A Chinaman's Chance: Reflections on the American Dream.

Discussion Questions:
1. What does Liu mean when he claims “the dream is not just about buying a bigger house that the one he grew up in…”?
What Liu means when he claims “the dream is not just about buying a bigger house that the one he grew up in…”that dreams rely on something further than that, in order for someone to fulfill their dreams, they would have to accomplish many other things that are not easy. Having your own house doesn’t exactly mean that you have accomplish everything, many people desire a lot of not so valuable things and others do.
2. How does Liu handle the counterargument that racial and class injustice continue to affect people?
Liu handles the counterargument that racial and class injustice continues to affect people, by him explaining the barriers that exist between blacks, whites and immigrants. He explains on pg123 how salaries are a clear point on how racism affected a lot of people, whites get paid a higher salary than blacks and immigrants do. Immigrants face another issue due to the fact that so many of them are moving into the city, they have no choice but to live on ghettos and tenements, they struggled because salary wasn’t high enough to support a small family.
3. What is Liu’s thinking about the idea of community in connection with the American Dream?
The thinking about the idea of community in connection with the American dream is that a community is not just about “a loose confederation of zip codes and walled-in communities” says Liu is about having your freedom and natural rights and also achieve the dreams that you have set up for yourself.
4. According to Liu, what qualities are required for achieving success? Do you agree with his optimism?
According to Liu the qualities that are required to achieve success is to be a hard determined worker, patience plays a big role in this because success comes with time, it also means that in order for this to happen people go through a lot of struggle. Yes, I agree with his optimism, when my parents, brothers and I came to The United States, we suffered a lot. Everything was so different, culture, language, climate and people we knew it was going to be very hard in order for us to adapt, with time and a lot of patience good things came to us, but for that to happen we had to go through a lot, the American dream is not just about owning a house but is about feeling complete about yourself as if you have achieve everything you have ever wanted.