New Insights from "Back Home"

Before I started on this assignment, I had always thought that the California Dream is just about having a good, contented life by the beach. However, now I know there is so much more to it than just that.

For one, "Back Home" has shown me that the California Dream is just about being accepted into the society one is in, and feeling at home. The singer, who forsake everything he once had to get this dream, only realizes how hard it is to find loyal companions and true friends in the city of his dreams. Maybe when he left home without any of the relationships he had - broken due to his stubbornness in insisting on going to the west coast in search of the California Dream, he thought that he would find friends in California. That mi

ght have been his California Dream.

Another thing I learned is that to many people, the California is imagined as a place where one is free from judgements and shackles social normalities put on us. Just like the people from Iowa in the article "A New Perspective on the Dream" by Denise S. Spooner, the singer in "Back Home" wanted a place where he would not have to worry about living up to other people's standards. However, that did not seem to have been the case in the song, as he told us of a society where "everybody's living life in fear of falling out of line."

It seems that the subject of this song, along with many others who came to California for the dream left without a single taste of it. However, I am also certain about others who attained and lived the dream. Otherwise, why would that dream of over a hundred years be still prevalent? Personally, I still believe in the California Dream, and that anyone willing to try hard enough, and persevere long enough, can achieve it ultimately.