One line in Hamilton always gets an especially lengthy round of applause: “immigrants,” the French Marquis de Lafayette sings to his Caribbean-born friend Alexander Hamilton, “we get the job done.” Hamilton constantly emphasizes that immigration is essential to the United States’ success. The musical’s composer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, was the child of an immigrant from Puerto Rico, and he immediately identified with Hamilton as a striver, someone hoping to reinvent himself in a foreign land (“in New York you can be a new man,” goes one of the show’s catchiest refrains). Though Hamilton faces prejudice because he is not American-born—John Adams calls him a “Creole Bastard,” in a parallel to much of the xenophobic rhetoric in today’s politics—the musical dreams of an America where immigrant contributions are fully recognized instead of feared or downplayed.
Immigration is a crucial plot point in Hamilton. But diversity and globalism are not just the content of the show—they are also crucial to its form. Miranda likes to point out that “just as we continue to forget that immigrants are the backbone of this country, we forget that musical theater is a mongrel art form”: it is built on jazz, on rock, on classical operettas, and now (thanks to Miranda) on hip-hop. To honor these varied influences, Miranda has packed the Hamilton score with references and allusions: the musical quotes rappers like The Notorious B.I.G. and Big Pun in one moment and the lyrics to a classic Rodgers & Hammerstein musical in the next. In content and form, then, Hamilton emphasizes both the need for an accessible immigration system and the artistic imperative of diversity.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Immigration and Diversity of Influence ThemeTracker
Immigration and Diversity of Influence Quotes in Hamilton
BURR: There would have been nothing left to do for someone less astute,
He woulda been dead or destitute,
Without a cent of restitution,
Started workin’—clerkin’ for his late mother’s landlord,
Tradin’ sugar cane and rum and all the things he can’t afford
Scammin’ for every book he can get his hands on
Plannin’ for the future see him now as he stands on
The bow of a ship heading for a new land.
In New York you can be a new man.
HAMILTON: I am not throwing away my shot!
I am not throwing away my shot!
Hey yo, I’m just like my country,
I’m young, scrappy and hungry,
And I’m not throwing away my shot!
LAURENS: Raise a glass to the four of us.
HAMILTON, LAURENS, MULLIGAN, LAFAYETTE: Tomorrow there’ll be more of us.
HAMILTON, LAURENS: Telling the story of tonight.
MULLIGAN, LAFAYETTE: Let’s have another round tonight.
ANGELICA: I’ve been reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine.
So men say that I’m intense or I’m insane.
You want a revolution? I wanna revelation
So listen to my declaration:
ELIZA, ANGELICA, PEGGY: “We hold these truths to be self-evident
That all men are created equal.”
ANGELICA: And when I meet Thomas Jefferson […]
I’m ‘a compel him to include women in the sequel!
WOMEN: Work!
LAFAYETTE: Monsieur Hamilton.
HAMILTON: Monsieur Lafayette.
LAFAYETTE: In command where you belong.
HAMILTON: How you say, no sweat.
We’re finally on the field. We’ve had quite a run.
LAFAYETTE: Immigrants.
HAMILTON, LAFAYETTE: We get the job done.
HAMILTON: Thomas. That was a real nice declaration.
Welcome to the present. We’re running a real nation.
Would you like to join us, or stay mellow,
Doin’ whatever the hell it is you do in Monticello?
If we assume the debts, the Union gets a new line of credit, a financial diuretic.
How do you not get it? If we’re aggressive and competitive
The Union gets a boost. You’d rather give it a sedative?
A civics lesson from a slaver. Hey neighbor.
Your debts are paid cuz you don’t pay for labor.
“We plant seeds in the ground. We create.” Yeah, keep ranting.
We know who’s really doing the planting.
JEFFERSON: He knows nothing of loyalty.
Smells like new money, dresses like fake royalty.
Desperate to rise above his station,
Everything he does betrays the ideals of our nation.
And if ya don’t know, now ya know, Mr. President.
HAMILTON: If I throw away my shot, is this how you remember me?
What if this bullet is my legacy?
Legacy. What is a legacy?
It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.
I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me.
America, you great unfinished symphony, you sent for me.
You let me make a difference.
A place where even orphan immigrants can leave their fingerprints and rise up.
I’m running out of time, I’m running and my time’s up. Wise up. Eyes up.
