Sure, Dick appears to be a Protestant white boy, which seems to give him the best possible wages, but this standard does not apply to people of different racial backgrounds. The "reward" given to blacks who also worked hard (often for free under slavery) reveals the hypocrisy of Algiers' mythical portrayal of equality and fair wages in America in Dalton's critique of stories such than Ragged Dick: “The blacks certainly knew what it was.” it’s like being favored, disadvantaged, scrutinized, and ignored on the basis of our race” (Dalton 273). In many cases, people of color also learned arithmetic, just like Dick, but were pushed out of the workforce due to the bigotry and racial alienation that reigned in the American workplace. Dalton's analysis of Algiers' fictional account of the American dream only applies to the Protestant work ethic, as well as the opportunities that white Protestant boys can obtain through "hard work." Certainly, Algiers' mythical vision of the American dream does not include minorities, which illustrates the problem of racism in the United States. These factors define the literary examination of the falsity of the American dream through the problem of racism found in the writings of Alger, Dalton, Jen, Baldwin and