The topic of race relations is no stranger to musical theater. Since 1927 with Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern’s "Show Boat," which was one of the first commercialized pieces of theater that showcased conflicts such as interracial marriage, Broadway houses have welcomed a number of political conversations regarding race. They can be seen in shows such as Rodgers & Hammerstein’s "South Pacific "which discusses how racism is a man-made phenomenon to the 2003 Tony Award-winning musical "Hairspray" which tackles segregation in 1960s Baltimore. Even "Hamilton" holds a message by redefining the term immigrant and telling the story of our country’s forefathers with the diversity that built America to what it is today.

One of the most celebrated stories regarding prejudices based on race is "West Side Story" - the 1958 musical which lost the Tony Award to "The Music Man "but won Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1961. The Broadway production, directed and choreographed by legend Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, was one of the first times Puerto Rican characters were depicted on the Great White Way. Though it is debated whether the music and lyrics (written by the up-and-coming Stephen Sondheim) are examples of ethnic stereotyping, it was the humanity and struggle of the characters that drew the likes of Chita Rivera and Rita Moreno to the project whilst creating an incomparable opportunity for many in the industry at the time.

On the page, the musical depicts the story of a rivalry between two gangs fighting for turf in the Upper West Side neighborhoods of New York: the Puerto Rican Sharks and the Polish (though often simplified as “white”) Jets.

I grew up watching the film which I, at the time, took at face value, seeing it only as a revamped, more diverse, telling of the classic "Romeo & Juliet "story. I saw representation in Rita Moreno which was incredibly valuable for a child like me who had an affinity for the arts. It is why I was ecstatic to learn I would be doing my first performance of "West Side Story "this summer with a talented cast who loved the material as much as I did. However, something changed within me when the words “I want to be in America” was being sung at a point in history when a vast majority of people are shouting to “build the wall.”

My eyes were completely opened to the show’s meaning when our director brought a new idea to the core of our production: that our differences did not reside in the color of our skin but in the colors we ourselves chose to bear. This depiction, therefore, began with the cast onstage as a harmonious ensemble in shades of gray, breaking apart only once the Jets chose to don the color red, therefore forcing the Sharks to band together in blue to fight off the discrimination from the opposing group. Suddenly it became a game where the Jets, who were played by actors of Irish, Asian, Mexican, and African-American backgrounds, were able to set the rules of the playing field. This left the Sharks, who were their own mixture of minorities, on edge as they were forced into playing a game of oppression they never wanted to join.

What we often forget as viewers of this show is that the Jets are immigrants as well. They are offspring of hard laboring individuals who work in their own stores, struggling to make a life for their families. The only difference between themselves and the Puerto Ricans is what the new take emphasized with the use of two opposing colors. It signifies that the separations we make among ourselves are a human-made phenomenon which is created by the exterior judgments we place on one another. By ostracizing a group based on simple facts such as the color of their jacket, the potential of creating tensions is inevitable. The power to choose who is subjected to such oppression is what sparks the violence between the gangs leaving the Jets to fight in order to continue to be rulers of the playground. The Sharks fight back because they are pushed to their limits and need to survive.

A month after the show came to a close is when I saw a parallel to this struggle, except this time it was not a game, and the idea of turf was supplemented, instead, with a Confederate statue.

In this real-life scenario, these two sides were divided by those who were fighting to maintain their unjust and immoral ideas in order to be ‘rulers’ of the game. The other side, with their intolerance for oppression, stood their ground and fought back, proving to be on the right side of history (no matter what anyone says). It is unbelievable when a group of people, who by definition are people whose families in times long past made their own journey to this nation, can stand in the way of progress towards equal human rights for all. Yet, this is not the first time we have seen this both in reality and on stage. These problems regarding equality and racism extend far beyond the colonization of this country but have filtered through into the societal conducts of our current way of life. We document this struggle with history books and newspapers, yet nothing can compare to the emotional capabilities of theater.

It comes as a surprise to the audience when the show concludes with the purest form of humanity, love, being struck down in a violent act. Who it destroys, however, are those who have participated in the game. As the show reaches its tearful ending, the gangs come together to carry off their friend and console one another, a picture painted clearly in our production as we stripped off our colors and left them behind. Slowly, the jackets became a pile on the floor, almost as a reminder of what harm can come when people refuse to live with love for those around them.

Here we are in 2017. The events in Charlottesville speak for themselves in reminding us that the infamous ideologies of the 1950s cannot be referred to as a point in history to look back on. The repealing of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which specifically targets minorities and Latinos, only solidifies the fact that people are being subjected to rhetoric stating that they are unwanted and non-American.

We as people do not have the luxury of having a total of two divisions based on the clothing we wear. Instead, we face oppression and discrimination on the topics of sex, gender, orientation, religion, belief, pigmentation, race, wealth and various others. The world cannot be fixed in one day. Ideologies are hard to kill as we have seen with sadness in Virginia. What "West Side Story "has shown me is that there is a world in which we learn from our mistakes. We learn that oppression is not something to be ignored, that the “colors” we chose to wear proudly should not be exclusive to those around us but be shed to make a united humanity that exists beyond the surface. The famous melodic line of the score which encompasses the show's theme is “there’s a place for us” which captures what our jobs are as human beings fighting for equality: creators of what will be our “somewhere.” But we cannot get there if we are divided. We can only achieve that once we see one another for who we are — without the reds and the blues.