How did we get to the point where the word immigrant is a pejorative being hurled about by so many American citizens, people who themselves are immigrants or descended from immigrants? Well, it’s a classic tactic used to accrue and maintain power: blaming all the woes of a country on the “other,” different colors, ethnicities, religions and a myriad of other things. Now, our “dear leader” has boiled it down to just immigrants. They are the source of your personal problems and the country’s as a whole. The multi-talented Alan Cumming, who hails from Scotland, recently became a US citizen, and in the process he noticed that the current administration recently removed the phrase “America, a nation of immigrants” from the US Government’s Immigration Services website. This was the jumping off point for him to create his cabaret show “Legal Immigrant” (UCSB A&L 4/18 @ the Granada). As he astutely points out, here in the US, if you are anti-immigration, you are really anti-American, because unless you’re Native American, you’re an immigrant. Cumming is a spot-on comedian, singer, story teller and social commentator, and between songs he tells some of his origin story, why he moved to the USA and became a citizen, and he makes some pointed (and funny) political observations in his delightful brogue. In keeping with the theme of the show, he makes a point of telling the audience the names of the composers and stars who made the songs famous, because they were all immigrants to our fair land. Cumming is a fine and passionate singer, here backed by 4 fine musicians on piano, trumpet, cello, guitar and percussion, making the whole package a grand celebration of what made this country great, and a thoughtful evening of top notch entertainment.
