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Thursday, July 2, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MICHIGAN IN COLOR

The overglorified Disney+ 
Hamilfilm

On July 3, Disney+ will be exclusively 
streaming Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musi-
cal, “Hamilton,” also known as #Hamilfilm. 
Ever since 2015, “Hamilton” has been highly 
praised because it features solely BIPOC 
singers and actors on the Broadway stage 
telling the tale of the American Revolution. I 
myself am a huge fan of musicals and Broad-
way history, so when “Hamilton” came out, 
I couldn’t help but sing along to the Schuyler 
sisters and wished one day I would be able to 
accrue enough money to squeeze myself into 
the Richard Rodgers Theatre. 
Recently I noticed a lot of criticism toward 
the musical, and recognized how ironic and 
inappropriate the whole concept was: people 
of color, whose very existence was threat-
ened by the people they were portraying, in 
a business which also has a history of exclud-
ing those who weren’t rich and white. Many 
before me have recognized the several issues 
“Hamilton” fans often glaze over. Writer 
Gene Demby noticed when he attended the 
show how there were only a handful of POC 
between him and the actors, and notes how 
“Hamilton” particularly attracts white audi-
ences. Theatre has a history of segregated 
seating, plays with racist caricatures and 
minstrel shows. Along with the historical 
white audience, the exorbitant high ticket 
prices and constant sold-out status of the 
shows prevent the working class and BIPOC 
from attending as well. 
Even with a primarily white audience and 
a musical being held in a historically rac-
ist production setting, my biggest critique 
of “Hamilton” is its historical inaccuracies. 
While I understand the musical is purely 
entertainment, and it could be bold for me to 
assume that people would believe in the por-
trayal of past white historical figures, when 
it comes to conversations of racism, slavery 
and how BIPOC were treated in colonial 
America, it wouldn’t surprise me if people 

The American Dream: A 
personofcolor’simpossible 
pursuit

JENNY CHONG
MiC Staff Writer

Graphic by Hibah ChughtaiI

In the second grade, my teacher asked 
the class to explain why people immigrated 
to the United States. My hand shot up with 
enthusiasm — I wanted to share my fam-
ily’s story. “My parents came here because 
they wanted freedom and a better life,” I 
answered patriotically. 
At the time, I believed America was the 
land where hopes and dreams would come 
true for everyone — where “all men are cre-
ated equal” as the Declaration of Indepen-
dence claims. My parents left their small 
village in Guangdong, China, and immigrat-
ed to New York with the same determined 
mindset. They wanted to prove anything was 
possible in America, and attest to the validity 
of the rags to riches fantasy. To their dismay, 
achieving the American Dream was harder 
than they’d expected as non-English speak-
ers without a college education. Sacrificing 
this dream for their blue-collar jobs, they 
passed these aspirations down to my siblings 
and me, pushing us to pursue higher educa-
tion so we would obtain high paying jobs. 
In becoming successful, they believed we 
would also live a happy and comfortable life. 
I find skepticism in that sentiment, however. 
As long as I am a person of color in America, 
I will never live comfortably because racism 
will remain an ailment hanging over me. As 
long as the color of my skin is the main deter-
minant of how society treats me, I will never 
be able to fulfill the American Dream. 
Coined by James Truslow Adams in his 
book “The Epic of America,” the American 
Dream is a dream in which an individual can 
be recognized “for what they are, regardless 
of the (unanticipated) circumstances of birth 
or position.” This has encouraged lower class 
Americans and immigrants to work harder 
and seek higher education in order to live a 

prosperous life, but it fails to acknowledge 
how one’s race plays a role in economic suc-
cess or societal acceptance. 
The United States has a history of systemi-
cally oppressing communities of color and 
immigrants in an effort to protect its white 
Americans from foreign influences. The 
Immigration Act of 1924 barred all Asians 
from entering the country and set quotas 
for countries outside of the Western Hemi-
sphere. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, over 
127,000 Japanese-Americans were forced to 
relocate to internment camps because Amer-
icans feared they were spies for the Japa-
nese government. More recently, the Trump 
administration ordered three variations of 
Muslim bans, the latest of which blocks peo-
ple from seven countries, five being predomi-
nately Muslim, from traveling to the U.S. The 
ban also denies Temporary Protected Status 
(TPS) for Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Syria 
— leaving refugees vulnerable to deportation 
back to countries in the midst of war, natural 
disasters and humanitarian crises. Restrict-
ing rights for communities of color is no dif-
ferent than upholding white supremacy. 
Black Americans have borne the brunt of 
centuries of systemic oppression. Despite 
the abolishment of slavery and segregation 
laws, American policies manage to covertly 
discriminate against the Black community 
across many facets of life, ultimately main-
taining many characteristics of the slave 
institution. The American Dream fails to 
recognize that not everyone is given an equal 
opportunity to succeed, and it would be naive 
to believe otherwise — however the glorifi-
cation of the dream itself nurtures the idea 
that everyone who comes from some sort of 
struggle has an equitable chance at acquiring 
said dream, but this is far from true. 

Read more at michigandaily.com

become misinformed. Historian Lyra Mon-
teiro notes how Miranda conducts a strat-
egy called “Founders Chic,” representing 
the founders of America as relatable or cool 
people. This strategy distracts from the fact 
that the Founding Fathers were enslavers. 
In regards to Hamilton specifically, who is 
decorated as a great anti-slavery abolition-
ist, it is not mentioned that he once worked 
on a slave ship. There were actually few 
white people who were opposed to slavery, 
especially in the Carribean, and there is no 
historical accounts or statement to back up 
that Hamilton was anti-slavery. One of the 
reasons why Hamilton didn’t own slaves 
was because he was a poor immigrant, thus 
it was rather a practical addition rather than 
a moral protest. 
Furthermore, the beautiful, intelligent 
and independent portrayal of the Schuyler 
family and sisters, while entertaining, dis-
tracts from their grand involvement in the 
business of enslaving. Elizabeth Schyuler 
was able to sing tunes such as “Helpless” 
at the ball and attract Hamilton because 
she had several enslaved people to prepare 
her. And on the note of the Schuyler sisters, 
“Hamilton” is also criticized for not passing 
the Bechdel test — while it seemingly fea-
tures strong women, all the dialogue and plot 
revolve around the men.
Another core feature of the musical, which 
is also extremely problematic, is Miranda’s 
usage of the bootstraps immigration narra-
tive. Hamilton is depicted as a rags to riches 
story. While it can’t be denied Hamilton may 
have worked hard for his success, it heavily 
denotes his other success factors and gas-
lights the struggles of other immigrants who 
may have worked just as hard but had soci-
etal oppressors keeping them from the same 
level of success. Factors such as structural 
racism, predatory capitalism and policies 
which prevented citizenship which...

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CHERYN HONG
MiC Managing Editor

Graphic by Cheryn Hong

