"America", and the slow creep of progress

My favorite song in all of West Side Story is "America", for multiple reasons. First, it's just so damn fun. Like, how can you watch this and not fall in love with the infectious energy of the song?

Second, the medium of film has given this particular song room to breathe in ways the stage production cannot. Here, we get a delightful call-and-response song from the Puerto Rican men and woman, debating opportunity in America. In the stage production, we get a home-sick girl being teased by her friends about wanting to go back to Puerto Rico.

Allegedly, this creative choice was forced upon writer Stephen Sondheim as the Sharks boys had to make a costume change during the performance of this particular song. However, this makes the show production feel lacking. (This is by no fault of the actors involved—Karen Olivo in this particular rendition is a revelation, and I've maybe watched this video almost as many times as the scene from the film version. Don't @ me. Stage musicals will forever have a piece of my heart.)

Without the call-and-response of the disparity between the American dream and immigrant reality, however, we lose some of the color from the film version. Despite being from a film that was released in 1961, based on a musical released in 1957, "America" hits on themes that feel disturbingly familiar even 60 years later. This line hits particularly hard:

Ladies: Life can be bright in America

Men: If you can fight in America

Ladies: Life is alright in America

Men: If you're all white in America

The lie of the American dream, taken out of context of an upbeat dance number in a musical, echoes hollowly when you realize how much further we have left to go.

It strongly reminded me of when I revisited the late John Lewis's seminal speech at the March on Washington after his death. (Unrelated tangent: It was just two years after the release of West Side Story.) His words, too, have an eerie quality that too closely mirror the injustices we are still fighting against today.

"To those who have said, “Be patient and wait,” we have long said that we cannot be patient. We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now! We are tired.  We are tired of being beaten by policemen. We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jail over and over again. And then you holler, “Be patient.” How long can we be patient? We want our freedom and we want it now. We do not want to go to jail. But we will go to jail if this is the price we must pay for love, brotherhood, and true peace."

The American dream has long since been denied to BIPOC and Latinx communities. They have long since been seen as others, as dangers, as undeserving. Even in West Side Story, we see an early scene where an altercation between rival gangs is split up by police. Immediately, the officers pull a white boy from the Jets and ask him to identify who roughed him up from the opposing Puerto Rican Sharks. The assumption was that it wasn't the white boys who started the fight—it was the ones who didn't fit the classic mold of a wholesome, American teen who did.

In "America", we see the wide-eyed idealism of the American dream that brought so many immigrants to this country contrasted against the stark reality of the uphill battle many found themselves facing upon reaching the shores of this so-called land of the free. The land of opportunity was open only to those America deemed worthy, and that certainly did not include Puerto Ricans.

Ladies: Here you are free and you have pride

Men: 'Long as you stay on your own side

Ladies: Free to be anything you choose

Men: Free to wait tables and shine shoes

We still see the effects of America's xenophobia to immigrants that were being called out by a Jewish musical theater composer and lyricist. We still see the racial injustices that were being called out by a Black civil rights activist. The road to progress is long, but we should not look back at anything that was made 60 years ago and realize we are staring straight into a mirror.

I love "America," because it is a delightful 5 minute romp of musical euphoria. I love "America," because it so clearly calls out problems we had in the late 50's that we still see today. I love "America," because it shows us how we have failed our fellow American citizens. I love "America," because it show us what America can really be if it is actually built on the promises it has made.

Note: Hi! If you're here and not subscribed, please do that so I don't have to be annoying about my blog on social media. And if you're here and subscribed, please tell me it's fine to be annoying about my blog on social media.