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