“Another Immigrant Comin’ Up from the Bottom”: Reframing Alexander Hamilton’s Life as an Immigrant Narrative Through Hip Hop and Historical Fiction in Miranda’s Hamilton: an American Musical Satu Salo MA Thesis English, Language Speacialist Path School of Languages and Translation Studies Faculty of Humanities University of Turku November 2018 Turun yliopiston laatujärjestelmän mukaisesti tämän julkaisun alkuperäisyys on tarkastettu Turnitin OriginalityCheck -järjestelmällä. TURUN YLIOPISTO Kieli- ja käännöstieteiden laitos / Humanistinen tiedekunta SALO, SATU: “Another Immigrant Comin’ Up from the Bottom”: Reframing Alexander Hamilton’s Life as an Immigrant Narrative Through Hip Hop and Historical Fiction in Miranda’s Hamilton: an American Musical Tutkielma, 88 s. 10 liites. Englannin kieli, Kieliasiantuntijan Opintopolku Lokakuu 2018 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Tutkielmani tarkastelee Lin-Manuel Mirandan musikaalin Hamilton: An American Musical (2016) librettoa maahanmuuttokysymysten näkökulmasta. Musikaali yhdistää kerronnassaan hip hop musiikkia ja historiallista fiktiota, joten tutkielmani tarkastelee miten nämä ainesosat vaikuttavat musikaalin kerrontaan. Pro Gradu väittää, että Hamilton esittää päähenkilönsä Alexander Hamiltonin elämäntarinan maahanmuuttotarinana, joka uudelleenrakentaa Yhdysvaltain perustusmyytin maahanmuuttopositiiviseksi kertomukseksi hip hop-musiikin sekä historiallisen kaunokirjallisen kerronnan kautta. Pro Gradu tarkastelee aluksi hip hop tutkimuksen taustoja rakentaen perustelua sille, että rap-lyriikkaa voidaan analysoida runoutena. Tutkielma väittää, että rap on osa afrikkalaisamerikkalaisen kirjallisuustradition luonnollista jatkumoa ja on täten oikeutettu statukseensa runoutena. Tämän jälkeen tutkimus etenee musikaalin analyysiin, jossa aluksi käsitellään rap-runoudelle tyypillisiä kielikuvia ja ominaisuuksia, sekä sitä miten nämä ominaisuudet ilmenevät Hamilton-musikaalissa. Seuraavaksi tutkimus käsittelee historiallisen fiktion analyysia erityisesti suhteessa musikaaliin. Osio tutkii historian ja fiktion suhdetta, sekä totuuden merkitystä niin historiallisessa kirjallisuudessa yleensä, kuin Hamilton-musikaalissakin. Viimeiseksi tutkimus käsittelee maahanmuuttokysymyksiä Hamilton-musikaalissa. Tutkimus käy läpi aluksi Yhdysvaltain maahanmuuton historiaa sen perustamisajoilta nykypäivään. Tämän jälkeen tutkimus käy läpi maahanmuuttokirjallisuuden tavallisimpia rakenteita ja määrittelee maahanmuuttokirjallisuuden päärakenteiksi maahanmuuttaja sankarin, hänen taipaleensa sekä tapahtumat, jotka määrittelevät tuota taivalta. Tutkimus analysoi Hamilton-musikaalia näiden rakenteiden kautta. Lopuksi tutkimus käy läpi, miten rap-runous ja historiallinen fiktio vaikuttavat musikaalin rakentamaan maahanmuuttotarinaan. Tutkimus tulee siihen lopputulokseen, että rap-musiikin ja historiallisen fiktion kautta Hamilton uudelleenmäärittelee Alexander Hamiltonin elämäntarinan maahanmuuttotarinana, joka vahvistaa positiivista kuvaa maahanmuuttajista yhdysvaltalaisessa yhteiskunnassa. Asiasanat: hip hop, kirjallisuuden tutkimus, libretot, lyriikka, maahanmuutto, musikaalit, näytelmäkirjallisuus, raplyriikka, vähemmistökirjallisuus, Yhdysvallat 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 1 1.1. NOTES ON THE PRIMARY SOURCE AND A BRIEF SUMMARY OF HAMILTON ......................... 5 2. ACKNOWLEDGING RAP AS A FORM OF POETRY .............................................................. 7 2.1. THE COMMON OBJECTIONS OF CONSIDERING RAP AS POETRY ........................................ 9 2.2. RAP AS PART OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERARY TRADITION .......................................... 13 3. POETIC DEVICES OF RAP AND HOW THEY MANIFEST IN HAMILTON............................. 18 4. THE ISSUES OF ANALYZING HISTORICAL FICTION AND THE QUESTIONS OF TRUTH IN HAMILTON ................................................................................................................................... 33 4.1. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HISTORY AND FICTION ................................................... 34 4.2. THE QUESTIONS OF TRUTH AND HISTORICAL ACCURACY IN HAMILTON ........................... 36 5. HAMILTON AS AN IMMIGRANT NARRATIVE .................................................................. 42 5.1. HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION IN THE UNITED STATES ...................................................... 44 5.1.1. Immigration in Hamilton’s America ..................................................... 46 5.1.2. Immigration in contemporary America ............................................... 48 5.2. ISSUES OF IMMIGRATION IN LITERATURE .................................................................... 50 5.3. HAMILTON AS AN IMMIGRANT STORY ....................................................................... 53 5.3.1. Alexander Hamilton as an Immigrant Hero ......................................... 54 5.3.2. Alexander Hamilton’s Immigrant Journey and the Series of Trials ...... 64 5.3.3. Retelling Alexander Hamilton’s Story as an Immigrant Narrative Through Hip Hop and Historical Fiction ............................................................ 74 6. “ANOTHER IMMIGRANT COMING UP FROM THE BOTTOM”: CONCLUSION ................. 83 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................. 85 FINNISH SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................... 89 1. Introduction It’s really astonishing that in a country founded by immigrants, “immigrant” has somehow become a bad word. J. Period in “Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)” in The Hamilton Mixtape (2016) In early December of 2016, the hip hop album The Hamilton Mixtape debuted as number one on Billboard’s 200 list (Caulfield, 2016). It was an album inspired by the musical theater phenomenon Hamilton: An American Musical that had begun its Broadway run a year earlier. The Hamilton Mixtape (2016) consists of both covers of the hits from the musical as well as original music inspired by the play by hip hop and pop artists such as Nas, Common, Alicia Keyes, and Sia. The original songs follow the themes of the play and thus at the center of the album is the question of what it feels like to be a marginalized person in today’s United States. The song “Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)”, which opens with the above statement made by the music producer J. Period, focuses on the immigrant experiences in America. The issues of immigration have been a prevailing political question since America’s founding and they continue to be at the center of contemporary political discussion both in the United States and worldwide. The contemporary political discussion on immigrant issues tend to frame immigration solely as a problem and the word immigrant, as J. Cole puts it, has “become a bad word” (The Hamilton Mixtape 2016). The musical Hamilton (2015), written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, examines the issues of immigration in both the historical and contemporary America by reframing one of its Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, life story as an immigrant narrative. This immigrant story is told through the mixture of historical fiction and hip hop music. These two main components of the play bring together the past and the present while examining the question of what it means to be an immigrant in America. The juxtaposition between the past and the present is further emphasized in the casting of the play. On the stage the Founders and other historically white characters become African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx, as well as immigrants of America. For example, Miranda himself, a second-generation Puerto Rican immigrant, portrayed Alexander Hamilton as part of the play’s original cast in 2015 until summer 2016. Consequently, the casting choice mixed with hip hop creates a unique perspective to 1 examine the myth of the American Founding. The musical’s director, Thomas Kail has described the play as “a story about America then, told by America now” (Miranda & McCarter 2016, 33). At the center of this fictionalized retelling of the American founding is the issue of immigration, both as it appeared during the founding of the nation as well as the way in which it is still present in contemporary America. The play reframes Alexander Hamilton’s story as an immigrant narrative through the mixture of hip hop and historical fiction. This thesis examines the reframing of Alexander Hamilton’s life story as an immigrant narrative by analyzing it through the theoretical framework of immigrant narratives presented by Madelaine Hron in her book Translating Pain: Immigrant Suffering in Literature and Culture (2009). In her book Hron examines the issues of immigrant literature in America by applying immigrant psychology into literary analysis. The focus of her work is both the physical and psychological suffering that is expressed in the literature of immigrants in America. She argues that this suffering often goes ignored and the prevailing view on immigrants is that once an immigrant is successful in their assimilation to their new country, all suffering will cease to exist. Her research offers the main parameters through which this thesis examines Hamilton as an immigrant narrative. Hron (2009, 15) identifies three main components of immigrant narratives, which are the immigrant hero, the journey and the