West side story America

West Side Story opened on Broadway in the fall of 1957, the lyricist Stephen Sondheim received an angry letter from a doctor. One of the musical’s standout numbers in its Washington, D.C., tryout had been “America,” a playful debate between Rosalia, who longs to return to Puerto Rico, the “island of tropical breezes,” and Anita, a stateside enthusiast who mocks Rosalia’s nostalgia for an “island of tropic diseases.” West side story America As Sondheim recalled in his annotated collection of lyrics, Finishing the Hat, Dr. Howard Rusk, the founder of a New York medical center, complained that the song misrepresented Puerto Rico, which had, in fact, a very low instance of tropic diseases and a lower mortality rate than the continental United States. “I’m sure his outrage was justified,” Sondheim conceded, “but I wasn’t about to sacrifice the line that sets the tone for the whole lyric.” Although editors from New York’s Spanish-language newspaper La Prensa threatened to picket West Side Story for portraying Puerto Ricans as a public-health threat, and Rusk wrote an article for The New York Times headlined “The Facts Don’t Rhyme,” the show proceeded with Anita’s jab intact.

West side story America 

 

“America” is a song from the 1957 musical West Side Story. Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics and Leonard Bernstein composed the music. 

Artists: George Chakiris, Rita Moreno, Marni Nixon, Jimmy Bryant, Natalie Wood, William Bramley 
Movie: West Side Story