Wal-Mart isn’t the only company that is violating the rights of others in order to make its income. Many large companies import their products from Mexico. There is a very good reason why these products aren’t made here in America. NAFTA created the ability for large corporations and companies to trade with Mexico for free. On paper, this may seem like a boon for Mexican companies seeking to sell their goods in the United States. The reality is that this enables companies to ship raw material to Mexico cheaply, pay their Mexican workers very little money, and then import nearly completed items, again for next to nothing. The factories where these practices happen are called maquiladoras, and, although the atmospheric conditions are tolerable, the overall situation is unjustified. Many underage workers have elected to work instead of attend school in order to help support their families. These workers are sometimes 13 and only paid a fraction of a dollar for each hour worked. They are subjected to long shifts, and sometimes they are even made susceptible to violent crime.
How do these varied people relate to the American Dream? Some of them are not even American, and yet they have an important link in the chain. Before describing their roles in the American Dream, it must first be defined.
P.J. O’Rourke, in his book, Eat The Rich, examines the qualities of the American Dream that he had been educated on since being a child.
He notes that, perhaps, not all parents taught their children each of these rules, but that they are all necessary to achieve the success of the American Dream. It is generally believed; by evidence of the unchanged article on Wikipedia (an encyclopedia updated and maintained by the public), that these qualities render the joy and control of life that most feel is the abstract ideal of the American Dream.
	A modern and simple definition of the dream, by synthesizing these sources into a unified thought, seems to be “Through one’s own hard work and responsibility, one may be able to control his or her own destiny.” The hard work of the farmers and the Wal-Mart shelf-stockers seems to be getting them little if anything. By following the chain of wealth, it becomes clear whose American Dreams are coming true: company owners and corporate shareholders. The implications of this concept of labor as a menial task become even deeper when the state of maquiladoras is considered. Not only are the youthful Mexican workers people with dreams of their own, but also their use shows us that foreign exploitation isn’t unquestionable when preserving the bottom line profit. This profit is what feeds the businesses’ concept of control. Why is it that this accumulated wealth yields such high confidence in the concept of the American Dream?
	Many of us are taught to infer, from childhood through adulthood, that modern capitalism is the true method to obtain this wealth, and thusly is somewhat synonymous with the American Dream. 
