The Atlantic
In the Heights Knows the Second-Generation American’s Dilemma
In the new musical, restless young adults are torn between a beloved neighborhood and dreams of escape. But Abuela Claudia, the community’s matriarch, suggests a different way of thinking.
In the Heights.
In The Heights, the director Jon M. Chu’s Hollywood adaptation of the groundbreaking Broadway musical, is ostensibly a tale about the aspirational young. Its focus stays mostly on some dreamers (and a “Dreamer”) living in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights. They form an ensemble cast of working-class Latino characters immigrants and American-born chasing far-fetched but not entirely implausible
In the Heights Knows the Second-Generation American’s Dilemma Carlos Aguilar
In the Heights.
In The Heights, the director Jon M. Chu’s Hollywood adaptation of the groundbreaking Broadway musical, is ostensibly a tale about the aspirational young. Its focus stays mostly on some dreamers (and a “Dreamer”) living in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights. They form an ensemble cast of working-class Latino characters immigrants and American-born chasing far-fetched but not entirely implausible
sueñitos, or “little dreams.”
There’s Nina (played by Leslie Grace), a student back from Stanford University who is afraid of betraying her values; the businesswoman Daniela (Daphne Rubin-Vega), who has been priced out of her storefront; Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), a fashion visionary trying and failing to lease a downtown apartment. Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), the entrepreneurial 20-something owner of a corner bodega eager to return to his childhoo
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Ida B. Wells Fellows
, our Southern Fellow, is a North Carolina-based movement journalist with more than 10 years of experience reporting on immigration, reproductive injustice, LGBTQ+ issues, and gender-based violence. She is currently a staff reporter leading Prism s coverage of gender justice. Previously, she was a senior reporter covering immigration at Rewire.News, the leading online publication devoted to evidence-based reporting on reproductive and sexual health, rights, and justice. Her work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, NPR, The Nation, Playboy, and a variety of other publications. Recently, she was a mentor in the Freedomways Fellowship Program as part of Press On, a Southern journalism collective that strengthens and expands the practice of journalism in service of liberation. She will be reporting on immigrant workers and COVID-19.
Luis Miranda (Courtesy of HBO)
New York Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the smash hit musical Hamilton, is practically a household name. And as a theater enthusiast who has long admired his work, I ve had a peripheral knowledge of his father, Luis. It s hard to watch any interview with Lin without detecting his father s influence on him and, very often, Luis is seen in the background cheering on his son.
Now, the release of a new HBO documentary, Siempre, Luis, puts the father center stage.
Long before his son was in the spotlight, Luis Miranda made a name for himself as a fixture in New York s state politics, first cutting his teeth in the 1980s working for Mayor Ed Koch. He has since gone on to advise Sen. Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton and a host of other political luminaries.