, hard march toward progress, with struggle after struggle ensuring new groups of citizens have access to this dream.

Even before the colonies united, the problem of limited opportunity existed. Indentured servants, who signed a portion of their lives away in exchange for free passage to the new world, were continually re-subjugated to pay off ever-increasing debts.

While they had more rights than African slaves, this servitude created a second-class citizenship right from the start.

We have made great progress in the centuries since, but there is work left to be done. What I heard last Tuesday in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address is a man willing to continue that work.

In calling for an increase in the minimum wage, Obama has made it a priority for his second term to further expand the opportunities many take for granted. Currently, a person making minimum wage is considered to be living in poverty.

In defending Medicare, Medicaid and social security, he has shown a passion for not losing ground in the expansion of opportunity. In a world with growing health costs, these programs are more essential than ever.

I leave you with the words of poet Emma Lazarus, inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.” That’s America.

Colin Crowley is a senior political science and philosophy major. His column appears online weekly. He can be reached at cocrowle@syr.edu and followed on Twitter at @colincrowley.

Published on February 18, 2013 at 2:12 am