Superman: Champion of American Immigration?

It is widely suggested that Superman, the great Man of Steel born in 1938, is the patriarch of the American mythological pantheon. Among all the great "American heroes," deeply trenched in the annals of American folklore, Superman stands alone. What distinguishes Superman from those other great American legendary figures, figures like Pecos Bill and Davy Crockett? Simply that while other American folklore legends represent regional identities-the cowboy, the frontiersman, the scout, etc.-Superman alone champions all people; no single region can claim him as its own. A single fact of the Superman myth makes this unifying representation possible: Superman is foreign.

Superman represents the ultimate alien. He is alien in every possible interpretation of the word. And he represents the full-spectrum experience of an alien's immigration to a (ahem) New World. First, Superman is the ultimate refugee. Not only is he parentless; he is people-less. While many refugees flee their homelands because of natural catastrophes, social turmoil, or fear of persecution, Superman's journey begins in a flight from the ultimate natural catastrophe: the destruction of his home world.

Superman champions the iconic image of America's early years of immigration. Early immigration in America has enjoyed its own heroic status; it represents a sort of new birth for those foreign souls who braved the great passage from one place of origin to another. In droves, peoples from across the world made that great passage to America, by boat, then by plane. It seems only natural, in the progress of immigration transport, that the next migration vessel should be a spaceship. And just as those early immigrants often turned to the sprawling lands of the American Midwest where life and identity could be born anew among the farming lands, Superman arrives on Earth in, where else but, Kansas.

Superman would be nothing more than an alien-hero, however, if not for his alter ego: Clark Kent. Clark Kent represents Superman's first move to developing the new identity all immigrants seek. Kent is, in many ways, representative of the act of assimilation. It is as though Superman took a look at the folksy, simplistic, pastoral land of Smallville, Kansas, and its mild-mannered people, and decided, "Just as these people adopted me as one of them, I will adopt their ways as my own." The interesting thing is that the Kent-persona stands in such stark contrast to the Superman-image. Superman has boundless strength; Clark Kent is insecure and weak. Kent wears glasses; Superman can see through walls. It seems Superman picked the wrong landing pad in Smallville.

Yet it is this image of the bumbling, weak, and humble Clark Kent that propels Superman even further into his role as the champion of American immigration. The idea Kent represents is that of upward mobility: the ability to not only reinvent oneself, but to ascend to new heights in the course of that reinvention. The first step to this process of upward mobility is self-discovery. In more modern Superman canons, Clark endures his early years (sometimes only through early adolescence, other times into his teenage years) ignorant of his potential. Yet upon realizing his own strength, and learning the value of his heritage, Clark embraces the idea of upward mobility through two acts. First, he embraces his abilities and forms them into a "trade"; if serving as a police officer counts as a trade, certainly serving as a superhero can do the same!

Secondly, Clark Kent does what all those seeking upward mobility must do: he moves. One of the core essentials of upward mobility is the idea that one takes the place he or she began as a launch pad, and moves away from it. To become Superman-to form his full identity, as all immigrants must-Clark Kent must move. Just as most immigrants who originally settled in the rural West, Kent thrusts himself into the exact opposite: the roaring urban jungle of the North. And it is in this new urban home known as Metropolis that Clark Kent blossoms into Superman.

This move on Superman's part serves as an encouraging message to immigrants in many ways. First, his upward mobility allows him to achieve that American Dream of success and self-betterment through hard work. As Clark Kent, he lands a job as a reporter, which might be satisfying, but the pull toward upward mobility calls for more. He becomes Superman. As Superman, he finds his calling. He finds love. He serves the people. He becomes great. American Dream, fulfilled. His success could be a poster image for all immigrants: "If I can do it, so can you!"

Second, Superman's move to Metropolis allows a symbolic representation of the integral importance of mobility to the American Dream. To be able to move is to be free. In the human realm, we long to be connected to everything. In the world of the immigrant, that longing is to be free to recreate oneself wherever one wants; to be able to go to a new place and start fresh, to see new things and make them part of your own identity, to be connected simultaneously to one place and another. For the immigrant that means moving and redefining the self. Superman represents this desire and impulse in his ability to fly: isn't that, in so many ways, the ultimate freedom?

Superman's mythology reveals the beauty of the story and history of American immigration. It cast the idea of immigration and migration in the shades of legend. And it allows Superman to become a champion of the immigrant: the alien who dared to become the foreigner and rise to the rank of one who belongs in his new world, one who impacts this new world and makes it her own. If anything, Superman's story and legend teaches us and reminds us of the magnificence of immigration-it's image as an almost epic journey, an exodus, toward a dream. And to the immigrant, Superman's story becomes the ultimate symbol of dream fulfillment: Your new life may not be saving the world, his story tells us, but look at yourself . . . You're soaring.