Let’s embrace ‘Hamilton’ musical’s message on immigrants

Not long ago Tim Dutton and I went to see “Hamilton” – the award-winning Broadway musical – during its recent run at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, which is right down the road from our home in Sarasota.

Tim had been saying for years that he wanted to see the musical, so when he heard it was coming to Sarasota he jumped at the opportunity to buy tickets. We sat in Row 29, which is the very last row in the theater, and even still the tickets were $150 each! We’ve never spent that much on tickets for anything.

As we entered the theater, I noticed that the audience was overwhelmingly white. This is a common experience in Sarasota whether I’m downtown, at arts venues or at the beaches. Since moving back to Sarasota, this has become an increasingly uncomfortable reality to experience as a white woman myself – and particularly so as the local presence of people who support right-wing politics has grown. It often feels oppressive and suffocating.

I’d heard that “Hamilton” had become extremely popular since it premiered in 2015, but I really didn’t know much about it. I was blown away: the story, the acting, the music, the dancing, the set, the costumes . . . all spectacular.

Perhaps what blew me away the most, though, was the reaction of the audience to the line in the musical when Hamilton and fellow “founding father” Henry Laurens – both recent immigrants to America – declared, “Immigrants – we get the job done!”

The audience in the Van Wezel burst into enthusiastic applause and cheering.

What does it mean that so many people in such a white and wealthy-enough-to-afford-$150-and-upfor-one-ticket audience would respond with such excitement to this line?

Even amid all the MAGA rhetoric, is there actually a dormant pride in immigrant identity?

Even amid all the anti-immigrant policymaking in Florida and across the United States, is there a dormant pride in the hope, courage, determination, endurance and deep commitment to future generations that is displayed by immigrants?

Is there a dormant pride that the overwhelming majority of people – in Sarasota, in Florida, and across America – are eager to reconnect with and express?

Are folks growing ready to proclaim, “I’m an immigrant, too”?

Are they ready to rally around our present-day immigrants, the Alexander Hamiltons of our era?

If we imagine the possibilities, it might become more possible for us to tune into the signs and signals of immigrant solidarity that are already emerging.

I noticed these signs at the recent Newtown Easter Parade and Egg Hunt, where Black neighbors extended an invitation to all of us to join in. And each day I notice these signals in nearby Wimauma, where neighbors who have recently relocated to the contiguous U.S. from Puerto Rico, Mexico and Guatemala – as well as from other places in the Caribbean and Central and South America – are leading opportunities for all of us to join together and create a thriving community.

Maybe we are already far more united, through a shared pride in our immigrant identity, than we think we are.

Maybe “the Great (I’m)migration” is already upon us.

Stay tuned.

Allison Pinto is a resident of the Newtown community in Sarasota. She is a clinical child psychologist and a place-based practitioner who has facilitated resident-led community change efforts throughout Florida over the past two decades.