Part of a seven-part series exploring what 100+ independently written letters from America’s business community reveal about the country and its people at 250.
By Sarah Bonk and Chip York
The American Dream has always rested on a simple premise: where you begin does not have to determine where you end up.
At 250, Americans still believe in that idea, even as many question how well the country is delivering on it. A 2026 Gallup study found that 78% of Americans believe the American Dream is worth striving for, and 69% believe they personally will achieve it. But only 46% believe everyone in the country has the opportunity to do so.
That tension also runs through the Birthday Letters to America. We didn’t ask writers to define the American Dream, but the idea surfaced again and again. When it did, it was never described as a guarantee of wealth or success. More often it was about opportunity: the chance to build a life different from the one you started with.
Three dreams. One city.
The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce describes an American Dream that takes two things: freedom and bravery.
“The freedom to innovate, to own, to build. And the bravery to take a risk, to start over after a setback, to believe that what you are building matters. That is the American Dream, and it is alive in our region.”
President and CEO Maria S. Salinas then names three people who embody it: Dora Herrera, whose mother came from Mexico and started Yuca's Restaurants; Kameale C. Terry, a South Central Los Angeles native who built ChargerHelp from the ground up; and Dominic Ng, who came from Hong Kong and built East West Bank into the largest publicly listed independent bank headquartered in Southern California.
“That is what 250 years looks like in Los Angeles,” Salinas writes.
Their stories begin in very different places. What connects them isn't where they started. And Salinas is clear that none of it is automatic:
"Freedom is not something we inherit and set aside. Each generation has to choose it, defend it, and expand it."
When opportunity becomes a legacy
The Bronx Chamber of Commerce tells that story across generations.
"For generations, our borough has welcomed people from across the country and around the world who came here ready to work, build a life and contribute to their community," writes President and CEO Lisa Sorin. "They opened restaurants and shops, built companies, raised families, created jobs and transformed neighborhoods. Their cultures and ideas became part of the identity of the Bronx and, in many cases, part of the identity of America itself."
The Bronx itself is evidence of that exchange: hip-hop started there and became a global movement. Generations of Bronx entrepreneurs, artists, educators, and athletes have shaped American life well beyond the borough’s 42 square miles.
Sorin sees the same thing happening now: in new storefronts, in longtime businesses preparing the next generation, in employers giving someone a first job.
"My hope is that we continue to create places where an idea can become a business, where a business can become a legacy, and where success creates opportunity beyond any one individual."
That widens the definition of the American Dream. People come looking for opportunity, and in pursuing it they create opportunity for others.
When the door isn't there
Katie Harbath of Anchor Change reaches back to the founding era when Abigail Adams asked her husband to “remember the ladies.” A woman with no vote and no platform used the only channel available to her. What strikes Harbath at 250 is how much that has changed. The people who were never going to be invited into the room, she writes, built their own.
She's done it herself. Harbath left the company that had been her identity for a decade and started her own company with no map.
"Nearly every job I've had, I had to create — the door wasn't there, so I built one. … Reinvention is not a modern coping mechanism. It's the oldest American habit we have. This country has done it roughly every generation for 250 years."
Her letter eventually names what makes that possible, and it isn't simply opportunity in the usual sense.
"The thing worth protecting isn't any particular technology. It's choice. We choose who leads us. We choose what we build and who we build it with. We choose what to believe and who to believe it from. That's the actual American invention — not the tools, the agency."
Seen that way, the Dream isn't only a place you're trying to reach. It's having enough room to change direction when the life you built isn't the one you want anymore.
From the fields to the boardroom
Javier Palomarez, president and CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council, writes about the American Dream the way he's lived it.
"Long before I was sitting in boardrooms or meeting with elected officials, I was working in the fields in south Texas. Nobody handed me a roadmap. Nobody opened every door for me. I built my path one step at a time. … It was a promise that where you start in life does not have to determine where you finish. That your circumstances may shape your story, but they do not get to write the ending."
He's watched founders build companies that employ hundreds. He's also seen "doors that are technically open but much harder to walk through depending on who you know or where you come from." He describes nearly 5 million Hispanic-owned businesses not as a special interest but as job creators, taxpayers, and the small businesses keeping local economies moving.
"What makes America special is not that it guarantees success. It doesn't. What makes America special is that it gives people the chance to pursue it."
The possibility of going somewhere
Four letters, from a chamber in Los Angeles, a borough in New York, a founder in Washington, DC, and a business leader who started out in the fields of south Texas. None of them describes the American Dream as a guarantee. All four describe it as a chance.
They're also honest that the promise hasn't reached everyone it was meant to reach. Some doors are technically open but harder to walk through depending on who you know. That honesty is what makes the optimism land — these aren't people describing a finished product, but one still worth building.
The American Dream, as these writers describe it, was never a promise about where you'd end up. It's the possibility that where you start doesn't have to be where you finish.
Sarah Bonk is a civic entrepreneur and the founder/CEO of Business for America. She spent over 20 years leading strategy, design, and organizational change at Apple and American Electric Power. Today, she works with business leaders to help fix what’s broken in American politics.
Chip York leads marketing and communications for Business for America, building coalitions across the business community. His 20+ years in global marketing and creative communications span agency leadership at Ketchum and in-house work at The Coca-Cola Company.
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