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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...
Read more at michigandaily.com
CHERYN HONG
MiC Managing Editor
Graphic by Cheryn Hong