The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has topped the North American box office for the third weekend in a row.

BBC: The Hobbit holds on to box office crown

Their story is simultaneously an unlikely one, and a quintessentially American journey.

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Recently, I read an article by Carl Richards in the New York Times which could be titled Fear and Hoping in Las Vegas: An Insightful Journey through the Collapse of the American Dream.

FORBES: Fear and Hoping in Las Vegas

But picking out dorm towels, the kind of rite that an upper-middle-class American takes for granted, drove home the magnitude of their journey.

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Since Elian's mother had risked everything on that hazardous journey across the Florida Straits, it was surely her wish that her son should become an American.

ECONOMIST: The pawns of Fidel

As a new group of citizens takes an oath to support and defend our country's oldest principles, we affirm another truth: that our American journey and our success would never have been possible without the hope, the drive, and the irrepressible optimism that every generation of immigrants has brought to our shores.

WHITEHOUSE: The White House