Immigrants come to the United States for several reasons and one of the most common is the search for better opportunities. They see the United States as a place where they can accomplish their goals. For whatever reason immigrants come to the United States, it usually involves the pursuit of the American Dream. One of the first things people who follow the American Dream look for a stable income and benefits to send money back home and provide a better future for themselves and their families. As Barbara Ehrenreich mentions in “The Futile Pursuit of the American Dream”, focuses on talking about the challenges “white-collar” employees are starting to face when it comes to finding a job. Usually, the American Dream is used as a motivation for people to work harder and commit to achieve a higher education to become more successful in life. The purpose of Ehrenreich’s essay is to indulge in white-collar employment.
Ehrenreich is a well-recognized published author and journalist. According to her personal website, she has been a public activist ever since 1970 when she became involved “with what [they] called the ‘women’s health movement,’” (About Barbara Ehrenreich – Barbara Ehrenreich). Ehrenreich is also an activist for “health care, peace, women’s rights, and economic justice” (About Barbara Ehrenreich – Barbara Ehrenreich). As the years went on, she became recognized for her works like Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers that were related to the social justice issues she stood up for. Her most recognized work has been the book: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. The book is about her life during the time in which she was working for the minimum wage. Additionally, Ehrenreich has also had several articles published in very popular location like the New York Times. She has earned several awards and had a lot of experience in the realm of social justice. Due to her experience and hard work, Ehrenreich has earned her credibility when it comes to social activism.
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The essay is meant to be targeted for an audience with members who are interested and impacted by the economy. The essay talks about the unemployment issue that started to affect even people in high and mid-level positions. Ehrenreich mentions that “there were stories of the mighty or the mere mid-level brought low, ejected from their office suites and forced to serve behind the counter at Starbucks,” (Graff). People who read this essay should have an idea about the unemployment issues taking place around the country. Those who decide to read the essay may do it to get a better idea of how serious this issue has become.
Ehrenreich starts off her essay by sounding surprised about the uprising percentages of unemployment in white-collar jobs. She admits that she was not all too interested in this socioeconomic group before noticing the unemployment trends when she writes, “I had indeed neglected [this group] as too comfortable and too powerful to merit my concern,” (About Barbara Ehrenreich – Barbara Ehrenreich). Like Ehrenreich, the common person would not usually consider members of the white-collar group to be poor even when unemployed. The main argument Ehrenreich is trying to make is that the American Dream is not as easy to achieve as one might believe. Using data from New York Times Magazine and other sources, Ehrenreich can demonstrate how unemployment is even a problem for members of the most successful socioeconomic group.
American culture stresses for youth to work hard in school until they graduate from college with a “strong” degree. Society has pinpointed majors and careers to pursue such as medicine, law, technology, and business. Ehrenreich refers to this when she writes “[youth are] setting aside their youthful passion for philosophy and music to suffer through dull practical majors like management of finance,” (Graff). Students work hard to earn these degrees to get a secure job. Ehrenreich tries to point out how the American Dream is become harder and harder to achieve as the years go by.
Ever since the Great Recession, the United States’ “long-term unemployment has become such a dominant feature in the labor market,” (Hornstein). Ehrenreich tried to find out more about this issue by going undercover and through the process of finding a job. She decided to create a fake resume and identity to apply for jobs. She mentions how she did not want to be recognized by the employers, so she changed a lot of information on her resume. Ehrenreich describes how she felt about her journey through this project when she says: “I pictured this abstraction, the corporate world, as a castle on a hill – well fortified, surrounded by difficult checkpoints, with its glass walls gleaming invitingly from on high. I knew it would be a long hard climb just to get to the door… I have stamina and resolve; and I believed that I could do this too”.
She believed that this project of going into the white-collar business was going to be easy. After all all she had to do was create a fake person, apply for jobs, and get a job for this project. It was not a blue-collar job where there is heavy lifting involved; this was a piece of cake. She expresses how wrong she was when she writes, “as it turns out, I was wrong on all accounts,” (Graff). By saying this, Ehrenreich demonstrates that finding a job in the white-collar business is not as easy as one might believe as well as maintaining it. One can be fired from any job and lose everything whether it is a white - or blue-collar job.
Rhetorical appeals are separated into three main categories by writers: ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos regards the credibility and trust that an author establishes with their audience. If Ehrenreich’s experience as a journalist, author, and social justice activist is considered, then she is a credible person. Throughout her essay, Ehrenreich mentions how she never had much thought toward the white-collar society because of their seemingly good life until she heard about the “tales of hardships … coming from people who were once members in good standing in the middle class,” (Graff). After noticing this, she decided to dig deeper and learn more about the situation at hand. Her experience led her to come up with the plan of going undercover and getting a firsthand experience of the white-collar world.
Ehrenreich does a good job at appealing to her audience through logos by using the information and research of other sources. By using other sources, she makes her claim even stronger because she uses statistics and facts. Ehrenreich writes, “A 2004 survey of executives … 68 percent concerned about unexpected firings and layoffs,” (Graff). The statistic she uses shows that what she is saying is not just opinion; unemployment issues have reached white-collar jobs. She confirms that research has been done concerning the fear of being left unemployed from white-collar employees.
Pathos is the appeal to emotion. Ehrenreich does a good job at using it because she writes about her personal struggle during her project. She connects with the audience through pathos when she talks about the stress she undertook when creating her resume for the jobs. Anyone who has been on the search of a job can relate to Ehrenreich when she writes, “I would do everything possible to land a job,” (Graff). Several people have lived through the need to get a job to pay medical and utility bills, help others, etc. Ehrenreich connects with the audience by expressing her feelings of stress, frustration, and surprise during her journey of finding a white-collar job. The pathos appeal is effective because she talks about a common experience faced by almost everyone.
When I finished reading her essay, I realized that she did a good job at making her point. Her personal touches made her writing that much more effective in informing me about the unemployment problems white-collar employees are having. Ehrenreich helped me see that the American Dream is indeed futile since it is becoming harder and harder to get a job. Although, the true problem comes after getting the job because you never know when you might get fired even if you follow all the rules and your performance is above average. Ehrenreich also demonstrated how passionate she is about her job by going undercover and telling her first-hand experience. Her essay was not what I expected due to her touch of personal notes along her entire work. She did not simply state facts or statistics but included her personal story which made all the difference to me.
Works Cited:
- “About Barbara Ehrenreich – Barbara Ehrenreich.” Barbara Ehrenreich, https://barbaraehrenreich.com/barbara-ehrenreich-bio
- Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. “The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream.” Bait and Switch: The Pursuit of the American Dream, by Barbara Ehrenreich, Henry Holt and Company, 2005.
- Hornstein, Andreas, and Thomas A. Lubik. The Rise in Long-Term Unemployment: PotentialnCauses and Implications. Richmond: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, 2010. ProQuest. Web. 25 Feb. 2019.
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