After being granted his U.S. citizenship and buying his own home, Benjamin Sanchez believed he knew the meaning of the elusive and idealistic “American Dream.”

But that was before he was diagnosed with cancer.

Since acquiring his citizenship in 1998, Sanchez, caretaker and foreman of Serenity Farm, a hunter/jumper facility in Colorado, has worked diligently to save enough money to buy a home for his wife and three children. That moment finally arrived in December of 2005 in Elizabeth, Colo.