Through this week’s two films, Brother From Another Planet and West Side Story, immigration, assimilation and cultural identity was explored. These two films gave a picture of the difficulties immigrants have to face once in the country. Some immigrant groups are unfairly treated. The immigrant definition of “American” differs from nationality to nationality. Assimilation is an important subject that both films touched upon. With these two films, along with the readings, we are given a glimpse of how our society perceives immigrants, and how immigrants perceive themselves.
West Side Story shows a love story on the surface, with racial, cultural undertones. While most of the film focused on the romance between Maria and Tony, the key conflict involved a group of White, Anglo-Saxon Americans (Jets), and Puerto Ricans (Sharks.) Using musical lyrics, the difficulties in being an immigrant are described. A double standard is shown. Leading up to the song “America,” Anita brings up factual and interesting points on the perception of immigrants, either speaking from her opinion, or mocking Bernardo.
“Your mother’s a Pole, your father’s a Swede, but you were born here, and that’s all that you need. You are an American. But us? Foreigners.”
“Once an immigrant, always an immigrant.”
This characterizes the difficulty that the Puerto Ricans in this movie, and the immigrants in our life, face. While the whites were born to immigrant parents, they are seen as American, assimilated, and dominant in culture. On the other hand, the Puerto Ricans were viewed as foreigners. They were stereotyped in the film, seen as criminal, aggressive, and dark-skinned. Sanchez critiques this view of Puerto Rican immigrants, and Latinos in general, in his article on West Side Story. The scene in the dancehall shows the difference in cultures, a microcosm of the vastly different worlds of Jet and Shark. The Jets were vanilla, in both a literal and a dance sense, standard and expected. The Sharks danced with “flavor” (sorry), with an attitude and unorthodox-ness not expected from the Jets.
The conflict between White and Puerto Rican, American and Immigrant, can be seen with the relationship of Maria and Tony. They were not allowed to love, with each receiving significant criticism. The interracial love between them seemed to be impossible, ultimately coming to a tragic end. No matter how much they tried to have their relationship work, the cultures they were part of prevented them from loving each other. Assimilation for the Puerto Ricans seemed impossible as well, always brought down by the stereotypes mentioned by the Jets and the screen portrayal itself. Sanchez claims that the stereotypes brought upon by the film further create the perception of the difficulty to assimilate. The portrayal shown by West Side Story makes it hard to believe that one can successfully assimilate, through its songs and action.
While West Side Story directly showed the difficulties of immigrant life and assimilation, the 1984 film The Brother From Another Planet detailed the struggle in allegorical terms. The allegorical and symbolic devices used in the film are present everywhere. After reading Guerrero’s passage “Slaves, Monsters and Others,” I realized that the film critiqued not only immigration, but slavery, and life as an African American as well. The “Brother” was the immigrant, in a new world, unable to communicate. While he encountered many other immigrants/minorities throughout the film, he was still seen as different. One key image the film used was at the beginning. The Brother was standing in Harlem, with the Apollo Theatre in the background. While he was in an African-American community, he was still at the receiving end of bewildered looks. Though he visually looked like and resembled the other people (except the foot,) he was seen as an outsider, an immigrant. The odd view of the outsider was again shown when the Brother walks into the bar.
One important aspect of The Brother From Another Planet I noticed was the willingness of the community to help the Brother assimilate, and become part of the community. This is similar to the immigrant identity and sense of community detailed by Flores in “Citizens vs. Citizenry.” Although the brother couldn’t speak or communicate, the people of Harlem helped him find work, and a place to stay. This sense of community was further seen at the film’s conclusion. When the brother was cornered by the men in black, (who were white) a group of people, supposedly other aliens, came to his aid. The togetherness, and resistance to dominant forces is an aspect of immigrant life that was not seen in West Side Story.
I completely thought that The Brother From Another Planet was about immigration only. But “Slaves, Monsters, and Others” described the film as an allegory for slavery. The Brother was a runaway slave, and the Men in Black were the slave catchers. The article also mentioned how the ghettoes blacks live in create a new slavery, which is interesting to note. Furthermore, Guerrero calls the Brother an example of “The Model Minority.” These views are really interesting to me, as I originally saw it just as a film about immigration. The undertones and symbolism about the film shows careful planning and great attention to detail.
In some cases, assimilation into American culture can be difficult. As shown in West Side Story, stereotypes can prevent others from seeing some immigrants as assimilated, and part of the American culture. In The Brother From Another Planet, the difficulty in living as an immigrant, even in a city full of them, was shown. Assimilation is the next step for immigrants living in America. Immigration is a step in becoming part of the American way of life, not the destination.
