Superman's Ethnicity

[marhawkman]

Playing up the immigrant angle doesnt work. How many people understand the challenges that an immigrant has to overcome? If there is anything, you can see people are becoming more anti immigrant with the rise of the nationalist parties. Also i dont see Supes goes through the same thing that other immigrants have to go through. His backstory of having been raised by native parents, his powers just make him different from most other immigrants.

There's another thing. As someone once put it to me, there's two kinds of immigrants: those who want to merge with the culture they're coming to, and those who simply want to relocate. The way those two groups behave is very different.

Superman can't BE a Human, but he can at least play along with Human culture and stuff. This is why he doesn't build the Fortress of Solitude in the middle of Metropolis. He doesn't want to have this air of "I'm better than you". The Fortress is very much a Kryptonian thing, but he puts it where it's not where it gets in the way of other people living their lives.

In the silver age version, Jor-El was believed by many people. They were working on a fleet of ships. They could have saved many (if not all) of their fellow kryptonians. Why didn't they do that you ask? Well they were building those ships in Kandor. They were still building them when Brainiac shrank & stole Kandor.

In some continuities Krypton actually had a space navy. But... these weren't Star Wars or Star Trek style ships where the basic crew might be over 1,000 people, nope... a few dozen per ship at most.

Also, in the continuity Karsta Wor-Ul came from the fleet got recalled to Krypton for some political reason just in time to get blown up because they were in orbit of Krypton. Karsta refused to return with the rest and survived the destruction of Krypton simply because she was acting as a merc in deep space.

Oh wait, in the Lois and Clark series back in the 90s the Kryptonian space navy was the reason why they had a bunch of Kryptonians show up on Earth later. Not MANY Kryptonians were able to escape that way, but enough(hundreds?) that the race wasn't functionally extinct. But this was only a tiny fraction of the population, not even all of one city.... mostly just social elites and military members.

[Ascended]

Playing up the immigrant angle doesnt work. How many people understand the challenges that an immigrant has to overcome? If there is anything, you can see people are becoming more anti immigrant with the rise of the nationalist parties. Also i dont see Supes goes through the same thing that other immigrants have to go through. His backstory of having been raised by native parents, his powers just make him different from most other immigrants.

Clark's story is actually more akin to that of a first generation immigrant. Kara's the one who is properly set up for the straight immigrant tale (well, her and J'onn and Starfire and Hawkman and a lot of other aliens, but we're talking Superverse specifically right?)

I didn't see anyone say anything ,It is Kal El by the way. Kal El= Cal El= Calvin Ellis

I thought they dropped the hyphen and it was just Kalel? Eh, could be wrong here, I mostly just refer to him as President Superman or Calvin Ellis....sometimes Super Obama in my head.

[llozymandias]

There's another thing. As someone once put it to me, there's two kinds of immigrants: those who want to merge with the culture they're coming to, and those who simply want to relocate. The way those two groups behave is very different.

Superman can't BE a Human, but he can at least play along with Human culture and stuff. This is why he doesn't build the Fortress of Solitude in the middle of Metropolis. He doesn't want to have this air of "I'm better than you". The Fortress is very much a Kryptonian thing, but he puts it where it's not where it gets in the way of other people living their lives.
In some continuities Krypton actually had a space navy. But... these weren't Star Wars or Star Trek style ships where the basic crew might be over 1,000 people, nope... a few dozen per ship at most.

Also, in the continuity Karsta Wor-Ul came from the fleet got recalled to Krypton for some political reason just in time to get blown up because they were in orbit of Krypton. Karsta refused to return with the rest and survived the destruction of Krypton simply because she was acting as a merc in deep space.

Oh wait, in the Lois and Clark series back in the 90s the Kryptonian space navy was the reason why they had a bunch of Kryptonians show up on Earth later. Not MANY Kryptonians were able to escape that way, but enough(hundreds?) that the race wasn't functionally extinct. But this was only a tiny fraction of the population, not even all of one city.... mostly just social elites and military members.

Also (in the silver age) all that was mentioned was that an escape fleet was being built in Kandor. Nothing was said about how many ships were going to be in that fleet. Or how many people or how much cargo each ship could carry.

[witchboy]

Clark's story is actually more akin to that of a first generation immigrant. Kara's the one who is properly set up for the straight immigrant tale (well, her and J'onn and Starfire and Hawkman and a lot of other aliens, but we're talking Superverse specifically right?)



I thought they dropped the hyphen and it was just Kalel? Eh, could be wrong here, I mostly just refer to him as President Superman or Calvin Ellis....sometimes Super Obama in my head.

Yes, I think Calvin Ellis is Kalel, which is a neat variation, as we've had Earth 2 Kal-L, Kal-El the most frequent version. I'm not sure if we ever saw Kal-LL but there was an evil AU Jor-LL in the Bronze Age.

[Killerbee911]

I thought they dropped the hyphen and it was just Kalel? Eh, could be wrong here, I mostly just refer to him as President Superman or Calvin Ellis....sometimes Super Obama in my head.

Yes you are right. Super Obama works as well

[bat39]

In the silver age version, Jor-El was believed by many people. They were working on a fleet of ships. They could have saved many (if not all) of their fellow kryptonians. Why didn't they do that you ask? Well they were building those ships in Kandor. They were still building them when Brainiac shrank & stole Kandor.

Oh yeah, I always forget about the secret fleet that was lost when Brainiac shrunk Kandor.

Clark's story is actually more akin to that of a first generation immigrant. Kara's the one who is properly set up for the straight immigrant tale (well, her and J'onn and Starfire and Hawkman and a lot of other aliens, but we're talking Superverse specifically right?)

Honestly, I think Clark's story is more a case of transnational adoption than ''immigration'' per se. He's adopted as a baby (in the Byrne version, he's literally born on earth) by humans, a pair of American farmers to be precise, and raised by them. He goes by a human name, and for a significant part of his early life (in most versions) is unaware of his true identity or heritage.

You're right that Kara fits the ''immigrant'' narrative a bit better, since she spent a chunk of her early life on Krypton and came to earth much later. She self-identifies as Kara Zor-El. The day she first took a human name (be it Linda Lee, or Linda Danvers, or hell, even Kara Danvers), she's aware that its a false identity, that she's blending in and pretending to be human. Even if she genuienly respects human culture and wants to live a human life at least some of the time.

Not so with Clark Kent, who grew up as Clark Kent and only learnt about Kal-El later (Silver Age notwithstanding).

I come down to this same argument in discussions about who's the 'real' identity.

So coming back to the subject of Superman's ethnicity...yes, you can argue that technically he's a different race from a white/Caucasian human male. But for all intents and purposes, he grew up believing he's one, and was raised in a Caucasian family. He went to college, traveled the world, and went to work, with his friends, acquaintances and co-workers all perceiving him as a white man.

Had he been a black man, raised in a black family (or even a black man raised in a white family), his lived experience would be different. His sense of self-identity would be different too - because the human life he lives is a major chunk (the dominant chunk IMO, at least early on) of his life.

[Jim Kelly]

In Canada, we've learned some tough lessons from the antiquated policy of assimilation and many of us believe that this is wrong. We want people to celebrate their culture. Canada becomes greater when everyone is recognized for their own identity and origins.

That's what's so sick about saying Superman is an alien, if he celebrates Krypton and his birth parents. Adoptive parents want their children to know where they came from and to own the culture that they came from. There's too much self-hatred that arises from teaching children to become part of the dominant culture.

I think it's great that Superman declared his Kryptonian identity and who he really is. Yes, he's also Clark Kent, raised in Smallville--but the two cultures should not be at war in his soul. He should accept himself for all that he is.

[marhawkman]

In Canada, we've learned some tough lessons from the antiquated policy of assimilation and many of us believe that this is wrong. We want people to celebrate their culture. Canada becomes greater when everyone is recognized for their own identity and origins.

That's what's so sick about saying Superman is an alien, if he celebrates Krypton and his birth parents. Adoptive parents want their children to know where they came from and to own the culture that they came from. There's too much self-hatred that arises from teaching children to become part of the dominant culture.

This is a matter of degree. There's a middle ground where you do both. You don't need to abandon your culture to get along with a different one.

[bat39]

In Canada, we've learned some tough lessons from the antiquated policy of assimilation and many of us believe that this is wrong. We want people to celebrate their culture. Canada becomes greater when everyone is recognized for their own identity and origins.

That's what's so sick about saying Superman is an alien, if he celebrates Krypton and his birth parents. Adoptive parents want their children to know where they came from and to own the culture that they came from. There's too much self-hatred that arises from teaching children to become part of the dominant culture.

I think it's great that Superman declared his Kryptonian identity and who he really is. Yes, he's also Clark Kent, raised in Smallville--but the two cultures should not be at war in his soul. He should accept himself for all that he is.

But Superman didn't even know anything about Krypton till a bit later in life...again, not counting the Silver Age (and Frank Miller's Year One, which has an interesting take on the ''super memory'' concept).

Imagine if Clark wasn't an alien, but from, say, Poland or something. And that he was adopted by the Kents as an infant, with no idea of where he's really from.

But he is a white kid, and he pretty much looks like he could be the Kent's biological child. He grows up as the American Clark Kent. Clark is the only name he's ever known. He thinks of himself as an American from Kansas, and that's how everyone else around him perceives him.

Now, maybe when he's around 18 or so (give or take a few years), he happens to do some research, and learns about his Polish heritage. Or some lawyer or DNA scientist approaches him with evidence of who his biological parents were. Maybe even what his birth name was.

So Clark now knows about the family and culture he was born into. Whether he chooses to embrace this Polish identity and consider himself as Polish on some level, whether he rejects it and reaffirms his American identity, or whether he treats his Polish identity as an interesting curiosity is up to him. But as long as no one else knows about it, its a purely private matter. He can walk around and people still regard him as the American Clark Kent.

My argument is that Clark would first and foremost think of himself as the American Clark Kent, at least to begin with...albeit an American of Polish ancestry. But the more he delves into his origins, the more he starts to immerse himself in Polish culture, and if he meets, say, distant relatives or friends of his family, he would have a greater awareness of his Polish identity and maybe come to own it over time. But ultimately, its a personal decision depending on circumstances and how he feels about it all at any point of time.

Now contrast this with Kara who grew up in Poland, and left Poland for the United States at age 16. Obviously, she would think of herself as being Polish first and foremost. Maybe over time, she would build an American identity and start to think of herself as American. But unlike her cousin Clark, who grew up American, she would have a distinct Polish identity and likely think of herself as Polish first and foremost.

Okay...now substitute Poland for Krypton

PS: I took the Poland example because I was planning to contrast this with an example of Clark being a black kid from Nigeria to get back to the ethnicity point...but I guess that's a discussion/comparision for another post.

[K. Jones]

I'd make his Jewishness more overt than it already is. The creators were Jewish kids who ended up in Cleveland, and were playing with the idea of the ubermensche so I have to imagine immigrated from German Jews, so I mean ... lean on that allegory. Is Krypton the promised land? Does Superman have to rebuild his whole race to return to that promised land? Are the exiles in Kandor essentially living in a ghetto, forced there by Brainiac, who is more of a fascist than we realized? Has he stolen all of their art and wealth? We have confirmation that Krypton was basically destroyed but what if evil Anti-Kryptites destroyed it? What if there's a cosmic supremacy angle, ironically countered by ... a guy called "Superman"?