If so, how do you define it? Are we the only country with it’s own specific dream?
[QUOTE=Are we the only country with it’s own specific dream?[/QUOTE]
Sorry about the “we.”
Is the United States** the only country with it’s own specific dream?*
*
That’s better!
The millions of immigrants who come here take it seriously.
And you’re not sorry about the “it’s”? 
Cite ?
Me.
And that American Dream is…
There’s a Wikipedia article on the “American Dream.” Near the end of the article is a discussion of (and link to an article on) the “Chinese Dream.”
I have a “Canadian Dream.”
It includes hockey and beer. Possibly bacon.
Freedom from discrimination based on my ethnicity (not so much religious freedom because I’m a practicing atheist).
Education and economic opportunities that would not otherwise be available to me.
Freedom of speech and movement.
Not having to live in a socially oppressive society.
Canadian bacon?
For years the American Dream was personified as home ownership. If you owned your own home than that was tangible evidence that you were achieving the American Dream. That was debunked during the recent great recession.
Alternatively, being college educated has also been a trait of achieving the American Dream, but even that illusion is being challenged by ever increasing tuition costs and levels of student loan debt.
The problem is that society, government, etc. has always felt that it was necessary to aid people in achieving the American Dream, which resulted in programs like the Community Reinvestment Act, the Housing and Community Development Act, and institutions like FreddieMac and FannieMae. Add to that the variety Federal student loan programs and we have built the American Dreams of many people on sinking sand.
The American Dream, if there is one, shouldn’t be an entitlement program, or a subsidized loan program. It shouldn’t be a handout. It should be something that people sacrifice for, people work extremely hard for. The American Dream isn’t something that everyone is promised or achieved, but everyone should have the opportunity to pursue. Just not everyone is committed to the hard work that is required to achieve it.
Strangely, there’s no such thing as Canadian bacon in Canada.
None of those are unique to the US, of course.
True. That’s why I first moved to Canada. 
But where I came from, it was a distinction without a difference.
But what the heck IS “The American Dream?” Can it be whatever I want it to be? Has it always some vague notion that was defined personally? I think I recall Fannie Mae using the expression to promote home ownership before the recent crapping out of our economy. Has it always been a marketing tool?
One of the core components of the American Dream is that the opportunity for the American Dream is open to everyone in American society. This has always been more aspirational than factual which is why America makes such a big deal over “First Black President/First Female President” stuff.
It’s that, due to the meritocratic underpinnings of American society, any person of any circumstances can aspire to any position if they only are willing to put in the perseverance/hard work/sacrifice. The dark side of the American Dream is that it’s often inverted and used to blame any person for not succeeding that the only reason for their failure is a lack of perseverance/hard work/sacrifice.
yes, so long as it’s still based on reality. Too many people (the “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”) seem to think it means all opportunities are all equally available to all people all of the time, and that just ain’t so.
I noticed that last time I visited. Ooooops – I forgot to translate that for you. I noticed that last I visited, eh?
The American Dream changes, kinda like Homer Simpson’s “lifelong dream.”
Pre-WW2 it was to get rich through ingenuity and hard work (if you were white). Post-war, it was simply a nice house and a couple of kids for everyone (again, if you were white). I’d say that version morphed to be more inclusive and added “go to college” in there somewhere in the 1970s. The average person no longer thought much of becoming a captain of industry, less so in these days of outsourcing industry to other places.
The current American Dream is best exemplified by Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing.” Win the lottery or get famous via wearing yoga pants on Instagram, or playing games on Youtube.