Not Throwing Away My Shot: Week Two and Hamilton

So, week two of classes... not much different than week one.

On Thursday, I went to the Mass of the Holy Spirit, and got to spend some time with Italian students (and learned that one should never come between a massive group of hungry Italians and a table full of food).

Cultural Friday (our Friday morning Italian class), I wandered out to the Mercato delle Erbe with some classmates and attempted to converse with locals, buying a white peach (last of the season!) and a bouquet of flowers for my dorm room.

This weekend passed uneventfully, with one exception: I discovered the musical Hamilton.

This might seem like a strange thing to be the highlight of a pretty decent week, but let me explain:

Hamilton tells the story of one of our Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, from his birth on Saint Croix in the Caribbean to his death at the end of Aaron Burr's gun. In between, it manages to make both Hamilton and Burr convincing, appealing narrators of their combined, intertwined story.

And it does this through a combination of hip-hop, rap, R&B, and pop music.

That's right, our Founding Fathers can spit rhymes like nobody's business.

Right before the Battle of Yorktown, the Marquis de Lafayette and Hamilton turn to each other and say, "Immigrants - we get the job done." And this is truly the heart of Hamilton's genius - reminding Americans that their country was built by men and women who were not native to the land, and who owed as much to the country as we owe to them. Hamilton was an immigrant from the Caribbean; Lafayette, a temporary immigrant from France; Baron von Steuben, an immigrant from Prussia, where he had been exiled. The show also capitalizes on this as well, by casting a racially diverse cast to, as playwright and lead actor Lin-Manuel Miranda says, "...Tommy [Thomas Kail, the director]'s genius in casting was he said, 'This is a story of America then told by America now...'" (article here). And that's exactly what the musical is - America then, told by America now.

Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton in Hamilton: An American Musical

What draws me even more to Hamilton is the clear passion that Miranda has brought to telling the story of Alexander Hamilton, "the ten dollar Founding Father without a father." The love that Miranda has for his subject is clear in the little details that appear throughout the lyrics and his own tweets about the difficulties of translating Hamilton's language (especially his "comma sexts" with his sister-in-law Angelica Schuyler Church). This passion for a subject is something that I relate to - that's something that I also have, for Camille Desmoulins, the person that I want to study.

And I also see this musical as a new way to open up teaching history to students in the future. Having students listen to "The Ten Duel Commandments" to teach them about dueling, or to play them the opening song "Alexander Hamilton" or "Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)" to talk about the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers? That's a great new way to engage students in the classroom. Have a rap battle cabinet session, like Hamilton does. Or just use the musical as a way to remind students that history can come in many forms - books, films, and now the hottest ticket on Broadway.

(l-r): Okieriete Onaodowan as Hercules Mulligan, Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton, Daveed Diggs as Thomas Jefferson, and Anthony Ramos as John Laurens in Hamilton: An American Musical

Thank you, Lin-Manuel Miranda, for reminding people that history can be cool.