West Side Story takes place in New York, Manhattan. In the beginning of the musical, we see an American gang called the Jets having tension with a Hispanic group called the Sharks. During this time New York was experiencing something called globalization and colonization. In L. Briggs excerpt, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and US Imperialism in Puerto Rico, he explains that with globalization, interaction with other nations, leads to development and colonization (Briggs, page 1).Colonization meaning that people from other nations moving into the United States; these people were called immigrants. The mixing of races caused different problems in the United States. Americans believed that Puerto Ricans immigrants were poor, had extremely large families, and were sexually active. People in American didn’t like the new immigrants company. In fact Americans questioned why Puerto Ricans were in America. A conservative newspaper writer, Don Feder, compares needing non english speakers in New York to needing higher crime rates in the country (Briggs, page 7).This shows how much they dislike immigrants. This strong dislike explains why the gang Jets hated the gang Sharks. The tension between them sparked from racial differences. Both gang competed with each other and fought each together to prove which gang was better. According to Briggs excerpt, he explains that immigrants were usually grouped together at the bottom of the social ladder or in the “rung of the social ladder” (page 163). The Jets probably viewed the Sharks as the lower class. As a result of the different social classes, both gangs competed with each together. This competition is sort of like a pride thing for both groups. The Jets are from New York so they should be the superior class, while the Sharks are foreigners. But the Sharks aren’t willing to accept that they are the lower class.
Sharks V. Jets
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America has seen many ethnic groups immigrate here and they are almost never immediately assimilated into the culture. Often times people who come to America do not have much and hope to make a life in this new country, and because of this stereotypes spring up about these newcomers about how they are lazy and poor or that they are stealing jobs and because of this people hold a great amount of animosity against them. In the case of the Jets and the Sharks I believe it is the exact same situation and this where all the hidden aggression to start a gang war comes from. It is almost as if the gang war is a metaphor for the american people feeling as though the Puerto Ricans are stepping on their turf and want to do something about it. The end result of people wanting to do something about it is often times in the form of discrimination or the use of racial slurs. Therefore the underlying aggression among these two street gangs is actually from the anger that the Americans feel against the Puerto Ricans for coming into their country and acting as though it is now theirs.
The Sharks and Jets conflict was very accurate with how racial tensions were becoming in New York at the time. There was definitely resentment coming from the New Yorkers towards the Puerto Ricans as they looked as less and thought of them as being poorer than them. The Sharks and Jets conflict definitely closely mimicked how the two groups were feeling against one another. The Puerto Ricans were also thought of as dangerous and they were even blamed for a higher crime rate. Considering the rich history New York has when it comes to welcoming immigrants, the mass immigration of Puerto Ricans was not as well received unfortunately.