Chris Gardner — whose story of homelessness and perseverance was immortalized in the film 'The Pursuit of Happyness' — returned to the UC Berkeley campus where he and his infant son had once slept as a homeless single parent. Standing before the class of 2009 in the midst of the Great Recession, Gardner rejected the idea of dwelling on economic doom. Instead, he called for a new vision of the American dream — one rooted not in material wealth but in balance, appreciation, and human connection. He painted a picture of a dream where what you do does not define who you are, and where coming home to friends and family matters more than accumulating things.