But does it hold true?

In my Ragtime essay, I argue that three characters (Emma, Coalhouse and Tateh) all achieved the American Dream to some extent by casting off the social category labels that were placed on them. Tateh needed to set himself apart from the other immigrants; Goldman needed to remove the binds placed on all women, and Coalhouse was able to ignore his race until he was violently made aware of it. This is a somewhat disjointed description, because there are subtle nuances in each case that can't be described in a broad, sweeping statement. If you want to read my whole paper though, let me know! I'd be glad to send it to you.

Anyway, I was just wondering how true my thesis is to real life. Are those who are successful in America the ones who threw their social labels to the wayside? I'm trying to think of important people...Bill Gates out of Harvard. So he had to climb over the stereotype of the "college dropout" (and I would say he was extremely successful in doing so). Oprah Winfrey went from being an impoverished girl to a powerful Woman of color. A family immigrant friend went from living and working in the poorest Chicago neighborhood to being nurse manager in a cardiology unit. I'm sure there is a really obvious famous story I am missing, and plenty of lesser known, but equally important success stories.

I'm sensing a pattern in Doctorow's characters as well as the real people. It seems as if they abandoned one negative label to embrace a different, more positive one. Bill gates took the title of computer nerd to the next level. Tateh had no problem embracing his position as "artist". Americans are infamous for placing labels on everything; perhaps if we can't abandon labels completely, we should just switch to positive ones.