Our Story

An essay about the immigrant story and who gets to tell it.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Hamburg to watch the newly minted German translation of the hit musical Hamilton by world’s favorite theater kid Lin-Manuel Miranda. I didn’t expect much. Specifically, I expected to witness a disaster, and even better, to look around and silently judge the other members of the audience for watching a translation, rather than the original. This was a thing that me and my college mates did constantly, back in the day, when we studied translation. We hated anything translated and, being stupid college kids, preferred the original. 

Fron left to right: Oliver Edward (John Laurens/Philip Hamilton), Benet Monteiro (Hamilton), Daniel Dodd-Ellis (Lafayette/Jefferson), Redchild (Hercules Mulligan/Madison)

The Hamburg production of Hamilton resides in the Operettenhaus Hamburg and was translated by Kevin Schroeder (German translations of Sister Act, Sound of Music and Shrek) and German rapper Sera Finale.

As expected, the entitled asshole that inhabited my headspace that day was wrong. The show was very good. The translation was on point and the actors talented and energetic. Miranda’s talent for compelling storytelling shone through regardless of the language. Great fun all around. Something bugged me, though. Bugged me on my way back to the hotel, in bed, on the plane back home. I couldn't put my finger on it, and soon life took over and I forgot. 

Holiday season rolled around soon after, and, like many of us, I found myself at an office holiday party. The company that hosted that party was founded overseas, and so almost all of the attendants, including me, were speaking a foreign language. Acclimatizing to a party with hundreds of people is no joke, but after I had my fill of food and drink, I finally started paying attention to my surroundings. As I was chatting with someone about my recent trip to Hamburg and the translation of Hamilton, I specifically started focussing on our use of language. I guess, you can get the girl out of the translation business, but can’t get the translation business out of the girl.

We spoke our native tongue with each other, but code-switched to English if someone who didn’t speak the language was around – standard procedure really. I also noticed a specific air of superiority when we did that, the speed and precision of the code switch definitely having an influence on what the people around thought of you. There was that familiar reverence for higher education that our parents, who were born in a country that doesn’t exist anymore, instilled in us, and fluent English was one of its markers. 

It seemed that listening to Hamilton in German slightly but irreversibly shifted my perception, not just of the musical, but of the world and the people around me. I retreated into a corner, listening. People speaking at least two languages with ease – out of fun, necessity, conviction? The band started playing Smooth Operator, I stared at the dance floor. I need to relax.

Not long before the party, I was listening to the official cast recording of Hamilton, procrastinating work, as usual. I was happily singing along, as, for the first time since listening to the musical, I got the urge to research Alexander Hamilton himself. I knew the basics of American history, but not enough to know specifics about every single founding father.

I was aware of the controversies surrounding the musical, and although I loved it very much (and, on some level, I still do), I too found it quite uncomfortable to see black men and women portraying well-known slave owners. A discomfort, I was assured, was folly, because Hamilton is just a fanfic and I shouldn’t take it that seriously, according to this article in Vox.

Despite my discomfort and general level of media literacy, the musical did manage to convince me of one thing. I was sure that Hamilton was a light-skinned black man. A mixed-race Creole man born out of wedlock or, as Miranda astutely put it, “... a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman…”, who then pulled himself out of the squalor by being brilliant. As a result, he got the chance to come to America and enroll into King’s College (now Columbia). 

“Another immigrant comin’ up from the bottom” he grew up to be a “hero and a scholar” and got “a lot farther by working a lot harder, by being a lot smarter, by being a self-starter”. You get the gist.

Lin-Manuel Miranda as Hamilton

His story is fundamentally that of a righteous underdog who fights for his principles, despite being half-accepted (or less) into the ranks of the other founding fathers only by virtue of his writing talent and policy making skills. Eventually, he dies by the hand of Aaron Burr, an opportunist bastard who hates Hamilton for being awesome. This is what the musical told me and this is what I believed.

Imagine my disappointment when I found out that Hamilton was very white and, despite growing up in poverty, had a lot of privilege regardless. It was also clear that  the musical, except for the obvious artistic license that every work of fiction is entitled to, didn’t exactly lie about his provenance. However, it used a distinct kind of narrative to make the audience sympathize with Hamilton – the archetypal immigrant story.

But why does it matter? Why bother, if Miranda, an American of Puerto-Rican descent, wrote a piece of fanfic and inserted himself into it? Is it actually important, whether we believe that a long dead white man was black? 

Yes. It matters. See, Miranda left some stuff out.

Back at the holiday party, I am surrounded by hundreds of immigrants, whose stories could neatly fit into the story Hamilton wants to convey. People that came to a foreign country by virtue of their intellectual faculties and ended up enriching the society they now live in. 

If you actually talk to them, however, an entirely different story starts to emerge: 

Why do you switch to English? 

Well, because I didn’t have time or felt the need to learn German. 

Why are you huddled together at this party? 

Well, because I still feel like an outsider and find it much more reassuring to stick to my people, my colleagues doubling as friends and potential love interests. 

Do you have German friends? 

Not really. 

The answers are then usually followed by horror stories about their visits to the Kreisverwaltungsreferat (Department of Public Order) - a famously uncooperative institution, especially if you’re a foreigner.

In Hamilton the minutiae of immigration are glossed over - the registration, the scowls of the public workers, the first attempts at speaking the language and understanding the culture. Actual immigration, however, is messy, confusing and sometimes painful. You live in a country that inherently doesn’t want you. Some of us are white and pass, some of us wrestled the language and came out on top, some of us didn’t. There is always uncertainty in an immigrant existence, there is always a part of yourself that is untethered to the place you live in.

The band continues to play the greatest non-denominational winter party hits, all proudly produced by the American cultural hegemony, which ensures that Don’t Stop Believin’ has lived rent-free in my head for what feels like millennia. Enough, Irma! It’s the holiday season. I want to dance and drink and laugh and sweat out all the horrible stuff that happened this year. I want to forget the war, the pandemic, the revolutions drenched in blood. I close my eyes and start moving to the rhythm.

The name he gave himself at the behest of his stern savior Professor Lovell, who saved him from certain death, is sufficient, but will replace his birth name forever. After all, he needs a proper name an Englishman can pronounce. Lovell will take him in, become his guardian and give him everything he needs – food, shelter, education, money. Yes, there will be some beatings, some scolding, but how else to expel the laziness inherent in his Chinese heritage? How else will he become proper? Thanks to an anonymous benefactor, he learned English by devouring books sent to him every couple months and from talking to an Englishwoman, who was living with his family for as long as he could remember. Later he will learn that Lovell is this benefactor and also his father.

Now he’s on his way to London, the greatest city in the world. He is brilliant, using his perfect British accent as a shield against prying eyes, using English as a means to survive, to dazzle. Due to his excellent language skills he is almost accepted, almost welcome – but he can’t hide his face for long, can he?

Robin Swift, bastard, orphan, son of someone, looks out on the harbor, his life ahead of him. There are, indeed, a million things he hasn’t done. Just you wait.

Robin is the main character in Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence by Rebecca F. Kuang, a Chinese-American fantasy writer and history scholar with degrees in Chinese Studies and Contemporary Chinese Studies. 

Robin’s story is remarkably similar to Hamilton’s as told by Miranda, with one key difference:. Kuang’s story is informed by history and, I assume, personal experience, whereas Miranda’s seems to be informed by narrative. 

In fact, it feels like Miranda’s entire immigrant oeuvre (In the Heights, Hamilton and Encanto) is informed by the stories he was told by his elders, relying on stereotypes and easily digestible factoids one might convey to a child, because the truth might be too painful. This results in a weird mixture of immigrant experience with a backbone of good old American Dream bootstrap mentality. 

There is no racial profiling, no systemic oppression in his art – the problems arise from an individual not working hard enough, from lacking the iron will to survive. Hard work, in turn, is rewarded with financial success and social standing – in other words, Miranda’s art reflects the notion that you can work yourself out of being distrusted just by virtue of being a foreigner.

Miranda’s Alexander, like Robin, also read all the books he could find, but there is no mention of him learning anything. He already spoke English, having been born in an English colony, and he knew the culture for this exact same reason. Hamilton hustled and wrote his way out of his poverty, so much so that an entire town donated money to send him to America to get a proper education. An education he then used to inform his policies. When he steps off the ship in New York harbor, he is promptly accepted into the society that is shown on stage. He finds life-long friends and starts advocating for freedom, which everyone agrees with – “Let's get this guy in front of a crowd” they say. He quickly gets an audience and achieves what he wants – a revolution, the establishment of a sovereign nation and, most importantly, a legacy.

The musical, extradiegetically, refers to him as a “bastard, immigrant, orphan”, but within the narrative, he is feared and respected – his prowess with a pen legendary. His otherness seems no obstruction, but more of a motivation to him. Having lost his family, which, according to him, is “unimportant”, he sets out to build a legacy, something that will outlast him forever. 

According to the musical, he succeeds. His policies, his face on the ten dollar bill, the establishment of the coast guard – all speak to that.

Kuang’s story rings more true in this regard. From the academic exploitation of foreign minds to the inherent perception of otherness, perpetuated by an oppressive system; her characters don’t shy away from conveying their stories as they actually happen.

When Robin sets foot on English soil he is reluctantly naturalized as a British citizen, after a doctor makes sure that he is in a fit state and not riddled with lice and other foreign diseases. More importantly, he is made to understand what is expected of him. He will be tutored in Latin, Greek and Mandarin (not Cantonese, his actual native language), and then he will be enrolled at the Royal Institute of Translation or Babel. It is of the utmost importance, he is told, that he knows the languages he is taught intimately. Him being a native speaker is of great import, as Asiatic languages are in high demand. Any mistake, no matter how small or youthful, is met with beatings, threats of deportation and humiliation from his guardian. 

It is the 1830s and translation is magic – silverworking they call it. Engrave a silver bar with a potent translation pair, and it becomes reality – the magic trapped in the untranslatable space between the set meanings of the words inscribed. Silver is everywhere in London. It powers the Empire’s mighty fleet, helping it conquer ever more colonies. It keeps the city sewers clean, makes its clocks more precise, its carriages run smoothly and the flowers bloom all year round. Translators are the only ones able to install and maintain the silver bars, as every matching pair must be spoken aloud by someone who truly understands both languages and the etymology of the words spoken. They exclusively establish new pairs, work the silver and get paid handsomely for services provided. Babel is the epicenter of the Empire’s power and language, and, in turn, native speakers are its main resource. 

It is not long, however, that Robin begins to fathom the exploitative nature of Babel. As the power of the Romance languages is fading, the silver business needs fresh blood in the form of Asian and Semitic languages. It’s “simple economics” really: Exceptionally gifted children from the colonies (mostly slaves or children of house servants) are being transported to Babel by white benefactors and guardians, “properly” educated, and their native tongue used to power the Empire, while all of the leading “experts” in the respective languages are white scholars like Prof. Lovell.

Parallel to Robin’s story, Hamilton, meets three friends and forms an unshakable bond with them. However, no thought is given to their dynamics. John Laurens, Lafayette and Hercules Mulligan are all white men played by black actors, Lafayette even being of noble descent. If Hamilton was an actual immigrant, would they have accepted him as easily as on stage? As it stands, Hamilton dazzles them with his youthful exuberance and gets their respect and eternal friendship. 

From left to right: Daveed Diggs (Lafayette/Jefferson), Okieriete Onaodowan (Hercules Mulligan/James Madison), Anthony Ramos (John Laurens/Philip Hamilton), Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton)

In his “I am”-song “My Shot”, he lays out who he is and what he wants: 

I'ma get a scholarship to King's College

I probably shouldn't brag, but dang, I amaze and astonish

The problem is I got a lot of brains but no polish

I gotta holler just to be heard

With every word, I drop knowledge

I'm a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal

Tryna reach my goal my power of speech, unimpeachable

Only nineteen but my mind is older

These New York City streets get colder, I shoulder

Every burden, every disadvantage

I have learned to manage, I don't have a gun to brandish

I walk these streets famished

There is talk of some disadvantage and burden, which adds to his credibility, but that’s just it. It is glossed over so quickly that you wouldn’t even notice if you’re not reading along. Every nuance to his experience is drowned in his posturing and of course in the chorus, which is repeated several times:

And I am not throwin' away my shot

I am not throwin' away my shot

Hey yo, I'm just like my country

I'm young, scrappy and hungry

And I'm not throwin' away my shot   

After being enrolled in Oxford, Robin, too, gets a glimpse of a “respectable” life. He meets his cohort Ramy, Victoire and Letty, with whom he will spend his entire time in university. They cling to each other for support and comfort. Their bond feels as unshakeable as Babel itself. In their early days at Oxford they still try to ignore their respective treatment, to laugh it off, after all – translators hold all the power in the world, wouldn’t it be logical to assume that they also garner all the respect? They just have to hold out a little bit longer and focus on their studies. It is also made very clear that without Babel, they would be out on the street, deported, dead or forcefully married. Their social standing is directly tied to their loyalty.

A big chunk of the book is dedicated to conveying how Robin and his friends are treated. Ramy, stemming from India, is seldom let into any establishment without a fuss and is often ushered to the servant’s entrance, despite his scholar’s robes that should indicate his standing in Oxford society. Victoire and Letty are two of the very few women on campus and are neither allowed to wear skirts, as to not distract the male students, nor can they live on campus, enter museums and libraries alone. Their landlady thinks that they are servants. Victoire, a woman of color, is not even allowed to use the inside bathroom and on one occasion, drunk students want to “inspect” her breasts, to see if they’re different somehow. 

It is these experiences that shape Robin’s and the others’ decisions and the story’s inevitable conclusion.     

His name is Griffin Lovell, he is from Macau and he is definitely Robin’s older brother. Robin always suspected Lovell to be his biological father, but has successfully banished the thought for a very long time. Griffin left Oxford in his third year, faking his death, before he could finish his studies - the burden of knowing what he will be made to do in the service of the Empire unbearable. Instead he joined the Hermes Society, a revolutionary group that steals silver from Babel and redistributes it to those who need it. 

It is a dangerous undertaking, and the society members are regularly being killed or caught and tortured. Babel is not just a bulwark of learning, it is also greatly protected and the biggest source of silver in the world. Griffin asks Robin to join, but he is scared. He can’t fathom a life outside of the comforts Babel provides, but he also knows that what he enjoys are the spoils of war, suppressed revolutions, outright racism and so much blood. Robin and, as he later learns, Ramy and Victoire join the revolution and seal their fate forever. 

Hamilton doesn’t waver when it comes to revolution, and this is where his and Robin’s story also greatly differ. Hamilton, Immigrant Extraordinaire, wants “to fight, not write”. He doesn’t give up anything, he has the choice between being Washington’s right hand man and being on the battlefield. Revolution and war are his choice, for Robin they are a necessity.

Chris Jackson as George Washington

The plan is to fan this spark into a flame

But damn, it's getting dark, so let me spell out my name

I am the A-L-E-X-A-N-D-E-R 

we are meant to be

A colony that runs independently

Meanwhile, Britain keeps shittin' on us endlessly

Essentially, they tax us relentlessly

Then King George turns around, runs a spendin' spree

He ain't ever gonna set his descendants free

So there will be a revolution in this century

Enter me 

(he says in parentheses)

Due to the Hermes Society’s highly splintered nature, there are no communications between the members. Griffin, as the handler, gives Robin his tasks in code, and that’s it. Revolution seems a very lonely business. His tasks are minute: go to the tower at an appointed hour and open the door, that’s it. Rinse and repeat. This life quickly becomes routine, and the little he does appeases his conscience enough that he allows himself to dream of a scholarly well-fed life again.

At one of his revolutionary excursions, however, everything goes wrong and Robin gets injured. He told Griffin that there was a new protection spell on the door, but was ignored. He hates Griffin for abandoning him, hates him for being more interested in the cause than him, too. He hates Lovell for humiliating him, for being an imperialist, for not admitting that he’s their father, for everything really. He hates Oxford and he loves it, he hates society, but wants so desperately to have a place in it. In a fury he leaves the Hermes Society and is left out in the cold.

While Robin gets out while he can, Hamilton leads his troops to victory. He is so sure of himself, and the narrative supports him fully. “Immigrants, we get the job done!”, he sings with Lafayette before the battle of Yorktown. While society rejects Robin outright, Hamilton is not only easily accepted, but identifies with it. Enough to have an insatiable desire to fight for it – to die for it. Weird that the new society he helps create remains so incredibly xenophobic throughout its history. Hamilton's place in society is fixed the moment he starts advocating for revolution, and it needs something extremely scandalous to take part of his power away from him. Hamilton, again, makes the choice to destabilize himself by writing the Reynolds Pamphlet, he self-sabotages. 

Robin is constantly threatened with deportation, no matter the extent or scale of his mistake. From this unstable position, his decision to join the revolution purely on the basis of his conscience and convictions is much more meaningful.

Determined to finish his studies, Robin jumps head first into Oxford life, but one night, he is sucked back into the revolution, as he sees Ramy and Victoire trying to steal silver from Babel and failing. Robin saves them by getting himself caught by Lovell and, convincing himself that he’s doing it for his friends, ends up giving up one of Hermes’ safe houses Griffin told him about. Lovell assures him that now everything will be different, that he is the good one for sure, and that Griffin is a monster and a murderer. Lovell then gives Robin a silver bar that Griffin used to kill one of his colleagues. Shocked, Robin seems to agree, and we see how much he still wants to be in Lovell’s good graces, how much the dream of a respected, quiet academic life still affects him. How much he wants to exploit the fact that he can pass for white, if he just keeps his head low enough. 

Hamilton already passes for white, because, at his core, no matter whether he wears Lin-Manuel Miranda’s face or not – he is white. His story is, too.      

Robin and his cohort are at the beginning of their last year of school when they’re told that they’re going to Canton to take part in negotiations between a trading company and the commissioner of Canton, who refused to let their ships full of opium into the country and instead confiscated the goods. Their journey comes to a head, when Robin, distraught at being in his home town again, is set to translate between the two parties. After the negotiation that went expectedly nowhere, the commissioner asks to talk to him in private. Asked about his honest opinion on the matter, he tells the commissioner without hesitation that the Englishmen don’t really want an honest negotiation. They just want their way, which they are willing to get by any means necessary. To which the commissioner responds by setting the confiscated opium worth millions of pounds-sterling on fire in the middle of the river.

“The interpreter must not allow his or her personal opinions to affect the interpretation. The interpreter must not express his or her personal opinions at any time during the interpretation.” This and similar codes of conduct for interpreters and translators are set in place by many associations to ensure an ethical set of rules by which interpreters must abide. And if Robin had chosen this profession, and had not been treated like a resource his entire life, he probably would have followed them. However, this was not the case and now he’s dispensable. He betrayed the Crown. 

Lovell whisks them away on the next ship bound for London and lays into Robin, again humiliating and accusing him of being ungrateful, while Robin, so tired of this particular tirade, responds that he never asked to be saved and certainly never asked to be used as a tool to destroy his own countrymen. As Lovell, unresponsive to his remarks, responds with more humiliation and scorn, Robin grows more and more agitated, until he grabs Griffin’s silver bar, which he still has in his pocket, and kills Lovell. 

This is the first blood that is spilled in this book, and it’s treated with the gravitas and horror it deserves. It will not be the last. Robin’s friends help him without hesitation. They haul the body overboard and then pretend that Lovell contracted some Chinese disease and can’t leave his cabin for the rest of the journey. This experience wrecks them, they don’t eat or sleep, imagining all the scenarios of what will happen when they arrive back in London. 

When they finally do, loss is inevitable. Ramy, Griffin, the Hermes Society, even hope – all lost. Robin and Victoire, who have been betrayed by Letty, who fell back on the white privilege, as soon as there was talk of change, attempt a final coup. They occupy Babel with a handful of others willing to help and therefore block the Empire’s access to silver and the maintenance of the already installed silver bars. In the end, Victoire is the only one who survives. 

There is a lot of blood spilled in Hamilton, but the suffering is again sanitized and glossed over, the mentions of the horrors of war buried in a praising hymn for Washington and, of course, Hamilton.

They're battering down the battery, check the damages (rah!)

We gotta stop 'em and rob 'em of their advantages (rah!)

Let's take a stand with the stamina God has granted us

Hamilton won't abandon ship, yo, let's steal their cannons

Shh-boom, goes the cannon, watch the blood and the shit spray, and

And boom, goes the cannon, we're abandonin' Kips Bay

And boom, there's another ship

And boom, we just lost the southern tip

And boom, we gotta run to Harlem quick, we can't afford another slip

Catchy, no? Strong convictions and even stronger nationalism. 

The loss in Hamilton is only palpable when someone close to him dies. When his son dies. When he dies in the end. His story, his revolution, revolved around his ideas and choices. His legacy will not be forgotten and neither will be the legacy of this musical.

Every other founding fathers' story gets told

Every other founding father gets to grow old

And when you're gone, who remembers your name?

Who keeps your flame? 

In the end, Robin and Hamilton suffer the same fate. Robin dies with a handful of other revolutionaries, alone, unable to go on after he lost everything and everyone. With his last breath, he manages to corrupt the Empire’s silver reserves, thus buying time. Because one revolt is not enough, because you can’t easily win something like that, you can just slow it down long enough for others to follow in your footsteps. As with many uncomfortable immigrants, Robin’s legacy will either not be talked about, or his narrative will be corrupted or appropriated for a cause he never fought for. 

Hamilton is insanely popular. Hamilton is well written. Hamilton is catchy. Hamilton is comfortable. Hamilton makes predominantly white people feel good about themselves, as they revel in their wokeness without actually looking at the oppressive systems they benefit from. Hamilton makes a convincing argument that success is an individual matter, that there is nothing holding you back but yourself, and although we know that that’s not the case in the slightest, it is far more comfortable to believe than the truth.

Miranda’s sanitized version of immigration and revolution is part of the problem. It is disrespectful to those who died fighting systematic oppression and corruption, fighting for fundamental human rights and better working conditions – those who are still fighting.

In the end, it doesn’t matter, “Who lives. Who dies. Who tells your story”. 

It matters why it is told and to whom.