Other places: the Orient vs. Kansas City
Kansas City
During the time period of Oklahoma!, Kansas City was considered the crossroads of America due to its proximity to the mighty Mississippi and the Hannibal and St. Joseph's Railroad bridge, one of the first train bridges over the Mississippi River. Kansas City became a transportation hub for both water and railways. This made the city a mecca for commerce, cattle sales, and job prospects. Everything was "up to date" in Kansas City because anything considered "new" was dispersed to the midwest and the west through the Kansas City pipeline.
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Goods, food and livestock could travel by water, rail or road to Kansas City and then make it easily to other parts of the country.
Orientalism in America at the Turn of the Century
During the late 1800s, a fascination with all things "exotic" developed as a result of newly open areas of world trade, an emphasis on the "White Man's Burden, and even America's Monroe Doctrine (among a great many other factors that Dr. C would love to chat with you about personally). This translated into a demand for "exotic" goods from and information about the Middle East, China, Japan, India, the West Indies, etc.
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These goods, and the characterizing information about these areas of the world, were usually bad imitations of eastern cultures based on little actual knowledge of the culture itself. The air of mystery surrounding these cultures only served to fuel the demand for more products and information - for more knowledge of this unique "other." While the American Indians were conceptualized as primal, the people from the East were considered as intelligent, but misguided people unwilling to allow progress to revolutionize their societies. The East was characterized as 'exotic' - as developed societies that had some value due to their beauty and richness of culture, but were still backwards-thinking and in need of remedy by the Western world (especially concerning religion, social roles, government, industrialization, etc.). Edward Said explains this characterization as "Orientalism" - a general patronizing attitude toward these cultures which Westerners considered "static" and "undeveloped."
Ali Hakim (however you choose to pronounce it) is an interesting character because the people of Oklahoma treat him as an "exotic" - someone with equal intelligence who is very misguided and stubborn. He is someone to be strong-armed, someone to be "taught," rather than someone to be feared (like Jud Fry).
Whether Ali Hakim truly originated from the East (he could also be a 2nd generation American, or an outright sham), he is capitalizing on the demand for exotic goods but is still subject to the patronizing eye of the settlers. This makes Ali Hakim a different kind of "other" in the show. While the settlers fear Jud Fry, they feel intellectually superior to Ali Hakim (which is why they feel so duped by his products that don't work) and treat him as more of a nuisance than threat. His presence injects a good amount of 'color' into the backdrop of Oklahoma, but he is 'managed' and made to live by the settler's rules. |