“Immigrants! We get the Job Done!”: newcomers remaking America on Broadway

Abstract

The Broadway musical theatre was largely the creation of the children of immigrants. These newcomers to American culture rarely emphasized their ethnic origins and they had little interest in preserving the musical and dramatic forms of their parent’s homelands. Nevertheless, while striving to produce work, they saw as distinctly “American” these artists reimagined and reinvented “American” traditions. They also drew on African American musical forms and in some cases collaborated with African American artists (albeit on highly unequal terms). In recent years a new generation of the children of immigrants has revitalized the musical theatre. Their work blends popular forms – hip hop most notably, with older Broadway musical traditions. The musical Hamilton illustrates how ethnic outsiders are creating a musical theatre that is less concerned with preserving an ethnic heritage than with remaking an “American” story in ways that speak to the experience of young people in today’s superdiverse cities.

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