Venus Ramos
Professor Connie So
American Ethnic Studies 150
2 December 2018
The Portrayal of Puerto Ricans in West Side Story
West Side Story was a musical film that was created in 1961. The story revolves around two gangs, The Jets who consist of Polish men, and The Sharks who consist of Puerto Rican men. The Jets feel threatened by The Sharks because they think the Puerto Ricans are taking over their territory in Manhattan. In this film, racism and stereotyping is evident through the words and visuals used. The film consists of dialogue that US immigrants can still relate to today.
First, the film begins with The Jets at a basketball court, each member of the gang’s skin color appears darker than it normally would be in real life. I think they did this to the men in the Jets to separate them from the true “whites” since the members were from Poland and not America. It then transitions to an encounter with Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks along with its members. Bernardo and the Sharks have a much darker skin color than the other characters in the film. Their skin color is so dark that it is obviously unrealistic. I think they did this because that is how they pictured Latinos to be at that time, darker than Americans. When the Sharks speak English, they have a very exaggerated Latin accent. The actors that portrayed the Puerto Ricans themselves did not have the accent, so they had to create a fictional accent that they felt would be true to their character’s description. In the following scene, the Jets and Sharks get in a little fight and the police break it up. The police ask the Jets, “which one of these Puerto Ricans blooded you?” and then ask the Sharks to leave instead of the Jets. Although the police discriminated and looked down on the Jets who were Polish, they still felt that the Puerto Ricans were lower than the Polish. Instead of asking what happened and who started the fight, they automatically assumed that the Puerto Ricans were to blame for the situation. After the police leave, the Jets begin to discuss how to get the Puerto Ricans off of their territory. The Jets say that they can’t get them out because the Puerto Ricans “keep multiplying like cockroaches, keep coming, taking all the food.” One member of the Jets even said that he is drowning in tamales. They are blaming the Puerto Ricans for their lack of resources and even talk about tamales which is a popular Latin food. They assume that the Puerto Ricans eat tamales just because they are Latino. The next people to be introduced are Anita, Bernardo’s significant other, and Maria, Bernardo’s younger sister. Both Anita and Maria also have an unrealistic and exaggerated accent just like the members of the Sharks. Although Anita and Maria were portrayed to have darker skin color, Maria is much lighter than Anita and the other Puerto Ricans in the film. I think they depicted Maria this way because they wanted to make her more beautiful than Anita. In the opinions of many Americans, lighter is beautiful. They wanted to show that whites are attracted to lighter women.
Next, both the Sharks and the Jets go to a dance. Tony, a former Jet and best friend of Riff, the Jets’ leader, also goes to attend the dance. Maria goes to the dance as well and encounters Tony, they have a moment to themselves where they dance and then kiss. Bernardo sees the two, pushes Tony away from Maria and says, “get your hands off, American.” This is significant because they wanted to show that both the Puerto Ricans and Polish would not support a relationship between the two different races. At the time, it was not common to have an American be in a relationship with a Latina. It was looked down upon. When everyone goes home from the dance, Anita defends Maria and begins to argue with Bernardo. She asks Bernardo, “sometimes I don’t know what’s thicker, your skull or your accent?” I found this interesting because Anita also has an accent but criticizes Bernardo’s accent. As Bernardo and Anita continue to argue, Bernardo says, “She has given up Puerto Rico and now she’s queer for Uncle Sam.” This shows that Bernardo recognizes the change in Anita. Anita does not want to be seen as a Puerto Rican but rather, an American. Anita claims to be an American girl now but recognizes, “once an immigrant, always an immigrant.” The following scene is one of the most popular scenes in the film. The Puerto Ricans break out into a song where they go against each other’s statements. The women see America as such a great and positive place while the men see America in a negative perspective. In this song, “America,” the women sing, “Life is all right in America” and the men counter it by singing, “If you’re all-white in America.” The women are blinded with the great things that America has to offer while the men see very clearly the flaws and discrimination against them as immigrants.
Shortly, a few scenes later, the Jets and the Sharks meet at Doc’s drug store to discuss their rumble. They argue and there is a lot of tension between the two groups, but suddenly Lieutenant Schrank comes by and the two groups instantly act as if they are getting along. Lieutenant Schrank makes many rude comments towards Bernardo. When he tells everyone to leave, he pushes Bernardo’s chair and he instantly stands up furious, he says to Bernardo, “Yeah, sure, I know. It’s a free country, and I ain’t got the right. But I got a badge. What do you got?” The lieutenant is taking advantage of his position and he knows he has more power over the Puerto Ricans. It also shows that the Lieutenant thinks Bernardo is just a gang member that does not have a good future because he does not have a job. A couple of scenes later, both of the gangs meet up for the rumble. Maria convinces Tony to go and stop the rumble. The fight was just supposed to be between the two best fighters from each gang. As Tony arrives, the fight gets bigger and each member of both gangs get involved. Bernardo and Riff both pull out knives. Bernardo ends up killing Riff and then Tony kills Bernardo for killing his best friend. This creates more tension between the groups and now Tony knows he has created a big problem because he killed the brother of the woman he claims to be in love with. Chino goes to hunt down Tony and says, “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m gonna get that Polack.” The term “Polack” is a derogatory word that is very offensive to someone from Poland. This shows that both groups are racist to each other. Later on, Lieutenant Schrank goes to Anita’s home to ask Maria some questions. He asks Maria about the boy she danced with because her brother claimed she danced with the wrong boy. Maria lies and says, “Another from my country,” when he asks for his name, she answers “Jose.” This is significant because she did not want Lieutenant to know that she was dancing with Tony who is not from her country but is a white man. She knows that the Lieutenant would use the information of her relationship with Tony against her. Maria sends Anita to go to Doc’s to send Tony a message. When she gets there, the Jets harass her and they say “she’s too dark to pass.” This shows that white people constantly look down upon people who are darker. They feel as if they are better than people with darker skin color. Throughout the film, the Polish people call the Puerto Ricans, “Spics”. This term is a derogatory word for people that are of Latin descent. This shows that people freely called others using derogatory terms not having knowledge of what they mean or how hurtful they are. When Anita leaves, Doc says to the Jets, “When do you kids stop? You make this world lousy!” Doc respects both the Puerto Ricans and Polish people and all he wants is peace between the two groups because he sees no sense in the constant fighting. Tony hears about the lie that Chino has killed Maria so he goes out into the streets looking for Chino and asking to be killed. Tony ends up at the basketball court where Maria finds him. As they run towards each other, Chino shoots and kills Tony. Both of the gangs appear on the court when they hear the gunfire. When both gangs are about to fight, Maria yells at them to stay back. She grabs the gun from Chino and asks how to fire the gun. She then says, “Just by pulling this trigger? How many bullets are left, Chino? Enough for you? And you? All of you!” pointing the gun at every member of both gangs. She continues, “You all killed him, and my brother, and Riff. Not with bullets and guns. With hate! I can kill, too, because now I have hate! How many can I kill, Chino? How many? And still have one bullet left for me?” This is a significant scene because Maria recognizes that it did not have to end the way it did. There was so much hatred on both sides not only because their gangs were rivals but the two groups being different races also played a big part in the hatred that they had for each other. As the scene ends, the Jets take Tony’s body away and almost drop him but the Sharks instantly go and help carry his body. This is important because this shows a sign of becoming one and getting along. That no matter how much hatred they had for each other, they were there to help. The Jets and Sharks leave together which shows a sign of togetherness and Maria’s message really hitting them.
In the 1960’s in New York, the common job for Puerto Ricans was working with garment. In the film, Anita, Maria, and other Puerto Rican women worked in a sewing shop. During the 1960’s, there was a lot of discrimination against people of color, especially African Americans who were at the time, working on the Civil Rights Movement. Puerto Ricans worked alongside African Americans in support of the Civil Rights movement to stop the discrimination against people of color. The film, the Bronze Image, explains that in the movie industry, Puerto Ricans did not have as many opportunities as white people. Latinos were good in silent movies because they did not have to speak so no one could hear their accents, but when movies began to have sound, the careers of many Latinos fell. The accents of Latinas were accepted and adored while the accents of Latinos made them become supporting roles instantly. A woman in The Bronze Image recalled, “if you wanted the star role, you were not going to be Latin.” Specifically, for the lead role of Maria in West Side Story, many were confused why Natalie Wood played the part when she was not Latin at all. She was a white actress, playing the rold of a Puerto Rican immigrant. The film explained that no Latinas had the star power to play the lead role in West Side Story. In many cases, many Latina actresses were de-latinized. They were told to change their hair color and that lighter is always better. In an interview, the actress Rita Moreno who plays Anita expressed her opinion on the role she played in the film. She felt that her accent “didn’t make any sense at all” and the skin color of all the cast members were too dark using makeup. And even though Rita Moreno was Puerto Rican in real life, she had her skin darkened more. One actress was even told, “you have to dye your hair blonde because the bad girls have dark hair.” This shows that in order to be successful in the movie industry, you have to hide your true identity and become white. An actor that was in the documentary, The Bronze Image, said, “Hollywood is very influential in placing in the minds of people images of what we Latinos are, and unhappily, many of those images deal with gangs.” I found this to be true because the Puerto Ricans in West Side Story are gang members. There were no positive depictions of them in the film and people looked at them as bad people because they did nothing but cause trouble because they were in a gang.
To conclude, the film West Side Story showed many negative depictions of Puerto Ricans during the time the film was made. This included, how the characters talked in exaggerated accents and had extremely dark skin color. Not to mention, many of the Puerto Ricans were played by white actors and actresses. The film did not show who true Puerto Ricans were and in fact based some scenes and characters on stereotypes.