By: Kristen English
Throughout Act I of Hamilton there are many similarities drawn between political and social issues that affected society in the Revolutionary era as well as in today’s modern era. These comparisons are drawn through the use of lyrics in the music as well as the musical style itself. Act I focuses on the beginning of Hamilton’s journey from a poor, fatherless child growing up in the Caribbean to one of the most influential founding fathers remembered in history today. While the entire production focuses on, as told by Miranda, “a story about America then, told by America now,”. When you look solely at the written elements through the lyrics of Act I you can definitely see the intent of Miranda’s vision.
In the first song of the show, “Alexander Hamilton”, the lyrics focus on a young immigrant boy with a dream for a brighter tomorrow. The song centers on all of the struggles Hamilton faced growing up, while also repeating the underlying question of how Hamilton reached such success in his life while faced with so many challenges and hardships. This piece is crucial to today’s modern society and its skewed view on immigration as it stands as a reminder that this country was founded on immigration and the dream for a brighter tomorrow. The number also uses repetition with the line, “In New York you can be a new man,” to reiterate the fact that New York is the home of millions of immigrants just like Hamilton who traveled there to change their lives for the better. Miranda portrays Hamilton as a, “young, scrappy, and hungry” immigrant who through hard work and perseverance became one of the most influential men in our country’s history, commemorating him as an icon of the American Dream that is still prevalent in today’s society.
Act I goes one step further to create the parallels between the past and the present economic, social, and racial issues by adapting songs from the show from current hip-hop trends at the time. The song, “Wait for It”, has been labeled by many critics as not only a song describing Burr’s character in depth but also a narrative as to the destructions behind minorities being told to wait for their time to come. While parallels are also drawn between other songs directly being influenced by popular hip-hop artists at the time, such as Notorious B.I.G and Destiny’s child, which furthers the idea that the two eras are not too far off in terms of the societal issues that are present.
I feel as if Act I did an amazing job painting the immigrant success story that this country was founded on. With Miranda being a direct descendant of Puerto Rican immigrants, I feel his intent on the entire production was to portray these social issues that existed in the past as issues that still affect the present while also portraying the image of the immigrant success story.