West Side Story; The Discrimination Behind the Song and Dance According to Alberto Sandoval-Sanchez, The musical (West Side Story) projects ethnic difference as a threat to the territorial, racial and linguistic identity, as well as to the national and imperial subjectivity of Anglo Americans. The musical, uses plot points, characters, music, dialogue and dances as a distraction from the ethnic and racial discrimination against Puerto Rican immigrants of that time. West Side Story may not necessarily immediately appear to be an inherently racist musical, however according to Puerto Rican Alberto Sandoval-Sanchez, after immigrating to the US in 1973 to attend college, the musical was frequently imposed upon him as a model for his Puerto Rican …show more content…
(73) Although it is a Puerto Rican who sings it, the patriotic message is delivered by an assimilated immigrant who despises her origin and culture and prefers the comfort of the "American way of life." This song has “typical Spanish” rhythm and choreography. The song's confrontation of identities takes place when the Puerto Ricans consciously take sides on issues of assimilation. The importance of this scene does not derive simply from its comical aspect, but rather, from the fact that the Puerto Ricans insult each other for being divided politically and ideologically between the nationalists and the assimilated. (73) According to Sandoval-Sanchez, “In the film version, this scene, which, in the original text is a racist and defamatory articulation toward Puerto Rico, was revised in order to soften the negative attitude, toward Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican immigrants.” (74) In the film, Anita sings, "My heart's devotion." Immediately, the line is followed by "Let it sink back in the ocean," a statement of contempt. Compared to the version sang in the film, the original text was far less watered down, “Puerto Rico, you ugly island, Island of tropic diseases. Always the hurricanes blowing, Always the population growing, and the money owing, and the babies crying, and the bullets flying.” FIND A …show more content…
Sandoval Sanchez argues, “Romantic melodrama is a strategy of power used to hide and soften the racist discourse. The narrative detour from warfare to love story functions as a camouflage. In these terms, the system of power disassociates itself from any consciousness of racial prejudice and discrimination.” (72) Their utopian love cannot exist and the Puerto Ricans are the ones portrayed as being responsible for it. The Puerto Ricans provoke the Jets by killing one of them, Tony responds by killing Bernardo, and the chain is closed when Chino kills Tony. With this final death, the happily-ever-after outcome for Maria (and the audience) is impossible. In addition, in this last scene, Chino is arrested. It is clear that prison is the only space available for criminal immigrants. In this final scene, the audience identifies with Maria and Tony. Only Chino bears the blame for the tragedy. It does not cross the viewer's mind that Tony is also a criminal. (73) His crime is obscured by Maria's love when she sings the song "I Have a Love": it is a kind of love that is too strong to be rational. Ironically although Tony has killed her brother, she cannot stop adoring him: "Te adoro, Anton." In the tragic last moments of the film, Maria sings of a distant dream, a utopia of love after life, in “Somewhere.” But is this a place, in reality that she can ever reach? Her
During the 1920s and 1930s, it was not uncommon for directors to assign roles that were inconsistent with del Rio’s Latinx identity. Exotic storylines often told the common stories that are reminiscent of the colonization of countries inhabited by people of color. Although these films exemplified her “foreignness” to American culture, none portrayed del Rio as more “exotic” as when she starred in Bird of Paradise, a romantic drama directed by King Vidor (1932), as the “savage princess, Luana” (18). The Bird of Paradise portrays a native princess, Luana, who meets Johnny Baker, a South Seas American man who jumps in a ship and arrives on her island before the two fall in love with each other. Described as having an “alien beauty [that] fits in so effectively with her role” by the New York Herald Tribune, Dolores del Rio is represented as a “foreign” woman who is saved by a white man in the film and is ultimately viewed as the “white [male] hero’s desire” (18).
Lalo Guerrero was one of the first pioneers in the Chicano music industry. Guerrero offered the barrios a voice by incorporating their vitality, anguish, and humor into songs that helped Mexicans in the Southwest recognize their shared identity. He personified the fundamental humanity of the barrios over a career that “spanned la Crisis of the 1930s, the Zoot Suit Riots of the 1940s, and the Chicano Movement of the 1960s” (Sheridan, 298). Guerrero turned his observations into songs that reached millions of listeners. His songs were personally filled with emotion, enough to make the listeners relate to the story being told.
In the film, at one of the funerals, when sterlin was at his aunts funeral, as the pastor began to sing none of the young ones sung along because they did not know the song nor did they learn the
While looking through a feminist lens and reading/watching both Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story, one notices a lot about women. How they are depicted, how they’re treated, and what opportunities they’re given. However, the question most observed in both stories is how much agency they have. Agency is defined as the ability to change their circumstances and when analyzing text in a feminist perspective, women often have little to no agency. From a feminist literary lense, both Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story depict female characters with agency stripped from them.
A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry and whose title was derived from the poem Harlem by Langston Hughes, is a tragic play taking place in South Side, Chicago, where it portrays the life of an African American family known as the Youngers in the 1950s. The play, A Raisin in the Sun, reflects modern thought by reconstructing the ideals of a modern family in American society through the idea of assimilation and its cause of cultural clashes, how wealth plays a role in social status, and how racial discrimination is still pervasive today even after movements that brought such changes of better equality to light. The assimilation movement that appears as the primary contender for cultural clashes within the play presents the social struggle
These words by poets Aurora and Rosario Morales, Puerto Rican Americans, reveal the struggle of the average Puerto Rican. For example, most islanders do not fully understand who they are or how to present themselves when someone asks, “What is your family’s ancestry like?” or, “Where does Puerto Rico get its unique culture?” These questions spark the idea of a questioning identity. This is because the island of Puerto Rico was formed with the help of many different cultures. Are the people of this island African?
Many people debate whether they should do this to our beloved National Anthem. They only have a problem with the language and not the actual lyrics. This version of the Star Spangled Banner connected the barriers between politics and culture. Even though, there is a lot of protest to this song, it brought the Latino community (SANNEH). “Nuestro Himno” is the name of our National Anthem in Spanish.
The result of Juan leaving was major, but it was not what was to be expected. Usually a person falls apart when their spouse leaves them, but Maria becomes extremely cold. When her child dies from complications of birth, Maria,”becomes stolid, refusing even to cry when her child is born and dies”(DeMouy). She still battles on and continues her daily life. When the women and girls offer their sympathies and prayers to Maria, she simplys replies, “Keep your prayers to yourself, Lupe, or offer them for others who need them.
In the past, racial profiling has been used numerous times by police officers and people who thought races other than white were the cause of every case and problem. They thought they were better because they were white and blamed people of other races for committing crimes by judging everyone based off ethnicity. In the play, Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez, Henry and the 38th Street Gang were accused of crimes they have not committed because they were Mexican- American. Today this is still seen society. The play’s messages was that people who were discriminated because they were not white, which is still relevant today.
When Rodriguez was a young boy, he enjoyed listening to his family speak, but when he listened, he wasn’t wholly listening to the actual language itself, but to the sounds that the people made when speaking (Rodriguez, 250). Spanish wasn’t simply a language to him; Spanish was the glue and the strong bond that kept the family so close, and this language meant something significant to Rodriguez, and this becomes prominent when he says, “Walking toward our house, climbing the steps from the sidewalk, in summer when the front door was open. I’d hear voices beyond the screen door talking in Spanish. For a second or two I’d stay, linger there listening. Smiling, I’d hear my mother call out, saying in Spanish, ‘Is that you, Richard?’
The immigrants entering the United States throughout its history have always had a profound effect on American culture. However, the identity of immigrant groups has been fundamentally challenged and shaped as they attempt to integrate into U.S. society. The influx of Mexicans into the United States has become a controversial political issue that necessitates a comprehensive understanding of their cultural themes and sense of identity. The film Mi Familia (or My Family) covers the journey and experiences of one Mexican-American (or “Chicano”) family from Mexico as they start a new life in the United States. Throughout the course of the film, the same essential conflicts and themes that epitomize Chicano identity in other works of literature
Wicked is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz based on a book by Winnie Holzman. The musical is told from the perspective of the witches of the Land of Oz. Wicked celebrated its tenth anniversary on Broadway on 30 October 2013. It is the 9th longest-Broadway show, surpassing Beauty and the Beast. A typical performance runs for approximately two hours and thirty minutes.
The man had called out, saying “Hijito…”, which equates to “my boy” in English (Rodriguez 312). The weight that certain languages carry for individuals is demonstrated here. If the worker had simply said “my boy” to Rodriguez, he would have thought nothing of it, but because the man said “Hijito…”, he resurrected deep emotions within Rodriguez by using a language that Rodriguez held to a high standard. The man used Rodriguez’s private, intimate language. Rodriguez also writes about an experience he had with a nun when he hears the nuns singing.
I chose this film because it showed how hard the union workers and families worked in fighting racial injustices, and because it inspired myself to move forward with strong ideologies and pride. 2. Stereotyping in mass media was an important concern of Chicana/o media activists because it imprinted a demeaning label by only casting Chicana/o actors with "minor roles: villains, sidekicks, temptresses, where their main function is to provide the protagonists, typically a handsome white
The film Dances With Wolves is a moving, culturally significant American western film produced in 1990 and directed by Kevin Costner, who also plays the lead role of John J. Dunbar. It portrays a fictional account of the relationship between a soldier and a tribe of Sioux indians. In the beginning, Dunbar is an injured soldier who accidentally makes himself a hero while trying to commit suicide by riding his horse in front of the enemy. When given a choice for where he wants to be stationed he requests the frontier, because he wants to see it “before it’s gone. ”While stationed alone at Fort Sedgwick in Dakota territory, he befriends the people of a nearby Lakota tribe.