I have never lived in the heights, or really hung out there for that matter, but I found a home there recently. Ok not literally. I finally went to see the critically acclaimed play In the Heights a few weeks ago and LOVED it. All of my family and friends saw it way before it was on Broadway and raved about it so I finally went and treated a friend for her birthday in the process. I don’t know what made me beam more proudly: the confused look on the blanquitos faces every time there was a joke made in Spanish or seeing people that looked like me on the stage making them.
Besides the singing and dancing, what really struck a chord with me was the storylines of the characters. There was someone there we all can relate to, which meant they were authentic and real. When Nina hit the stage as the college student visiting home, all my friends immediately turned to me and said “That’s you!” I did relate very much to her being the first in her family to go away to college and trying to fit into that Ivy League world. It represented my lifelong quest to fit in period.
Cut to last week when I had the honor of interviewing Lin-Manuel Miranda about his inspiration for the Tony Award Winning play he created. I asked if his character Nina was based on his own experience in college and he answered “Not just in college, but my whole life.” He went on to say this about the experience of being Latino in this country:
We’re learning two different ways of living at the same time. My mother learned English in school and then had to go home and teach it back to my grandparents. Then, the siblings after her didn’t really speak as much Spanish because they grew up speaking English at home. So there are a million different variations on all of these stories. In writing this story I discovered I wasn’t alone in feeling like I was living a bunch of different existences and finding myself in the process. I think that’s what all the characters in the show do – they are all looking for what home is.
I wanted to run up and hug this man because I finally realized I wasn’t alone in my feelings about fitting in. For me, I felt my life had to constantly be split between being Puerto Rican enough, and mainstream enough. Meaning I felt like I was living two lives all the time and never really fitting into either. I kept thinking that it had to be one way or the other. If I had just spoken fluent Spanish, then I would be a real Puerto Rican – as if there were different levels of Puerto Ricanism. I totally ignored the fact that my parents strategically taught me English first so I wouldn’t be mistreated in school and wrote off as a dumb ESL kid like they were. This conversation made me realize like Lin said, there a so many different variations on the Latino experience that there is no right or wrong way. In the end, what unites us is this shared quest to find a place to call home. I found mine In the Heights.
Check out the full interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda here.
Navani knows... 