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| I wanted to put a video of the performance here but it's not online yet. |
This line is without a doubt my favourite line in the musical. In fact, as an immigrant, "Hamilton" is extremely important to me. In a time when there are talks about certain people wanting to deport all immigrants (though I do recognise that I have white privilege here and I am not what those people picture when they hear the word 'immigrant') it's very nice to have a show about American history that celebrates the fact that the real Alexander Hamilton, and many of his revolutionary cronies, were immigrants.
Hamilton came from Nevis in the Caribbean. The Marquis de Lafayette (portrayed in the show by Bay Area native and nice Jewish boy Daveed Diggs) came from France. Hercules Mulligan (portrayed by Okieriete Onaodowan) came from Ireland, though the show does not make as much of his Irish roots as I would like.
And myself? I was born in Piaseczno, a town not terribly far from Warszawa, the capitol city of Poland. While I have been lucky enough to mostly escape 'dumb Polak' jokes (though I have heard a few and it never fails to astound me when people say them to me - do they honestly expect me to laugh or do they want me to be uncomfortable?) it's still been a cause of stress over the years.
The biggest stress factor as a child was people making fun of what was then a very strong Polish accent. Kids would mock the way I said things, or try to get me to say words I could not say just so they could laugh. They laughed to my face and behind my back every time a well-meaning teacher corrected my pronunciation. When I had to go to ESL classes, since my family was in California none of the ESL teachers spoke Polish. I watched a lot of videos in Vietnamese and Spanish and they didn't help me. I had to learn it on my own.
My mother made me take on a more American name. She made me go to speech therapy for three years until I sounded like "a real American". I don't have a Polish accent anymore, except when I get very tired or very drunk. But I've never forgotten that burning shame I felt every time someone mocked my accent, my attempts to learn their strange language all by myself. I still get this knee-jerk reaction of anger when someone corrects my pronunciation on something, even all these years later.
And "Hamilton"? "Hamilton" even gets this part of the American experience right. There's a line in Act Two where Hamilton's enemies - Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Aaron Burr - mock his Caribbean roots, taunting him in the song "We Know" by imitating that accent and telling him "ya best gwan run back where ya come from!" It's a cruel taunt, and those of us who grew up with that understand exactly why Hamilton reacts with such anger. That kind of thing digs under your skin.
I don't really feel "American enough". But the last time I went to Poland, I felt "too American". I don't fit in in my home country - Poland is an extremely conservative Catholic country, and I'm an extremely liberal Jewish person. I like "Hamilton", and the historical figure of Alexander Hamilton, for showing me that you don't have to be born here to be considered a "real American", despite what people think.
And the actual Revolutionary War did have a fair amount of Polish immigrants joining the fight as well. None of them show up in "Hamilton" - I don't think the real Hamilton knew any of them that well, he wasn't the most sociable man - but the two most famous are Casimir Pulaski and Tadeusz Kościuszko. Pulaski saved George Washington's life, and even died for this country that was not his own. Kościuszko dedicated the money he'd earned in the war towards the abolitionist efforts to free American slaves. That is the Polish-in-America legacy that I would love to live up to. After all, immigrants do get the job done.
So thank you, "Hamilton". Thank you, Lin-Manuel, for giving the world that lyric, for inspiring immigrants like myself. Dziękuję, and congratulations on all those Tonys.
~N~
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