Another National Anthem

Donatella Galella

National anthems aim to unite us by generating simple, powerful, positive feelings. Yet America’s national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” cannot erase the complex feelings people actually have about this nation. For some, singing the anthem is a chance to express full-throated approval; but for others, the anthem conjures too many unfulfilled promises.

That’s why some, like former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, have tried to perform a different relationship toward the national anthem. While others stand with hands on hearts, these people kneel and bow their heads to protest anti-Black police brutality. In doing so, they mix critique with continued respect. They perform their ambivalent feelings toward this single-minded song.

Rather than repurpose “The Star-Spangled Banner,” other Americans have tried to promote alternative anthems. Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” has long been championed by religious conservatives. And Woodie Guthrie wrote “This Land Is Your Land” as a liberal, secular response to Berlin that celebrates equal claim to the land Americans occupy. Meanwhile, J. Rosamond Johnson and James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing” has been known as the Black National Anthem since 1919, pervading Black institutions and protests. Each anthem expresses its own kind of patriotic belonging, its own complex blend of feelings toward the nation-state.

This year, a new candidate for national anthem has emerged: “Democracy” from David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori’s musical Soft Power. At the 2020 Democratic National Convention, the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) caucus meeting commenced, as ceremonies often do, with a singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but climaxed and concluded with Hwang and Tesori’s “Democracy.” Preceding a panel on art and activism, Broadway actress Ashley Park performed the song (begins at 1:07:38). Then, in her concluding remarks, AAPI caucus chair Bel Leong-Hong called back to that performance: “As the song ‘Democracy’ says, believe that we have the power to change through our vote. Believe, believe, believe that democracy will triumph.”

Each anthem expresses its own kind of patriotic belonging, its own complex blend of feelings toward the nation-state.

Showtunes are no stranger to politics. They have often been mobilized for explicitly partisan agendas. For his 1948 presidential campaign, Harry Truman used “I’m Just Wild about Harry” from the groundbreaking Black musical Shuffle Along. Richard Nixon hosted a performance of 1776 at the White House. And during her 2016 Democratic National Convention speech, Hillary Clinton quoted Hamilton, whose creators have held fundraisers for the Democratic party. But it’s rare to see a showtune used, as “Democracy” was this year, as an anthem—uniting people around shared feelings toward the nation-state. 

This year, amid a wave of anti-Asian violence goaded on by this Republican administration, those feelings include fear, anger, and mourning—but also, the caucus hopes, determination and pride.

The caucus has to believe this in order to do their job. Intended to rally voters, the AAPI caucus meetings highlight AAPI-related issues and celebrate AAPI representation. In recent elections, the AAPI electorate has become increasingly Democratic, perhaps most significantly helping to turn California’s Orange County blue in 2018. As Judy Chu, who chairs the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, intoned, “We can go from being marginalized to being the margin of victory.” This year, caucus speakers addressed the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on AAPI communities with regard to healthcare, unemployment, and hate crimes. The caucus was especially galvanized by some high-profile “firsts,” from Andy Kim, who in 2018 became the first Asian American congressperson to represent New Jersey, to Kamala Harris, the first Asian American (and African American) major party candidate for Vice President.

In this context, “Democracy,” a song from the first Asian American playwright to reach Broadway, is a natural fit. As David Henry Hwang explained when introducing the song: “Our story as AAPIs is an American story, and when we tell it truthfully, honestly, in exposing our hearts and souls, we are committing a political act.” Ashley Park began singing with pained reflection, “So many times / It’s left me battered and bruised / Disillusioned, in pain / Feeling I’ve been used” and ultimately belted with hope, “We have the power to change / That’s why I believe in / Democracy!” Her performance captured the devastation of the 2016 presidential election results for many Asian Americans, as well as a persistent faith that voters will deliver the 2020 election to Democrats. This torch song culminates in utterly sincere expressions of patriotic feeling, an unshakeable belief in American democracy despite its flaws. Casting an Asian American to sing “Democracy,” delivered by a white actress in the musical, suggests a re-casting too of American politicians. Even as Asian Americans experience systemic, historic, and ongoing exclusion, they yearn for inclusion by performing nationalism.

At the same time, Hwang and Tesori’s song offers a searing critique of American democracy. The lyrics compare democracy to an abusive partner who might literally kill us with populist, racist violence. Although the song acknowledges “this country’s a disaster / in so many ways” and clinging to democracy might be “insane,” it insists that Americans can be “Good and grown up enough / To lift us up.” Are these the hopes of political activists, or the delusions of a battered spouse?

But what makes the performance of “Democracy” at the DNC truly extraordinary is that, in its original context, it is self-consciously a piece of propaganda. Throughout Soft Power, Hwang and Tesori want to show their audience how musical theater works as a delivery system for ideology, exercising soft power over those who encounter it. As the musical begins, David Henry Hwang (who, in addition to being the author of this musical, is a character in it) attends a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton and meditates on how The King and I moves audiences to celebrate western rule over eastern despotism. Then, after the 2016 election, Hwang is stabbed in the neck (a suspected hate crime, which Hwang also suffered in real life), and he starts to imagine how the King and I might be written in reverse: a big Broadway-style musical about the Democratic loss and how it led to the fall of America and the subsequent rise of China.

Mimicking The King and I, this musical-within-a-play positions Hillary Clinton as a backwards American leader who needs to be taught by a Chinese outsider. Along the way, it satirizes the United States’ democratic system and anti-Chinese xenophobia. In fact, “Democracy,” which Clinton sings after her devastating loss, is meant to show her as someone clinging irrationally to a dangerous, chaotic system. In this way, the song parallels “Something Wonderful” from The King and I in which the aggrieved wife of the king sings, “You’ll always go along, defend him when he’s wrong / And tell him when he’s strong, he is wonderful.” In other words, “Democracy” is an anti-democratic song cognizant of itself as Chinese propaganda—an unlikely soundtrack for the DNC!

Yet Bel Leong-Hong called “Democracy” a “battle hymn” for Democrats today. Patriotism can make it difficult to hear dissonance or dissent.

Although the song acknowledges “this country’s a disaster” … it insists that Americans can be “Good and grown up enough / To lift us up.” Are these the hopes of political activists, or the delusions of a battered spouse?

Perhaps we should be glad that “Democracy” can express complex feelings not typically given space in mainstream discourse. In a rare gesture explicitly acknowledging the long-denied yet still promised fruits of democracy, AAPI Caucus Secretary and Treasurer Keith Umemoto ended the pledge of allegiance “with liberty and justice for all… someday” and gave a wry smile. “Democracy” does similar work: praising democracy while pushing back on its most flattering self-images.

For me, “Democracy” works. I watched Park’s performance while holding my seven-month-old baby, and even though I am an un-American Asian American and a theater scholar aware of theatrical manipulation, I still found myself moved to tears, still critical of and still emotionally invested in democracy. The next day, I went back to calling my representatives, as I have been doing every day for nearly four years.