Reflection
During this project, I have discovered several awesome things about my family that I did not know before I started this project, because if I'm completely honest, I really didn't really know anything deeper than names when i started. I hardly even knew the names! So learning all of this cool stuff about my ancestors has been a real treat for me and I'm glad I had the opportunity. Not only has this given me more background information on this country and my family, but now it actually gives me something to talk about at my family reunions instead of sitting there all awkward and stuff since i have no way to relate to all of my super old and weird relatives. It will help me to build better relationships with everyone in my family because of it and i am grateful for that. I thought that it was pretty interesting that my first immigrant relatives didn't come to America until about 1860! It seems like a lot of pure-bread American's these days have relatives that they can trace all the way back to the Mayflower and the original pilgrims. If i remember correctly from my history class, 10% of all Americans today can trace their roots all the way back to the Mayflower, which is a pretty high number it seems like if you consider that the Mayflower came to America in the 1600's. It is a little bit disappointing that I didn't have any family members in the American Revolution or the Civil War, but I still have a couple of pretty famous relatives so that's pretty chill. I feel that my definition of the American dream has been altered somewhat, because I think that my initial interpretation of the statement was a little vain, just assuming that it was a big house with a wife and 3 kids with a white picket fence. After going through all of these family history stories and doing all of the research on the Great Depression and other events, my vision of the American Dream has drastically changed. I now feel that it is more of an idea that we Americans try to live up to, as a standard if you will. To say that pledge of allegiance with meaning instead of monotony. To do all of the little things, as well as the big things, to really say "I'm proud to be an American".
