I always saw the American Dream as people jumping the fence of Tijuana trying to get California without getting caught. People with that little piece of hope and excitement as they are just a single step away from being in the state they always dreamed of. The American Dream has made people come to the United States knowing that they have some wonderful opportunities here. Many people are like "Lets go to the United States!! There's money over there!!" Growing up has made me wonder about the American dream and the life of a person who has had more experience in life than me. I knew something had to be different, but I never knew how much of a difference it would be. Hearing stories about my grandpa were all left unclear and never had  any specific meaning to me. I've always wanted to have that confidence to ask what was it like living at the time he grew up in. Hearing stories of my grandpa being hardworking are significant pieces of information for me. Pieces of a story that were unclear to me, but soon after I interviewed him I had a better insight of his own personal life and experiencing the American dream.

Since being a child my grandpa would work long periods of time to sustain his family and himself. Seeing my grandpa as hardworking tells me that he wished for his family to be prosperous for their future life. Even though my grandpa worked under the hot blazing sun over a long period time, he always wanted his family to have food served at  the table for everyone. My grandpa would go up to the hills in Mexico to feed the cows and from the milk he got from the cows his mom would make cheese or milk for the family. As I talked to him, he brought up a moment in his life when he was eight years old where he came home to eat breakfast at around twelve o’clock in the afternoon, drained out of energy and starving, after getting wood in his head for the stove so his mom could make tortillas for her eleven children. My grandpa tells me about this moment in life like this, " When going up to the hills I would bring wood on my head, so that my mom would make tortillas” I believe my grandpa being hardworking and all held the continuation of his family important, so they could still be united in the future surrounded by peace and tranquility. If it wasn't for him, his family wouldn't be eating homemade food every day.

Being a child my grandpa did not have the opportunity to own money that he hoped one day would be placed in his pocket. My grandpa's eyes cast down, out of my view, as he comments in Spanish, ”well, what can I tell you, my life was not that good when I was an adolescent.” My grandpa kept mentioning a couple of times that he deemed his life as not that well. My grandpas eyes turned suddenly from super white to red and watery as he says that a difficult situation that has happened to him when he was young was not having, "A pair of shoes. I had a pair of shoes until I was 20 years old. I was always with my ugly shoes that were all tattered up, but now I feel proud of myself because I have so many shoes in my closet(chuckles).” My grandpa is super proud of himself because he has worked a sufficient amount of time to buy a house and a couple of brand new shoes to keep and not worry if one is going to rip. Giving thought to what my grandpa said, I see he holds a sense of pride for himself for being able to reach his perspective of the American dream. When he was a child there was a lack of money, but now he has a little bit more to sustain himself and his family. My grandpa commented that if he had a lot of money he would give money to his family if they were in need of it and as well give out money to his grandchildren and children to help them with college. The problem of not having that much money is that your house is not in a decent condition, which is what my grandpa says his house looked like. My grandpa enjoyed looking at other peoples houses to see what it seemed like to live in an affluent house. He says he liked the house of the Arechigas family because you could see all the way from the inside from his house. He remembers the palace had big curved arches made out of stone, sofas that were very antique, very bright green grass, and rugs that were made out of cow skin. My grandpa would peek from the big windows of the Arechigas house to see the inside. My grandpa telling me this memory it tells me he wished he owned a palace like that someday in the future. He might have had a tiny bit of hope inside that told him that anything was possible, but only if he worked intensely to attain it.

From doing this interview with my grandpa it got me to think that life itself was not that easy as it may seem today. My grandpa had to go up the hills early in the morning to get wood to come home and eat, when right now MCDonald's exists and Burger King where you could get something to eat under a dollar. It might seem that I'm saying that people are lazy now a days, but isn't what I'm saying true? Even though the family was having money issues, they tried to keep the house clean and have the children with full bellies. My grandpa may not be rich right now, but he is pleased of having what he has right now--the people he loves around him and the wife he fell in love with. After I finished asking some questions, he surprises me by telling me that he believes he has always tried to be the very best in everything. He tells me he had friends that were very rich and they felt popular, but that did not ever stop him from keep on trying and reaching for the golden star that had always been waiting for him. America is filled with opportunities that you should take for granted, to reach your perspective of the perfect world.