American Dream?

Perhaps it was very fitting that Hunter S. Thompson included a massive amounts of drugs in his book (and I am almost positive that I got a contact high from reading the book, or else someone was wearing a gorilla costume on the blue line).  For many Mexicans they would have to have as many drugs in their systems as there was in the book to be able to attempt to cross the border into the US to reach the American Dream, especially now that the Zetas, one of the biggest drug trafficking families in Mexico, have created their own toll way. You heard it right, their own toll way. The means that if you want to cross the border you have to pay the Zetas in order to do so. And if immigration catches you, well, then you have to pay again to cross again. Quite the business. The funny thing now is that not many people are crossing. Congrats USA, it took the Mexicans to keep the Mexicans out. But many still risk it because they want the American Dream; they want to come to the place where the streets are paved with gold. But according to Thompson, the American Dream is “a huge slab of cracked, scorched concrete in a vacant lot full of tall weeds”. They went to Las Vegas because that is the place where the American Dream can be gotten with as little work as possible. But the house always wins. All in all, the American Dream is a hallucination that cannot be reached. It is like chasing the magic dragon; you shoot up every time in hopes of catching it, but you fail. When the brave Mexicans that do decide to cross get to the US, they realize how elusive the American Dream is. Sometimes they never reach it. They realize, too late, that they have arrived in a country that can arrest you for being a couple of shades darker.