Spielberg’s ‘Rican Reparations: ‘West Side Story’ Resurrecting a Place for Us
Still image from “West Side Story Redux.” Conceived and edited by Adal Maldonado.
As the family translator, I was surprised when Ma, who didn't go anywhere without me as a go-between, tore into the living room demanding I stop playing that record. Then, pushing past my deer-in-the-headlights stare, she jumped to the high-fi with the deftness and speed of a ninja and yanked the needle from “America” with a loud scratch against the groove announcing West Side Story was forbidden in her home.
But at twelve years old, who doesn't love forbidden? We were already rehearsing "I Feel Pretty," in chorus class. While we anticipated with excitement our roles in our junior high school production of West Side Story, Ma scanned the newspapers, hoping she wouldn't see another article describing the “Puerto Rican problem." Whenever the news came on, she'd echo her fear out loud, praying que no sea un puertorriqueño.
Written by four white, Jewish, gay guys, West Side Story's Shakespearean premise was initially wrapped around a love story between a Catholic and a Jew. Suddenly, in 1957, with Stephen Sondheim admitting he didn't even know any Puerto Ricans let alone think like one, the lovers became Polish-Irish and Boricua. Did they not notice the many negative news stories about Puerto Ricans then? Did they realize freedom fighter Lolita Lebron was arrested a mere three years earlier in 1954 for shooting inside the U.S. Capitol to call attention to the island's colonial status? Or was this narrative switch simply an interchangeable puzzle piece of their creative process? Whatever the reason, they didn't seem to have a clue as to the stereotyped branding they marked on a displaced, marginalized community already here, on the mainland, 30 years yet entirely unknown for these creators. These were not immigrants crossing borders; they were colonized American citizens. And no one, even us, knew what that meant.
When the producers naively chose Puerto Ricans, they unwittingly strayed from the feel-good musical they boasted blazed new ground into racism, gang violence, and star-crossed love. Instead, when they tagged Boricuas, they danced straight into the complicated politics of American colonialism, a topic more taboo than immigration.
Much news has buzzed around the "authenticity" of this new incarnation and the wrongs corrected with scenes reflected to relate to a younger, Latinx community. Spielberg has reached out with noted advisors revising everything from accents (ah, I thought we were appealing to younger Latinos?) to history (respected historian Virginia Sanchez-Korrol as advisor). A true spiritual resurrection complete with reparations, Spielberg expressed appreciation to Arthur Laurent's estate for latitude in deepening the characters to create more complicated relationships. Yet, he overlooked the most complex of all: the colonized status of Puerto Rico and its citizens.
With this behind me, I vowed to watch the Centro for Puerto Rican Studies’ community screening with an open mind, to suspend my conflicted past with the movie's new reality. I mean, this is Spielberg for God's sake, the guy who gave us E.T., Jaws, Schindler's List, and Indiana Jones. So, I leaned back, relaxed into my Lincoln Square Theater boxy faux leather lounge chair, and watched.
West Side Story opens with what we Boricua Boomers called Lincoln Center's Urban Removal Project. After paying homage to the Indigenous sacred ground unearthed at this site alongside the many Latino and black homes seen torn down, the camera takes us to the 1961 construction site where Jets begin to appear, one by one, paint buckets in tow. They stop in front of a wall emblazoned with a Puerto Rican Flag. A fight begins. Police appear. A good start, I'm cautiously optimistic.
"They're American citizens" is quickly mentioned in passing in the opening gang scenes. But the Investigator's advice to the Jets, “Get used to them, there are thousands on the way," overshadows any political righteousness. It gets uneven from there on.
The Sharks huddle behind the police and begin to sing the revolutionary lyrics of Lola Rodriguez de Tio's national anthem, a move that made me sit up and laugh at its guileless incongruity. A 1961 scruffy gang of 'Ricans reciting nationalistic poetry as they're cornered by the rival gang and police. Yeah, right. This is taking Academia and the political Left to extreme new heights. I would've believed it more had they written it as magical realism where butterflies land on their bruised lips, making them "woke" to their political existence. And I don't know what kind of accents they're wearing, but I've never heard gang guys speak like that in the 'hood. Besides, why do we even have accents in this new one?
The music, however, is lush—still Bernstein bred with polyrhythms that tread to the beat of the scenes. The Jets move along their turf in unified gladiator glory. This eerie scene, reminiscent of recent news clips where dudes with Tiki torches chant "Jews will not replace us," seems straight out of something like Gangs of New York a film that proves, if not solidifies, whites as the first gangbusters of the Americas.
An hypnotic oboe leads us to the school gym where the guys at the dance are suited up. But instead of Florsheim or Playboy shoes, (I'm assuming this relates to that Latinx crowd), they're sporting sneakers. Converse sneakers. But hey, if the producers can suspend 1961 reality, so can I.
I'm looking forward to the roof scene now. I'm waiting to hear how those racist lyrics my mom protested were changed. Then it happens. But now, played by the talented Ariana DuBose, Anita is on the fire escape hanging laundry dressed in a beautiful yellow off-the-shoulder dance number, complete with makeup and hairdo, and I'm saying, what? No rollers, slippers, or batita? Maybe they want to distract us from the changed lyrics to soften their effect? Then, cloning Anita's trademark fiery dance number, that scene rolls out into the street with the entire community stepping and singing to “America.” Reminded me of In The Heights.
© Disney
And although I understood why sewing machines were replaced during “I Feel Pretty” with cleaning lady duties more relative for the younger wave of immigrants that followed, the reality is Puerto Rican women were the backbone of the garment industry since the ‘30s to the ‘60s, a business that fueled America's global lead in the fashion world. So, when my Tía Tite came to New York from the Island in '62, it was at a piecemeal garment factory where she landed work. She gave me my first mini-skirt.
Exciting actors with dynamic voices Rachel Zegler as Maria and Ansel Elgort as Tony have that hot, magical charisma young lovers need. Zegler's angelic soprano and common-sense moxie gives Maria a more defiant edge than her prototype. Yet, I wondered how she got back home from the Cloisters after that long train ride?
However, typecasting be damned, I couldn't get over how much Ansel looks like Jared Kushner, the former presidential advisor. Or how Chino reminded me of Luis Cancel, a cultural community leader. Very distracting.
Spielberg says he wants to open doors to Latino artists, but we were already through those doors as far back as 1950 when Jose Ferrer was the first Puerto Rican to win an Oscar for Cyrano de Bergerac. Maurice Chevalier did not protest this. Or Juano Hernandez, who never won an Oscar but can be seen in Hollywood movies such as Young Man with a Horn, where he played Kirk Douglas' jazz music mentor. Spielberg would better serve this community by reading, developing, and producing Latino scripts rather than trying to resurrect and purge the sins of the past.
West Side Story was written in a controversial time that resulted in a convoluted story about misplaced culture, identity, and survival in a hostile world. But it was real. That those early “America” lyrics were racist is true, but shouldn't we hear how America really felt about us at that time? That nascent purity of thought is what sealed in the stereotypes. In trying to undo it, its archetypal credibility is altered.
For example, Rita Moreno's role as Doc's Puerto Rican widow Valentina is noble if not unrealistic. From the beginning, she complains about Riff’s stealing from her since he was a child. His defiance of her is apparent and we don’t see any of the old gang-banging there since Valentina took over except for Tony. Suddenly, they're all hanging out at the shop when Anita comes in to give Tony a message. And how easily they all obeyed Valentina's command to refrain from raping her.
Just as unbelievable is the scene where Anita confronts Maria after Tony kills Bernardo. The actresses are competent, their skills are valid, but the emotional dynamics of contempt, love, hate, and forgiveness that carried the original scene, that deep bond between "sisters" in love and in pain, is sorely missing in this new version. And please don't judge by comparison because, really, there's no comparing. That prototypal scene explodes like a firecracker with emotional depth and tear welling sentimentality. Maybe Rita Moreno was older when she played Anita; perhaps more experienced, more jaded in the ways of life and men. But, if anything, Rita was an active member of her community, the reason people cheered from their Harlem apartments the night she won that Grammy. And you won't see this in her documentary, but when younger Puerto Ricans, much like the Latinx of today, were fighting for a separate Latin music Grammy category in 1976, it was an exuberant and gracious Rita Moreno who danced onto the stage of the Beacon Theater to host the Latin New York Music Awards as part of her service to the community. She is a deep lady.
What with all the media hoopla, Spielberg’s rep, and the righteous press about "getting it right," I expected better. In the end, you need more than just an advisory board. You need writers, directors, and producers. We need our stories told, our way. This was a good try, but I still felt they were trying to insert square pegs into round holes. And the question of how Puerto Ricans got here; how American colonialism affects us to this day, was never addressed, let alone answered. Many were the articles where Spielberg hoped to address the immigration question, but that has nothing to do with Puerto Ricans, who again, are U.S. American citizens through colonialism and the group depicted in this classic that remains enigmatic to who we are and how we got here.
We need more than one writer or producer. One token Latino is not the messiah. One story will not cover the vast diversity and richness of our 500-year-old Puerto Rican culture, let alone the immense Latinx immigration experience.
So far, this year's best film, the most accurate portrayal on Puerto Ricans is our musical inclusion in Summer of Soul, except that it should come with a Miranda warning. Aside from that documentary now streaming over Hulu, 1972’s Our Latin Thing, criticized back then by the surging nonprofits for being too real, too gritty, and not said but implied, too black for the rising gentry of our leadership, plus the blockbuster movie everyone seemed to like, Fame, I haven't seen anything that comes close to capturing our Puerto Rican reality in New York. But I have hope that somewhere, they'll be a place for us.
A Latin from Manhattan, Aurora Flores-Hostos is a BMI composer, writer, producer, educator & entrepreneur, the recipient of numerous awards and included in Who's Who in Hispanic America.
A published author and journalist, she broke barriers as the first woman music correspondent for Billboard Magazine while still attending Columbia University. Her name appears on hundreds of Latin music liner notes and thousands of articles on music, culture, community, and politics over mainstream newspapers, magazines, and media outlets. Her trending interviews can be accessed through YouTube where she features talks with the late Ray Barretto, Johnny Pacheco, Joe Cuba, and many more.
As a BMI composer she writes original music for the Nickelodeon' hit series Dora the Explorer, and for the orchestra Zon del Barrio which she leads and directs, performing from NY to the Caribbean to France's Cotes d'Azur. A play on the words "son,” a musical genre found throughout the islands and U.S. barrio "zones" where people of color work and struggle hard only to party just as hard—Zon del Barrio is NOT your average grandma's "salsa" group. Intergenerational, creative, and co-ed, Zon del Barrio is the sound of Latin music from the mean streets of El Barrio and the Bronx. Rocking the City at sites such as Museum Mile, Lincoln Center, and the Highline, the big band expresses her own original songs rooted in community alongside the virtuoso music from the streets of Latin NY so missing from the scene today.
Aurora can be seen over many documentaries on Latin music, including the Smithsonian’s traveling “Combinacion Perfecta” Latin jazz exhibit and performing with mambo king Tito Puente in the Edward James Olmos documentary: Americanos: Latino Life in the U.S.
She has written for the WNET Latino American series and has a soon-to-be released series on the life and times of salsa music legend: Larry Harlow. She lectures at corporations, colleges, and universities and conducts cultural tours of East Harlem. She speaks virtually on Latin music and culture during lockdown while producing an original song she wrote and recorded with iPhones for social distancing, “Plena Corona de Aurora.” She’s currently writing her memoirs.
Read her latest articles over Medium: https://aurorazdb.medium.com/
Watch her over: https://www.reverbnation.com/zondelbarrio
YouTube: Salsa Conversations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0nXsTmzibk