{"id":5367,"date":"2022-05-13T00:46:28","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T04:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/?p=5367"},"modified":"2022-05-13T00:46:28","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T04:46:28","slug":"kalhan-on-hamilton-and-the-limits-of-contemporary-immigration-narratives-kalhan-drexelkline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/2022\/05\/13\/kalhan-on-hamilton-and-the-limits-of-contemporary-immigration-narratives-kalhan-drexelkline\/","title":{"rendered":"Kalhan on Hamilton and the Limits of Contemporary Immigration Narratives @kalhan @DrexelKline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anil Kalhan, Drexel University School of Law, has published Hamilton and the Limits of Contemporary Immigration Narratives<\/a> in Hamilton and the Law: Reading Today\u2019s Most Contentious Legal Issues through the Hit Musical (Lisa A. Tucker ed., Cornell Univ. Press 2020). Here is the abstract.<\/p>\n

Lin-Manuel Miranda and the other creators of Hamilton: An American Musical have often described the show as \u201ca story about America then, told by America now.\u201d The musical\u2019s code-switching reimagination of eighteenth-century political history through the lens of inclusive, contemporary values has garnered acclaim for foregrounding the centrality of immigration to the American experience. But \u201cAmerica now,\u201d like \u201cAmerica then,\u201d is a nation of both nativists and immigrants. Informed by immigration history, what might the opposite approach\u2014a story about immigration in \u201cAmerica now,\u201d told by \u201cAmerica then\u201d\u2014look like and reveal? In this chapter, I explore the answers that a critical examination of Hamilton itself suggests to this question.<\/p>\n

Consider, for example, the musical\u2019s biggest applause line, when Hamilton and Lafayette proclaim, \u201cImmigrants: we get the job done!\u201d With a boost from the track bearing that same name on the bestselling tie-in album, The Hamilton Mixtape, the line might be the show\u2019s most widely known\u2014highlighting, as Miranda has stated, \u201cthat many people who contribute to the prosperity of this nation aren\u2019t born here.\u201d Read in light of Hamilton\u2019s larger themes, the line could be understood as a broad affirmation of the full range of immigrants\u2019 contributions to society\u2014large and small, tangible and intangible, visible and hidden.<\/p>\n

When read against the status-based, hierarchical practices of Alexander Hamilton\u2019s own era, however, that same line might carry a rather different meaning. Eighteenth-century authorities selectively welcomed migration and settlement by white Protestants seen as desirable, but simultaneously subjected those deemed undesirable to marginalization, exploitation, exclusion, and removal. A story about immigrants \u201cgetting the job done\u201d told by \u201cAmerica then\u201d accordingly might be understood as merely a qualified, instrumental affirmation\u2014one that similarly values only immigrants deemed desirable, and then, too, in narrowly defined economic terms.<\/p>\n

Hamilton\u2019s narrow celebration of immigrants who \u201cget the job done,\u201d resting on a dichotomy between desirable and undesirable immigrants, is not exclusively the product of antiquated eighteenth-century values. To the contrary, contemporary discourse about immigration, which Hamilton reflects and incorporates, carries analogous distinctions between \u201cgood immigrants\u201d and \u201cbad immigrants.\u201d The persistence and reinforcement of such distinctions obscure the full range of principles embodied in immigration policy\u2014including, for example, family unity, humanitarian protection, human rights, and the rule of law\u2014and hinder efforts to affirm that immigrants should be treated with dignity on an expansive, egalitarian basis, regardless of their perceived \u201cworthiness\u201d in immigration law or political discourse. Ultimately, Hamilton itself might be an \u201cunfinished symphony\u201d with respect to its narratives on immigration, one challenging its audiences to \u201crise up\u201d by developing more nuanced and expansive narratives that seek to move beyond pervasive, but perilous distinctions in contemporary discourse between \u201cgood immigrants\u201d and \u201cbad immigrants.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.<\/p>\n\n

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Anil Kalhan, Drexel University School of Law, has published Hamilton and the Limits of Contemporary Immigration Narratives in Hamilton and the Law: Reading Today\u2019s Most Contentious Legal Issues through the Hit Musical (Lisa A....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,294],"tags":[440,538,546,657,132],"class_list":["post-5367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law-and-music","category-law-and-theater","tag-hamilton-musical","tag-law-and-music","tag-law-and-narrative","tag-law-and-theater","tag-news"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pasVL2-1oz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5368,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5367\/revisions\/5368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}