Immigrants face many challenges and experiences when they come to America, whether they came here freely or not. Often they must fight to stay and prove that they belong here. They have many barriers to cross such as differences in language, race, culture, and most importantly people that don’t want them to be in the area that these immigrants found themselves in. The movies Brother From Another Planet and West Side Story portray such challenges very clearly and through analysis we can see many historical issues being addressed, such as slavery and ethnic tension.
Brother From Another Planet is famous for its analogy to the experiences of runaway slaves. We can see this when “Brother” finds himself in a place that he is unfamiliar with (Harlem) and has people searching for him for the purpose of bringing him back to where he is from, just as the runaway slaves from the South did. We can see examples of the challenges that Brother faces all throughout the movie. The first example can be found when the police officer chases him after he unknowingly steals from a store. Because of his unawareness of Earth’s culture, he finds himself in such an unfortunate situation. However, that is only one of the unfortunate situations he finds himself in. The next example can be found in the bar scene when Brother’s lack of speech causes a false assumption from the men. They wrongly assume that Brother must be either crazy or mentally retarded. This shows just how much stereotype immigrants had to confront. The most dangerous challenge that Brother faces, however, isn’t from the people that he is surrounded by, but instead from the people that are looking for him. He is constantly on the run from these people but luckily with much help from those that he can call friends, he manages to avoid them. The mise-en-scene that I decided to practice for this movie can perhaps put a lot of things into perspective. The museum scene does the best job at openly acknowledging the issue that the movie addresses. There are three key elements at the museum that can be used to show the issue of slavery and how it applies to Brother. The scene begins with the tour guide introducing slavery by speaking about Harriet Tubman and her efforts in helping runaway slaves. The movie then shows one photograph that depicts a man bound with rope and the words “Am I not a man and a brother?” This is important in showing the exclusion that the African Americans, as well as other ethnic groups, had to face from the rest of society when they came to America. The next photograph is significant as well because it shows a Black man running away which Brother points to first and follows by pointing at himself, essentially explaining to the boy that he too is a runaway. Brother From Another Planet does an excellent job of demonstrating to the audience the difficulties that immigrants had to face in fighting for their freedom, which is one of the fundamental reasons that many of the immigrants came to America for.
Another major challenge faced by immigrants is demonstrated in the movie West Side Story and is also discussed in both Sanchez’s and Flores’s work. That challenge would be ethnic tension and conflict. By that I mean both violence over territory and the sense of threat that can arise for some from differences in ethnicity and culture, both of which are shown through the actions of the gangs in WSS. Sanchez explains to his readers that there is a lot of separation and stereotypes found in West Side Story. The separation he speaks of is found between the Jets (Anglo-Americans) and the Sharks (Puerto Ricans) and the stereotypes are directed towards the Puerto Ricans (Sharks) because of the way that the Anglo-Americans (Jets) look down upon them with disgust. A few examples of such stereotypes are available to use, such as, portraying Puerto Ricans as violent and criminal individuals. Even the name given to the Puerto Ricans in the movie (Sharks) is a strong example of the stereotypes associated with Puerto Ricans. Flores examines a different aspect of difficulty faced by Latinos. In order to be a full citizen, he says, one must be welcome and accepted as a full member of the society with all of its rights. However, full citizenship rights have systematically been denied to Latinos, which in turn results in Latinos fighting to claim space and rights, which once again is shown in the movie when the Sharks have to fight the Jets in order to defend their way of life. This territorial fighting between different groups can be seen in the “knife fight” scene where one member of the Sharks gang and one member of the Jets gang pull knives out and begin to fight. We can also see that not all are in support of this violence (ex: one guy from the Jets jumps on the Jets member that is fighting), however, they allow it to happen anyway. Perhaps this indicates, in a broader sense, that not all Americans were against the Latinos or other immigrants but, because the majority of the population was, they decided to not stop the conflicts, knowing that they most likely wouldn’t stand a chance.
* These movies provide a great deal of insight into the challenges faced by immigrants of the past, however challenges are still present today.
