Porgy and Bess is the only Opera in the Canon that portrays a story of Black American people… and it was written by white people.

George Gershwin, 1937

George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess has long been hailed as an iconic work in American opera, blending classical music with jazz, blues, and folk influences to tell the story of life in a fictional African American community in Charleston, South Carolina.¹ While its music is undoubtedly powerful, Porgy and Bess also requires critical interrogation, particularly due to the opera’s portrayal of race, culture, and identity. This raises uncomfortable questions about representation, authenticity, and the perpetuation of racial stereotypes.

At the heart of Porgy and Bess is a narrative of struggle, love, and survival,² centered on the character of Porgy, a disabled beggar, and his troubled relationship with Bess, a woman caught in the grip of addiction and abuse. The opera’s setting—Catfish Row, a poor African American neighborhood—creates a world where the characters’ lives are defined by poverty, violence, and hardship. While this portrayal is grounded in the socio-economic realities of many Black communities in the early 20th century, it also risks reinforcing a reductive and stereotypical image of African American life.³

The opera’s focus on African American characters, often depicted in crisis or dependency, can be seen as problematic. Critics have noted that Porgy and Bess is deeply influenced by a white gaze, one that both romanticizes and victimizes African Americans. While Gershwin was committed to incorporating Black music traditions into his work, his portrayal of Black life lacks the nuance and agency that would allow African American characters to transcend their circumstances.³ Each character fits the minstrel stereotypes: either asexual or overly sexual. Either unintelligent or villainous. These reinforce patriarchal white-supremacist ideology that perpetuates a false narrative further.

Modern productions of Porgy and Bess, have sparked important conversations about how the work can be reimagined.² These revivals attempt to acknowledge the complexities of race and representation, offering opportunities for greater authenticity and racial equity in performances.

Yet, even in its reinvention, Porgy and Bess remains a product of its time—one that must be engaged with critically to understand the tensions between artistic excellence and the reproduction of harmful racial stereotypes.

Ultimately, Porgy and Bess poses a challenge to contemporary audiences. While it is undeniable that the opera has shaped the American musical landscape, its legacy also serves as a reminder that the only work centered around the African American experience was written by white people and serves at perpetuate minstrel stereotypes. To truly recognize the richness of Black identity and culture, it is necessary to interrogate the ways in which works like Porgy and Bess both distort and reflect the lived experiences of Black communities.

Bonhoeffer with Students in 1932.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran Pastor and theologian who was executed in 1945 was executed by Nazis in 1945 for his involvement with a plot to kill Hitler. In 1930, Bonhoeffer came to America to pursue a fellowship at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Bonhoeffer was introduced to the Abyssinian Baptist Church by a fellow seminarian. Bonhoeffer served in the ministry there while he was in the U.S. and formed a love and affinity for the Black Church.

Theologians love to draw the connection between Bonhoeffer’s encounter with the Black Church and his resistance work back in Germany. For a detailed treatment of this subject see Reggie L. Williams’s excellent book Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus.

Bonhoeffer was apparently quite moved by Black Spirituals during his time in America, and even recorded them (Williams 80-1). He said that spirituals were “some of the greatest artistic achievements in America” and described them as having a “strange mixture of reserved melancholy and eruptive joy” (Williams 80). He would later, according to one his biographers, play these Spirituals for his students in his underground seminary back in Germany. His friend and biographer Eberhard Bethage wrote “We hummed ‘Swing low, sweet chariot’ twenty years before the radio and concert halls made it familiar here.” (Bethage, quoted in John W. Doberstien’s introduction to Bonhoeffer’s Life Together 9).

The affinity between Bonhoeffer and the Spiritual tradition isn’t surprising. Both share theological roots in resistance to oppression. The original religious context of Spirituals was in clandestine meetings where enslaved people would sing and worship together. Bonhoeffer’s resistance seminary was also underground. It’s hard not to see the resonance with the early church as well. The type of Christianity these three movements express is an imminent and liberation focused Christianity, which requires “Costly Grace,” an idea developed by Bonhoeffer.

“Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light’” (Witness to Jesus Christ “The Cost of Discipleship” 158).

Such grace exists perhaps especially in the midst of oppression. Grace, christian or otherwise, does not release us from our ethical duties to each other, but instead strengthens them.


Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. trans. Doberstein, John. Harper & Brothers. 1954.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Witness to Jesus Christ. ed. John De Gruchy. Collins Liturgical Publications. London. 1988.

Williams, Reggie L. Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and An Ethic of Resistance. Baylor University Press. 2014.

12-bar blues is a foundation that artists from all genres around the world have used to build their musical visions.

Blues goes beyond just a genre of music. The 12-bar blues progression has become one of the most significant building blocks of American popular music. Its influence can be traced through decades of musical evolution, from the birth of rock and roll to the rise of modern pop and hip-hop.

The 12-bar blues was a chord progression that could be used for improvisation and manipulation to create thousands of works of music. The structure allows for ample room for improvisation and emotional expression, especially when it comes to vocal delivery and instrumental solos.¹ It’s easy to see why it became so foundational to blues musicians—it provided both a predictable framework and the freedom to inject personal style and feeling into the music.

Blues started in America. It’s origins are traced back to the late 19th century in the Southern United Stater. It was created by African American musicians and influenced by precursors like ring shouts, work songs, and spirituals.¹ Blues was the most popular music for Black Americans for a long period of time, before white people made the style commercially profitable and published (stole) the work of black artists. Blues is also famous for being grass-roots and there are many folktales about where it really started. The start, to me at least, is less important than it’s legacy among American (and non-American) music today.

So what artists have used the 12-bar blues to make their music?

Led Zeppelin uses the 12-bar blues in their song “Rock n Roll”.

Johnny Cash is a country singer who often uses the blues influence in his music.

In the movie The Little Mermaid the song “Kiss the Girl” uses the 12-bar blues.

This extremely popular song might not be thought of as part of the Blues genre by listeners, but it is certainly a blues song that uses the 12-bar blues progression.

John Mayer uses the 12-bar blues his song “Gravity”.

The 12-bar blues is not just a formula—it’s a framework for expressing a large range of deep emotions that  encapsulate the universal human experience. As long as musicians continue to innovate, adapt, and express themselves through song, the 12-bar blues will remain a key part of American popular music.

Florence B. Price, a black female American composer, was a successful composer in her lifetime, winning the Wanamaker Foundation Award in 1932 for her Symphony No. 1 in E minor and her Piano Sonata in E minor. The following year, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her symphony. In 1939, her arrangement on “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord” was performed at the Lincoln Memorial Concert in Washington, D.C. Amongst all of these achievements and thus recognition of her talent, her success was still limited by the discrimination and lack of legitimacy that she received based on her race and gender.

In 1941, Florence Price wrote a letter to Russian american composer Serge Koussevitzky, in efforts to request a performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, of which Koussevitzky was the music director. In her letter, she expresses her credentials as an American composer, stating: 

“After graduating from the New England Conservatory I returned to my native South to teach. I have an accumulation of scores and manuscripts which during the past few years here in Chicago I have been bringing to light with the result– several performances. Having Colored blood in my veins, and having been born in the South, I believe I can say that I understand real Negro music as well if not better than the kind I studied in the East… Having read that you are particularly interested in American music I am hoping you will give something of mine a trial.” 

This was the first of several correspondences to Koussevitzky, of which he never responded. In 1941, the Boston Symphony Orchestra performed strictly white male compositions, such as Tchaikovsky, Pierné, Sibelius, and interestingly, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. This presents an interesting conversation, considering the topic of an American genre, and what those ideals entailed during Koussevitzky’s time as a conductor and music director. In Price’s correspondence, she explicitly states that her positionality as a black woman allows her to distinguish “real Negro music,” and offers him an opportunity to present “a fusion of [antebellum music and rag-time and jazz that proceeded], colored by present cultural influences.” Yet, the same year, Rhapsody in Blue was composed by white male composer George Gershwin was programmed at the BSO, demonstrating jazz and blues influences in a classical context but representing the prioritization of white male artistry. This seems to be reflective of the deliberate actions that were being taken during this time to sculpt an image of American classical music. While black music styles like jazz and blues were infiltrating the classical music scene, it was only being attributed an “American music” that excluded talents like Florence Price based on gender and race. 

Florence Price’s Quartet for Strings premiered at the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the 2016-2017 season, and her works have been performed there nearly every year since. One can hope that we are carving a new sculpture of who is encompassed in the American genre. 

Martin, Roland. 2023. “Florence Price | Composer, Pianist, Symphony, & Biography | Britannica.” Www.britannica.com. October 25, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Florence-Price.

“Performance History Search.” 2014. Bso.org. 2014. https://archives.bso.org/Detail.aspx?UniqueKey=79913.

“Image 3 of Letter from Florence B. Price to Serge Koussevitzky; 1941 September 18.” 2015. The Library of Congress. 2015. https://www.loc.gov/resource/musska.musska-100182/?sp=3&st=image&r=-1.305.

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Rubén “Funkahuatl” Guevara took on many personas as he developed his musical career, which reflects the many different ideas about Chicano identity that circulated throughout pop culture during the 60s and 70s, as well as the transformation of Chicano representation in music with the beginning of the Chicano Movement. Rubén in particular brings up an interesting conversation about commercialism, and how in his case used it to spread an image of Chicano presence in American music beginning with “doo-wop”, a variation of blues and rock and roll, especially as he began performing on television shows. Shindig! was a variety show that aired from 1964 to 1966, in which he performed with artists such as Bo Diddley, Tina Turner, and other African American blues artists. In order to be on the show, Rubén had to incorporate a stage name, Jay P. Mobey, which you can see in the video below: 

The changing of his name from Rubén Guevara to Jay P. Mobey suppressed his identity as an Mexican-American on the stage, and when the show ended in 1966 he sought to re-invent himself as Chicano, and began singing with Frank Zappa in Ruben and the Jets. With this group as well, he blended with the sounds of the time, now immersing himself in the R&B and rock of the 70s. In 1974, Ruben and the Jets released an album called “Con Safos.” Con Safos means “with safety,” and was a tag that was written on the graffiti throughout Los Angeles to indicate to others not to cover their work. This album cover positions Guevara in the center of the picture, with depictions of artists outside of a liquor store in L.A. “Viva la Raza” is written on the wall, a phrase used during the Chicano movement to signify their reclamation of Chicano heritage, culture, language and race. Guevara’s music once again blends with similar sounds of the period, this time rock and roll, but uses his avenue as a popular artist to promote Chicano presence in the music scene. 

Finally, it is interesting to see such a radical change in sound and image as he went through his life and musical career. After Ruben and the Jets dispersed, Rubén recorded a song called “C/S” with a group called Con Safos, which explicitly discusses the Vietman War, and prejudice against Chicanos and their reclamation of their heritage. This song was published in 1983 in an LP called “The Eastside Renaissance.”

I encourage you to listen to all three of these stages of Ruben’s career and journey with his Chicano identity.  Rubén’s adaptability to popular genre could be perceived as un-original or commercial, but I think it ultimately represents the journey that many Mexican-Americans experienced throughout the Chicano movement in terms of establishing and celebrating their identity and culture in the United States. 

It is important to note that it wasn’t until the beginning of the Chicano movement that “chicano” was an appropriate word to describe Americans of Mexican descent. Chicano comes from the Nahuatl word xicano, which represents the reclamation of indigenous heritage of the Mexica peoples, who lived in the southwest region of present day United States. 

Caravan, composed by Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington, is the most covered jazz standard in history, with more than 500 covers. But what does this song represent? 

The Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917 granted US citizenship to Puerto Ricans, which led to a surge of Puerto Ricans immigrating to the US, especially to New York through Ellis Island. Many Puerto Rican musicians were recruited, due to their talent and ability to read music, to play in jazz clubs and theater pit bands in Washington D.C. and New York, primarily catering to black audiences. “Circa 1920, except for the leader, the entire pit orchestra of the legendary Howard Theater in Washington was composed of Puerto Rican musicians, and it included Tizol” (Serrano 90). In an interview with Patricia Willard in 1978, Juan describes his experience moving to the United States in 1920, working factory jobs in New York in order to save enough money to buy an instrument and make a living. He eventually encountered Duke Ellington when he went to Howard Theatre in Washington D.C. several years later.  The experiences of Puerto Rican immigrants during this time is often characterized by poverty, hardship, and racial discrimination, and it is important that this is not overlooked, especially when considering the vital role that Puerto Rican jazz musicians contributed to the cultural production of an American genre. Juan Tizol was a composer and played trombone in Duke Ellington’s Big Band from 1929 to 1953. Tizol was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1900, and came to the United States in 1920 with some musicians he was playing with in a Puerto rican municipal band at the time. Many Puerto Rican musicians would travel between New York and Puerto Rico, since there weren’t very many opportunities to perform jazz on the island at the time, and it was emerging more prominently in places like New Orleans and New York. Others were recruited to play in the Harlem Hellfighters during WWI. It is important for us to recognize the role that Puerto Rican musicians played in developing jazz, as they were intentionally intertwined in the jazz music scene during a time of intense cultural production. 

Considering this, It was interesting to read that Tizo’s compositions fell under the genre of “exotica”, which is characterized by ideas of “distant, mythical and mystical lands” (Serrano 89). It was also mentioned that Tizo had originally included “Porto Rico”* in the title of several of his compositions, including “Porto Rican Girl” dedicated to his sister Remedio. Before publishing, the title was changed to “Moon Over Cuba” since she had moved to Cuba… While there is no definitive reason for this change, it is interesting to consider the narrative of distance and otherness that is preserved in the edited titles of his songs. ‘Porto Rico’ was included in several other of Tizo’s original titles, but were changed before they were published. What is demonstrated by the intentions to separate Puerto Rican identity from Tizol’s compositions? Does it give us insight on the marketing strategies during the time? Is it reflective of the attitudes towards Puerto Rican citizens living in the United States? When considering an American genre such as jazz, it is important to recognize all of the musicians that contributed to the narrative of the art, and the circumstances that they endured. What does this reflect about the narrative that has been created about American music, and who is included in it? 

*In the Treaty of Paris in 1898 they changed the name of Puerto Rico to ‘Porto Rico’, in efforts to make it easier to pronounce for Americans. It wasn’t until 1932 that they changed it back to the original spelling and the spelling they always had used on the island. 

Serrano, Basilio. “Juan Tizol: His Talents, His Collaborators, His Legacy.” Centro Journal 18, no. 2 (2006): 82–99.

Juan Tizol oral history interview. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-3r99-0749

Immigration has always been a point of contention in the United States, because it proposes the discussion of who is American and who is included in the American identity. White settlers in the 1920s were legally considered American, since they had lawful access to citizenship, but there were so many others who contributed to the production of American culture: producing economic commodities, music being one of them. Throughout the 1920s and the Great Depression, Mexican immigrants were recruited to work in the Southwest of the United States participating in the railroad, mining, and agricultural industries. Music is able to depict the commonality of experiences, but also differentiate these conditions for Mexican immigrants and white people during the 1920s and 30s. Tracing back to the medieval myth of Cockayne or Cucaña, which speaks of a utopia where hardship does not exist. Songs such as “The Big Rock Candy Mountains” and “La Ciudad de Juaja” that describe the idealizations of life during the Great Depression, allow us to understand what living conditions and their respective hardships were like for White workers and Mexican immigrants. For example, in “The Big Rock Candy Mountains” Harry McClintock describes “cigarette trees” in comparison to “La Ciudad de Juaja,” Pantaleón Ramos and Manuel Treviño describe “árboles de tortillas, ramos con jarros de atole” (trees of tortillas, [and] branches with cups of atole*) (*a warm drink of Mexican origin.) The common use of the word tree, to describe natural resources and abundance, and the idealizations of what there would be abundance of help us to understand the different priorities of what is necessary, or brings pleasure to each of these groups of people. In this case, tobacco versus culturally traditional food. In both of the songs as well, they mention punishment for work. In “La Ciudad de Juaja” the lyrics say “allí le dan de palos al que quiera trabajar (there they beat those who want to work)” and in “The Big Rock Candy Mountains” the lyrics mention “they hung the jerk that invented work.” I think the most important conclusion to draw from each of these songs is that there was (to an extent) a common experience of mine and railroad workers during the Great Depression. While it is important to recognize that Mexican migrants experienced different and additional challenges due to people “honragados dishonest* ” taking advantage of immigrant labor and language barriers, the similarities in each of these songs creates a sense of identity based on the hardships that were experienced in these working conditions during this time period of American history. Another thing that I thought about while writing the title for this post, was the relevant role that work culture plays in American identity today. Again, it is important to note that these conditions look different for different groups of people, and I don’t intend to neglect the complexity of America’s job industry or make a statement that encompasses all Americans, but there is some validity in that the United States has become a place for work, and has come to define many American experiences.

*honragado is no longer a word used in the Spanish dictionary but was used in the lyrics of this song in the 1930s to describe a deceiving person. A current translation of “dishonest” would be deshonrado. 

Translation of “La Ciudad de Juaja” Part II

Corridos y Tragedias De La Frontera- CD 1: La Crisis1994., edited by Chris StrachwitzArhoolie Records. https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity|recorded_track|390149.

Many American composers wished to create a distinctive American sound in their writing, one that would be different and distinct from European classical music. However, sometimes the way they went about finding this was not respectful or fair. American composers such as Dvorzak wanted to create something new and different than what Americans had heard before, however the way he went about doing this creates questions of the line that needs to be drawn between taking inspiration and stealing ideas. Many Native Americans had very beautiful music. However, many settlers came over and decided to steal the melodies of Native American folk tunes to commercialize them.

Dvorzak had a residency in the United States. Within this residency, “He believed the future of American music must be founded on the resources of the Native American, African American, and Creole American melodies and rhythms.” (1). Some may argue that this is a form of borrowing and appreciation of Native American music. Many pop artists today do collaborations with other artists, and receive help from many composers and producers to create their albums. However, the difference between those pop artists today and American composers in the past was that the collaborators on pop albums receive credit as well as a portion of the royalties from the music. On the other hand, the American composers in the past were stealing ideas from the Native American as well as African American population and not giving any sort of royalties or credit back to them. This is therefore instead of collaboration stealing ideas because the creation of this new music is rooted in colonization as well as exploitation of resources.

Many people were inspired by Dvorzak’s ideas and there was a movement created around this time called the “Indianist” movement, which involved stealing folk tunes from Native Americans and commercializing it to receive profit.

Amy Beach was another composer who was inspired by Dvorzak’s ideas and used Native American melodies and folk tunes for many of her compositions. However, after several compositions she realized that it would work better to use music that she was used to and grew up with instead of ideas from a culture she didn’t know. This is an interesting conclusion that she came to because it goes to show the lack of understanding Americans have towards Native American culture. Even when stealing ideas for the music, there is no way that others will be able to fully replicate the intricate details of the music, because it comes from the Native American culture. The only way to fully replicate these ideas would be to grow up as a Native American experiencing it. Therefore, despite the stealing and exploitation of ideas, no one will be able to take away the Native American culture and music away from them.

The issue of stealing ideas and exploitation of artists is still present today, as well as the lasting effects of colonization on marginalized groups. However, hopefully as a society we can move forward and create a better future for artists and marginalized groups to be able to live their life without being exploited or used.

Mercer, Stephanie. “An American Sound: Celebrating Native American Music through the ‘Indianist’ Movement and the American Piano Composer.” The American Music Teacher, vol. 71, no. 2, 2021, pp. 16-.