How Hamilton is giving me hope for our immigrant nation.
[LAFAYETTE]
Immigrants:
[HAMILTON/LAFAYETTE]
We get the job done
These lines from Hamilton’s Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)song resonate so much with me that I get goose bumps every time I listen to it. I find myself listening to the soundtrack a lot lately. It gives me hope in these uncertain times and it reminds me of the many things I am grateful for and the ideals and values that people fought for us to have in this great country.
These inspiring lines make me think of my family and the many other immigrant families who have a deep love and gratitude for this country and have embraced the opportunity to serve as good citizens and build a life here. It reminds me of how my father, who immigrated here in the early 70’s with my mother, taught me that even though I was born here I should work ten times harder than anyone expects of me and do everything in my power to prove that I am just as valuable a member of society or employee as anyone else. His work ethic is truly the immigrant work ethic and so I smile and nod when I hear “we get the job done.”
Like my mom and dad and so many others, immigrants have contributed so much to this country, and their love, hard work and gratitude is immense because they do not take this opportunity for granted. They recognize how special this country is; how unique it is for its inclusiveness and opportunities, because they know how it is elsewhere. They know that we must protect these special traits for the sake of progress and for the sake of staying true to the foundation that our founding fathers had built.
This great “experiment” or “melting pot” as they taught us as kids, is worth every fight we (immigrants and U.S. born citizens) put up to keep it a place where immigrants and people of all races, creeds and genders can live together in one nation. And whenever I’m feeling worried about where we are going I turn on the Hamilton soundtrack and I think of how many people have listened to it, have loved it, have waited online for tickets for it. There are too many Hamilton-loving, good people in this country for us to despair.
Even if we go through some hard times, there are enough of us that want to be on the right side of history that we will not lose the American dream and the value of inclusiveness so quickly or easily. We and our values will endure on stage, in real life and in our local communities. Even if we hit a deep low at a place called the “bottom”:
“We’re gonna rise up!”
Because that’s what we do. It’s what our founders did and what they expected of us.
