Eva knew that America is the same as every place: if you want a good life, you've got to work hard for it, using whatever tools & gifts you possess. All 3 of the German transplants are shown to be highly intelligent and cultured beyond the hellish railroad town they are plopped down into, and the obvious solution would have been for Bruno to seek employment as a musician, as he is very talented in that regard, but the dramatic arc of the story demands that he lose everything including Eva, and blame America and the insipid characters he is forced to deal with, and do something drastic, which he does. This is due primarily to his obvious faults, alcoholism and maybe paranoid schizophrenia, and not to the American system. He expects instant riches and does a little work for the horny hillbillies that give him a job but is still full of anger and paranoia. They are more fortunate than Nazi victims in the ease of their "escape" to America but unlike most of those refugees in the 30's and 40's, Bruno is unable to assimilate and contribute. For instance, the gangster-pimps that terrorize and brutalize Bruno and Eva in Berlin are very much reflections of the Gestapo mentality and the feeling of being trapped and helpless in your own homeland. This movie has been described as Herzog's take on the American Dream, and there is some overt USA bashing, but it is much more complex than that, as societies are not easily characterized.
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