Have we lost the American Dream?

The readings on LULAC (the one about racism and politics of assimilation in particular) made me wonder if American culture has lost what was once the American Dream. The members of LULAC, and I would argue most Americans during the postwar years, strongly believed in self advancement. It seemed to me that they had immense faith in US institutions, believing that the system was fair and just. Even in the face of blatant racism, LULAC believed that as long as someone tried and tried their best, they would succeed in society. The values of hard work and self motivation were very apparent in LULAC's ideology.

While I reading, a nostalgic feeling came over me. LULAC's ideology and values relflect a time period in US history when those values were embraced by the entire country. How did we go from being so individualistic that families refused welfare during the Great Depression to thinking that the government owes us something? How did we go from having blind faith in American institutions to condemning the system as corrupt? (I'm not arguing that either extreme is better- just that there seems to have been a shift).

I think the Vietnam War and, more recently, the Iraq War have contributed to a lot of American's lack of faith in American institutions. As a result, Americans no longer have blind faith in the status quo like the members of LULAC did. We question issues like poverty and and racism and how our institutions reinforce it. What happened to individualism? I think the post New Deal era and the creation of government programs like social security and medicare had a lot to do with the shift from individualism. The creation of these programs made it acceptable to receive aid from the government as a social right. I also think that having less faith in the justice of US institutions may contribute to the feeling that the government owes its citizens (perhaps for the institutionalized injustice they suffer?). Also, if "the system" is inherently unjust, then the individual cannot be held entirely accountable for their failures.

Does being less individualistic and having less faith in US institutions mean that we've lost the American Dream? Or has the dream just changed and what to?