Performance, Trauma and Puerto Rico in Musical Theatre (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies) [1 ed.] 9781032251950, 9781032251943, 9781003282013

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Performance, Trauma and Puerto Rico in Musical Theatre

This study positions four musicals and their associated artists as mobilizers of defiant joy in relation to trauma and healing in Puerto Rico. This book argues that the historical trajectory of these musicals has formed a canon of works that have reiterated, resisted, or transformed experiences of trauma through linguistic, ritual, and geographic interventions. These traumas may be disaster-related, migrant-related, colonial, or patriarchal. Bilingualism and translation, ritual action, and geographic space engage moments of trauma (natural disaster, incarceration, death) and healing (community celebration, grieving, emancipation) in these works. The musicals considered are West Side Story (1957, 2009, 2019), The Capeman (1998), In the Heights (2008), and Hamilton (2015). Central to this argument is that each of the musicals discussed is tied to Puerto Rico, either through the representation of Puerto Rican characters and stories or through the Puerto Rican positionality of its creators. The author moves beyond the musicals to consider Lin-Manuel Miranda as an embodied site of healing, that has been met with controversy, as well as post-Hurricane Maria relief efforts led by Miranda on the island and from a distance. In each of the works discussed, acts of belonging shape notions of survivorship and witness. This book also opens a dialogue between these musicals and the work of island-based artists, Y no había luz, that has served as sites of first response to disaster. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in Latinx Theatre, Musical Theatre, and Translation studies. Colleen Rua is Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies in the School of Theatre and Dance at the University of Florida, USA.

Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies

This series is our home for cutting-edge, upper-level scholarly studies and edited collections. Considering theatre and performance alongside topics such as religion, politics, gender, race, ecology, and the avant-garde, titles are characterized by dynamic interventions into established subjects and innovative studies on emerging topics. Techniques of Illusion A Cultural and Media History of Stage Magic in the Late Nineteenth Century Katharina Rein Contemporary Dance Festivals in the Former Yugoslav Space (in)dependent scenes Alexandra Baybutt Performing Religion on the Secular Stage Sharon Aronson-Lehavi Puppet and Spirit: Ritual, Religion, and Performing Objects, Volume I Sacred Roots: Material Entities, Consecrating Acts, Priestly Puppeteers Claudia Orenstein and Tim Cusack Crisis and Communitas Performative Concepts of Commonality in Arts and Politics Dorota Sajewska and Małgorzata Sugiera Contemporary Storytelling Performance Female Artists on Practices, Platforms, Presences Stephe Harrop For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Advances-in-Theatre--Performance-Studies/ book-series/RATPS

Performance, Trauma and Puerto Rico in Musical Theatre Colleen Rua

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Colleen Rua The right of Colleen Rua to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 9781032251950 (hbk) ISBN: 9781032251943 (pbk) ISBN: 9781003282013 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003282013 Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra

Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction

vii 1

1 Bilingualism and Translation as Caring Performance

19

2 Caring Performance in Public Art

45

3 Spaces of Care

71

4 Transforming Disaster through Defiant Joy

95

Afterword

120

Works Cited Index

125 131

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the following people who made this work possible. Thank you: To the members of Y no había luz and Arte y Maña: Yari Helfeld, Julio Morales, Joel Guzman, Pedro Ivan Bonilla, Yussef Soto, Nami “Beba” Helfeld, Carlos José “Gandul” Torres, and Francisco Iglesias, for their generosity, friendship, and art. To the members of the Ana Dalila Burgos Ortiz Foundation in Orocovis, Puerto Rico, for their wisdom, kindness, and hospitality. To my Research Assistant Helen Dominguez and to the students who have accompanied me on various stages of this journey: Elisabeth Reyes, Natalia Dubón-Cierra, Ace Cabalan, Karina Vega, Emily Rose Borges, Karly Foster, and Alyssa Germaine. To my writing group at the University of Florida who generously read and provided feedback on this work: Rachel Carrico, Sarah Politz, Jashodhara Sen, Álvaro Luis Lima, Lara Dallman, and Imani Mosely. To my colleagues Antonio Sajid López and Alana Jackson for their thoughtful and energizing collaboration. To the University of Florida School of Theatre and Dance Director Peter Carpenter, College of the Arts Dean Onye Ozuzu, Associate Dean Jennifer Setlow, and Associate Dean Sophia Acord for their support of my research and teaching. To LeAnn Egeto and Marshall Knudson for their thoughtful caretaking. To my mentors Claire Concesion, Downing Cless, Barbara Grossman, Iani Moreno, Ralf Remshardt, and Tim Altmeyer for their guidance. To my dear friends Nicola Imbracsio, Matt Lundeen, Jennifer Dasher, Malcolm Gets, Tony Mata and Jessie Bradshaw for their love and support. To my parents, Ken Rua and Ellie Rua, for believing in me. And thank you to Brian and Muppet, who encouraged and motivated me every day.

Introduction

Julio Morales, the co-founder of the San Juan-based Y no había luz theatre collective, walks the perimeter of the 80-seat black box theatre, securing windows and ensuring that props, costumes, and puppets are safely stored. A tropical storm is moving toward Puerto Rico. It is September 2020, and by now, this activity of preparing is a ritual, not just for Morales but also for the approximately three million citizens of the island. “Luckily the space is safe,” Morales remarks. “For now, we are doing good.” Morales tells me this in a conversation over Zoom, since the COVID-19 global pandemic has prevented our meeting in person (2020, personal communication, 30 September). On September 7, 2017, Hurricane Irma passed close to the main island of Puerto Rico, causing widespread power outages and water service interruptions. Two weeks later, Hurricane Maria devastated the island. Recovery efforts and repairs, obstructed and delayed due to resource mismanagement and lack of response by island and stateside government entities, were still underway by the time the island was rocked by a series of earthquakes in late 2019 and early 2020. By March 15, 2020, a lockdown was instituted due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. In September 2022, Hurricane Fiona struck Puerto Rico, igniting a collective trauma response for those who had experienced Hurricane Maria. Mass migration, austerity measures, neoliberal privatization, and a perpetual battle against colonialism have exacerbated these traumas. Repeated devastation and disaster, both natural and unnatural, leave Puerto Rican communities in a continuous loop of preparing and recovering. This cyclical nature of trauma and healing over five years mirrors the circular form of a hurricane itself. While island residents suffered the direct impact of Hurricane Maria, stateside Puerto Ricans struggled to reach loved ones who had been injured, displaced, or left without access to communication. As the Trump administration retreated from relief efforts, Broadway composers, musicians, actors, and other artists mobilized to support impacted communities and the island-based artists who serve them. These efforts, organized from a distance, were matched by artists on the ground, who endured the traumatic event themselves, even as they assembled to assist those in need. In her essay on post-Hurricane Katrina performance, Lara Cahill-Booth DOI: 10.4324/9781003282013-1

2 Introduction

names performing artists “first responders” to disaster, whose aid “has come in the form of shaping, or reshaping, the cultural memory of the event” (Cahill-Booth, 93). While first-response work is typically considered as that which focuses on bodily injury, property, and infrastructure, the work considered here focuses on inter-human relationships that open space for reshaping collective memory and healing the spirit. In the wake of recent Puerto Rican traumas, composer Lin-Manuel Miranda and other stateside Puerto Rican musical theatre artists began their own relief efforts. Touring productions of In the Heights and ­Hamilton, visits from Miranda, Hamilton’s Anthony Ramos, and The Capeman’s Mark Anthony, and funding support from the Hispanic Federation and the Flamboyán Foundation, all marked ways in which the American musical theatre engaged with the island. These interventions served as witnesses to trauma, while creative work by island-based artists served as examples of survivorship. First-response efforts by the San Juan-based Y no había luz theatre collective, for example, included the deployment of Cultural Brigades, intergenerational workshops, and the organization of community-wide festivals intended to heal the spirit and foster a sense of solidarity and belonging amongst those impacted. Performance, Trauma and Puerto Rico in Musical Theatre considers relief efforts represented by Lin-Manuel Miranda and by Y no había luz as case studies of artists who mobilize joy as responders to disaster. Miranda and Y no había luz are linked through relief work, non-profit entities, and their first-hand experiences as witnesses to and survivors of natural disaster. Through acts of defiant joy, both stateside and island-based artists create work that constitutes performances of care. Performance, Trauma and Puerto Rico in Musical Theatre also problematizes the intersection of celebrity and disaster, where trauma may be reiterated, as it considers Miranda’s evolving roles as “fixer,” “giver,” “responder,” and “healer.” The mobilization of In the Heights and Hamilton as fundraising efforts to support hurricane relief in Puerto Rico, as well as to support artists working in community-engaged practice in Puerto Rico and with communities in response to disaster, has been impacted by contemporary relevant events in Puerto Rico. Geographically, Puerto Rico is separated from the United States by 1,000 miles. The island is defined as a United States territory, not a state, and residents of the island hold varying perspectives as to whether or not statehood is a good idea. While six referendums have been enacted regarding the potential incorporation of Puerto Rico as a state of the United States, as of November 2020, a vote of 52% versus 49% leaned away from statehood. Some artists, including the Y no había luz theatre collective, make clear that they are living as colonized subjects. On much of the collective’s merchandise (hats, canvas bags, and notebooks), one can find cartoonish ants marching. They are members of an ant colony, reflecting the status of those who were born, live, and work on the island. Politically, Puerto Ricans do not hold equal representation

Introduction  3

under federal law and are ineligible to vote in presidential elections, yet their Head of State is the President of the United States. The tension created by this relationship is exacerbated during challenging times. Government response to Hurricane Maria under the Trump administration, for example, was delayed, obstructed, and withdrawn at various points. Adding insult to injury, media coverage of Trump at a church serving as a shelter and supply distribution point showed him tossing rolls of paper towels to displaced people like basketballs, a dismissive minimalizing of the severity of the disaster. Faced with displacement, losses of life, property and resources, and government corruption, over 300,000 Puerto Ricans migrated away from the island post-Hurricane Maria. In turn, stateside residents moved toward the island with promises of creating a cryptocurrency-fueled “Puertopia” of wealthy investors, a future that seemed increasingly realistic as the COVID-19 global pandemic allowed people to work remotely, sometimes from anywhere in the world. In response to these acts of disaster capitalism, Naomi Klein calls for interventions that “function to [build] in resilience – for when the next shock hits” (Klein, 249). At the entrance to the sculpture garden of the Museo de Arte in San Juan sits a large mural, emblazoned with the word “Resiliencia,” a word that had been embraced immediately following Hurricane Maria. As fear, frustration, and exhaustion grow with repeated (un)natural disasters, traumatized Puerto communities grow tired of expectations to be “resilient.” In her discussion of trauma-driven performance protests in Latin ­A merica, Diana Taylor notes that “trauma manifests itself as an acting out in both the individual and social body” and proposes that “trauma-driven performances offer victims, survivors, and human rights activists, ways to address the society-wide repercussions of violent politics, and also, indirectly, to relieve personal pain” (Trauma and Performance, 1675). Such performances, she says, use personal trauma to mobilize collective acts of condemnation. She goes on to argue that trauma, embodied in reenactments and flashbacks, is repetitive and, therefore, tied to Richard Schechner’s definition of performance as “twice-behaved behavior” (Schechner, 36). In the work by Miranda and Y no había luz, trauma is (re)enacted by individual and social bodies that have been impacted by events both within and external to the contexts of the art they produce. However, manifestations of defiant joy anchored in attempts to reshape traumatic events prompt a shift from trauma-driven to relief-driven performance. A 2003 study conducted by the University of Michigan showed that positive emotions experienced in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks led to precrisis resilience and postcrisis growth in psychological resources (Fredrickson et al., 230). Moreover, the same study indicated that repeated experiences of joy increase chances for survival in the face of traumatic experiences (Fredrickson et al., 230). Relief-driven performance engages with

4 Introduction

trauma but works to reshape events through the shared cultivation and expression of positive emotions and the establishment of belonging to build performances of care. As Amanda Stuart Fisher notes, care is inter-relational. “[Care does not] pre-exist the caring encounter but becomes itself based on the demands of the relationship between caregiver and care receiver.” She expands this definition by noting that care is: a term that has many interconnected dimensions: it has a practical and emotional element (how we practically engage with other people); it has an ethical and political dimension (disclosing values that determine how we should act in the world and within the limited resources we might have available to us); and, crucially, it has an aesthetic component (determining how artistry and the feeling evoked by an engagement with the arts frames inter-human relationships in solicitous ways). (Stuart Fisher, 6) Performances of care as demonstrated by Lin-Manuel Miranda and by Y no había luz engage survivors and witnesses in mutually beneficial and sustainable arts-centered experiences constructed within the bounds of available resources.1 Survivors and witnesses perform a variety of acts, “from the uncontrollable acting out to the therapeutic acting through to the political acting up,” that “signal both the symptom and the cure” (Taylor, 1676). This coexistence of symptom and cure is found in trauma-driven performance that intersects with acts of protest. Performances of care in the context of this book sit at the intersection of art and social practice and protest the devaluation and dismissal of joy as a necessity while calling for social justice. The application of defiant joy permits relief-driven performance to activate forward movement while healing. Performance, Trauma and Puerto Rico in Musical Theatre positions four musicals and their associated artists as mobilizers of defiant joy. The historical trajectory of these musicals has formed a canon of works that have reiterated, resisted, or transformed experiences of trauma through linguistic, artistic, and sociospatial interventions. These traumas may be disaster-related, migrant-related, colonial, or patriarchal. Considered alongside each other, and in a post-Hurricane Maria reading, these four musicals also form a canon of work that speaks to trauma, healing, and caretaking in relation to Puerto Rico and to Puerto Rican characters, stories, and creators. As healing interventions, these musicals offer representations of caregiving and care receiving that begin with the musicals themselves and then extend beyond the stage. Bilingualism and translation, ritual action in the form of graffiti and public art, and geographic space engage moments of trauma (natural disaster, incarceration, and death) and healing (community celebration, grieving, and

Introduction  5

emancipation) in these works. The musicals considered are West Side Story (1957 and 2009), The Capeman (1998), In the Heights (2008), and Hamilton (2015). Central to this argument is that each of the musicals discussed is tied to Puerto Rico, either through the representation of Puerto Rican characters and stories or through the Puerto Rican positionality of its creators. Performance, Trauma and Puerto Rico in Musical Theatre moves beyond the musicals to interrogate Lin-Manuel Miranda’s cultural capital as an embodied site of care, a status that was marked by his involvement in post-Hurricane Maria relief efforts. This book shows that his transformation into a healer figure began with an intent to “fix” The Capeman and progressed through linguistic interventions in In the Heights and the 2009 West Side Story bilingual revival, for which he provided translations. After Hurricanes Irma and Maria battered the island, Miranda became the stateside face of relief efforts as tours of In the Heights and Hamilton were met with controversy. Miranda’s involvement in the Hispanic Federation, Flamboyán Arts Fund, and the Discover Puerto Rico travelogue series opens a dialogue between these musicals and the community-engaged work of the San Juan-based theatre collective, Y no había luz, that has served as sites of caregiving and as sites of first response to disaster. Performance, Trauma and Puerto Rico in Musical Theatre investigates the ways in which embodied “acting up, acting out, and acting through” trauma shapes notions of survivorship and witness and proposes patterns of diasporic healing that emerge from performances of care (Taylor, 1675). Recent activity around Lin-Manuel Miranda’s work evidences his continuing influence as an artist and as an activist. These developments include the following: The 2019 Broadway revival of West Side Story directed by Ivo van Hove; the 2020 Disney+ release of Hamilton; Stephen Spielberg’s 2021 film adaptation of West Side Story; the 2022 film adaptation of In the Heights directed by Jon Chu; and the 2019–2020 Broadway run of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Freestyle Love Supreme followed by its 2022 Las Vegas run, Miranda’s directorial debut of Tick, Tick…Boom (2021), and his compositions for the Disney animated hit Encanto (2021). Each of the musicals considered in this study continues to influence the landscape of American musical theatre and its relationship with Latinx storytelling. Interest in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s work has skyrocketed since the 2015 premiere of Hamilton, and his consistent media presence continues to raise his profile. West Side Story remains one of America’s most often produced musicals, and its score provided the cornerstone of Leonard Bernstein Centennial celebration in 2018. While The Capeman’s most recent notable production was a 2010 concert version at the Delacorte Theatre, the iconic status of composer Paul Simon and late book writer Derek Walcott continues to influence artists on a global scale. The urgency of (un)natural disasters in Puerto Rico requires an investigation of the island/stateside relationship through artistic representation.

6 Introduction

The Musicals: West Side Story, The Capeman, In the Heights, and Hamilton From 1939 to 1957, Latinx representation on Broadway foregrounded performative stereotypes of Latinx individuals. Carmen Miranda, Desi Arnaz, and other Latinx actors sang and danced their way through musical comedies that cast them primarily as sexy and mysterious performers. A significant departure from these representations, though one that ushered in a new criminal stereotype, was Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, and Stephen Sondheim’s 1957 West Side Story, which highlighted issues of immigration, racism, and cultural identity in the United States, specifically in urban metropolises like New York City. A loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story focuses on rival teen gangs – the Jets, whose turf is in New York City, and the Sharks who have recently migrated to New York from Puerto Rico. When the Jets’ leader, Tony, falls for rival member Bernardo’s sister, Maria, a violent rumble ends with the death of both young men. Unlike the largely lighthearted musical reviews that preceded it, West Side Story was set not in a faraway land of soft breezes and the sounds of mariachi, but in a tough New York City neighborhood. Also in a departure from earlier productions, West Side Story was dramatic rather than comic, featuring a sophisticated and sweeping score. What Carmen Miranda did to posit the Latina body as a performative figure, West Side Story matched. The musical offers two extremes of the performative Latina: the innocent virgin and the sassy spitfire. In the original Broadway production, Italian-American Carol Lawrence, who was born Carolina Maria Laraia, was cast as the pure Maria, while Chita Rivera, who is half Puerto Rican, was cast as the fiery Anita. It is during one of West Side Story’s most well-known musical numbers, “America” that Rivera’s performance of “Latin-ness” reaches its peak, beginning with the scene preceding the song. In this scene, Bernardo and Anita “perform” “Americanness” and “Islandness” for their friends, with heavily accented song, flamenco-inspired choreography, and ruffled costumes evoking bomba dancers. Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez argues that the song “America” is a “political campaign in favor of assimilation,” while Frances Negrón-Muntaner offers a reminder that although West Side Story takes a very specific group, Puerto Ricans, as its subject matter, the music, dance, and production elements are not particularly Puerto Rican. As they were 20 years earlier on Broadway, various pieces are combined to create a milieu that is acceptably “Latin American” (Sandoval-Sánchez, 73; Negrón-Muntaner, 87). Originally titled East Side Story, the project was proposed as a story of a Jewish girl who falls for an Italian Catholic boy on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Arthur Laurents recounts how the change was made, “Lenny [Leonard Bernstein] said, ‘What about doing it about the Chicanos?’ In

Introduction  7

New York we had the Puerto Ricans, and at that time the papers were full of stories about juvenile delinquents and gangs” (Zadan, 15). By conflating Puerto Ricans with delinquents and gangs, Laurents placed stereotypes of crime and poverty squarely on the shoulders of Puerto Rican youth. In the collective American consciousness, as West Side Story debuted on Broadway, a media-produced image of Puerto Ricans foregrounded performative and criminal stereotypes. In 1998, as the Latinx population continued to grow in the United States, in particular in New York City, it seemed like the right time for a musical to focus on a Latin American protagonist once again and to draw upon Latin and Afro Latin music. That year, popular songwriter Paul Simon and Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott collaborated to create The Capeman, a short-lived musical that lasted for just 68 performances at Broadway’s Marquis Theatre. Simon, known for his experiments with world music, and Walcott, known for his treatment of Caribbean subject matter, seemed a promising duo. With plot points reminiscent of West Side Story, The Capeman is based on the true story of Salvador Agrón, a Puerto Rican member of a New York City gang known as The Vampires. Following Agrón from his childhood in Puerto Rico through his migration stateside and into his adulthood as an incarcerated person, the musical focuses strongly on Agrón’s teenage years, during which he joins The Vampires gang and takes on his moniker, The Capeman, when he began donning a black cape as he patrolled the streets with the Vampires. Here again is the perpetuation of an image of the Latinx person as performative, taking on a character and a costume. Despite the fact that in 1959, Puerto Rico had already been a part of the United States for over 40 years, Agrón was viewed as an immigrant, and his dual status as an immigrant and a criminal conflated. By wearing a cape to engage in criminal activity, Agrón’s performance became symbolic of his “Latin-ness” as well. The criminal stereotype associated with Agrón was exacerbated by the inclusion of documentary-style elements like sensationalized newspaper headlines. The teen Agrón is portrayed as cold and heartless, with some source material originating in news coverage and interviews with Agrón’s sister. Avoiding execution due to intervention by Eleanor Roosevelt, the remainder of the musical is a redemption story, as Agrón experiences a spiritual awakening in the US Southwest. The Capeman was considered a critical flop and closed quickly. Despite resonating deeply with Puerto Rican audiences, The Capeman was problematic both for its representation of Agrón, the youngest person ever sentenced to the electric chair, and for its score, which was not rooted in any particular Latin style, but was rather a mix of genres that drew from a variety of cultural references. In one interview, Simon resisted comparisons to earlier musicals, claiming “… This is no West Side Story. I’m trying to tell a story as accurately and fairly as I can. It doesn’t really matter whether the protagonist is Puerto Rican…. it’s not essential to the central

8 Introduction

issue of redemption” (Negrón-Mutaner, 2000). Despite Simon’s protests, it is unavoidable that Agrón’s Puerto Rican identity is an essential part of his story. Reviews of The Capeman were generally poor. One claimed: The problem is that no one has been able to find the visual and verbal equivalents to Mr. Simon’s multilayered score. Everything in the music melts together; practically nothing that’s said, done and shown on the stage seems to connect with anything else (Brantley). The musical was, however, noted for Simon’s blend of gospel, doo-wop, and Latin music. It was also notable for casting Latinx actors, including popular Puerto Rican singer Marc Anthony and Panamanian film and television actor Rubén Blades. A new focus on Latinx representation in the American musical was not attempted until a decade later, when Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes, both of whom identify as Puerto Rican, penned In the Heights, which had its Broadway premiere in 2008. Unlike any musical theatre treatment of a Latinx population before it, and before the 2015 debut of Hamilton, the 2008 premiere of In the Heights featured a cast of Latinx, Afro Latinx, and Black characters. Narrated by Usnavi (a role originated by Lin-Manuel Miranda), who runs a local bodega, the play invited audiences to the top of Manhattan into a Washington Heights neighborhood in the three days leading up to the fourth of July. The story follows the Rosario family, whose daughter Nina has dropped out of Stanford; Vanessa, who hopes to get out of the neighborhood; and Abuela Claudia, who holds a winning lottery ticket, among others. As the neighborhood’s residents struggle to make ends meet, they question ideas of belonging and of “home.” Upon Abuela Claudia’s sudden death, Usnavi must decide where “home” truly is, as he witnesses his friends leaving the neighborhood, some by choice and some due to the creep of gentrification. Dealing with themes like gentrification of a pan-Latinx neighborhood, intergenerational challenges, and navigating bicultural existence, In the Heights took eight years to move from a project Miranda began while studying at Wesleyan University to its Broadway debut, which garnered the 2008 Tony Award for Best Musical. Inspired by Rent and with influences drawn from Fiddler on the Roof, Miranda recognized his own story and those of his childhood community as valuable and necessary. Exploring the lives of multiple generations – those who immigrated to the United States and those born in the United States – In the Heights grappled with what it means to carry cultural traditions into new “home” spaces. A departure from earlier treatments of Latinx characters, “I wrote In the Heights to fix The Capeman,” says Miranda, “Forty years after West Side Story and we’re still knife-wielding gangsters.” With such stereotypical depictions, he says, “The Capeman broke my heart” (Wiltz). Cast members, including Robin DeJesus (Sonny), expressed relief at playing characters who did not

Introduction  9

reinforce criminal stereotypes and celebrated the notion of bringing to the stage the story of Washington Heights (Great Performances). Lyrics and dialogue written in English, Spanish, and ­Spanglish were set to a score largely driven by hip-hop, rap, salsa, merengue, and reggaetón. Bilingualism and music with distinctly Latin beats were just two characteristics that set In the Heights apart from The Capeman. Coinciding with the development of In the Heights was the explicit expression of the desire of Latinx audiences to eradicate criminal stereotypes of Latinx populations from the media, particularly in programming from two major Latinx-owned, but American-investor-controlled Spanish-language networks, Univision and Telemundo. In 2006, the National Hispanic Media Coalition and the Free Press organized public hearings on media diversity. The hearings, held in New York City, instigated responses from both Latinx and African American New Yorkers, who called for “no more blonde, blue-eyed heroines,” and demanded more diverse programming with representations showing that “we’re more than violence, drugs and poverty” (Dávila, 81). In 2015, Miranda again “revolutionized” the American Musical Theatre canon with the story of Alexander Hamilton, based on Ron Chernow’s biography of the United States Secretary of the Treasury. Exploring Hamilton’s professional and personal life, marked by a restless ambition and a search for satisfaction, Hamilton the musical featured a cast of people of the global majority in roles including George Washington (originated by Christopher Jackson) and Thomas Jefferson (originated by Daveed Diggs). Miranda has called the musical “America then, as told by America now” (Delman). Early on, the musical foregrounds Hamilton’s immigrant identity as well as his identity as an orphan and as a survivor of disaster, pointing to a hurricane on his home island of Nevis that prompted local residents to take up a collection to send Hamilton to the states, where he pursued an education. His rise through the ranks is credited to the ambition, quick-wit, scrappiness, and hunger with which he pursued affiliation with General Washington and plans to institute a National Bank. In his personal life, the musical explores his relationships with the Schuyler sisters, including Eliza, who becomes his wife and mother to his children, and her sister Angelica, who matches wits and linguistic skills with Hamilton. An instant phenomenon, Hamilton was largely successful due to its ability to appeal to multiple audiences. The score melds hip-hop, R&B, pop, and traditional musical theatre show tunes, but centers rap as the language of the Revolution. Brian Herrera points to In the Heights and Hamilton as examples by which Miranda “delivered a sound and sensibility resonating as simultaneously Latin and Broadway, not merely Latin on Broadway,” and that “code-switching anchors Miranda to the tradition of US Latinx drama” (Herrera, 235–236). Miranda’s facility with codeswitching is tied to his personal experiences in Puerto Rico. During summer visits to the

10 Introduction

island, his lack of fluency led to a sense of isolation, while when at home in Inwood, he served as a conduit of understanding for his non-Spanish speaking friends. His linguistic skills are imbued with the ability to transform and reshape cultural memory, as exemplified in Hamilton and also in his translation work on the bilingual revival of West Side Story (2009). Earning 16 Tony nominations and winning 11 of those awards, Hamilton became a global phenomenon. Two national tours included a four-week run in Puerto Rico (where Miranda returned to the title role) to benefit Hurricane Maria relief. In 2022, Hamilton was translated into German for audiences in Hamburg. Despite the musical’s meteoric rise, Miranda faced backlash for a story that centered, and sometimes glorified, known enslavers. In addition, despite casting people of the global majority in most roles (the exception is the role of King George III, who is typically played by a white, non-Latinx actor), the central historical figures in Hamilton were all Caucasian.

Celebrity-as-Healer Lin-Manuel Miranda’s crossover appeal positions him as the site of engagement for audiences, both Latinx and non-Latinx. His consistent popular presence provides an intersection for multiple communities to engage in dialogue with artists in public space. His musical and linguistic interventions mark moments in his evolution as a “healer” figure, which has not been without controversy. He and his father, Luis Miranda, Jr., founder of the Hispanic Federation, have been both lauded and criticized for their philanthropic work in response to events in Puerto Rico. The Hispanic Federation has been criticized for partnering with large corporate entities, including Starbucks and Coca-Cola. Miranda’s public support of the PROMESA (Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act), which instituted an appointed, not an elected, financial oversight board and austerity measures on the island, was viewed negatively. When the Puerto Rican tour of Hamilton was protested by students at the University of Puerto Rico, where the musical was set to perform, and coincided with a labor dispute at the University, Governor Ricardo Roselló offered the Centro de Bellas Artes as a new location. Miranda’s agreement to the move signaled an alignment with the maligned governor. Later, Miranda appeared at a gathering of Nuyoricans in Manhattan’s Union Square to support Puerto Ricans’ demand for Roselló’s resignation in the midst of accusations of corruption and mishandling of relief funds and leaked text messages that were racist and misogynistic and that implicated Roselló in a dream to make the island a “Puertopia” for wealthy stateside investors. These examples, as well as Miranda’s involvement in proposed corporate intervention in the Puerto Rican coffee industry, are all examples of ways in which their philanthropy has become entangled with disaster capitalism. Despite these controversies, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s cultural capital

Introduction  11

continues to increase in value, fed by his consistent presence in the lives of multiple audiences and his consistent work to use the arts as a vehicle for change. As a stateside resident, one whose fame has provided him access to financial and other resources, Miranda has the privilege to move between the island and the states. His investment in relief efforts is both philanthropic and highly personal, as members of the Miranda family reside in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico. Through foundations, island-based artists have benefitted from funding that allows them to work on the ground in immediate and direct response to communities who need help. In addition, this support allows such artists longer-term opportunities to continue care and to assist communities in establishing their own systems of artistic healing and activism. Miranda began performing care as he set out to “fix” The Capeman, performed “healing” interventions in dismantling stereotypes in In the Heights and as a translator for the 2009 revival of West Side Story, and has been elevated to “savior” status in philanthropic efforts related to Hurricane Maria. Throughout all of these efforts, Miranda anchors himself to the island, exploring and validating his own Puerto Rican identity. In doing so, he seeks a sense of belonging that is linked to Christine Halse’s concept of identity narratives as “partial, incomplete, performance[s] [that] reflect who individuals believe they are but also who they desire to be” (Halse, 9).

Y no había luz Since 2005, the San Juan, Puerto Rico-based Y no había luz theatre collective has produced work with a mission to “provide artistic experiences that awaken sensitivity, beauty, creativity, freedom of thought and spirit, conscience, solidarity, and social justice in Puerto Rico and the world” (ynohabialuz.com). The collective’s work is characterized by its interdisciplinary and highly collaborative approach. The group is comprised of seven core members who met while studying at the University of Puerto Rico and who have been influenced by Bread and Puppet Theatre, Bertolt Brecht, Augusto Boal, and Pedro Adorno of the Agua, Sol y Sereno collective, who still serves as a mentor. Yari Helfeld studied modern dance and serves as Executive Director of the group; Julio Morales is a visual artist, graphic designer, and puppet-maker; Yussef Soto studied clowning; Pedro Bonilla is the collective’s videographer; Nami Helfeld, Yari’s sister, is an actor, director, and filmmaker; Carlos “Gandul” Torres is also a member of the experimental dance group Danza Experimental Hincapié; and Francisco Iglesias is a trained magician. As their community-engaged offerings have expanded, they have been joined by Joel Guzmán, Chief Operating Officer of Arte y Maña, a non-profit organization that serves as the community and educational outreach arm of Y no había luz. The collective’s offerings blend theatre, dance, music, film, visual

12 Introduction

art, puppets, joy, whimsy, and mischief. Their devising process begins with a ­provocation, typically a word, for example, “absence.” Using this provocation, each member writes a stream of consciousness. Next, they draw images inspired by their words. The group then identifies the strongest images, the feelings they evoke, and the characters and stories that might emerge from these provocations. Then, they play, embodying and theatricalizing those images and feelings. The group’s repertoire becomes the archive, which feeds new repertoire. The idea of “absence,” for example, has led Y no había luz to create work in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the displacement of Puerto Rican citizens after Hurricanes Irma and Maria, and the loss of a beloved teacher and community leader. An aim toward social justice is evident in much of the Y no había luz’s work, which ranges from the overtly political (in a piece called Dictador y bomba) to explorations of what it means to be human (in a piece called Piel).2 Their name, literally translated as “And there was no light,” is colloquially translated by its members as “Lights Out Theatre,” indicative not only of their process, which centers around working with minimal resources, but also of the content of much of the work that deals with exploring dark themes and finding light in the darkness. This hallmark of their work took on new meaning when the collective and its space were impacted by Hurricane Maria, and the island’s electrical grid was in serious disrepair, leading to the largest blackout in US history. It took nearly a year to restore power, and five years later, amid the privatization of electricity on the island, the grid remains vulnerable. At a time when there was, quite literally, no light, Y no había luz’s mission shifted to include family engagement and a strong commitment to foster an environmental conscience among young people. In their work with youth participants, Y no había luz emphasizes belonging as a mode of building and rehearsing performances of care. Through acts of defiant joy, the collective attempts to transform cultural memory of disastrous events in relief-driven work that invites young participants to explore their own roles as changemakers. These participants become active agents in their own healing through hope-motivated processes of belonging. Y no había luz demonstrates performances of care in their creative processes, products, and in their organizational structure. Caregiving – for each other, for the communities in which they work, and for Puerto Rican populations who have been displaced or migrated across the globe – is paramount for the collective, who also receive care in mutually multiple beneficial and sustainable relationships. Y no había luz’s aesthetics of care links phenomenological experiences of joy with Audra Lorde’s model of joy as energy for change to enact carebased solidarity that is specifically grounded in defiant joy (Lorde, 88). Imani Perry discusses defiant joy in Blackness and extends the concept to include those who are grieving regardless of race:

Introduction  13

Think about how uncomfortable [we] are with grief. You are supposed to meet it with a hidden shamefulness, tuck yourself away respectably for a season, and then return whole and recovered. But that is not at all how grief courses through life. It is emetic, peripatetic; it shakes you and stops you and sometimes disappears only to come barreling back to knock the wind out of you. Joy is not found in the absence of pain and suffering. It exists through it. (Perry, 2020) Perry’s peripatetic and emetic imagery of grief emulates the material effects of natural disaster, in particular the migratory patterns and repetitious processes of hurricanes. The most intense winds and rain form the eye wall, resurging after periods of calm. Grief is the storm that impacts mind and body. In response to (un)natural disaster, artists who work as first responders are the eye of the storm. It is the awareness that the storm is still swirling around them and that it may come barreling back, which allows defiant joy to work as simultaneous celebration and protest for artists on and away from the island.

Chapter Descriptions Chapters 1–4 of Performance, Trauma and Puerto Rico in Musical Theatre each focus on a framework through which the artists associated with West Side Story, The Capeman, In the Heights, and Hamilton reiterate, resist, or transform experiences of trauma and healing. These frameworks include linguistic intervention (bilingualism and translation), ritual action ­(graffiti artmaking, flag-bearing, and migration), and sociospatial constructions (commodified space, safe space, and community space). The final chapter of the book investigates the mobilization of these musicals and their associated artists in Puerto Rican disaster relief efforts, including the Artists for Puerto Rico recording of “Almost Like Praying,” the Discover Puerto Rico series, and the Hamilton tour to Puerto Rico. Simultaneous efforts by the San Juan-based collective Y no había luz, who have endured disaster themselves, even as they assembled to assist those in need, are foregrounded. Simultaneously functioning as survivors, witnesses, and responders, they occupy the same geographic space as those whose stories they embody. Finally, this study considers how island and stateside artists might continue to work together as first responders.

Chapter 1: Bilingualism and Translation as Caring Performance The first two-thirds of this chapter focuses on Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’ 2008 musical In the Heights and the 2009 bilingual revival of West Side Story. These musicals reiterate, resist, and/or transform

14 Introduction

experiences of trauma and healing through linguistic intervention. These interventions include techniques of bilingualism, translation, and rap that address migrant-related, patriarchal, generational, and/or colonial trauma. As Diana Taylor notes, in many ways trauma transcends language. Here, however, I identify codeswitching as a point of intersection between trauma, healing, bilingualism and musical theatre. Through close analysis of Spanish-language and translated passages, drawing on the work of translation theorists, performing my own translations of selected lyrics and dialogue, and recounting my own experience as an audience member at both productions, this chapter illuminates ways in which translation and cultural transmission work together in the representative musicals to act through trauma both within and external to the worlds of the plays. It further posits that these acts of linguistic manipulation and translation represent Miranda’s first and second phases in becoming a perceived public “healer” figure. First, with an intent to “fix” The Capeman, Miranda and Hudes crafted In the Heights with purposeful interchange among Spanish, English, and Spanglish. Miranda’s “fixing” evolved to a healing intervention with West Side Story, in response to Puerto Rican colonial trauma perpetrated by the Anglo-created musical. The translation process of West Side Story, unlike the original creation of Spanish-language lyrics in In the Heights, means that decisions had to be made that altered preexisting meanings, rather than creating new ones. In grafting target language onto source language, Miranda grafts a wound inflicted by patriarchal trauma endured by the characters of Maria and Anita while exposing the wounds inflicted by the colonial trauma of an Anglo-created musical. Taylor notes that trauma shapes and is shaped by language and that acts (acting out, acting through, and acting up) signal both symptom and cure. Miranda’s translation work quite literally enacts, embodies, and shapes trauma through language. The symptom (the source language, English) is treated by the cure (the target language, Spanish), yet evidence of the symptoms remains, bubbling underneath the cure by virtue of West Side Story’s iconic status. Linguistic facility is essential to the rap genre and to hip-hop culture, both of which are prevalent in In the Heights’ score. In the latter third of this chapter, Deborah Kapchan’s definition of “trash talk” provides a mode of language production that produces a sense of belonging. Trash talk is a mode of defiant joy, and Miranda’s use of trash talk as a tool to move through trauma from In the Heights to Hamilton is inclusive of his work with the improvisational rap ensemble Freestyle Love Supreme.

Chapter 2: Caring Performance in Public Art This chapter focuses specifically on Washington Heights to argue that performances of graffiti artmaking presented in In the Heights serve as rituals that move from “acting out” to “acting through” trauma and from

Introduction  15

what John Fulbright calls “a secret language of self ” to one of public healing. This occurs not only in the memorialization of an image on a surface but also through the embodiment of the creative process in which the graffiti-maker becomes both survivor and witness through kinesthetic engagement with materials and space. Over the course of In the Heights, the intent, technique, and function of graffiti are transformed. Graffiti ultimately functions as a first-response intervention that utilizes defiant joy as resistance and reshapes collective memory. This representation of graffiti artmaking as a healing ritual is in dialogue with post-Maria public art in Puerto Rico, as this chapter will show. This chapter also interrogates the marketing and publicity campaigns of In the Heights and The Capeman as mobilizers of defiant joy that shape and are shaped by collective memory in collaboration with a multilayered spectatorship. Central to these campaigns is the use of national flags, and more specifically, the Puerto Rican flag. When paired with bodies moving onstage, these symbols become embodied memorials of healing and ones that are in dialogue with the diasporic healing of Y no había luz’s Centinela de Mangó.

Chapter 3: Spaces of Care This chapter explores the mobilization of defiant joy in terms of geography and the use of stage space. There are four major categories of space articulated in these musicals. They include spiritual space, community space, commodified space, and safe/dangerous space. These categories align with J. Chris Westgate’s definition of sociospatial theatre as one that “emerges most prominently during times of transition and transformation: when the ways that towns, cities, or metropolises are organized, legislated, and inhabited undergo profound changes.” The sociospatial theatre of these musicals speaks to colonial and migrant-related trauma and engages with a multilayered spectatorship through processes of familiarization and defamiliarization. These processes are carried out in several ways: through The Capeman’s representation of the island; in West Side Story and In the Heights’ depiction of the New York City barrio; and around Hamilton’s central scenic element, its turntable. The commodification and micro-colonization of the barrio presented both within the world of In the Heights and external to it, in the form of the unrealized Ciudad de Sueños project, are in dialogue with the Roselló administration’s incentives to lure wealthy investors to the island to live as “Puertopians,” in response to the mass migration of islanders after Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Another response to these natural disasters, the touring production of Hamilton to Puerto Rico represents the next phase of Miranda’s evolution as a “healer” figure. Here, he becomes a responder to disaster, specifically in the use of the turntable scenic element as a commodified space that simultaneously represents symptom and cure.

16 Introduction

Mobilized to heal, the Hamilton tour was a complicated experience for Miranda, marked by protests and demonstrations. The geographic migration of the turntable and its entry into a traumatized space signified an act of potential retraumatizing. Simultaneously, Miranda, as the son of Puerto Rican parents, bore witness to the same trauma.

Chapter 4: Transforming Disaster through Defiant Joy Chapter 4 considers the mobilization of musical theatre cultural capital as represented by Lin-Manuel Miranda, as well as community-based programming led by the San Juan theatre collective Y no había luz, as acts of first response to disaster. Through relief efforts following Hurricane Maria and during the COVID-19 global pandemic, Miranda and Y no había luz transform expectations of trauma through an aesthetic of defiant joy in which artmaking in the face of disaster is not only about survival but also about a transformation of forces that attempt to stamp out or devalue joy. Each of these artists engages in self-healing as they reimagine events like hurricane, migration, and quarantine. This chapter will show that for Miranda, his journey toward self-healing and negotiation of his Puerto Rican identity are carried out simultaneously with his transformation into a “healer” figure. Finally, this chapter will show a relationship between stateside and island artists that creates diasporic sites of healing, as well as a dialogue between American musical theatre and theatre-making on the island. Miranda’s first-response efforts position him in roles as “responder” and “healer,” a trajectory that began with In the Heights and has been shaped by his crossover appeal in the worlds of musical theatre, film, television, hiphop, rap, and improv. This trajectory is considered in an analysis of three relief efforts, including the Artists for Puerto Rico recording of “Almost Like Praying,” the 2018 Puerto Rico Tour of Hamilton, and the eightpart Discover Puerto Rico travelogue series. This leads to problematizing the function of celebrity-as-responder. Miranda’s consistent popular presence provides an intersection for multiple communities to engage in dialogue with artists in public space, but this has not been without controversy. In particular, the Hamilton tour and the Hispanic Federation’s collaboration with Starbucks, Nespresso, and The Rockefeller Foundation to support coffee farmers in Puerto Rico have positioned Miranda as an embodied site of both “symptom and cure.” Simultaneously functioning as survivors and witnesses, Y no había luz, whose work has been characterized as “lifting the soul of a fallen spirit,” assembled to assist those in need, even as they endured disaster themselves. The three relief efforts conducted by Y no había luz and considered in this chapter include Centinela Mangó (a play, children’s book, and series of workshops, based on the true story of a community impacted in the mountain town of Orocovis), Zefirante en Cuarentena (a short film in which

Introduction  17

the protagonist from Centinela de Mangó finds himself in quarantine due to the COVID-19 global pandemic), and Cruzando el Charco (a short film that began as a visual art installation, in which a tightrope walker navigates his way across the ocean). Drawing upon the author’s fieldwork with Y no había luz, this chapter shows that these relief efforts activate afterlives of each story through operations of belonging that allow audiences access to reenact, reshape, and re-remember disastrous events as healing processes within the context of Charles Snyder’s Hope Theory. In collaboration with families, and through a rigorous social media campaign, Y no había luz joyfully celebrates the spirit of community while maintaining the collective’s mission to awaken justice in Puerto Rico and the world. The collective continues response aid in the immediate and long-term, responding to hurricane, earthquake, and pandemic, as well as to the ecological, political, social, and economic impact of these disasters in Puerto Rico.

Afterword The afterword to Performance, Trauma and Puerto Rico in Musical Theatre gives the reader insight into the Fiesta Centinela in Orocovis, Puerto Rico, a collaboration between Y no había luz and their community outreach arm, Arte y Maña and the community in Orocovis. The afterword also considers more recent efforts at mobilization by Lin-Manuel Miranda and a meeting between Miranda and Y no había luz founder Yari Helfeld at the Google Arts and Culture summit in August 2022. Finally, the afterword comments on the potential for island-based and stateside artists to continue working in dialogue and in solidarity as they continue to enact performances of care that resist and transform trauma and speak to the future of Puerto Rican artists as responders.

Notes 1 For purposes of this book, the term “survivor” refers to those people whose physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, and/or social well-being has been disrupted by firsthand experience of a traumatic event. The term “witness” refers to those people who have not experienced a traumatic event directly, but who may also experience disruption to physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, and/or social well-being due to the event. 2 Dictator and Bomb; Skin.

Works Cited Antonsich, Marco. “Searching for Belonging - An analytical Framework.” Geography Compass, vol. 4, no. 6, 2010, pp. 644–659, doi:10.1111/j.1749–8198. 2009.00317.x. Brantley, Ben. “The Lure of Gang Violence to a Latin Beat,” New York Times, ( January 30, 1998).

18 Introduction Cahill-Booth, Lara. “Re-Membering the Tribe: Networks of Recovery in Rex Nettleford’s Katrina.” TDR/The Drama Review, vol. 57, no. 1, 2013, pp. 88–101. Print. Dávila, Arlene. Latino Spin: Whitewashing and the Politics of Race. New York: NYU Press, 2008. Delman, Edward. How Lin-Manuel Miranda Shapes History. Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic, 29 Sep. 2015. Fredrickson, Barbara L., et al. “What Good Are Positive Emotions in Crisis? A Prospective Study of Resilience and Emotions Following the Terrorist Attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 84, no. 2, 2003, pp. 365–376, doi:10.1037/0022–3514.84.2.365. “Great Performances: In the Heights Chasing Broadway Dreams.” Bozymowski, Paul, director. Season 37, episode 16, PBS, 27 May 2009. Halse, Christine. Interrogating Belonging for Young People in Schools. New York, NY: Springer International Publishing, 2018. Herrera, Brian. “Looking at Hamilton from Inside the Broadway Bubble.” In Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical Is Restaging America’s Past. Edited by Renee Christine Romano and Claire Bond Potter. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018, pp. 222–248. Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co., 2010. Lorde, Audre. Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. Tucson, AZ: Kore Press, 2000. Morales, Julio. Zoom interview with the author, 30 Sep. 2020. Negrón-Mutaner, Frances. “Barbie’s Hair: Selling Out Puerto Rican Identity in the Global Market.” In Latino/a Popular Culture. Edited by Mary Habell-Pallán and Mary Romero. New York: NYU Press, 2002, p. 151. Negrón-Mutaner, Frances. “Feeling Pretty: West Side Story and Puerto Rican Identity Discourses.” Social Text, vol. 18, no. 2, 2000, pp. 83-106. Perry, Imani. “Racism Is Terrible. Blackness Is Not.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 15 Jun. 2020, www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/ racism-terrible-blackness-not/613039/. Sandoval-Sánchez, Alberto and Nancy Saporta Sternbach. “Re-Visiting Chicana Cultural Icons: From Sor Juana to Frida.” In The State of Latino Theater in the United States. Edited by Luis A. Ramos-García. New York: Routledge, 2002, p. 47. Sandoval-Sánchez, Alberto. “Paul Simon’s The Capeman: The Staging of Puerto Rican National Identity as Spectacle and Commodity on Broadway.” In Latino/a Popular Culture. Edited by Michelle Habell-Pallán and Mary Romero. New York: NYU Press, 2002, pp. 147–161. Schechner, Richard. Between Theater & Anthropology. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Stuart Fisher, Amanda. “Introduction.” In Performing Care. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020, doi:10.7765/9781526146816.00007. Web. 14 Dec. 2022. Taylor, Diana. “Trauma and Performance: Lessons from Latin America.” PMLA, vol. 121, no. 5, 2006, pp. 1674–1677. Accessed July 2, 2021, http://www.jstor. org/stable/25501645. Wiltz, Teresa. The Washington Post, WP Company, 2008, www.washingtonpost. com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/12/AR2008061202259_pf.html. Zadan, Craig. Sondheim & Co, 2nd ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1989.

1 Bilingualism and Translation as Caring Performance

On October 2, 2019, Freestyle Love Supreme (FLS) opened its first show at Broadway’s Booth Theatre. The hip-hop improv troupe, formed in 2004 by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, and Anthony Veneziale, features six performers (and sometimes a special surprise guest), who create freestyle raps backed by human beatbox and keyboards, based on audience suggestions, and incorporate structures and techniques of improv comedy. As the members of FLS gained fame and popularity for projects apart from the troupe and Veneziale moved to San Francisco to start a family, their performance schedule slowed, although the group never formally disbanded. In 2019, bolstered by Miranda’s skyrocketing success and the intense popularity of his work, FLS reunited for the October premiere, which was the first show of its kind on Broadway. It was a limited engagement, due to scheduling conflicts for the troupe’s most high-profile members: Miranda (Hamilton, Mary Poppins, Tick…Tick…Boom!), Kail (director: Hamilton, Fosse/Verdon), and Chris Jackson (George Washington, Hamilton). Closing early due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the show reopened in October 2021, but closed again in January 2022 with a new surge of COVID cases. A run at Los Angeles’s Pasadena Playhouse opened on July 12, 2022, and a Las Vegas run opened on November 10, 2022. In its early years, FLS performed in the tiny Arthur Selen theatre in the basement of the beloved Drama Book Shop, which provided a space for its performers to take part in a linguistic evolution that was set in motion with the birth of hip-hop in the Bronx in the early 1970s. FLS’s home in The Drama Book Shop was fitting, a show whose central focus was wordplay housed beneath volumes of dramatic text. The Drama Book Shop was at once elitist and hip, mainstream and underground. FLS’s place there reflected what would become a hallmark of Miranda’s work, juxtaposing elite and popular forms. In 2019, when The Drama Book Shop was forced to close its doors due to the soaring costs of Manhattan real estate, the rising popularity of e-commerce, and a flood that damaged the space and its stock, Miranda and a team of Hamilton alumni, including Kail, as well as producer Jeffrey Seller and theatre-owner James Nederlander, bought the shop ensuring a future for the cultural institution in a new location on 39th street. The grand reopening, delayed due to the pandemic, took place DOI: 10.4324/9781003282013-2

20  Bilingualism and Translation

on June 10, 2021, coinciding with the release of the film a­daptation of Miranda’s In the Heights. The purchase of the Drama Book Shop coupled with heavy media coverage around the film’s release reinforced Miranda’s image as a “savior” figure. Miranda’s philanthropy, much of which has foregrounded his Puerto Rican identity, has not been without controversy. The beginnings of Miranda as a “savior” figure originate with his linguistic work in FLS and can be traced through his use of language, bilingualism, and translation on stage to transform trauma, promote healing and belonging, and engage in practices of care. Freestyle Love Supreme was born from Miranda’s love of hip hop and wordplay, which he began honing as a young adult living in Inwood, on the north end of Manhattan. He learned Spanish during summers in Puerto Rico, where he would visit family in his father’s hometown of Vega Alta. He remembers his experience: Every summer, my sister and I were sent back to my dad’s hometown of Vega Alta, Puerto Rico…and learn Spanish the old-fashioned way, sink or swim. My Spanish accent was bad enough for the kids in Vega Alta to call me “Gringo” and “Americano,” and exclude me from stickball games. I would spend hours on those porches, imagining what my life would be like if I had been born here. Would they let me play stickball? Would I be more Puerto Rican? (Miranda, Study Guide, 4) In this case, Miranda’s access to Spanish language reflects his sense of belonging/unbelonging to a Puerto Rican community. It is this linguistic access that becomes the defining feature that legitimizes his Latinidad in the eyes of his peers, who, in this context, function as gatekeepers of his identity. Miranda’s relationality to his peers functions as a site of politics of belonging in which language becomes a tool of identity regulation through which Miranda might claim socio-spatial inclusion in a stickball game, while his peers use the same set of language skills as a tool of identity regulation as a means to exclude Miranda socio-spatially. For Miranda, language access becomes tied to place-belonging, “a state that arises from an individual’s attachment to a familiar locality, territory, geographic place or symbolic space that gives one a feeling of being attached to and rooted and where one feels comfortable, secure and at home” (Antonsich, 647). This experience significantly shaped Miranda, and he gives voice to his feelings through Nina in In the Heights. Echoing Miranda’s aforementioned thoughts regarding his childhood summers in Puerto Rico, Nina too wonders what her life would be like if she had grown up in Puerto Rico. She then points to working hard to learn Spanish as one way in which she has attempted to access, connect to, and engage with that part of herself. In this instance, both Nina and Miranda link language directly to place-belonging, projecting an imagined comfortable and secure ­existence that is dependent upon one’s level of Spanish fluency.

Bilingualism and Translation  21

This search for belonging through language also manifests itself through Miranda directly, as he attempts to extend a sense of belonging to his audiences. Occasionally, in an FLS performance, Miranda will address the audience in Spanish or translate into Spanish what another member of the group has just said in English. In this way, Miranda both validates his Latinidad and invites the audience in to share in it, extending the sense of community that exists onstage into the house. His breaking of the fourth wall to establish a sense of place-belonging for audiences is a convention of improvisation, but Miranda extends this practice to In the Heights, where Usnavi (a role originated by Miranda) functions as a narrator, and to Hamilton (a role Miranda also originated), where he and other characters directly address the audience. In In the Heights, for example, Usnavi immediately situates the audience in the geography of Washington Heights. He uses the language of rap to invite the audience into the neighborhood while acknowledging that the expected elite, white, Broadway audience may feel out of place in Northern Manhattan, singing “You’re probably thinkin’/I’m up shit’s creek/I ain’t ever been north of 96th Street.” He then offers, “You must take the A train,” proving his ability to engage with a multilayered spectatorship as he samples the familiar melody of Billy Strayhorn’s jazz standard, popularized by Duke Ellington (Hudes et al., 3). Here, Usnavi uses humor and wordplay as a way to establish his authority within In the Heights’ linguistic and geographic landscape as he invites the audience in to experience his neighborhood. Miranda’s musical and linguistic influences are eclectic. He notes that his sense of his Puerto Rican identity has been illuminated by musical influences including the late Big Pun (Christopher Lee Rios), whose image persists on a memorial mural in The Bronx. Miranda’s other rap and hip-hop influences include the Fat Boys, the Beastie Boys, DMX, Mobb Deep, and the Notorious B.I.G. Nods to Beyonce, Jay-Z, and Aesop Rock can also be found in the Hamilton score. Miranda frequently cites musical theatre composer-lyricists Stephen Sondheim and Jonathan Larson as strong influences as well. FLS relies on the linguistic rules of rap including content, flow, and delivery to parody itself. The content of an FLS scene might revolve around a household object, a single word, or a location. FLS performers’ earnest engagement in creating impressive rhythm and rhyme around seemingly mundane content results in comic delivery that elicits laughter and delighted surprise. Wordplay, a shared characteristic of rap and of improv comedy, allows the performer to demonstrate a command of and control over language. Such linguistic facility is essential to the scores for In the Heights and Hamilton. It is through the linguistic roots of hip-hop and of musical theatre, of Broadway, and of Puerto Rico that Lin-Manuel Miranda “fixes,” “gives,” “heals,” and “saves.” Under consideration here are Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’ In the Heights (2008), the bilingual revival of West Side Story (2009) with translations by Miranda, and Hamilton (2015) as musicals that transform experiences of trauma and healing by enacting performances of care,

22  Bilingualism and Translation

defiant joy, and belonging. Linguistic interventions that constitute these practices include bilingualism, translation, and rap. These transformative interventions address migrant, patriarchal, generational, and colonial trauma. Through close analysis of Spanish-language passages, drawing on the work of translation theorists, and recounting the author’s own experience as an audience member, this chapter illuminates ways in which translation and cultural transmission address trauma and healing both within and external to the worlds these musicals represent onstage. This chapter further posits that Miranda’s linguistic interventions, carried out in In the Heights and West Side Story, represent his first and second phases in becoming a perceived public “healer” figure. First, with an intent to “fix” The Capeman, Miranda and Hudes crafted In the Heights with purposeful interchange among Spanish, English, and Spanglish. Miranda’s “fixing” evolved into a healing intervention with translations for the 2009 West Side Story revival that attempted to reshape experiences of colonial trauma perpetrated by the Anglo-created musical. Finally, Miranda’s linguistic “healing” continued with Hamilton and rose to “savior” status as Miranda used rap and hip-hop to embody the title character, who is both exalted and perpetuates harm. Finally, this chapter draws upon Deborah Kapchan’s definition of “trash talk” as a mode of language production that produces a sense of belonging. Trash talk is in alignment with Imani Perry’s definition of defiant joy, and this chapter traces the evolution of Miranda’s use of trash talk as a tool to grapple with and reshape experiences of trauma from In the Heights to Hamilton, and in consideration of the dialogue that rap and salsa maintain between Puerto Rico and the states. Linguistic worlds situate these musicals in an evolving relationship to Puerto Rico, its citizens, and its diasporic populations, particularly in New York City. The multiple languages of hip-hop, including rap, breakdancing, and graffiti art that form the foundation of FLS, permeate In the Heights (2008) and Hamilton (2015), both created and composed by Miranda, who also had leading roles in each original production. In addition, Miranda took on the role of translator for the 2009 revival of West Side Story, a production that did not feature hip-hop, but which joined In the Heights as a bilingual Spanish and English production. Moments of bilingualism and codeswitching in these musicals are carefully selected and revolve around who is speaking Spanish or Spanglish and when it is employed. Translation, bilingualism, and rap are a means of constituting belonging, performing care, and enacting defiant joy and healing. These interventions result in a renegotiation of identity and actor–audience relationship, the engagement of a multilayered spectatorship, and the construction of these musicals as sites that reiterate trauma or work to provide healing.

Too Many Girls The 1939 Rogers and Hart musical, Too Many Girls, provides an early example of the trauma of linguistic colonization. Too Many Girls marked

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Desi Arnaz’s American stage debut, where his character, Manuelito Lynch, was billed as a “girl-crazy Argentine.” In the film version, he became a Cuban exchange student, sent to a college in California to act as one of the four bodyguards to an American heiress, Consuelo Casey, played by Arnaz’s future wife, Lucille Ball. His Irish last name indicates that his Latinx identity is only acceptable insofar as it is “balanced out” by Anglo ancestry. In his analysis of the film adaptation, Gustavo Pérez Firmat calls the musical a “multicultural nightmare” (Pérez-Firmat, 54). Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez goes further, calling it: A case of blatant cultural appropriation and Latinization given that the final movie scene has been molded and accommodated for the entertainment and enjoyment of an Anglo-American audience. The lyrics have disappeared, thus erasing the Spanish language, which has been replaced by unintelligible sounds signaling generic ethnic otherness and cultural difference. Thus, Spanish language has been reduced to mere noise. The audience does not care about the verbal content; it prefers to enjoy the visual spectacle of difference and the primitive sound. (Sandoval-Sánchez, 47) The visual spectacle that Sandoval-Sánchez speaks of includes a cast full of dancers wearing oversized sombreros, ponchos, and matador hats, tapping and clapping around an enormous bowl decorated with an Aztec-inspired design. The problematic stereotypes presented visually here are compounded by the trauma of language erasure. Like his female counterpart Carmen Miranda, Arnaz spent his career performing an Anglo-American expectation of an “authentically” Latin American experience through a conglomeration of linguistics and visual cues. As Manuelito, Arnaz meets this expectation through the complete nullification of any real language. By forbidding Manuelito access to both Spanish and English, the film’s creators and its audience dually prevent him from creating a home in the United States. Both Carmen Miranda and Arnaz were linguistically whitewashed and made safe for white wartime audiences and consumers as a direct result of FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy, which included a public relations plan that saw the recruitment of Latinx artists to the United States. Carmen Miranda’s thick accent, midriff-bearing tops, constant use of malapropisms, and fruit-laden headdress made her an exotic sex object and a ridiculous comedienne. Arnaz, too, was fetishized, fulfilling the Latin Lover stereotype with dark, wavy hair and an incredible talent for playing the conga drums. In this scene from Too Many Girls, the musicality of Arnaz’s actual language was lost, replaced by a mix of sounds that were then accepted Spanish, reinforcing a tribal or “tropicalized” stereotype of all things Latin American. For a monolingual English-speaking audience, the Spanish of the stage production and the gibberish of the film were one in the same.

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In moving from the stage to film, Spanish became inconsequential to a mass audience. Surprising and troubling, most reviews of the film called it a “faithful recreation” of the musical, one in which “no words have been changed” (Crowther). Through the violence of linguistic erasure, both Manuelito and Arnaz are marginalized and exploited as the crowd around them enjoys their musical talent. While Manuelito provides the percussive beat that brings to community together in a choreographic act of belonging, he is set apart. Despite the fact that he is physically situated in an elevated position and leads a call and response, his status remains that of an outsider.

The Capeman In The Capeman (1998), just a few Spanish lyrics and dialogue appeared, but the shift that occurred here was significant. The Capeman was the first musical attempt since the original West Side Story (1957) to represent the story of a Puerto Rican protagonist on stage and the first to depict the island as a setting. The codeswitching used in The Capeman highlights the tension that exists for the titular character as he struggles with assimilation in 1950s New York City. The Spanish language forms a spiritual connection between New York City and the island through the character of San Lazaro (Saint Lazarus) who longs for the island and with repeated acknowledgments that his heart and soul are Puerto Rico (Simon and Walcott). Despite these connections, composer Paul Simon did not intend to use bilingualism in this way, as he was more drawn to the musical styles that could become a part of the composition in adapting this true story for the stage than he was in lyrical content. He admits that his inspiration came from the sense of exoticism that surrounded the Latin American culture in New York during his youth: Writing songs in a 50s style was very appealing to me, and so was writing songs in a Latin style, which was a significant and sort of exotic New York subculture to me when I was growing up. Since I was working at the time with Brazilian drums and West African guitars, it wasn’t too much of a leap to begin thinking about music from Puerto Rico. (Eliot, 214)

West Side Story (2009) When Arthur Laurents decided to revive his 1957 classic, West Side Story, composed by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, a deliberate attempt was made to bring some sense of authenticity to the production. After expressing disappointment in 1964 and 1980 revivals, Laurents

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had long planned for a new production. Inspired by his late p­ artner Tom Hatcher’s handwritten translations of some West Side lyrics into Spanish, Laurents decided that much of the dialogue in the 2009 revival would now be in the Sharks’ first language. “The idea was to equalize the gangs,” he explained, “by allowing the Sharks…their own language” (Green). In addition, the creative team planned to cast Latinx actors in the 2009 production. In the original production of West Side Story, Puerto Rican characters were largely portrayed by white actors of European ancestry and were characterized as immigrants longing to assimilate. By using language as an equalizing force between the two gangs, the Sharks simultaneously reject the violence of colonialism and subvert it by becoming more grounded in their new geographic space, establishing a sense of place-belonging around their “turf,” claimed by the performativity of language. This sense of security, however, is tenuous as the Jets, along with systemic oppression, continue to threaten the Sharks. Coinciding with Laurents’ decision to revive West Side Story was an eruption of excitement around Hispanic and Latinx popular culture and entertainment in the United States. When Spanish language dialogue and lyrics were added to West Side Story in 2009, statistical data on audience demographics showed that 7% of Broadway audience attendees identified as Hispanic (Hauser, 28). Laurents’ producers, led by Jeffrey Seller, who had hits with Rent (1996), Avenue Q (2003), and In the Heights (2008) before joining the West Side Story team, sought to capitalize on the Hispanophelia of the mid-2000s that seemed to indicate the potential of a growing and untapped market for Broadway audiences. The music industry was obsessed with Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, and Ricky Martin, all of whom released Spanish language albums. The film industry recognized Spanish language movies like Pan’s Labyrinth (2007) and those that focused on Latinx characters like The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) with Academy Awards. It was not coincidental, then, that Laurents reimagined a bilingual production and invited Lin-Manuel Miranda to complete translations for the revival. The young composer had recently struck gold with In the Heights, which brought a younger, and more racially, ethnically, economically, and musically diverse audience to the theatre, and in doing so, he impressed his longtime idol, Stephen Sondheim. “Rap is a natural language for him and he is a master of the form, but enough of a traditionalist to know the way he can utilize its theatrical potential” (Sondheim). While rap was not used in the West Side Story revival, Miranda’s understanding of the theatrical potential of language made him a clear choice to work on the new interpretation of the classical musical. “Well, the Spanish in West Side Story was really Arthur Laurents’ idea,” says Miranda, “and I was there to help him facilitate that by providing the translations” (Sircus, 80). Ultimately, the bilingual West Side Story became a short-lived Spanish language experiment, but was significant in its reshaping of the story, providing new perspective on character development and motivations, altering meanings,

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renegotiating actor–audience relationships, and grappling with trauma and healing. The most evident way in which Miranda functioned as a “fixer” and in which the translation process transformed his character is in the popular song “I Feel Pretty,” performed by Maria with the help of her friends. Originally composed with English lyrics, this song is both Maria’s celebration of newfound love and her friends’ lamentation of what they see as her foolishness. A close look at the original lyrics (1957) compared to the 2009 translation shows the function and impact of these changes. In the following examples, the original lyrics are listed in the left-hand column; the translated lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda are in the center column; and the author has performed a literal translation of his lyrics back into English, which appears in the right-hand column. The changes are sometimes subtle, sometimes extreme. Perhaps most surprising when looking closely at the translation of “I Feel Pretty” is the verse in which Maria enumerates all the “pretty” things about her: her face, her dress, her smile, and her whole self. In order to preserve the meter of the song in Spanish translation, Maria’s “pretty” attributes become: faz (face), atrás (behind), forma de ser (personality), with faz and atrás also used to maintain the verse’s rhyme. While preservation of rhyme and meter is an important pragmatic consideration when translating song lyrics, the meaning behind the specific words chosen alters Maria’s I Feel Pretty

Me Siento Hermosa

I Feel Pretty

I feel pretty

Hoy me siento tan hermosa

Today I feel so beautiful

Oh so pretty

Tan graciosa que puedo volar, Y no hay diosa

So graceful that I am able to fly, And there is not a goddess

En el mundo que me va alcanzar. Hoy me siento encantadora Atrayente, atractiva sin par Y ahora

In the world that can catch up with me Today I feel enchanting Attractive, charming without compare And now

Ni una estrella me podrá opacar. ¿Ves en el espejo que hermosa soy? ¿Quién es esa bella mujer?

Not even a star will outshine me. Have you ever seen how beautiful I am in the mirror? Who is that pretty woman?

Que bonita faz, Que bonita atrás Que bonita forma de ser.

What a pretty face What a pretty behind What a pretty personality.

I feel pretty and witty and bright And I pity any girl who isn’t me tonight. I feel charming Oh so charming It’s alarming, how charming I feel And so pretty That I hardly can believe I’m real See that pretty girl in that mirror there Who can that attractive girl be? Such a pretty face Such a pretty dress Such a pretty smile Such a pretty me. (Bernstein, Laurents et al.)

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character. The English lyrics focus on the innocent Maria’s face and smile. When translated, the focus moves to her body, specifically her derriere. The use of “forma de ser” also creates a rhyme with “bella mujer.” The change from girl to mujer, or woman, is significant. When sung in English, Maria fancies herself grown-up and her friends turn toward the dramatic, playfully taunting her. In Spanish, Maria not only looks hopefully toward adulthood but also moves toward it in multiple ways. Here, Audre Lorde’s model of joy as a source for change is enacted as Maria’s celebration allows for her to embrace the ways in which she is changing while she resists the patriarchal structure of her socio-political environment. With a focus on the body, Maria is more aware of her sexuality, and this song serves as her transition into womanhood. This is surprising, given that Maria historically upholds the stereotype of the virginal Latina, in contrast to the also stereotyped hyper-sexualized Anita. With the assistance of Spanish language, Maria takes control of her sexuality and celebrates her body. In doing so, she takes control over her romantic life, which has always been dictated by her brother, Bernardo. Here, language empowers her, expanding a space in which she may claim agency over her body and her choices. Her performance is defiantly joyful as she uses celebration as an act of resistance. She celebrates her body in her first language and uses both body and language in an attempt to transform her peers’ perception of who she is. In doing so, she resists the colonization of both her body and her language. On a larger scale, Miranda’s translations enact energy for change as they resist stereotype and reshape a Maria that was originally created by and for Anglo audiences. In the first two translated verses of “I Feel Pretty,” translator Miranda looks to the sky for metaphor. With the celestial goddesses and stars as her rivals, Maria is raised to an otherworldly level. No longer a mere mortal, Tony’s love has raised her status and her stakes. With these new lyrics, Maria transcends her status as a hopeful immigrant. She sees the love between her and Tony as something divine, something that can transcend the borders that prohibit their relationship. This seems in contrast to what Laurents describes as his choice to make their relationship darker and more desolate, reflected in designer James Youmans’ mostly bare stage. “The lovers understand that their dreams are futile in the face of larger forces” (Green). However, through Spanish language, this divine relationship is poised for greater tragedy and adheres more steadfastly to its source material Romeo and Juliet, as the lovers have farther to fall. In Spanish, they do not see their dreams as futile, yet they are more tragically lost. Maria was not played by a Puerto Rican actor in the 2009 Broadway revival. Instead, Argentinian Josefina Scaglione was cast in the role and engaged in dialect training to learn the specificity of Puerto Rican dialect. Scaglione explains, “I speak Spanish, but I had to learn to speak it the way a Puerto Rican would speak it. So, for example, I say shhevar (her pronunciation of the verb llevar, to take/to carry/to wear) and Puerto Ricans would

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say jehvar” (Stamberg). Attention to dialect anchored Maria g­ eographically and allowed the focus to shift away from accents and toward affect. A mix of two languages may indicate either stress and confusion, or a comfort in successfully navigating two worlds. From a linguistic point of view, this codeswitching relieves tension or frustration that has been built up over the time in which a character’s second language is spoken. Eduardo Cabrera credits codeswitching with offering the speaker “a very rich linguistic repertory, but it is also useful for reinforcing the social function the establishment of solidarity” (Ramos-García and Cabrera, 153). Cabrera also points to the protagonist’s “enhance[d] flexibility of expression and [ability to] exploit the social and psychological associations of both languages” (Ramos-García and Cabrera, 153). The strongest example of the way in which Spanish language alterations to West Side Story lyrics engaged with codeswitching in this way is found through an examination and comparison of the two versions of “A Boy Like That.” In the following excerpt, the original lyrics appear in the left-hand column, revival lyrics appear in the center column, and the author has performed a literal translation from Spanish into English that appears in the right-hand column. The most striking change in these lyrics is the use of ese cabrón in place of the phrase “a boy like that.”1 Pragmatically, this word choice does contemporize the language. However, this stronger word choice more accurately communicates Anita’s disdain for Tony as well. He is no longer merely a “boy,” but is dehumanized by the assignation of a pejorative.

A Boy Like That Anita A boy like that who’d kill your brother, Forget that boy and find another One of your own kind. Stick to your own kind! A boy that kills cannot love A boy that kills has no heart And he’s the boy Who gets your love And gets your heart Maria, very smart! A boy like that wants one thing only And when he’s done, he’ll leave you lonely (Bernstein, Laurents et al.)

Un Hombre Asi

A Boy Like That

Ese cabron mató a tu hermano. Olvida a ese Americano.

That bastard killed your brother Forget that American.

Piensa en los tuyos. Sólo en los tuyos. Si mata no tiene amor. Si mata no hay corazón.

Think of your own. Only of your own. If he kills he does not love If he kills he doesn’t have A heart Y ese ladrón, And this criminal Y ese cabrón And this bastard Le das tu amor. You gave him your love. Very smart, ¡Por favor, María, ¡por favor. Please, Maria, please! Tú sabes bien que es lo You know what he wants. que quiere. Y no le importa si te hiere. And it is not important to Him if he wounds you.

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She later calls him a criminal, recalling his crime in a verse where, in the original English, the crime is not again mentioned. His criminal status is brought up a third time when Anita uses the phrase “si te hiere.”2 Again, in English, it is implied that Tony will use Maria for sex and leave her “lonely,” whereas in Spanish, she will be wounded, just like her brother. The Spanish lyrics allow the actor portraying Anita to convey a growing sense of anger and sorrow.3 Anita’s desperation shows in her pleading with Maria in Spanish, as opposed to demanding, as she does in the English version. The Spanish version communicates a more accurate sentiment than that of the original English lyrics. Anita’s stronger words allow her to disparage Tony, a character who has been historically viewed as a heroic figure by audiences. Even the title of the song has been translated from “A Boy Like That” to “Un Hombre Asi,” or “A Man Like That.” In making him a man, not a boy, Anita puts more responsibility on him for his very adult actions. Like Maria, who moves into adulthood with the assistance of the Spanish lyrics in “I Feel Pretty,” the language dictates Tony’s status as an adult as well, but here, language confines him to a metaphorical prison, where his manhood equivocates criminality. The most impactful alteration of language comes at the conclusion of “Un Hombre Asi.” After Bernardo is killed, Anita no longer speaks English, rejecting an America that she previously celebrated. There will be no home for her in the states. This symptom of trauma displayed onstage is mirrored in the silencing of people of the global majority. Simultaneously, this act of codeswitching demands the audience to take notice and alienates monolingual English speakers/understanders in a manner that aligns with Brecht’s alienation effect. By demonstrating the impact of colonization, Miranda requires the audience to take notice and potentially transform it. Throughout the production, Spanish adds tension between the Jets and the Sharks. By convention, the Sharks understand English, as throughout the production they have encounters with the Jets in which English is spoken. However, the Jets do not speak or understand Spanish. Therefore, the Sharks take power linguistically. Even though they don’t speak Spanish, the Jets understand what the Sharks think of them. Cody Green, who played Jets leader Riff in the Broadway revival, says that the language barrier adds to the friction: “If you don’t understand what’s being said, it gets a rise out of you” (Stamberg). The audience then become witness to a verbal rumble, the physical manifestation of which happens through dance later in the production. Written in five parts, the simultaneous and contrapuntal singing between the Jets, Sharks, Anita, Tony and Maria in the Tonight Quintet sets an aural battleground ablaze with sound, both familiar and unfamiliar to the audience. In Spanish, the Sharks are “fighting to be the law,” a threat whose successful completion will result in their claim to this space as their turf. On a larger scale, this bit of street will be their new home, a Puerto Rican home, but not an American one,

30  Bilingualism and Translation

as they linguistically resist colonization. While the English lyrics call for “no rumpus,” the Spanish ones reference the use of weapons, reminding the Jets and audience alike that this is not child’s play. Finally, while in English, blame is assigned through the phrase “they began it,” in Spanish the Sharks repeatedly call the Jets “guilty,” which raises the stakes for both gangs. “They began it” sounds like something a child might say when accusing a playmate after getting in trouble, while “guilty” reinforces the image of the law that is set forth by the Sharks at the start of the song. As with the two songs previously analyzed, Spanish language brings a more urgent and more adult atmosphere to the entire production. Despite the broadened perspective that the bilingual West Side Story added to characters and their relationships, audience and critical reception to the lyrical changes were less than positive (Healy). The 2009 revival played to audiences for a mere five months before another change was deemed necessary. Many of the English lyrics that had been translated into Spanish were reinstated, including the majority of those in “A Boy Like That” and, to a lesser extent, those in “I Feel Pretty.” If the intent of West Side Story’s creators was to provide a more “authentic” Latinx experience, why revert to the English lyrics? Laurents and some of the producers claimed that the Spanish lyrics were not resonating with audiences in the way they had hoped. As Laurents explained in an interview with the New York Times: Audiences were getting the general idea of ‘A Boy Like That,’ but they weren’t getting hammered by it. The sheer power of ‘A boy like that who’d kill your brother’ has no real equivalent, and for people who don’t understand Spanish, the impact was diluted. (Healy) Producer Jeffrey Seller concurred: Arthur and I went back to the show in midsummer to see how it was playing and we reached the conclusion that we could provide a bigger dramatic wallop if we incorporated more English back into ‘A Boy Like That,’ without gutting the integrity of the Spanish that carries the Sharks through the show. (Healy) Seller commented on post-performance discussions with friends and audience members, admitting he was: surprised by how many people had never seen West Side Story onstage or its film version and lacked a strong grasp of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It means we have to work a little bit harder in making sure people understand the show better. (Healy)

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West Side Story’s iconic place in popular culture, its reinforcement of ­criminal stereotypes, and its primarily creative team, comprised of primarily white artists of European ancestry, make it difficult to view the production as a representation of a Latinx experience. Despite Miranda’s involvement and the significant shifts that he was able to create within the story, Spanish in the revival is layered over pre-existing and well-known lyrics. Songs like “I Feel Pretty” have become standards and have been re-recorded by numerous artists outside the context of the musical (Annie Ross, Little Richard, TLC). One cannot overlook an assumed obligation to white comfortability here on the part of the producers in catering to a primarily white monolingual audience. As filmmaker Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner prepared for the delayed release of their newest iteration of West Side Story on film (originally slated to open in Summer 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic prevented its premiere), they participated in a town hall with students, faculty, and staff at the University of Puerto Rico. In a seemingly well-timed visit, just weeks after a successful but controversy-laden run of Hamilton in San Juan, Spielberg declared an intention to strive for “authenticity” and met resistance from Puerto Rican communities for whom the original film is problematic (Mahjouri). Mario Alegre, a prominent film critic in San Juan, asked “Why West Side Story? Why now?” pointing to its stereotypical portrayals of “fiery Latinas and greasy-haired, switchblade-wielding gang members” (Mahjouri). Isel Rodriguez, a UPR faculty member, recalled feeling hurt upon hearing the lyrics of “America,” for the first time, which includes “Puerto Rico/My heart’s devotion/Let it sink back in the ocean” (Abramovitch). West Side Story has long been an example of a production that reiterates and reinforces post-colonial trauma for Puerto Ricans. While West Side Story presents Puerto Ricans who long for life in the states, economic austerity has always been a factor in forcing Puerto Ricans to migrate stateside. When 300,000 people left the island after Hurricane Maria, says Rodriguez, the airport was “like a funeral” (Abramovitch). Spielberg attempted to assuage doubts citing the casting of many Puerto Rican performers, as well as dialect coaches, to “help Puerto Ricans who have lived in New York too long to remember where they came from” (González-Ramirez). The filmmaker has positioned the project as a response to the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies and abandonment of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Opening in December 2021 after long pandemic-induced delays, the Kushner/Spielberg film included new dialogue, some of which was in Spanish, and did not include subtitles. According to Spielberg: it was out of respect that we didn’t subtitle any of the Spanish. That language had to exist in equal proportions alongside the English with no help…I also want the audiences, Spanish-speaking audiences, English-speaking audiences, to sit in the theater together so the

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English-speaking audiences will suddenly hear laughter coming from pockets of the theater from the Spanish-speaking audience. (Acuna) This type of audience response was apparent as I sat in the audience of the 2009 bilingual Broadway revival. With a program insert that featured original lyrics side by side with new Spanish lyrics, nuanced alterations reached multilingual audience members in a new way. Ripples of laughter and tears in the audience stood out during scenes that featured Spanish lyrics. Rather than translated lyrics, the 2021 film included new dialogue by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, who used Spanish in some instances to further explore character relationships. For example, the stage production gives little insight into the relationship between Anita and Bernardo, while Kushner’s adaptation explores the tensions that exist between the Latino Bernardo (David Alvarez) and Afro Latina Anita (Ariana DeBose). In the most recent stage revival of West Side Story (2020), directed by Ivo van Hove, with new choreography by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, bilingualism was not used, and elements of the original production, including “I Feel Pretty” and The Dream Ballet, were cut. With an expected December 2019 opening pushed to February 2020, the production was quickly postponed after 24 performances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The production, which featured 33 actors in Broadway debuts, never reopened.

In the Heights Miranda notes that FLS and In the Heights fed each other, pointing to his desire to merge hip-hop and musical theatre forms (“We Are Freestyle Love Supreme,” 1:01:00–1:01:13). While in many ways In the Heights follows the structure and form of a traditional book musical, it presents its own cultural and aesthetic complexity, enacted through a multilingual pastiche. Upon its premiere in 2008, it was the first musical to feature a pan-Latinx community as its subject. While loosely “rap-like” musical numbers had been attempted in the past (“Witch’s Entrance” from Into the Woods; and “Today 4 U” from Rent), In the Heights was the first to build from a foundation of hip-hop languages, including rap, along with salsa and reggaeton. Unlike the 2009 revival of West Side Story, In the Heights was originally created with lyrics and dialogue in Spanish, English, and Spanglish, thus eliminating preconceived ideas and knowledge of a past or popular production. When asked about the process of integrating Spanish into the score, book writer Quiara Alegria Hudes explained: The bilingual components evolved naturally and organically…Spanish is part of how we hear language. There are many sayings in Spanish

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that just seemed natural at a moment. Much of this came from instinct and “improvisation” rather than us deciding on an English to Spanish ratio. (Sircus, 82) This improvisatory nature of creation subtends the hip-hop aesthetic that is foundational for a production that intentionally engages and distances multilayered spectatorship. In the Heights promises an education to audiences in the titular opening number, as Usnavi raps “I hope you’re writin’ this down, I’m gonna test ya later,” a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment of the fact that his audience is likely majority white, majority wealthy, and majority monolingual English speakers (Hudes et al., 3). Throughout the opening number, he introduces audiences to the quotidian events of Washington Heights, drawing them in through stereopic knowledge, where content and context work together to create full knowledge (Eoyang, 139). In granting audience access to full knowledge, Usnavi (and Miranda) established the potential for a community of belonging between actors and audience. Regardless of one’s familiarity with Spanish, inside knowledge is required to grasp the true meaning of specific words and phrases in a foreign language (Eoyang, 139). One way in which In the Heights engages stereopic knowledge is through a method typical to translators of literature: the culture-specific item (CSI). Javier Aixela defined CSIs as: those textually actualized items whose function and connotations in a source text involve a translation problem … whenever this problem is a product of the nonexistence of the referred item or of its different intertextual status in the [target] culture system, then outlines ways in which translators treat CSIs (Aixela, 58). These solutions fall into two categories: conservation and substitution, the former of which is most prevalent in In the Heights. Methods of substitution include synonymy (using a synonym), universalization (using a word or brand name that is understood on a more global scale), deletion, and autonomous creation (making up a new, original word). This method can be problematic, as it seeks to comfort and reinforce the linguistic power of a monolingual English-speaking audience. Instead, through conservation, Spanish language is privileged, and audiences are invited into this linguistic space to learn. The standout example of conservation is found in the song “Piragua.” A piragua is a Puerto Rican frozen treat, shaped like a pyramid, made of shaved ice, and covered with fruit-flavored syrup, and it is sold by vendors known as piragueros. The closest match to the piragua stateside is the snow cone, but it is not exact. In the original Broadway production of In

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the Heights, the piragüero sings the following lyrics as he pushes his cart along and attempts to sell his treats: Piragua, Piragua New block of ice, Piragua Piragua, Piragua So sweet and nice, Piragua Tengo de mango Tengo de parcha De piña y de fresa Tengo de china, de limón (Hudes et al., 71–72) Visual cues, like the piragüero’s cart and his colorful treats, when mixed with sporadic English lyrics, provide content and context to monolingual audiences, and combined with other examples, they act as an invitation for insider status into the neighborhood. The specificity of Puerto Rican culture is further contextualized by the Puerto Rican flag painted on the side of the piragüero’s cart. This short song functions simultaneously as an invitation for a monolingual audience (come into this space and learn), for a Spanish speaking audience (this is your space), and for a Puerto Rican audience (you created this space). The inherent educational aspect, supported by Usnavi’s narrator status, fuses characters and audience and creates an expansive engagement within the aesthetics of production. As the song continues, the Piragüero enumerates the flavors he has for sale: mango, parcha (passion fruit), piña (pineapple), fresa (strawberry), china (orange), and limón (lemon). While in many Spanish speaking countries, the word for orange is naranja, here, the word china is used, further specifying Puerto Rico. The specificity of this word further illustrates that the piragüero and the piragua are from Puerto Rico. While not every audience member may possess this inside knowledge, Miranda honors specific cultural traditions, a departure from musicals of the past in which actors performed unspecified and monolithic Latinidad on stage. Codeswitching may be paired with a more abstract CSI in moments of heightened emotion, as it is when following the death of Abuela Claudia, grandmother to the neighborhood. Usnavi and Nina are joined by the entire community in singing, repeatedly, “Alabanza.” Usnavi explains its meaning and significance: “Alabanza means to raise this thing to God’s face and to sing/Quite literally ‘praise to this’” (Hudes et al., 128–129). In the most intimate of moments, the audience is invited in as they receive a Spanish lesson. The most literal example of teaching an audience occurs as Nina conducts an impromptu Spanish lesson with her boyfriend Benny in the song “Sunrise.” In this metaphorical “morning after” song, In the Heights is equivalent to West Side Story’s “A Place for Us,” where the couples’ two

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languages become one. The song is simply constructed. Nina offers up a word in Spanish, and Benny recites its English equivalent, for example: NINA Are you ready to try again? BENNY I think I’m ready NINA Okay, here we go. Esquina BENNY Corner NINA Tienda BENNY Store NINA Bombilla BENNY Lightbulb NINA You’re sure? BENNY I’m sure NINA 3 out of 3, you did alright BENNY Teach me a little more NINA Calor BENNY Heat NINA Anoche BENNY Last night NINA Dolor BENNY Pain NINA Llámame BENNY Call me NINA

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Azul BENNY Blue NINA Ámame BENNY Love me NINA Perhaps I do… BENNY Well how do you say kiss me? NINA Bésame BENNY And how do you say hold me? NINA Abrázame Al amanacer. At sunrise. NINA/BENNY Anything at all can happen Just before the sunrise. (Hudes et al., 95–97) The manipulation of language in this scene serves a dual purpose. First, it advances both the plot and the relationship between the two characters. Benny, who has been working as a driver and dispatcher for Nina’s father’s taxi service, is an outsider both because he is the only Black-­identifying man in the neighborhood and because of his inability to speak Spanish. Following the example of Miranda and his childhood peers in Puerto Rico, Benny’s sense of belonging and his access to relationships and income are dependent upon his ability to communicate in Spanish. By teaching him Spanish, Nina creates an intimate connection with Benny that gives him access to her world and to professional and financial opportunities. The second purpose of this scene is to continue to educate monolingual English speakers in the audience. In this way, the audience shares a role with Benny, learning words and phrases along with him. Unlike West Side Story, where Spanish is the language of the outsider or, at best, used as an equalizer, In the Heights privileges Spanish language as a site of belonging. In this scene, Nina holds power as teacher; Spanish is dominant and is the “home” language of the majority of the neighborhood’s residents. The audience becomes students to the language, relying on Nina as a guide. In her process of offering a Spanish word for Benny to translate, Benny must demonstrate his ability to understand Spanish and, to a greater degree, understand Nina and her family. This is of particular importance to the plot of the musical, due to the fact that Kevin, Nina’s father, tells her that Benny will “never be one of us” (Hudes et al., 110).

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Just as in West Side Story, characters in In the Heights access Spanish when pushed to extreme emotional states. When Kevin learns that his daughter Nina has dropped out of college, he sings Inútil (Useless). Recounting his story of migrating from Puerto Rico to the states, Kevin repeats inútil to express his feelings of self-doubt, disappointment, and isolation. His isolation and his choice to codeswitch between inútil and its translation, useless, are both highlighted by the fact that inútil is the only Spanish word in the song. Miranda continues a Spanish lesson convention for learners in the audience here, as Kevin speaks the word, “inútil,” and immediately translates it to “useless.” The repetition of inútil links generations, as the word has been handed down from Kevin’s father, a farmer, who insisted that Kevin would also become a farmer. The word is repeated again as Kevin remembers his decision to resist his father’s wishes and the slap across the face his father delivered as a result. As the song climaxes and decrescendos, Kevin resolves to move forward. He abandons using inútil in favor of the English “useless,” leaving his inútil past behind him. “Useless,” is the final word in the song, working in counterpoint to inútil as the second word in the song, illustrating the distance that separates Kevin from Puerto Rico, from his father, and from his past. Miranda claims that “we really use the Spanish to isolate or unify the characters,” and in doing so, he also isolates and unifies a multilayered spectatorship (Sircus, 79). He elaborates, “In ‘Breathe,’ all of the neighbors singing to Nina in Spanish about their pride in her further serves to alienate her and separate her from the community” (79). During this song, Nina directly addresses the audience as she tries to build up the courage to tell her parents that she has dropped out of Stanford. She sings in English but is accompanied by members of the community who sing to her in the style of a bolero, “Sigue andando el camino por toda su vida/Respira” (Hudes et al.).4 The alienation she feels here is revisited later in the play, when Nina makes a point of mentioning how hard she worked to learn Spanish and wonders what life would be like if her parents had stayed in Puerto Rico, recalling Miranda’s childhood experiences on the island. This yearning for a sense of connection to heritage and a wholeness of self is demonstrated in Nina’s character both in “Breathe” and throughout the production. Here, Miranda draws a deep connection between language and identity, one that he felt firsthand. He later goes on to remember spending many days with the grandmothers and grandfathers of the community, who would demonstrate great patience with him as he attempted to speak Spanish. For Miranda and for Nina, a sense of authenticity is tied to language, and both experience a rupture consistent with trauma in the denial of access to a piece of their own identities. In each of their cases, a healing is attempted by elder generations through language, the very thing that alienates them. Nina and Miranda exist not only in a liminal state of identity but also in a fluctuating state of confinement and expansiveness as they are denied or given access to Spanish.

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Hamilton While a Latinx presence was a part of the foundations of hip-hop in the Bronx in the 1970s, it was in the 1990s that Latinx rappers increasingly held space in the hip-hop world. One of the first influential Puerto Rican DJs was Charlie Chase of the Cold Crush Brothers, who introduced elements of Latin music to the hip-hop scene. From 1973 to 1990, rap was primarily produced and performed by Black artists and was considered a genre that addressed issues important to the Black community. In 1990, Kid Frost organized the Latin Alliance, a coalition of Latino rappers, including Cypress Hill, Fat Joe, and Big Pun. Contemporary Puerto Rican hip-hop has broadened to include tracks that feature wildly popular Reggaeton, a genre that originated in Panama, but which has evolved and flourished on the island. A blend of hip and traditional music, Reggaeton combines Spanish, English, rap, samba, bomba, and Jamaican rhythms. This confluence of styles has been embraced by contemporary Puerto Rican artists such as Daddy Yankee, Bad Bunny, and Luis Fonsi. Hip-hop and salsa genres share a unique characteristic in their use of language. Deborah Kapchan defines “trash talk” as “a colloquial designation for gossip, a genre that relies on secrets as well as on the absence of the person under discussion” (Kapchan, 362). She goes on to argue that “different aesthetic systems employed at the club (music, dance, gesture) co-occur with language to produce a sense of belonging” and credits salsa music with “provid[ing] a kind of sonic homing device that has brought different groups together” (Kapchan, 362). In In the Heights, characters, who identify as Dominican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Mexican, and Chilean, for example, come together to salsa dance in the club. While there, trash talk is exchanged between men who wish to dance with Vanessa. In this space of belonging, music, dance, and language create a defiantly joyful space – one in which tensions between individuals can be resisted through a collective embodied release. In hip-hop, and rap, it is a common practice for rappers to engage in a continuing dialogue of trash talk, disparaging each other over the course of several songs or albums. The power dynamics of trash talk are such that the “winning” trash talker gains a certain level of respect from the recipient that they seek to disparage as they disparage them. Defiant joy is implemented as the trash talker not only is lauded and applauded by their crew but also feels a sense of justice. Such language may be used as a way to gain respect as it displays intellect and quick wit, while resisting stereotypes that position rap and hip-hop as lacking in sophistication. Trash talk can take the form of friendly teasing or a power struggle, and while Kapchan highlights the absence of the person under discussion, the rap battle format is one in which trash talk is communicated directly between parties. In fact, in the rap battle context, trash talk is celebrated and the best trash talker “wins.” Both In the Heights and Hamilton use trash talk as

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modes of belonging. In In the Heights, trash talk is presented as an act of defiant joy, while in Hamilton, it is one that determines inclusion/exclusion. In In the Heights, for example, there is often friendly sparring in the form of trash talk between Usnavi, Benny and Sonny. In Justin Chang’s review of the film for the Los Angeles Times, he characterizes these exchanges between Usnavi, Sonny and Benny as “genteel trash talk” (Chang). The same sense of white comfortability that informs the educational nature of In the Heights comes to play here as trash talk is made non-threatening for a majority white audience. In Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson attempts to dismantle Alexander Hamilton’s plan to establish a national bank through a mix of political debate and trash talk. Jefferson’s trash talk pits Jefferson’s Virginia against Hamilton’s New York. Jefferson lauds Virginians as creators and takes aim at what he deems is Hamilton’s too lengthy and incomprehensible proposal. Hamilton fires back by doubling down on the trash talk, accusing Jefferson of being out of touch and narrowminded, and directly pointing to Jefferson’s role as an enslaver, raising the tension to a level that causes George Washington to instruct Jefferson to walk away from the conversation. Sondheim again noted Miranda’s facility in elevating language and in merging forms in Hamilton: But the wonderful thing about Lin-Manuel’s use of rap is that he’s got one foot in the past. He knows theater. He respects and understands the value of good rhyming…Rhyme does something to the listener’s perception that is very important, and Lin-Manuel recognizes that. (Rosen) The conversation between past and present that constitutes Hamilton is reliant upon the elevation of rap to the foundational mode of discourse that forms the United States. In addition, rap expands space for women, most notably Angelica Schuyler, who demonstrates her facility with “men’s language” as she arguably outperforms Hamilton himself in her solo during the song, “Satisfied.”

Other Linguistic Interventions In 2009, one year after In the Heights debuted, Broadway producer Paula Wagner announced she was in talks with Joseph Simmons (Run/Reverend Run), Daryl McDaniels (DMC), and the estate of Jason Mizell ( Jam Master Jay) to bring a Run-DMC musical to Broadway. Set to tell the biographical story of the seminal hip-hop group’s rise to fame, the musical was to feature songs from the Run-DMC hip-hop catalog along with new tunes composed by Simmons and McDaniels. In 2011, DMC told BET that the project was “more than halfway there” and that “the definite thing about it is it’s going to happen” (Mundhra). The project, however, never came to fruition. Three years later, Holler if Ya Hear Me, a jukebox

40  Bilingualism and Translation

Figure 1.1  Hamilton (2015). Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Diggs) and Alexander Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda) face each other in front of a semicircle of seated onlookers. Photo courtesy of Joan Marcus.

musical written by Todd Kreidler and featuring the music of rap artist Tupac Shakur, ran for 38 performances at Broadway’s Palace Theatre. The production, featuring Chris Jackson as Vertus, received a mixed critical response, with the primary criticism being that Holler if Ya Hear Me did not tell Tupac’s life story. As with The Capeman, On Your Feet! (2015) centered a true story but rejected a criminal stereotype and transformed a performative one. Based on the autobiographical story of Cuban pop music icons Gloria and Emilio Estefan with music, lyrics, and orchestrations by the married couple, and with a book written by Alexander Dinelaris, it debuted at Broadway’s Marquis Theatre on November 5, 2015, just three months after Hamilton’s debut. Cuban American Ana Villafañe, who is from Miami, originated the role of Gloria, with Josh Segarra as her husband Emilio. A jukebox musical, On Your Feet featured Estefan’s most popular solo hits as well as those from her time with Miami Sound Machine, including the title song, as well as “Conga” and “Rhythm is Gonna Get You.” In his review of the musical for Theatre Journal, Horacio Sierra notes that the production “extends the Cuban American tradition of hybridization by amalgamating English-language hits, Cuban-inspired choreography, American immigrant tropes, and a universal love story” (Sierra). While Gloria and Emilio Estefan are both performers, the autobiographical nature of the story validates its authenticity and makes their status as performers essential to

Bilingualism and Translation  41

exploring life “on the hyphen.” As they navigate an “American Dream,” the couple is met with obstacles including Gloria’s mother’s disapproval of Emilio, her father’s battle with Multiple Sclerosis, and the 1990 bus accident that left Gloria seriously injured. Largely a story of resilience and triumph, On Your Feet depicts the couple overcoming these obstacles and navigating the complexities of what it means to be Cuban American in a positive and celebratory light. As with In the Heights and the 2009 revival of West Side Story, the bilingualism employed in On Your Feet! makes the musical accessible to multiple audiences. However, in On Your Feet!, codeswitching between Spanish and English is directly reflective of the Estefan’s experience in navigating bilingualism within a music industry meant to cater to young, white, monolingual English speakers. The string of hits that make up the score of On Your Feet! was intended to be “welcoming liminal spaces for non-Hispanic fans” (Sierra). Just as In the Heights employed bilingualism as a tool to hold Latinx audiences close and invite non-Latinx audiences in, the Estefan’s and their producers shaped their repertoire to be just Latin enough and just American enough through the inclusion of Spanish and English backed by Latin beats. This resulted in wide appeal for audiences during the height of Gloria Estefan’s recording career and again with On Your Feet!. David Rooney’s Hollywood Reporter review notes: It’s impossible to deny the production’s generosity of spirit…. the story is packed with heart, above all in its tender depiction of the couple’s sustaining love. And there’s such genuine joy — plus a refreshing suggestion of modesty — in the telling of this Cuban-American success story. The show’s arrival at a historic point in the renewal of diplomatic ties between Cuba and the U.S. makes its timing serendipitous. (Rooney) Indeed, the relevance of On Your Feet! was highlighted by President Barak Obama’s 2014 announcement that the United States would shift policy regarding Cuba, in a move toward “United States-Cuba Normalization.” The new policy would allow increased travel to Cuba, encourage commerce between the two nations, and allow for a free flow of information to Cuba. This change is significant in relationship to the musical, as it recalls Estefan’s own relationship to Cuba, as a member of the “1.5 Generation,” those who emigrated as young children, with no memories of their time in Cuba. Estefan’s father, however, was a political prisoner under the Castro regime, having previously worked for Castro’s predecessor, Fulgencio Batista. The Estefan’s passionate and complicated ties to Cuba are highlighted in the songs “Mi Tierra” and “Cuando Salí de Cuba.” Their “on the hyphen” experience is best expressed in the musical when a record executive deems their bilingual songs as unmarketable. Emilio responds, “You should look very closely at my face, because whether you know it

42  Bilingualism and Translation

or not … this is what an American looks like” (Isherwood). On Your Feet! pushes back against stereotype by asserting its position as both a Cuban and an American story, expanding the conversation beyond Puerto Rico, to consider how bilingual Spanish language performances function as sites of care.

Notes 1 “that bastard.” 2 “if he wounds you.” 3 Actress Karen Olivo won a Tony award for their portrayal of Anita in this production. 4 “Continue walking this path all of your life/Breathe.”

Work Cited Abramovitch, Seth. “Steven Spielberg Met with Puerto Ricans about ‘West Side Story’ Concerns.” The Hollywood Reporter, The Hollywood Reporter, 15 Jan. 2019, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/stevenspielberg-met-puerto-rican-activists-west-side-story-concerns-1176285/. Acuna, Kirsten. “‘West Side Story’ Has Scenes in Spanish without Subtitles. Steven Spielberg Says It Was Done Purposefully, ‘out of Respect’,” Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo!, 8 Dec. 2021, https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/movies/west-side-storyscenes-spanish-093810325.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEMgAVgCqzljlZKA1taLWU8wrBLRYF9KEsN2iHL9V_OUdlH4_6_SevSepifl9YGCkD5gZaiwg-xKwywlf VKvezH1o-VOZzQf Hgb8eIQvDIudP4VqZmAU8KuggVw8Vbrlzy9S6fpSivT1cnUQWV2va_PvG9BMunHErmeb6Q5Bb2Ex. Aixela, Javier. “Culture-Specific Items in Translation,” In Translation, Power, Subversion. Edited by Román Álvarez and M. África Valdez. Philadelphia, PA: Multilingual Matters, 1996, pp. 52–78. Antonsich, Marco. “Searching for Belonging - An Analytical Framework,” Geography Compass, vol. 4, no. 6, 2010, pp. 644–659, doi:10.1111/j.1749-8198.2009.00317.x.  Bernstein, Leonard, et al. “West Side Story Original Cast Recording 1957,” Naxos. Cabrera, Eduardo. “The Encounter of Two Cultures in the Play Doña Rosita’s Jalapeño Kitchen: (Or, the Representation of Cultural Hybridity),” In The State of Latino Theater in the United States. Edited by Luis A. Ramos-García. New York: Routledge, 2002, p. 153. Chang, Justin. “Review: ‘In the Heights’ Brings the Lin-Manuel Miranda Musical Vividly to Life,” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 21 May 2021, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-05-21/ in-the-heights-review-lin-manuel-miranda. Crowther, Bosley. “The Screen in Review; ‘Too Many Girls’ Makes Appearance at Loew’s Criterion,” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Nov. 1940, https://www.nytimes.com/1940/11/21/archives/the-screen-in-reviewtoo-many-girls-makes-appearance-at-loews.html. Eliot, Marc. Paul Simon: A Life. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2010.

Bilingualism and Translation  43 Eoyang, Eugene Chen. The Transparent Eye: Reflections on Translation, Chinese ­Literature, and Comparative Poetics. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1993. Firmat, Gustavo Pérez. The Havana Habit. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010, p. 54. González-Ramirez, Andrea. “West Side Story Can’t Be Saved,” The Cut, The Cut, 13 Dec. 2021, https://www.thecut.com/2021/12/west-side-story-is-notfor-puerto-ricans-like-me.html. Green, Jesse. “When You’re a Shark You’re a Shark All the Way,” New York Magazine, New York Magazine, 13 Mar. 2009, https://nymag.com/arts/theater/ profiles/55341/. Hauser, K. “The Demographics of the Broadway Audience: 2008–2009 Season.” New York Times, September, 2009. Healy, Patrick. “Some ‘West Side’ Lyrics Are Returned to English,” The New York Times, The New York Times, 26 Aug. 2009, https://www.nytimes. com/2009/08/27/theater/27west.html. Hudes, Quiara Alegría, et al. In the Heights: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical. Milwaukee, WI: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2013. Isherwood, Charles. “Review: ‘On Your Feet!’ Rides the Rhythm of the Estefans,” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Nov. 2015, https://www. nytimes.com/2015/11/06/theater/review-on-your-feet-rides-the-rhythm-ofthe-estefans.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CYou%20should%20look%20very%20 closely%20at%20my%20face%2C%E2%80%9D,hands%2C%20as%20their%20 struggles%20bring%20them%20closer%20together. Kapchan, Deborah. “Talking Trash: Performing Home and Anti-Home in Austin’s Salsa Culture,” American Ethnologist, vol. 33, no. 3, 2006, pp. 361–377, doi:10.1525/ae.2006.33.3.361. Laurents, Arthur, et al. “West Side Story – New Broadway Cast Recording 2009,” Masterworks Broadway. Mahjouri, Shakiel. “Steven Spielberg Traveled to Puerto Rico to Address ‘West Side Story’ Remake Concerns,” Repeating Islands, 16 Jan. 2019, https:// repeatingislands.com/2019/01/15/steven-spielberg-traveled-to-puerto-ricoto-address-west-side-story-remake-concerns/. Miranda, Lin-Manuel. In the Heights Study Guide. New York, NY: Stage Notes Publishing Group, 2007. Mundhra, Smriti. “Run-DMC Story Heads to Broadway,” BET, 30 Jul. 2011, https://www.bet.com/article/x2pra1/run-dmc-story-heads-to-broadway. Obama, Barack, “Presidential Policy Directive -- United States-Cuba Normalization,” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, 14 Oct. 2016, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/thepress-office/2016/10/14/presidential-policy-directive-united-states-cuba-normalization. Sandoval-Sánchez, Alberto and Nancy Saporta Sternbach. “Re-Visiting Chicana Cultural Icons: From Sor Juana to Frida,” In The State of Latino Theater in the United States. Edited by Luis A. Ramos-García. New York: Routledge, 2002, p. 47. Rooney, David. “‘On Your Feet!’: Theater Review,” The Hollywood Reporter, The Hollywood Reporter, 1 Dec. 2015, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ news/general-news/gloria-emilio-estefan-bio-musical-837203/.

44  Bilingualism and Translation Rosen, Jody. “The American Revolutionary,” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Jul. 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/08/t-magazine/hamilton-lin-manuel-miranda-roots-sondheim.html. Sandoval-Sánchez, Alberto. “Paul Simon’s The Capeman: The Staging of Puerto Rican National Identity as Spectacle and Commodity on Broadway,” In Latino/a Popular Culture. Edited by Michelle Habell-Pallán and Mary Romero. New York: NYU Press, 2002, pp. 147–161. Sierra, Horacio. “Performance Review of on Your Feet!. Theatre Journal. 69.1 (2017): 100 01,” Academia.edu, 2 May 2017, https://www.academia.edu/32778062/Performance_Review_of_On_Your_Feet_Theatre_Journal_69_1_2017_100_01. Simon, Paul, and Derek Walcott. “Born in Puerto Rico,” The Capeman (Original Broadway Cast), Verve (Adult Contemporary), 1998. Sircus, Kyle Matthew. “Strange Syntax: The Use of Foreign Languages in American Musicals,” Tufts University, 2011, An Honors Thesis for the Department of Drama and Dance. Stamberg, Susan. “A ‘West Side Story’ with a Different Accent,” NPR, NPR, 15 Dec. 2008, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98207909. Warren, Diane, et al. “Mi Tierra,” On Your Feet! (Original Broadway Cast Recording), Naxos Digital Services US Inc. We Are Freestyle Love Supreme. Directed by Andrew Fried, performances by Utkarsh Ambudkar, Andrew Bancroft, James Monroe Inglehart, Christopher Jackson, and Thomas Kail. Boardwalk Pictures, 2020. Hulu.

2 Caring Performance in Public Art

Alexis Bousquet, the founder of the Santurce es Ley Walk (Santurce is Law Walk), guides our tour group down Calle Cerra in the Santurce arts district of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Along the way, we stop in front of numerous works of graffiti and public art, ranging from small tags to large-scale murals covering entire sides of buildings. Some adjacent images blend into each other, as the entire street vibrates with color. The image of a young boy, modeled after Bousquet’s son, wades through a thigh-high pool of water, carrying a backpack, unzipped to reveal a melting glacier inside. The striking image evokes concerns around the island’s future and precarity in the face of climate change. Further down the street, we find a mosaic of film and television director Spike Lee in role as Mars Blackmon, the character he created in the 1986 film She’s Gotta Have It. In the head and shoulders mosaic, Lee wears oversized eyeglasses, Blackmon’s iconic baseball hat with a turned-up brim featuring the word “Brooklyn” across it, and a large gold necklace that reads “Mars.” The image of Mars anchors the character in Puerto Rico, not only because he was recast with Puerto Rican actor Anthony Ramos in the 2017–2019 television remake of She’s Gotta Have It but also because of Lee and Ramos’s post-Hurricane Maria relief efforts, documented in an episode of the series. Eventually, we stop at a boarded-up building. On the outside is a mural on which green and black shapes, perhaps tropical leaves or amoebas, intertwine on a lighter green background. Its outstanding feature is a hole in the wall, a threeby-two-inch rectangle. We line up to peer through the hole. Closing one eye and pressing the other against the opening feels like looking through a kaleidoscope of time to view a pile of rubble untouched for nearly five years. This aftermath of Hurricane Maria stands as a startling memorial in contrast to the colorful public art pieces that are situated around it and reminds the viewer not only of the natural disaster but also of the complicated political and economic issues that inform and inspire Puerto Rican artists. The use of graffiti as an “acting out,” a form of resistance to gentrification and to the political policies that support it, can also be seen in San Juan. Tags that read “Go Home Gringo” are spray painted on buildings, lampposts, and other structures both in heavily populated tourist locations, like DOI: 10.4324/9781003282013-3

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Old San Juan, and in ones that beachgoing tourists are less inclined to visit, like Santurce. The “Gringo Go Home” tag most specifically responds to the displacement of Puerto Rican residents in favor of wealthy stateside finance and tech investors looking for tax breaks. While the displacement of Puerto Rican communities has been ongoing since Hurricane Maria, an increase in housing prices has been exacerbated post-COVID as more stateside populations take advantage of the ability to work remotely. Many Puerto Ricans can no longer afford to live in their own hometowns. Especially concerning is the co-opting of local cultural spaces, like the former San Juan Children’s Museum, which American billionaire Brock Pierce envisioned as a “cryptoclubhouse,” part of a so-called “Puertopia” for those in the cryptocurrency game. In the face of such challenges, the work of artists like those featured on the Santurce es Ley walk functions not only as sites of protest but also as sites of care. Amanda Stuart Fisher defines care as: a term that has many interconnected dimensions: it has a practical and emotional element (how we practically engage with other people); it has an ethical and political dimension (disclosing values that determine how we should act in the world and within the limited resources we might have available to us); and, crucially, it has an aesthetic component (determining how artistry and the feeling evoked by an engagement with the arts frames inter-human relationships in solicitous ways). (Stuart Fisher, 6) Stuart Fisher marks performances of care at the intersection of art and social practice and as ones that are characterized by inter-relationality, repetition, and embodiment. Since 2010, the Union of Independent Art in Puerto Rico has worked to revive San Juan’s Santurce neighborhood, bringing artists together to present their talent and craft, first through festivals in Santurce and in the southern city of Ponce, and then with more permanent pieces on the Santurce es Ley Walk. Santurce es Ley has embraced the art of graffiti, which intermingles with commissioned public art pieces. Canvases range from abandoned buildings adjacent to empty lots, to residential and commercial areas, to formal gallery spaces. The Santurce es Ley project demonstrates care by working within the resources of residential and commercial properties and artmaking materials to connect emotionally with viewers around issues of urgent importance to Puerto Rico, including climate change, economic violence, and gentrification. Many pieces also celebrate the island and its communities. Taken alone or with a guide, the Santurce es Ley Walk, in its entirety, becomes a performance of care constituted by the embodied practice of both the artists and the viewers that tells a story of the island, its past and present, its traditions, and its people. Public art performances of care

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like these can be found across the island, including in Vega Alta, home of Luis Miranda, Jr., Lin-Manuel Miranda’s father. As a child of Puerto Rican parents, and a native New Yorker, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s on- and offstage performances of care incorporate public art and graffiti, creating a dialogue between the states and the island, while situating Miranda as a caretaker and reinforcing his familial ties to the island.

Placita Güisin In 2019, Lin-Manuel Miranda appeared in an eight-part video series, Discover Puerto Rico, produced by Cinetrix for the Government of Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rico Tourism Company. The series, filmed in 2018, was part of a larger plan to rebuild the island’s tourism industry one year after Hurricanes Irma and Maria made landfall, causing $20 billion in economic losses. Structured as a travelogue, Miranda hosts as he explores the island, with each three-to-five-minute episode organized around a central theme or attraction (i.e., Salsa, Public Art, and Coffee). Throughout the series, Miranda interviews local artists, restauranteurs, and community leaders, as well as internationally recognized celebrities including Miss Universe 2001 Denise Quiñones and iconic singer Lucecita Benítez. The Discover Puerto Rico series often reinforces the Miranda–­Hamilton– Puerto Rico link. Miranda almost always wears a Hamilton t-shirt or hoodie, promoting his work while situating both himself and his iteration of Alexander Hamilton as members of a Puerto Rican community. In addition, Miranda often references the island’s influence on his musical theatre work. For example, he credits festivals in Vega Alta, where he spent childhood summers, with inspiring In the Heights’ musical number “Carnaval del Barrio” (“Vega Alta,” 1:30–1:37). In these ways, the Discover Puerto Rico series not only highlights Miranda’s Puerto Rican identity but also emphasizes an inter-relationality in performances of care between Miranda and the island. Puerto Rico is situated as a benefactor to Miranda’s creative process, while Miranda is situated as a benefactor to the island through his philanthropic efforts. The Discover Puerto Rico series positions Miranda as a caretaker but also centers a self-discovery process for Miranda, one that is tied to his identity as the son of Puerto Rican parents. Throughout the series, the viewer is reminded of Miranda’s connection to the island, and his familial legacy that is memorialized there. In his role as host across eight episodes, Miranda’s Puerto Rican identity is highlighted. His father, Luis Miranda, Jr. was born and raised in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, and he was the first in his family to migrate to the states. Vega Alta is the subject of one Discover Puerto Rico episode, with a focus on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s paternal grandfather, Güisin Miranda, who was a respected community leader in Vega Alta. A memorial mural and placita commemorating Güisin Miranda was dedicated in August 2017, just one month before Hurricanes Irma

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and Maria made landfall. The placita is billed as “a cultural and gastronomic corner in Vega Alta,” which, in addition to the mural, also houses a small art gallery of Miranda memorabilia and a bar and café, potentially drawing visitors away from highly populated tourist areas like San Juan and increasing tourism and commerce in Vega Alta (linmanuelmiranda. com). Güisin Miranda’s image is memorialized at his namesake Placita de ­Güisin, on a wall-sized mural, a mosaic of bold blues, yellows, and reds. Güisin Miranda’s face covers the left side of the mural, while dual images of his grandson Lin-Manuel cover the right side: one as himself, and one in character as Alexander Hamilton. The artwork continues in another area of the plaza, where the same materials form a Puerto Rican flag, positioned vertically. At the top is the white star one might expect to see when looking at the Puerto Rican flag. Upon closer inspection, one finds that the mosaic actually replicates the Hamilton logo, with a silhouette of Hamilton/Lin-Manuel Miranda forming the top of the star, arm raised above his head, with an index finger pointing toward the sky, again reinforcing the Miranda–Hamilton–Puerto Rico connection. In the “Public Art” episode of the Discover Puerto Rico series, artists Celso González and Roberto Biaggi, of Cero Design & Built, Inc., point out that their monumental mural of the Miranda’s survived Hurricane Maria. The mural is meant to be “indestructible” (“Public Art,” 3:08– 3:17). With the arrival of the hurricanes, the mosaic transformed into a symbol of survival, its colors, patterns, and faces defiantly joyful as they bore wind and rain. This indestructible status is ultimately transferred to Lin-Manuel Miranda, by virtue of his appearance on the mural. While Alexander Hamilton’s home island was St. Nevis, where his childhood was disrupted by hurricane, the mosaic claims Hamilton for Puerto Rico as well, by centering this hurricane survivorship and by conflating Hamilton with Miranda. In the mosaic and throughout the Discover Puerto Rico series, Miranda’s dream of “coming home,” that is embodied by Nina in In the Heights, is realized. Nina imagines, “what if I had stayed in Puerto Rico/with my people,” while Miranda expresses having had similar feelings growing up and visiting his father’s hometown of Vega Alta (Hudes et al., 70). Unlike Nina, he has had frequent opportunity to visit the island and notes the connection he feels to the place, the culture, and his family, when there (“Vega Alta,” 4:40–5:10). Through public art, Miranda and Hamilton return together to the Caribbean and will remain there, permanently memorialized as part of the indestructible mosaic. As the mural performs care, strength, solidarity, and healing, it simultaneously performs the Miranda’s identity and legacy. Serving as an intergenerational monument to Miranda’s legacy, the mural in Placita Güisin stands in contrast to a nearby billboard emblazoned with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s image next to the words #YoSoyVegaAlta.1 Looking like a presidential candidate, Miranda, in a head and shoulders close-up, wears a blue button-down collared shirt and a blazer. The white

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lettering of #YoSoyVegaAlta sits on a red background. The billboard is mounted on a wooden A-frame, and it is vinyl wrinkled and flimsy, clearly impacted by wind. One might imagine that a strong storm could easily tear at and batter the billboard. Standing next to a permanent stone structure indicating the town line, Miranda’s face both welcomes residents and visitors to Vega Alta and claims the town, reminding all who pass of his heritage and his place-belonging. While the memorial mosaic at Placita Güisin has become a celebrated tourist attraction, the vinyl billboard was vandalized in August 2019. A black line strikes through Miranda’s eyes, and a curly mustache is added to his face. Under #YoSoyVegaAlta, a spraypainted “Buscón!,” which translates to “thieving,” or “crooked,” or, more colloquially, a prostitute. The vandalism is a reminder that Miranda is a complicated figure for some Puerto Ricans, who have criticized, among other things, his support of the PROMESA act and his involvement in rebuilding the coffee industry on the island through Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds. The temporary and vulnerable nature of his billboard image, as well as its solo depiction of Miranda, serves as a foil to the memorial mural at Placita Güisin, highlighting the sometimes-controversial nature of Miranda’s philanthropy. When coupled with the mural, the billboard completes a dual performance that highlights the necessity of intergenerational relationships as a key component that constitutes a lasting and “indestructible” sense of identity. Miranda’s representations of public art on stage and his public art-based philanthropic endeavors intersect Stuart Fisher’s framework of caring performance and Marco Antonsich’s framework of belonging. Antonsich posits that belonging must be analyzed both as “a personal, intimate feeling of being ‘at home’ in a place (place-belonging) and as a discursive resource that constructs, claims, justifies, or resists forms of socio-spatial inclusion/exclusion (politics of belonging)” (Antonsich, 647). In the case of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s art and philanthropy, memory and legacy are tied to both place-belonging and politics of belonging. Place-belonging is a major theme of In the Heights and is grounded in the specificity of the Washington Heights neighborhood and its community; the ensemble is in fact referred to as “the Community” in the script, and a community-as-family model provides the context for a politics of belonging within which negotiations of “home” are undertaken. The politics of belonging that constitutes the world of in In the Heights, both constructs and resists forms of socio-spatial inclusion/exclusion through performances of graffiti and public art that emphasize intergenerational inter-relationality and the preservation of memory and legacy. These elements are found most specifically through their embodiment in the character of Graffiti Pete, who enacts defiant joy as a mode of caring performance. Performances of graffiti and public artmaking presented in In the Heights serve as rituals that move between what Diana Taylor calls “acting out” to “acting through” trauma and from what John Fulbright calls “secret

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language[s] of self-expression,” to public expressions of community ­solidarity and healing (Fulbright, 2001; Taylor, 2006). This occurs not only in the memorialization of an image on a surface but also through the embodiment of the creative process in which the art-maker becomes both survivor and witness through kinesthetic engagement with materials and space. Over the course of In the Heights, the intent, technique, and function of graffiti are transformed. Public art ultimately constitutes a performance of care that utilizes defiant joy as resistance and opens space for a reshaping of collective memory. This representation of graffiti artmaking as a healing ritual is in dialogue with post-Maria public art as a caring performance in Puerto Rico.

Graffiti Pete In the Heights opens with a mostly darkened stage, partially illuminated by a pool of light, center. From the darkness emerges Graffiti Pete, who makes his entrance from upstage center. As he descends a flight of stairs at the 181st street Metro stop and moves toward the light, he pulls back the hood of his sweatshirt, revealing his face as he sets down his boombox, which plays dancehall reggae. Ensuring that the coast is clear, Graffiti Pete takes off his backpack and finds two cans of spray paint inside. The cans become an extension of his body as he breakdances with them, simultaneously spraying the two cans, creating billowing clouds of dancing molecules that hover and dissipate in the spotlight. Finally, he sprays into the darkness, his arms moving quickly but methodically, creating the illusion that he is indeed tagging a wall or another structure. Hoodie, boombox, backpack, spray paint. This collection of visual cues, filtered through a tourist gaze, manipulated so that “the gaze falls upon what the gazer expects to see,” reinforces harmful Latinx stereotypes and, in particular, those assigned to young men of color within barrio culture (Turner et al.). Each of these elements is an extension of Graffiti Pete’s breakdancing body, which becomes another signpost pointing to a criminal stereotype. This stereotype is further reinforced by Usnavi (Lin-Manuel Miranda) upon his entrance. As Graffiti Pete lifts an arm to begin spray painting the bodega’s metal grate, Usnavi emerges, shouting, “Yo! That’s my wall” (Hudes et al., 1). As Graffiti Pete runs off, Usnavi greets the audience, lamenting that his first task of the day is to chase away this “little punk.” Subverting expectation, Usnavi literally ushers out the stereotype and replaces it with himself: a clean-cut, likeable, small business owner who befriends the audience, teaches and guides them, and provides a sense of safety for Latinx and non-Latinx audiences alike. After all, he has just saved them from the threat of Graffiti Pete. Usnavi as a caregiver (a role that was extended to Miranda in the original production), an embodiment of safety, is further emphasized by his call for “lights up,” indicating both that the sun has risen and that the stage lights now reveal the neighborhood in the daylight, contrasting Graffiti Pete’s ­shadowy entrance. For

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Usnavi, graffiti is vandalism, a crime that threatens his livelihood. This fear of Graffiti Pete sets graffiti in opposition to the value of private and/ or commercial property. Within the context of the world of In the Heights, Graffiti Pete’s artwork is critiqued by Usnavi as criminal behavior. By empowering Usnavi to clear the stage of a criminal stereotype within the first two minutes of the performance, Miranda signals to the audience that the musical they are about to experience is decidedly not another West Side Story or The Capeman. However, Usnavi’s action simultaneously reinforces an image of the graffiti artist as deviant, engaged in criminal activity. While Usnavi’s replacement of Graffiti Pete subverts a hegemonic Anglo expectation of what a story about Washington Heights might look and sound like, there is more to be found in Graffiti Pete’s introduction to this place. During this brief scene, Graffiti Pete’s body becomes the site of multiple artistic creations: breakdancing, graffiti, and the story the audience is about to witness. This presents a tension between Graffiti Pete’s reinforcement of and resistance to a criminal stereotype. Ultimately Graffiti Pete, too, emerges as a caregiver, a central figure of caring performance within the world of In the Heights. When the bodega is later vandalized and Vanessa and Usnavi argue, a frustrated Usnavi tells Graffiti Pete that the bodega is his new canvas and invites him to “tag up the whole place” (Hudes et al., 103). This confirms Usnavi’s perception of graffiti as destructive, further setting Graffiti Pete in opposition to Usnavi’s values as a business owner and as a community caregiver. However, this moment also foreshadows the musical’s most significant representation of caring performance during which Usnavi’s bodega grate does in fact become the site of Graffiti Pete’s large-scale artwork. This scene also emphasizes the precarity of care that often impacts communities with limited resources. Despite the fact that the community demonstrates care for each other, vandals and gentrifiers are able to infiltrate the neighborhood. This leaves Usnavi feeling powerless and frustrated at his inability to care for the bodega and for Vanessa, who is upset that Usnavi did not check on her during a neighborhood-wide blackout. Graffiti Pete’s acts of artistry bookend In the Heights. His culminating action is the creation and unveiling of a new work, a spray-painted portrait of neighborhood matriarch Abuela Claudia on the bodega grate – Usnavi’s wall – accompanied by her familiar words of advice, “Paciencia y Fé” (“Patience and Faith”). By memorializing her image and words here, Graffiti Pete acknowledges and honors the acts of care that Abuela Claudia performed in her lifetime and carries her legacy forward. In doing so, he changes Usnavi’s perspective and performs multiple acts of care.

Ritual/Resistance Graffiti has been long used as an act of political protest, and in In the Heights, Graffiti Pete’s artmaking becomes an extension of his body which also serves as a site of multiple acts of resistance. During the opening

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sequence, once the spray paint cans are in Graffiti Pete’s hands, they never leave. They become an extension of his arms, a part of his body, which, when in union with object and space, recalls Quiara Alegria Hudes’s (book, In the Heights) definition of ritual as articulated in her Caribbean-centered play, Yemaya’s Belly. In it, she notes that “a ritual involves a body and an object, together in a moment of possession” (Hudes, 6). Through this ritual moment in which Graffiti Pete’s body and the spray paint cans become one, he transgresses the stereotype that he is meant to represent. While graffiti artmaking has often been framed negatively as “acting out” or what graffiti artist Eskae characterizes as a “kick in the face to the museum/gallery system,” Graffiti Pete’s artmaking resists the criminal stereotype by embodying the art – becoming one with the object (qtd. in Fulbright, 2001). The body and object become the creative implement that “acts up” in resistance and “acts through” in healing. Graffiti artist Crayone calls graffiti writers “urban shamans,” and John Fulbright explains this likeness by defining shamans in a Dionysian/Apollonian opposition and as: [L]iminal beings who communicated with the gods and creatively transformed these social forces through ecstatic ritual trance and symbolic artistic expression. We can sense the communal values of the archaic shaman’s world before graffiti is a symbolic political statement and as a form of ritual empowerment. (Fulbright, 2001) As Graffiti Pete’s work transforms from graffiti to public art, he is empowered by Abuela Claudia’s spirit and by the community’s growing trust in him as he acts as a protector of the community during the blackout. In turn, Graffiti Pete empowers Usnavi to make a decision about his own future and the rest of the community to envision a hopeful future. Graffiti Pete’s ritual empowerment is constituted by direct communication with Abuela Claudia through an embodied ritual of creative practice. Abuela Claudia is a surrogate for a godlike figure not only because she has transitioned away from an earthly realm but also because she embodied the spirit of the community while living and continues to do so after her death. On a metaphysical level, Graffiti Pete opens space for Usnavi and Abuela Claudia to communicate with each other through the mural, resulting in Usnavi’s decision to stay in Washington Heights and his realization that he is home. Graffiti Pete’s “secret language of self-expression” is emphasized by the darkness that obscures his tagging during the opening scene. He is alone, isolated. His work is not meant to be shared, but later discovered. When Graffiti Pete reveals his image of Abuela Claudia, he publicly shares not only his own experience of loving and losing Abuela Claudia but also shares a collective memory of the neighborhood as well in an “acting

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through” the trauma of loss by finding joy in both the creation and ­sharing of an artistic rendering of their beloved matriarch. As Graffiti Pete’s solo ritual becomes a public performance, joy becomes a resource through which Graffiti Pete empowers Usnavi to understand and accept Washington Heights as his home, after having spent most of his time longing to relocate to his ancestral home, the Dominican Republic. It is upon seeing the mural that he quite abruptly makes his decision to stay. With this comes a shift in Usnavi’s perspective, from an idealized and nostalgic longing for that which he has not experienced to a grounded sense of place-belonging dictated by a politics of belonging formed by his community identity, one that has been constituted by performances of care within intergenerational relationships. As Patricia Ybarra notes, “Characters throughout [Quiara Alegría Hudes’s] plays either ‘come home’ or stay home to become themselves” (Ybarra, 53). Unlike previous plays that treat the Latinx experience which present island nations as “a lost paradise, the site of…true identity and their history,” In the Heights challenges this nostalgic view (Ybarra, 53). Usnavi’s repeated references to the beach (and, in the film adaptation, his frequent scenes on a beach) present an idealized view of the Caribbean that is set against harsher memories of Usnavi’s dying parents. His references to their whispers imply that they did not share their memories of the Dominican Republic openly, and so a constructed nostalgia coupled with Usnavi’s lack of information about the Dominican Republic leaves Usnavi with no guarantees of home. Usnavi never makes it to the Dominican Republic. Instead, Abuela Claudia’s death coupled with Graffiti Pete’s creation motivates Usnavi to recognize his responsibility to the community in carrying forth Abuela Claudia’s legacy as a caregiver to the neighborhood. For Usnavi, his own role as a caregiver will continue to manifest itself in him as the neighborhood storyteller, the holder and communicator of legacies. His final words in the production, “I found my island/I’ve been on it this whole time/I’m home!” acknowledge that the home that Usnavi has been searching for is one that includes Abuela Claudia’s memory as well as her memories (Hudes et al., 152).

Form, Technique, Intent, and Purpose Across the three-day timespan represented in In the Heights, as Graffiti Pete’s form shifts from graffiti to mural, his artistic intent is transformed from privately making his mark to publicly honoring, celebrating, and memorializing the neighborhood’s matriarch in a way that also promotes community solidarity and healing. His initial acts of tagging are undertaken alone and in the dark, perhaps with a purpose of marking territory, relieving boredom and stress, or gaining recognition for his artistic talents. These activities are in alignment with Joan Tronto’s delineation between what does and does not constitute a performance of care. She argues that “Art is an end in and of itself and is associated with self-fulfilling activities

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such as pleasure, creative activity, production, destruction” (Tronto, 149). Graffiti Pete’s tagging can be read as both a self-fulfilling, pleasurable, and productive creative activity and also as a publicly destructive activity, from Usnavi’s perspective. Fulbright also points to graffiti as the harnessing of Dionysian forces of creative and destructive inspiration. The Abuela Claudia mural does not preclude, but rather evidences an “acting up,” in protest as it transgresses or “acts out.” In marking a resistance to forces of gentrification, this “acting up” is done in defense of the neighborhood, situating protest as a performance of care. Graffiti Pete claims the space, not for himself, as one may do through tagging, but for the community, by adding Abuela Claudia’s likeness to the grate. Although she has died, Abuela Claudia claims the space in the same way that Lin-Manuel Miranda and Alexander Hamilton do in Placita Güisin, by becoming a permanent part of it. Not only are Graffiti Pete’s form and intent altered but his technique, too, is transformed. In the opening scene, his speed in working with his spray paint cans along with a high-alert awareness of his surroundings suggests that he uses a tagging technique, drawing only the letters or words that represent or symbolize him, the artist. Usnavi confirms that Graffiti Pete’s technique is in the form of tagging as he later suggests erasing Graffiti Pete from the community landscape when he tells the young artist to “scrub your initials off my awning” (Hudes et al., 46). This tag, marked by Usnavi as a violation, is never seen by the audience. By the end of In the Heights, Graffiti Pete works on a more time-consuming and careful project: a mural, a style also known as a “piece” or “masterpiece,” a designation that changed the perception of graffiti from a crime to an artform. The audience does not witness Graffiti Pete creating the mural either. However, this time, the secrecy is meant to generate anticipation for the big reveal, a surprise gift to the community and to the audience. The final result, the portrait of Abuela Claudia, evidences a more time-consuming and “care”-ful process to completion than the tag would have taken. The scale of the mural and its detail indicate that Graffiti Pete had to engage in a full kinesthetic experience with his canvas and materials. Finally, Graffiti Pete’s purpose in artmaking is altered over the course of the production and is evidenced through the creation of the mural as well. His new purpose is two-fold. First, the product of his artmaking, the mural, redefines the bodega space as a site that the community may use as a site of healing and remembrance. The store, which has tended to the needs of the community by providing daily necessitates, will now also provide a spiritual space for the community. Second, Graffiti Pete’s art is now a means of financial gain, as he is commissioned by Usnavi’s younger cousin Sonny to create the work. A future in which Graffiti Pete continues to work in this way seems newly possible. It is one that is largely dependent upon the inter-relationality of the neighborhood and Graffiti Pete’s mutually beneficial relationships that constitute performances of care.

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Caring Performance Stuart Fisher draws upon Taylor’s definition of performance as a way of knowing to argue that care and performance are interdependent embodied practices with practical and emotional elements. The transformation of intent, technique, and function that occurs over the course of Graffiti Pete’s journey constitutes a performance of care, an embodied way of knowing that relies on practical resources like spray paint and surrogate canvases, as well as the emotionally charged inter-relationalities between the artmaker and his community. As Stuart Fisher notes, “care does not pre-exist the caring encounter, but becomes itself based on the demands of the relationship between caregiver and care receiver” (Stuart Fisher, 12). Graffiti Pete’s work on the mural becomes care with each spray of the can, with Abuela Claudia and the community situated as care receivers. His art is not only the image and colors that exist on a surface but also the movement of his body in creating graffiti. Within the context of In the Heights, a musical, choreographed sequences not only showcase his skill and talent as a breaker, but whose movement also becomes an integral piece of what it means to create visual art, as he merges two elements of hip-hop culture, breaking and graffiti, into one body. Graffiti Pete’s journey can narrowly be read as one in which he moves from “tagger” to “artist,” or as one in which he subverts the Latino-as-criminal stereotype seen in West Side Story and reinforced in The Capeman. Yet, Graffiti Pete does not convert, he has always been an artist. Rather, his transition may be read as one in which Graffiti Pete merges an “acting out” in resistance to a dominant structure that devalues his art and labels it a crime, with an “acting through” trauma in which his art may be a tool for community healing in light of their social, political, economic, and personal challenges. A more expansive understanding of Graffiti Pete’s journey shows that Graffiti Pete transforms from an internal actor to a “caregiver” within a politics of belonging that prioritizes mutual acts of care and the experience of the care receiver as well as the caregiver. Stuart Fisher argues that “It is through the caring encounter that the givers and receivers of care learn what caring is and how it feels” (Stuart Fisher, 7). Graffiti Pete’s transformation is not one of “punk” to “artist,” but one in which, through his embodied experience of caring, he learns and understands modes of caring that extend to a whole community. Tronto asserts that “to create a work of art, is not care” (Tronto, 104). She argues that an activity or practice becomes conceived as a form of care when it is “aimed at maintaining, continuing, or repairing the world” (Tronto, 104). Graffiti Pete’s aim of maintaining the neighborhood, continuing Abuela Claudia’s legacy, and repairing damage done by looters and vandals during the blackout, all evidence Graffiti Pete’s performances of care, which are enacted at the intersection of art, social practice, and activism.

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The relationship between the art and the artmaker to the community forms an essential piece of caring performance. Virginia Held further notes that “while care ethics acknowledges the interdependency of human relationships, it also sees many of our responsibilities as not freely entered into but presented to us by the accident of our embeddedness in familial and social and historical contexts” (Held, 14). Graffiti Pete is simultaneously embedded within the familial, social, and historical context of Washington Heights and stands outside of it. He is best friends with Sonny. He is present for major events throughout the play. He acts in defense of the neighborhood during the blackout. Yet, he is set apart by a social context that devalues graffiti and values public art. Graffiti Pete’s inclusion in the community illustrates his insider status. Even in Usnavi’s attempt to set him apart in terms of values, Graffiti Pete is still part of the community.

Beyond Graffiti In the Heights presents caretaking in a number of other ways that bring focus to the intergenerational relationships and familial and social contexts in which various members of the community are embedded. Kevin struggles with his effectiveness in caring for his daughter, Nina, as he questions his capabilities and declares himself useless. Abuela Claudia’s status as caregiver and as community matriarch is gleaned by her name and is further explained by Usnavi as he notes, “she’s not really my Abuela/but she practically raised me/this corner is her escuela” (Hudes et al., 3). Usnavi performs care for a number of people in a number of ways: for Sonny by ensuring his financial future, for the community by providing them goods and services at his bodega, and for the audience by guiding them through the neighborhood. These repeated performances of care further evidence the importance of inter-relationality and a community-as-family model. Ybarra points to Hudes’s dramaturgy in which she “[rids] these plays of traditional nuclear families” and “creates a more expansive sense of family” (Ybarra, 52). The community-as-family model of In the Heights not only departs from the construct of gang membership as the central community unit as presented in West Side Story and In the Heights but also posits obligation to the community as a mode by which one might access a sense of personal and artistic freedom. Shannon Jackson argues that “whether cast in aesthetic or social terms, freedom and expression are not opposed to obligation and care, but in fact depend upon each other” (qtd. in Stuart Fisher, 7). In the case of Graffiti Pete, it is only when he is free to express himself through his artwork without stigma that he is able to enact his most openly public performance of care. With mutually beneficial system of care in place among members of the community, a greater opportunity exists for the community to thrive in the face of challenges. In the Heights also constitutes an act of care in its omission of a specific, embodied villain. Despite the fact that Graffiti Pete is seen as a “punk”

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and is marked by Usnavi as a perpetrator of deviant behavior, within the context of care aesthetics, in which relational responsibility is paramount, Graffiti Pete cannot possibly be a villain, nor can his character be excluded as part of the community-as-family model of belonging. By acknowledging the insidious external forces of gentrification and neoliberalism, In the Heights creates solidarity within the community. These external forces are not represented by a single character or by any character at all. Rather, the audience witnesses the impact of rising rents and the displacement of local residents, evidenced in ways such as Daniela vacating her salon and the removal of the Rosario’s sign from outside the dispatch. Sonny points to racism, issues with housing, a lack of access to technology and education, and apathy from politicians. He urges action in the form of protest. Graffiti Pete resists neoliberal values of autonomy and self-realization to emphasize dependency on and inter-relationality with his community. His success is driven and facilitated not by his own desire to get ahead, but through his relationships with Sonny, Abuela Claudia, Usnavi, and other members of the community. According to Stuart Fisher, “the caring encounter is determined both by repeated, practised gestures of the caregiver, but also crucially by the kinds of responses this elicits in the care receiver” (Stuart Fisher, 7). Graffiti Pete’s most public caring action, creating the mural of Abuela Claudia, elicits positive responses from the community, even from Usnavi, who shares some of Abuela Claudia’s lottery winnings with him so that he might continue to create public art pieces in the neighborhood, evidencing Usnavi’s assignation of value to Graffiti Pete’s new mode of artmaking. The primary impact of Graffiti Pete’s caregiving is experienced by Usnavi, whose realization that he is “home” is prompted by the mural, the result of Graffiti Pete’s caregiving actions. As members of the community return to the stage one by one, they join Usnavi at the bodega and see the mural for the first time. As the community echoes Usnavi, repeating “we’re home,” In the Heights’s ending manifests Audre Lorde’s “energy for change” model. The joy of the community is used to anchor the community in place-belonging and in a politics of belonging in which art constructs inclusion. Graffiti Pete’s performances of care extend beyond the mural, to his interactions with the neighborhood. His role, in fact, is essential to moving the plot forward and to understanding performances of care within the production. It is Graffiti Pete who reports what is happening in the streets after the blackout. He lets his best friend, Sonny, know that people are “lootin’and shootin’” and encourages Sonny to leave the bodega, warning him that looters will vandalize and rob the store (Hudes et al., 89). Sonny arms himself with a baseball bat and Graffiti Pete offers fireworks, previously identified by Usnavi as “contraband,” to distract and scare off the perpetrators. Graffiti Pete recognizes the community’s interdependence and demonstrates a willingness to be recognized as part of the community. Graffiti Pete’s interactions with the fireworks primarily

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constitute an act of resistance. Graffiti Pete witnesses the vandals, and transgressing stereotype, he not only warns Sonny and the rest of the community that they are coming but also joins in Sonny’s commitment to protect the store and the rest of the neighborhood. In doing so, Graffiti Pete enacts defiant joy, relying on celebratory fireworks as a mode of protection and defense. In the Heights emphasizes the neighborhood’s limited access to resources, as well as Graffiti Pete’s understanding of how to “act up” and “act through” within such limitations that move beyond his artmaking. As they clean up after the looting and vandalism that occurred during the blackout, Daniela, Sonny, and Carla look to Graffiti Pete to provide for them with the resources that he has: he will supply music and will open a fire hydrant. His plan does not come to fruition, however. He cannot play music because he is out of batteries, and there is nobody at the dispatch, where they have a generator. He cannot open a fire hydrant because the police took his monkey wrench. Obstacles like these highlight the precarity of care that impacts communities with limited resources. Yet, it is notable that despite the fact that Usnavi sees Graffiti Pete as potentially dangerous, other members of the community trust Graffiti Pete to provide for them within his available material resources, establishing an inter-relational system of care. As time passes, Graffiti Pete engages more deeply with others emotionally, creating space to honor, celebrate, and grieve their matriarch. As a member of the ensemble, his voice is present in several musical numbers, including “Alabanza,” during which the community prays for and praises Abuela Claudia after her death. Recalling Stuart Fisher’s aforementioned interconnected dimensions of care, one sees in Graffiti Pete’s actions that his values (his Latinx identity, Abuela Claudia, his loyalty to the neighborhood, and his passion for art) determine how he should act (with respect for Abuela Claudia and the community; in defense of the neighborhood) within limited resources (his spray paint cans, neighborhood walls). Aesthetically, Graffiti Pete’s artistry demonstrates concern for the neighborhood through his personal engagement with the art, as well as through the ways in which his artistry frames his relationship to the community and the community’s relationship to their grief. Graffiti Pete’s public performances of care bring the community together in a shared experience of memory, mourning, and celebration. Performing care does not necessarily increase Graffiti Pete’s concerns for the community but rather reveals his concerns, making them public. His will to care becomes a need to honor Abuela Claudia in a public way. Graffiti Pete’s acts of care are first response actions to the community’s collective trauma as a result of Abuela Claudia’s death and the displacement of neighborhood residents due to a gentrified landscape as well as being plunged into the dark and left “powerless” during the blackout. His caregiving opens space to reshape the collective memory of the community.

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Figure 2.1 In the Heights (2008). An ensemble of actors faces the audience against a New York City scene. Photo courtesy of Joan Marcus.

Care as Commodity Diana Taylor notes that “Only through performance can disappearance be rendered visible” (Taylor, 2006). Abuela Claudia’s death, her mortal disappearance from the quotidian life of the Washington Heights community, is rendered visible through Graffiti Pete’s mural. Her image on the bodega grate stands as a legacy and as a witness, an image that will prompt her story to be told. With In the Heights, Miranda and Hudes made visible the often-invisible stories of Latinx communities. In a larger context, Abuela Claudia symbolizes the invisibility of the caretaker whose work is undervalued, and the mural draws attention to that work and its value. Stuart Fisher draws upon the work of Joan Tronto and Arlie Hochschild to reinforce the argument that: caring labour at least in contemporary Western societies, remains ‘gendered, raced, classed’ ([1993] 2009: 112). In contemporary societies, where care continues to be perceived largely as women’s work, it is positioned as the remit of lowly paid workers who are largely drawn from lower socioeconomic income groups. Domestic care is often outsourced to migrant women workers, who leave their own communities to undertake caring responsibilities for families in the developed countries of the West. While care might be crucial to the

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successful functioning of a society as a whole, its value is persistently denigrated and the work of caring for young and old seems to have moved down in honour and monetary reward. (Hochschild, 2003: 2) Indeed, professionals in childcare, health and personal care aides, and animal caretakers rank in the bottom 20 lowest paid positions in the United States (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). The commodification of care in the United States positions caring practice as both emotional and capitalist labor. Emotions and emotional labor are often undervalued, with concepts of friendship and love regarded as private or inward-facing, communicating a sense that emotional labor not only possesses no financial value but should be relegated to domestic spaces, a sphere largely populated by migrant women workers. While Abuela Claudia is a much beloved and celebrated member of the community, In the Heights does not omit commentary on the fact that her gender, ethnicity, migrant status, economic status, age, and role as caretaker contribute to her devaluation within a Capitalist system. Abuela Claudia remembers that she and her mother “scrubb[ed] the whole of the Upper East Side,” an historically affluent, historically Anglo area of New York City (Hudes et al., 63). As time went on, Abuela Claudia became grandmother to the Washington Heights neighborhood, and caretaking became her primary role. Abuela Claudia’s publicly quiet and unassuming response to her lottery win is contrasted with the buzzy dreams of community members as they imagine and share publicly what they might do with the winnings. Abuela Claudia, an older adult and matriarchal figure who has served as caretaker to the community, is not suspected to be holding the winning lottery ticket. In the original run of the production, audiences emitted an audible gasp of surprise and delight to learn that Abuela Claudia clutched the winning ticket in her hand. 2 This group understanding of her value, or lack thereof, suggests that not only is she devalued, but that her future seems to matter less than that of the younger generation. Abuela Claudia’s gains and losses are tied to her winning lottery ticket. Having no children, her biological legacy ends with her, but as Ybarra notes, “the legacy of matriarchal structures is the reproduction of kindness” (Ybarra, 52). While the end of her biological lineage could represent a personal loss, her role as community caretaker ensures an ending that offers hope and new possibilities for the entire community through financial opportunities that are afforded to Usnavi, Sonny, and Graffiti Pete by Abuela Claudia’s kindness. Here, care is presented not as opposed to commodity, but as a valuable resource in the future success of the community. When Benny complains about working for Kevin at the dispatch, Sonny encourages Benny to “strike out on your own” and to stop “paving the road to someone else’s dreams” (Hudes et al., 45). Sonny’s words

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foreshadow Graffiti Pete’s potential as an entrepreneur by setting Graffiti Pete in contrast to Benny despite the fact that Usnavi turns Graffiti Pete away when he tries to sell his t-shirts, concerned that Sonny will fall in with the wrong crowd. When Graffiti Pete offers a trade: fireworks in return for a slushie from Usnavi’s bodega, Usnavi threatens to call the police and accuses Graffiti Pete of vandalism and possessing contraband. When Graffiti Pete learns that someone in the neighborhood has won the lottery, it is he who initiates a collective dreaming as he imagines how many spray paint cans he could buy. As the song “$96,000” begins, various members of the neighborhood chime in, offering thoughts on how they might spend the winnings. Graffiti artist Eskae credits the museum system as one in which “the artist is pimped like a whore for the capitalist system, another commodity for people to buy” (qtd. in Fulbright, 2001). Like Graffiti Pete, who straddles a line between reinforcing and resisting stereotypes, his mural stands somewhere between protest and commodity, a commissioned work that resists gentrification by claiming the physical space of the bodega for the community and for the memory of Abuela Claudia. Usnavi’s perspective (and by extension, that of the audience) shifts as Graffiti Pete’s public art becomes valued by Usnavi, the community, and the audience. Following Abuela Claudia’s death, the result of which opens access to financial resources for Sonny, Graffiti Pete is called to care through commercial practice. In collaboration with Sonny, Graffiti Pete’s creation becomes a capitalist venture, and Graffiti Pete becomes an entrepreneur. Throughout the production, Sonny demonstrates business acumen and a passion for social justice. In commissioning Graffiti Pete to create the Abuela Claudia mural, he advocates for the role of artists as responders to trauma, whose valuable work is essential to creating healthy communities. Sonny and Graffiti Pete’s interaction is set in “a shady alleyway,” recalling the literal darkness and symbolic secrecy of Graffiti Pete’s first entrance (Hudes et al., 146). In this exchange, In the Heights again comments on and subverts expectations of what is expected of young Latinos in barrio culture, and it is later learned that this exchange is the one in which Sonny confidentially commissions Graffiti Pete to create the mural of Abuela Claudia. This scene stands in strong contrast to previous iterations of the young Latino seen in The Capeman’s Sal and the Sharks of West Side Story where darkness is equivocated with criminal activity. By commissioning Graffiti Pete, Sonny entrusts the artist with enshrining the memory and history of the community.

Witness/Survivor Following Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, the second largest blackout to impact the United States left Puerto Rico in the dark. The blackout that impacts Washington Heights and the repeated motif of darkness and

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light in In the Heights take on new significance in a post-Hurricane Maria reading. The blackout is also more prominently featured in the 2021 film version of In the Heights, with the film’s opening tracking a “countdown to blackout,” centering a precarity of resources in the neighborhood (Hudes and Miranda). The darkness that shrouds Sonny and Graffiti Pete’s meeting is contrasted with the repetition of light as a theme throughout In the Heights. During the blackout, Daniela asks someone to go wake Abuela Claudia to see if she has a candle. After the community learns that Abuela Claudia has died, they hold lit candles as they praise the matriarch in the song “Alabanza.” Later, Graffiti Pete works by candlelight as he paints the bodega grate. The candlelight provides a reminder of Abuela Claudia’s persistent presence, suggesting she is a witness to the creation of her mural. As a witness who is unable to share her own story, her responsibility is passed to Usnavi, who recognizes his own role as witness and compares himself to a streetlight, illuminating the stories of the neighborhood. During the blackout, Graffiti Pete’s fireworks light up the sky in defense of the neighborhood, merging with celebratory Fourth of July fireworks. Throughout the production, light is a symbol of witness, survivorship, and care. As Diana Taylor notes, witnessing is a shared and participatory act of telling, and a “promise to remember,” as a story is reenacted again and again (Taylor, 2006). Usnavi and Graffiti Pete are foils to each other, as they both act as witnesses to the events of the neighborhood: Graffiti Pete tells his stories through kinesthetic engagement with his artmaking materials and space, while Usnavi narrates both metatheatrically and within the world of the play. Each upholds a promise to remember: Graffiti Pete documents Abuela Claudia’s life in the mural, and Usnavi remains in Washington Heights, to continue telling the stories of the neighborhood Graffiti Pete’s role as a witness is further expanded in the 2022 film adaptation of In the Heights through a framing device by which it is suggested that Graffiti Pete has been creating murals of iconic Latinas throughout the city, among them Chita Rivera, Rita Moreno, Frida Khalo, Celia Cruz, Dolores Chaves, Isabel Allende, Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, and Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa Mirabal, setting Abuela Claudia within a legacy of iconic Latinas. Not only does Graffiti Pete’s kinesthetic engagement with materials and space mark his role as a witness, and his body as a holder and communicator of community experiences, but it marks his role as a survivor as well. In memorializing and carrying Abuela Claudia’s legacy forward, Graffiti Pete documents his own experience of losing Abuela Claudia, of the violation of the community during the looting and of the creeping gentrification that displaces those around him. It is Abuela Claudia’s legacy, her dedication to the neighborhood, and her values of patience and faith that will persist and that evidence the artist’s survivance.

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Flags as Caring Performance Despite the fact that Miranda set out to “fix” The Capeman, it is worth noting that the marketing and publicity campaign for The Capeman can also be read as a mobilizer of defiant joy that shapes and is shaped by ­collective memory in collaboration with a multilayered spectatorship. Central to this campaign was the prominent image of the Puerto Rican flag. Tamara Underiner compares theatergoers to tourists, using Dean McCannell’s work on tourist theory which posits that: We have no other way of understanding the world other than seeing it as a series of cultural spectacles. Some view the touristic relationship as…a form of imperialism fueled by a modernist nostalgia for lost times or simpler ways, the return home characterized by stories told and trophies displayed. (Underiner, 186) In the case of audiences, both Latinx and non-Latinx, the consumption of cultural souvenirs as a mode of meaning-making began with the advertising campaign for the musical that relied heavily upon the use of the Puerto Rican flag. Advertising constructs, prepares, and reinforces the tourist gaze, which sees everything on stage as: not only a sign of itself but it’s ideal state as well. Any Latino character in a play becomes overdetermined by the spectator’s expectation that he or she signifies Latinness. Any staging or ‘reproduction’ of Latino/a life helps to create a Benjaminian ‘aura’ of such life, especially for non-Latinos, thereby whetting a desire to experience the ‘true original’ of that life for themselves. (Underiner, 186) When they arrived at the Marquis Theatre for opening night on January 29, 1998, audiences were greeted by a red, white, and blue curtain designed to resemble the Puerto Rican flag. Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez, speaking of his own experience as an audience member on that evening, argues that the reproduction of the Puerto Rican flag at the premiere of The Capeman “provided a space of/for identification in such a persuasive manner that attending the musical validated Puerto Rican national identity” (Sandoval-Sánchez, 149). When Puerto Rican audience members filtered into the theatre, they saw, for the first time, their nation’s flag as the centerpiece of a production, evoking pride and nostalgia. The use of flags as symbols of pride, nostalgia, celebration, and solidarity continued with In the Heights and is further positioned as performances of care as well as in situating Miranda as a caretaker.

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Preceding the neighborhood-wide blackout, the ensemble of In the Heights dances at a club, building to “a whirlwind of movement, a release of stress,” when suddenly the power goes out in Washington Heights (Hudes et al., 86). The Piragua Guy, who is Puerto Rican, is the first to ask what is happening and when Usnavi identifies the problem as a blackout, it is the Piragua Guy who exclaims “Vino el apagón/ay dios” (Hudes et al., 87).3 Puerto Rico’s power grid was unstable and neglected long before Hurricane Maria made landfall and prior to the transition of power grid operations and maintenance from PREPA (Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority) to LUMA Energy in June 2021. Blackouts, both related and unrelated to atmospheric events, have been frequent. The Piragua Guy’s immediate reaction to the blackout not only highlights the tension of the moment but also recalls his past experiences with loss of power and, especially in a post-Hurricane Maria reading, points to the island’s continued struggle with mismanagement of resources. The next morning, with the power still out, the community gathers outside, hot and exhausted. As they lament the fact that the power company estimates that the blackout will last another 24 hours, Daniela asserts, “we can complain or we can get organized” (Hudes et al., 115). Her double meaning refers to both cleaning up the damage done by vandals and the need for the community to come together in solidarity and resistance. However, she does not suggest a formal demonstration. Instead, she initiates an act of resistance and celebration within the model of defiant joy and joy as energy for change. Daniela, assuming a piece of Miranda’s autobiography, remembers her childhood in Vega Alta, when the community would come together at Christmastime to celebrate with a Carnaval parade. Here, Daniela harnesses defiant joy, insisting on celebration in the face of hardship, an acting through, but also uses joy as a resource to release feelings of anxiety, frustration, and pain. As Daniela initiates the idea to have a “Carnaval del Barrio,” she asserts “we don’t need electricidad!” resisting the precarity of care that will leave the neighborhood in the dark for the next 24 hours (Hudes et al., 117). Despite what has been taken from them, the community is still there. This sentiment echoes the days after Hurricanes Irma and Maria, when much of Puerto Rico remained in the dark, communities came together outside, in acts of solidarity, some of which were even celebratory. Inspired by festival performance in Vega Alta, and echoing processional traditions of the Caribbean, “Carnaval del Barrio” incorporates the use of flags as a central visual element. When carried by the performers, the flag becomes part of the choreography, and the performers, in turn, become an embodiment of nations. In particular, the lyrics call out Dominican, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and Cuban flags and call for the flags to be raised as reminders to these homeland spaces. When paired with bodies moving onstage, these symbols become embodied images of care as they function as resources to create an aesthetic world for a performance that

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communicates a solidarity within Latinidad. Members of the community not only participate in the processional but also create the public art performance that, undertaken in the aftermath of blackout and vandalism, and when the community is at its most vulnerable, functions as a site of healing. Within the creation of the carnaval, which is constituted as it is performed, is a performance of care. Sitting at the intersection of art and social practice, the group performs defiant joy, resisting the forces that attempt to stamp them out as they re-assert their place-belonging by marking the space with their flags and reclaiming ownership. It is during this celebration that Usnavi announces that Abuela Claudia has won the lottery and is hoisted onto the shoulders of the community and becomes part of the parade, a symbol carried along with the flags. In the original production, Miranda’s body became a symbol – of Usnavi’s tie to the Dominican Republic, of his own tie to Puerto Rico, as a savior figure, as the composer and lyricist of the production, and as a hero. Alongside the carrying and display of flags representing a number of Latin American countries, Usnavi/Miranda, too, becomes a cultural symbol of pride, solidarity, and joy. Carnaval del Barrio embraces the joy as energy for change model and demonstrates phenomenological experiences of joy, as lightness and brightness, smiles and laughter lead the choreography and vocals.

In the Heights in Puerto Rico and Y no había luz’s Centinela de Mangó Graffiti Pete presents perhaps the strongest example of Miranda’s plan to “fix” previous iterations of Latinx characters as represented in West Side Story and The Capeman as the musical ultimately dismantles stereotypes of young Latinos and of hip-hop culture and represents Graffiti Pete as a caretaker. In the Heights is permeated by a sense of social responsibility and obligation from its inception in telling the story of a Latinx neighborhood at a time when there was a dearth of such stories in commercial Broadway theatre. In the Heights further enacts social responsibility and obligation by moving beyond representing acts of care on stage to enacting performances of care in offstage philanthropic efforts. While In the Heights first toured to Puerto Rico in 2010, its planned 2020 touring production to Puerto Rico post-Hurricane Maria actively mobilized the musical as a caring performance, situating itself between art and social practice, with proceeds from ticket sales going to the Hispanic Federation and to the Flamobyán Foundation, the philanthropic organization that includes the Flamobyán Arts Fund to support the arts and artists in Puerto Rico, and which is represented by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The 2020 run of In the Heights in San Juan, Puerto Rico was set to perform at the Luis A. Ferre Performing Arts Center in Santurce, one block away from the theatre space and workshop belonging to the Y no había luz theatre collective,

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one beneficiary of the Flamobyán Arts Fund. As theatre makers and social actors, Y no había luz’s work often functions as social activism and as caring performance. Public Art as caring performance is found in Puerto Rico in memorials like that of the Miranda’s in Vega Alta and in Y no había luz’s community collaborations in places like the Ana Dalila Foundation in Orocovis, Puerto Rico, where local community members organized to reclaim a school that had been abandoned, robbed, and vandalized. After arranging to purchase the school from the municipality, and with an agreement for the municipality to pay the cost of utilities, the space was recreated as a community center, named after a beloved former teacher at the school. The new space includes a theatre, a yoga studio, several spaces for workshop activities, multiple gardens, a basketball court, and multiple sites of public art. Large-scale murals adorn the walls. The bleachers of the basketball court are painted with Puerto Rican and Orocovis flags. In the garden, planters include recycled boots, purses, and a toilet. Colorful handmade signs with positive messages adorn the walkways. When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in 2017, a symbolic shift occurred. Suddenly, the Puerto Rican flag became a central image, with flags of all sizes cropping up in residential windows, on doors of businesses, hanging from buildings, and anchored in rock formations on beaches. Employed as a symbol of solidarity, pride, survivance, and resistance, multiple, simultaneous, and spontaneous public art installations of the Puerto Rican flag demonstrated caring performance by Y no había luz and others. Just as Usnavi serves as a “streetlight” for In the Heights and Graffiti Pete lights up the sky with fireworks, Y no había explores ideas of light and darkness. Their logo, a single lightbulb hanging from a cord, prompts a number of connotations. Literally translated as “And there was no light” and colloquially translated by the group as “Lights out!” their name refers to storytelling that embraces the light and darkness of humanity as well as to creating within limited resources. Like the commodification of care that situates caretakers as undervalued in a capitalist economy, care labor performed by artists is often overlooked and devalued as well, as are the resources they draw upon in order to provide care, including joy. In various instances, the artists of the Y no había luz theatre collective use joy as an act of resistance that speaks to colonialism, social inequities, economic violence, gentrification, climate change, and natural and unnatural disaster. The collective also draws upon joy as a central component of caring practice. Performances of care are central to Y no había luz’s aesthetic and to their process in working in community-engaged practice. This process is founded upon listening. After listening to and developing an understanding of the dreams and needs of a particular community, they respond in ways that are tailored to that specific community’s needs.

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Y no había luz enacts caring performance and transforms traumatic expression through direct community participation, often engaging those who have experienced trauma in reinterpretations of events that incorporate communal public art creations. Their multidisciplinary performance piece in response to Hurricane Maria, Centinela de Mangó (The Mango Sentry), was immediately identified by community members as an act of relief. “Nosotros vemos que allí una falta en muchas areas, tanto de actividades que tienen que sergir. Creemos fialmente, cien por ciento, en las artes y sabemos que mucho de estos problemas sociales nos podemos resolver desde allí” (“Gira del Centinela de Mangó,” 3:08– 3:18).4 Centinela de Mangó began as a short play inspired by a true story shared by displaced residents of Orocovis, Puerto Rico, a town which is situated in the central mountains of the island. A mango tree, felled during Hurricane Maria, had been the centerpiece of the community for as long as anyone could remember. Speaking of Centinela de mangó, Y no había luz’s co-founder Julio Morales emphasizes the collective’s intention to use the play as a way of preserving the cultural icon and maintaining a legacy of intergenerational storytelling (Loisaida TV). Through a repertoire of storytelling and embodiment, Y no había luz commits to performances of care that center the collective experience of the loss of the tree and seeks to reframe the experience as one that moves toward a hopeful future. When staged, the play recreates the hurricane, but rather than leaving the tree in distress, the winds they generate allow a group of zefirantes, elf-like creatures named after the Puerto Rico zephyr lily, carry the seeds of the mango tree across the globe, planting diasporic Puerto Rican solidarity. In workshops offered in conjunction with the play, through the engagement of geography and collective memory (performed on the actual site of the event and performed by those who experienced it), participants transform the outcome of the hurricane. In one instance, young participants created papier-mâché rainclouds. While not instructed to replicate the hurricane, through circular movement, song, and dance, the group seemed to take on the movement of a storm. Survivors become the hurricane as their bodies join with objects (the clouds) in the way that Graffiti Pete’s body joins with his spray paint cans to become the mural. By appropriating the disaster, participants in the Centinela de Mangó workshops re-made the space previously occupied by the mango tree, both within performance and external to it. In the final scene of the play, participants are invited to become zefirantes as they “plant” small branches adorned with the Puerto Rican flag onto a three-dimensional map of Puerto Rico. Through the planting of the flags, the memory of the tree and its legacy still stand despite what the storm has destroyed. The saplings, like the children who plant them, become embodied memorials of defiant joy. Planting the flag enacts Audre Lorde’s “ joy as energy for change” model as participants rehearse future possibilities,

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in which Puerto Rican solidarity is the essential foundation (Lorde). Through reimagining the storm within the magical context of the play and re-remembering within rituals of belonging, such as planting and flag-bearing emotions are experienced that, as Sarah Wright notes, “bring the group into being” (Wright, 393). Their actions reimagine not only human experience but also that of the tree that lives virtually through the imagined afterlives of its seeds. Centinela de Mangó was first presented in Orocovis, then at the Universidad de Sagrado Corazón, then at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico. Centinela de Mangó subsequently became a children’s book, further enabling a system of diasporic healing in its ability to reach wider audiences including Puerto Ricans who had been forced to migrate after Hurricane Maria. Says Morales: It is a story of solidarity. It’s a story of knowing your roots whether you’re from Puerto Rico or anywhere else. Recognize that identity, value it, and also value what our home is. We must value our natural resources. So that story comes out of a moment of fragility and of pain. And we were able to show that in that pain, there is strength. And that strength is a spiritual one that Puerto Ricans have, and every living person has. (Loisaida TV) Toward this end, Centinela de Mangó has grown into the “Fiesta Centinela” event. Growing from the experience in the community and meant to provide a performance of care of the community, the festival emphasizes inter-relationality and community interdependence. During the Fiesta Centinela, Y no había luz and the community in Orocovis collaborate to offer a daylong event of workshops in theatre, dance, music, visual art, gardening, and more. The festival culminates in a supercomparsa, as the entire community, accompanied by music broadcast from a speaker that is carried along the route, parades and dances throughout the grounds of the community center, some wearing cabezudos (oversized papier-mâché heads) and some carrying papier-mâché puppets or waving flags made during the workshops. Intergenerational members of the community mark their flags with their own designs, many of which replicate or include images of the Puerto Rican flag. The creation of the flags demonstrates a sense of ownership of the flag, a performance of self hood, a connection to the community, and an act of Puerto Rican solidarity. The final event of the festival is a flag relay, as a Puerto Rican flag is passed from hand to hand and finally carried by Y no había luz member Carlos “Gandul” Torres to the top of the mango tree, the sentinel that stands watch over the community in a mutually beneficial and sustainable performance of care that unites community and nature.

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Notes 1 #IAmVegaAlta. 2 The author observed this reaction while in attendance at a performance. 3 (“Here comes a blackout/Oh God”). 4 We see that there is a need in many areas, lots of activities that have to take place. We believe one hundred percent in the arts and we know that many social problems can be solved in this way.

Works Cited Antonsich, Marco. “Searching for Belonging - An Analytical Framework.” Geography Compass, vol. 4, no. 6, 2010, pp. 644–659, doi:10.1111/j.1749-8198. 2009.00317.x.  “Chapter 4: Vega Alta.” YouTube, Discover Puerto Rico, 9 Jun. 2019, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=465G7ckXxcQ. “Chapter 7: Public Art.” YouTube, Discover Puerto Rico, 9 Jun. 2019, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPCd1eIhXug. Fulbright, John. “Graffiti as Ritual Transgression.” FOUNDSF, Jan. 2001, https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Graffiti_as_Ritual_Transgression. Held, Virginia. The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007. Hudes, Quiara Alegría. Yemaya’s Belly. New York, NY: Dramatists Play Service, 2007. , et al. In the Heights: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical. Milwaukee, WI: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2013. , and Lin-Manuel Miranda. “In the Heights.” 17 Mar. 2008, New York, Richard Rogers Theatre. , and Lin-Manuel Miranda. In the Heights. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros, 2021. Jackson, Shannon. Back Stages: Essays across Art, Performance, and Public Life. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2022. Lorde, Audre.  Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. Tucson, AZ: Kore Press, 2000.  Miranda, Lin-Manuel. “Manuel Miranda (Homepage).” Lin-Manuel Miranda, 1 Dec. 2022, https://www.linmanuel.com/. “Overview of BLS Wage Data by Area and Occupation.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 3 Apr. 2019, https://www.bls.gov/ bls/blswage.htm. Sandoval-Sánchez, Alberto. “Paul Simon’s The Capeman: The Staging of Puerto Rican National Identity as Spectacle and Commodity on Broadway,” In Latino/a Popular Culture. Edited by Michelle Habell-Pallán and Mary Romero. New York: NYU Press, 2002, pp. 147–161. Stuart Fisher, Amanda. “Introduction.” In Performing Care. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020, doi:10.7765/9781526146816.00007. Web. 14 Dec. 2022. Taylor, Diana. “Trauma and Performance: Lessons from Latin America.” PMLA, vol. 121, no. 5, 2006, pp. 1674–1677. Accessed July 2, 2021, http://www.jstor. org/stable/25501645.

70  Caring Performance in Public Art Tronto, Joan C. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. New York, NY: Routledge, 1993. Turner, Phil, Susan Turner, and Fiona Carroll. “The Tourist Gaze: Towards ­Contextualised Virtual Environments.” The Kluwer International Series on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, pp. 281–297. Underiner, Tamara. “Opening the Shaman’s Bag,” In The State of Latino Theatre in the United States. Edited by Luis A. Ramos-García. New York: Routledge: 2002, pp. 180–196. Wright, Sarah. “More-than-Human, Emergent Belongings: A Weak Theory Approach.” Progress in Human Geography, vol. 39, no. 4, 2015, pp. 391–411. Ybarra, Patricia. “How to Read a Latinx Play in the Twenty-first Century: Learning from Quiara Hudes.” Theatre Topics, vol. 27, no. 1, 2017, pp. 49–59. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/tt.2017.0001. Y no había luz, “Gira Del ‘CENTINELA De MANGÓ’ En El Pueblo De Orocovis (2018).” Vimeo, 14 Aug. 2021, vimeo.com/283236233.  , Loisaida TV, Streamed 16 Sep. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=-rksCwEULr4.

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The Ana Dalila Burgos Ortiz Foundation in Orocovis, Puerto Rico, sits on the site of a former elementary school. The space was reclaimed by the community after it had been closed by the municipality and subsequently abandoned, robbed, and vandalized following Hurricane Maria, when the school also became a site of drug activity. Comprised of several buildings, the Foundation includes a theatre; library; rooms for art, yoga, and computer classes; a thrift store; a dining room; and a basketball court, which also serves as host to large gatherings. Standing outside of the theatre, I gripped two bamboo poles, one in each hand, and looked up to ensure that the papier-mâché bird atop each one was firmly attached and that each bird’s wings could still flap feely with a gentle shake of the pole. Before long, the music started and the line of bird-holders moved to the beat as community members poured out of the theatre with handmade flags, falling into line in front of us. As we wound our way through the paths that surround the school and lead to the basketball court, our comparsa (parade) passed through a number of community garden spaces, some holding a few plants in small pockets between buildings and some more lavish and spread out. Planters fashioned from worn boots, handbags, and even toilets hold sturdy plants and colorful flowers that punctuate the hilly, green landscape. Vegetable gardens sprout lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, and other produce that members of the community have planted and will harvest and prepare for community consumption. The comparsa was organized in collaboration with the Y no había luz theatre collective who have worked with the Orocovis community since Hurricane Maria to reclaim, reimagine, transform, and celebrate the space. This artist-community collaboration is a mobilization of defiant joy, a resistance to forces that have displaced community, culture, and well-being, within the context of celebratory and constructive actions that reassert ownership of space and place. Despite its size, the community center’s rural setting, its multiple garden spaces, and areas to congregate including a two-room casita (small house) and purpose – a gathering space for the promotion and preservation of culture – put the foundation in conversation with stateside Puerto Rican communities who have reclaimed cultural spaces. The reclamation of space by the Orocovis community and through performances like DOI: 10.4324/9781003282013-4

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the comparsa reflects a community-as-family model that is anchored in physical space. The Foundation also illustrates a transition from dangerous space to safe space, resists commodification, and provides a spiritual space for its residents. For the community in Orocovis, social space becomes a product and a producer of change. In a post-Hurricane Maria reading of the musicals discussed here, repetitions of defiant joy tie the states and the island together in the ways that they too use geography (space and place) to articulate a community-as-family relationship to space, as space is central to performances of care. Four primary categories of space form the socio-spatial landscapes of New York City presented in West Side Story, The Capeman, and In the Heights. They include spiritual space, community space, commodified space, and safe/dangerous space. These categories align with J. Chris Westgate’s definition of socio-spatial theatre as one that “emerges most prominently during times of transition and transformation: when the ways that towns, cities, or metropolises are organized, legislated, and inhabited undergo profound changes” (Westgate, 2011). Addressing issues such as colonization, displacement, migration, gentrification, and violence, these musicals shape and are shaped by the New York City landscapes that they represent. In consideration of a post-Hurricane Maria reading of these musicals, one finds a socio-spatial theatre that is also shaped by disaster. These spaces are found in In the Heights conversation about gentrification, through The Capeman’s advertising campaign, in West Side Story’s geographic constructs of community, and in Hamilton’s touring production to Puerto Rico.

Commodified Space: In the Heights, Ciudad de Sueños, and Puertopia The commodification and micro-colonization of the barrio presented both within the world of In the Heights and external to it, in the form of the unrealized 2006 Ciudad de Sueños project, are in dialogue with former Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Roselló́ administration’s incentives to lure wealthy investors to the island to live as “Puertopians,” in response to the mass migration of islanders after Hurricanes Irma and Maria. The gentrification of East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem, or El Barrio, has been an ongoing battle for its residents. In the early 2000s, as In the Heights was in development, the area took on a new moniker, “SpaHa,” which uses the first letters of Spanish Harlem and conjures an image of a place one might go for a healing getaway of hot tubs and manicures. This reflects the changing landscape of New York City’s largely Latinx Northern Manhattan neighborhoods as small, family-run businesses moved out and high-end, corporate retailers moved in. In 2006, residents of East Harlem were presented with the “Uptown N.Y. Project,” a six-acre reconstruction and development project that

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would stretch from 125th Street to 127th Street and from 2nd Avenue to 3rd Avenue. The plan was proposed by Urban Strategic Partners, a developer that had already constructed a 285,000 square-feet retail and entertainment complex at 125th Street and Frederick Douglas Boulevard, known as “Harlem USA.” Similarly, Urban Strategic Partners planned to develop El Barrio with high-end retail stores, high-rise housing, and an underground bus station. In a strategic move to secure the support of the local community, comprised of primarily Latinx individuals, Urban Strategic Partners proposed “Ciudad de Sueños” (City of Dreams). As one element of the larger project, the area would include a Times Square-inspired city center with performance venues, recording studios, and other gathering spaces for entertainment, all promising to center Latinx culture. Arlene Dávila argues that the plans for this Latinx-themed cultural component in the Uptown New York Project reflected a need for “public acquiescence” for the project and were put in place to create “the perception of community involvement, consultation, and openness” that “fostered a veil of inclusivity…[and] inevitability” (Dávila, 98). By enticing the local Latinx community with shops, services, and events that promised to embrace the culture of the existing neighborhood, Urban Strategic Partners were positioned to colonize and commodify El Barrio, using a well-worn tactic of convincing current residents that they would benefit from Ciudad de Sueños. This model illustrates an illusion of care – one that is not inter-relational as it does not consider the needs, wants, or desires of those intended to be cared for. Dávila adds that, “One of the most intriguing aspects of gentrification is how communities’ opposition to development is oftentimes tamed by the inclusion of cultural initiatives that allege to be representative of these very same communities” (Dávila, 99). Attempts to quell community opposition to Ciudad de Sueños included the formation of the Latin Media and Entertainment Commission, instituted to oversee and advise this part of the project. Members of the Commission included popular singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, salsa musician Willie Colón, and actor Antonio Banderas. As plans continued, promised initiatives to fund local projects aimed at improving the physical and social spaces of El Barrio were put on hold while the Commission planned high-profile events like the Latino Alternative Music Conference and the Fiesta Cup Soccer Game. Daphne Ruben-Vega, originator of the role of Mimi in Rent, who is Afro Latina, acknowledged intent over impact in representing the community’s resistance to the project, stating, “They mean well, but the concept didn’t originate with the Latinx community of El Barrio” (qtd in Dávila, 104). By looking toward high-profile events with international interest, like those mentioned above, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Urban Strategic Partners ignored the needs and desires of those living in the community and instead focused on how the inclusion of the Ciudad de Sueños might expand the tourist-driven sector of New York City’s

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economy. With a plan to capitalize on the Hispanophelia that p­ ermeated media and entertainment in the early 2000s, Urban Strategic Partners intended to commodify a Latinx space for visitors to East Harlem, rather than create and maintain improved spaces for its residents. The displacement of local businesses and affordable housing, as well as the potential environmental impact of such a huge construction project and its threat to the cultural and social landscape, fueled residents’ concern. Plans for the project also caused increased tension between Latinx and Black residents of El Barrio, with Black residents feeling that the Ciudad de Sueños would effectively erase their culture and social geography from the East Harlem. Ultimately, Latin and Black communities came together to protest the project. In May 2006, the Bloomberg Administration ceased moving forward with the project in response to community objection, supported by Community Board 11, a body created to represent El Barrio’s residents. In 2017, a rezoning of East Harlem led to multiple Community Board 11 and city-approved plans for affordable housing, including limited-income housing developments specifically for older adults. In addition, initiatives from smaller but successful organizations seeking to maintain the cultural and social integrity of El Barrio and to support the artistic development of the area, including Washington Heights, are increasing in frequency. One such organization is the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA), formed in 2006, during the time of both the Ciudad de Sueños Project and the development of In the Heights. Initially housed as part of the Hispanic Federation (founded by Miranda’s father, Luis Miranda, Jr.) before becoming an independent organization, NoMAA has awarded over $50,000 in grants to arts organizations and artists of Washington Heights. In contrast to the project proposed by Urban Strategic Partners, community-driven projects like the ones funded by NoMAA are aimed at not only reimagining and revitalizing Northern Manhattan spaces but preserving the culture and fostering the artistic and social development of the community who lives, works, and plays there as well. The artistic team of In the Heights links community and geography through the onstage recreation of the Washington Heights neighborhood. In doing so, Lin-Manuel Miranda creates a sense of place-belonging for a multilayered spectatorship through the familiarization of space while exploring what happens to culture and community when a space is threatened. In an interview with Miranda, Melena Ryzik briefly mentions the gentrification of Washington Heights as she sets the scene for meeting the production’s composer and lyricist: He had hoped to swing by the Hillside Diner, at 181st Street and Fort Washington Avenue, for the neighborhood’s best cup of coffee. But like most of the area, the diner was undergoing an upscale shift. ‘Coming Soon – Hudson View Restaurant,‘ a sign proclaimed.

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The inevitable creep of gentrification – the fliers for yoga and Pilates ­studios, the apartments renting for $2,200 a month, the Starbucks and wine bars – is notably not a part of “In the Heights,” whose characters are mostly strivers. (Ryzik) Contrary to Ryzik’s observations, gentrification is a looming presence over In the Heights. The musical reflects a world in which small businesses are being displaced by larger corporations, rents are on the rise and, the cultural components of the largely Latinx neighborhood are disappearing. Usnavi and the community lament circumstances like these in the production’s titular opening number. After inviting the audience into the space, Usnavi immediately reveals the economic circumstances that challenge the neighborhood. He explains that the neighborhood, its small businesses, like his bodega, and its culture are under imminent threat from gentrification. The audience learns that a local Latinx-run business, Ortega’s, has been bought out, that residents of the neighborhood have begun to move out, and that members of the community “live with just enough” (Hudes et al., 4). Joining him in the chorus, the community echoes concern about debts and bills. Usnavi’s cousin Sonny explicitly calls out the villain in this story as he dreams of what he might do with imagined lottery winnings. “Teach…abut gentrification/The rent is escalatin’/The rich are penetratin’” (Hudes et al., 51). The “strivers” that Ryzik speaks of – Usnavi, Sonny, and Vanessa – are all impacted by the changing landscape of the neighborhood. The infiltration of upscale building projects threatens to disperse members of this community who also face the risk of losing cultural traditions that are kept alive by their close proximity to each other. A fear of losing everything, including family, reaches its tense height in an exchange between Nina, Kevin and Camila (her parents), Benny (her boyfriend), Usnavi, and Vanessa (Usnavi’s love interest, who works at the neighborhood hair salon). Kevin reveals he sold the family business, Rosario’s Taxi and Limousine Service to a developer, Uptown Investments. The impact of his decision has a domino effect: Benny fears the loss of his job; Usnavi’s customers are Kevin’s drivers; Camila wasn’t consulted; Nina imagined being able to help salvage the business, and now cannot. Kevin admits that his hopes for Nina are for her to get out of the barrio, and Vanessa feels judged by this sentiment. Not only does the threat of the Uptown Investment takeover all but ensure the loss of the family business, but it will negatively impact Usnavi’s business as well, as out-of-work drivers will no longer frequent the bodega. Furthermore, Nina’s attempts to offset the economic impact on her parents with her intention of transferring from Stanford to the City University prompt panic from her father, who sees a future with her stuck in Washington Heights and shame from Vanessa, who is in that very situation. The threat of development by Uptown Investment, whose name eerily echoes Urban

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Strategic Partners, strains relationships between romantic partners, parents and child, and employer and employee. The effects of gentrification and its impact on performances of care highlight inter-relationality and interdependence. This focus on inter-relationality does not, however, preclude consideration of the impact of gentrification on the individual. As Richard Schaffer and Neil Smith note, “‘The city’ is not an undifferentiated pool of abstractly equal individuals but rather comprises a stratified population whose experience of gentrification is highly differentiated. Some gain and some lose” (Schaffer and Smith, 352). In the Heights tells some of these stories, and rather than generalizing its Latinx characters as one group that loses or one that gains, it presents individuals who are affected in various ways. Usnavi spends much of the musical planning to leave the neighborhood, but ultimately decides to stay and is determined to keep his bodega running, despite the changes around him. While Vanessa will leave the neighborhood, Sonny plans to resist displacement through organized protest. The local Piragua Guy must now contend with Mr. Softee’s corporate ice cream truck. In In the Heights, representatives from Urban Investors are never seen on stage, and the only indication that there has been any interaction between the developer and characters on stage is when Kevin admits to selling his business. Gentrification is depicted as an insidious, gradual encroachment. The Rosarios are not alone as rising rents also force Daniela to vacate her hair salon and take herself and her business to The Bronx. Feeling fractured, the community is not empowered to take a stand. Instead, as they repeat during the blackout that occurs at the end of Act One, they are “powerless.” Even Sonny, who is motivated to organize protest actions and who dreams of a future with improved education, access to resources, changed policies around immigration, and the eradication of racism, does not even imagine that the community can mobilize without access to the kind of financial resources that might be provided by a lottery win. While financial concerns are at the forefront for many members of the community, economic disparity among the community is not a factor in the play. Three major scenic elements on stage – Rosario’s, the bodega, and the hair salon – present small, local businesses as the central economic structure of the play, providing another point of unity among members of the community. Rather than perpetuating a stereotype of the “vendido” (colloquially, a “sell-out”) who is quick to make money and leave the barrio, In the Heights presents lottery winnings as a means of investment in the future of the barrio. While the lottery winner, Abuela Claudia, does encourage Usnavi to follow his dream of relocating to the Dominican Republic, her shared windfall ultimately allows Usnavi and Sonny to improve circumstances for the community. Here, Miranda constructs a new idea of what success means to residents of Washington Heights. It is not solely about “getting out.” Abuela Claudia’s gains ultimately act to preserve her own legacy within the culture of the community.

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In a post-Hurricane Maria reading of In the Heights, one finds that the musical not only addresses the impact of gentrification on Latinx populations in New York City but also reflects the ongoing displacement of Puerto Ricans and the gentrification of the island. Following Hurricane Maria, billionaire investor and former child actor Brock Pierce, leading a group of cryptocurrency investors, sought to capitalize on tax breaks presented by Act 20-2012 and Act 22-2012 (now renamed Act 60-2019) by creating a “crypto community,” which has been referred to by several monikers including “Puertopia,” “Crypto Rico,” “Puerto Crypto,” and “Sol.” The group further referred to themselves as “Puertopians,” linguistically appropriating geography as they intended economic colonization of the island, a move seemingly supported by then-Governor Ricardo Roselló. In July 2019, tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans gathered in the streets for days calling for the Roselló’s resignation, following pages of leaked text messages containing offensive content exchanged between the governor and other Puerto Rican officials. The messages further revealed corruption within the administration, including sharing privileged information regarding public funding with non-government-related parties. Having faced controversy for seemingly supporting Roselló in accepting the governor’s offer to move the Puerto Rico tour of Hamilton to San Juan’s Centro de Bellas Artes after student protests at the University of Puerto Rico made clear that the production was not welcome on campus, and for his initial support of PROMESA (The Puerto Rican Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act) which instituted an appointed, not an elected, financial oversight board and instituted austerity measures, Miranda joined the protests, putting them in diasporic conversation with Puerto Rican populations in New York City. On July 17, 2019, Miranda led a rally in Manhattan’s Union Square, attended by a crowd of about 200 people. The leaked texts seemed to be the last straw in Roselló’s mishandling of Puerto Rican affairs. In leading this protest, Miranda again anchored himself to the island and situated himself as an agent of change on behalf of Puerto Ricans both on the island and in New York City. Here, he performed care as a responder to disaster, enacting values that Sonny expresses in In the Heights.

Safe/Dangerous Space In Migdalia Cruz’s Miriam’s Flowers, the title character’s mother, Delfina, tells her, “the only place you should be scared of is outside – on the street” (Cruz). Representations of Latinx-populated New York City neighborhoods have historically been saturated with negative stereotypes. The barrio has often been presented as a place marked by violence and poverty, and by characters whose relationship to the space is dictated by these circumstances, as is the case with West Side Story and The Capeman. To some

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extent, West Side Story and The Capeman have reinforced barrio stereotypes, while In the Heights has attempted to resist these images of Latinx spaces within the New York City metropolis. Theatrical depictions of the New York City barrio as an unsafe, dystopian, or even hellish place are frequent. José Rivera’s Marisol (1992), for example, presents a post-millennial New York City where apples and coffee are extinct, rainwater is toxic, the moon has disappeared, and the plague has returned. Marisol, a 26-year-old Nuyorican resident of The Bronx, lives in fear as she tries to navigate city streets that no longer bear any resemblance to what she knows. The physical destruction of the city in Marisol is a direct result of political and economic circumstances that have historically affected underrepresented populations of the Latinx barrio. By the play’s ending, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island have become “a surreal battleground in which hate crimes and humiliations are routinely inflicted on the disenfranchised” (Huerta). The prominent theme of homelessness in relationship to the destruction of the city reflects Rivera’s stance against plans to criminalize homelessness in New York City in the 1980s. J Chris Westgate comments the ways in which Rivera’s use of space challenges this plan: Instead of neutral and therefore insignificant or natural and thus unalterable, urban space becomes central to the battle for identity politics and social justice in 1980s New York City. In short, Marisol stages a defamiliarization of space, geography, and landscape, thereby challenging audiences to reconsider their perceptions of New York City—a challenge demanded by scenography and storyline. (Westgate, 21) This image of the New York City street as a dangerous place, particularly for Puerto Rican migrants, is reinforced through West Side Story’s scenic elements. The scenic designs for both the original 1957 production and the 2009 revival of West Side Story, by Oliver Smith and James Youmans, respectively, are minimalist and consist of only the essential elements necessary to suggest an area of the New York City barrio: fire escapes, a bridge, and the suggestion of crumbling buildings formed by scaffolding. Scenes in the domestic sphere include the bridal shop and Maria’s bedroom. Youmans’s original renderings for the 2009 revival included a backdrop of constellations and Zodiac signs. Though ultimately unrealized, this vision created a strong articulation of the star-crossed relationship between Tony and Maria that is highlighted in the bilingual adaptation of “I Feel Pretty” and which emphasizes the couple’s fate which, like that of Romeo and Juliet, is sealed. In West Side Story, action in the city streets includes face-offs between the Jets and the Sharks, run-ins with Officer Krupke and Detective Shrank, and the rumble, which ends in the deaths of both Riff and Bernardo.

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Figure 3.1 West Side Story (2009). A group of dancers leaps in the air. Photo courtesy of Joan Marcus.

Scenes that offer some sense of safety occur in the domestic sphere of the bridal shop and Maria’s bedroom. These interior scenes provide a means of escape. In addition, the bridal shop and the bedroom are Maria’s spaces, and therefore, “Shark” territory, while the only remaining interior space, Doc’s drugstore, is Jets territory and home to the scene of Anita’s sexual assault by The Jets. Therefore, it is only in their own cultural spaces that the Sharks, including the women, are, in any way, safe. There is little to no safe place in The Capeman. Puerto Rico and New York City are both dangerous spaces for The Capeman’s titular character, Salvador Agrón. Scenes of Puerto Rico involve the abusive punishment of young Sal by the Sisters of the Poor and the fearful predictions of the Santero (Santería priest). Scenes in New York City are either on the streets where gang violence occurs or in various sites of incarceration. An interior scene that takes place in a clothing shop is the site of theft and where Sal takes on his alias as “The Capeman.” A scene in his New York City apartment involves a confrontation between Sal and his abusive stepfather. When Marc Anthony first appears as Sal in New York City, he sings the doo-wop song “Satin Summer Nights,” first idealizing the city as he finds ways to connect his new home to Puerto Rico. He sings, “This is the island of Nueva York. We’ll go through the projects, make out on the roof, count the stars like silver studs on my motorcycle boots” (Simon and Walcott). With a focus on the fact that Manhattan is an island, and on the stars that blanket both New York and Puerto Rico, Sal seeks to maintain

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a connection between the two spaces, anchoring himself in what feels familiar. Additionally, a respite on the roof takes him away from sights and sounds of the city and to a location where he may be able to see some stars uninhibited by city lights and find a sense of the rural within an urban setting. The chorus of girls that join him for this verse are Puerto Rican as well, and throughout the song, they dream of what promises New York holds for them. This hope soon changes to fear as Sal sings, “afraid to leave the projects/to cross into another neighborhood/Well, they’d kill you if they could” (Simon and Walcott). Despite the fact that housing projects are depicted as dangerous spaces elsewhere in the production, Sal’s housing project is presented as a border zone because it is in his own cultural neighborhood. The borders created around his housing project communicate a constricted, confined sense of only potential and temporary safety, one that contrasts an expansive space that was previously presented as connecting the two islands. While In the Heights does not present a dystopian landscape, it does use geography and stage space to challenge audience perceptions of New York City’s Latinx landscape. Instead of staging a battle for justice in the face of a crumbling environment, In the Heights stages two days in the life of a community as they navigate the challenges and joys of daily life in a very specific New York City neighborhood, Washington Heights. While the socio-spatial theatre of Marisol defamiliarizes a space, the socio-spatial theatre of In the Heights seeks to familiarize its space for a multilayered spectatorship. The fire escape, an image iconic to the New York City landscape, serves a function beyond its practical use in both In the Heights and West Side Story. In In the Heights, during their song, “At Sunrise,” Nina and Benny stand on his fire escape as she gives him a Spanish lesson. Later, Nina remembers the many hours she would spend on her fire escape, dreaming, as she confesses to Benny, “I used to think we lived at the top of the world/When the world was just a subway street map” (Hudes et al., 66). In the absence of a spot created by nature, the fire escape is a metropolitan equivalent of the beach, a tree bough, a grassy hill, or some other place where one may seek solace. The height of the fire escape allows Nina a connection to the cityscape that she can now view beyond her neighborhood and to the same sky that blankets her ancestral Puerto Rico. Both In the Heights’ Nina and Benny and West Side Story’s Maria and Tony convene on fire escapes after evenings of lovemaking. Both couples suffer the disapproval of the young woman’s parents and the fire escape serves as each couple’s special hideaway. The fire escape, however, also serves as a border space, not inside, but not entirely outside as it offers access to each apartment. As its name suggests, the fire escape presumes danger is present. Nina and Benny or Maria and Tony could get caught meeting secretly. Yet, the liminality of the fire escape becomes a safe haven for each couple. On the fire escape, “there’s a place for us.” West Side Story’s “The Somewhere

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Ballet,” which, in the original and 2009 revival productions, was staged in an empty space, provides further escape from both gang turfs and from the border space of the fire escape. Representing a clean slate, this ideological space is free from geographic attachment, allowing the Sharks and Jets to interact freely and peaceably.

Community Space The socio-spatial theatres of New York City presented in West Side Story and The Capeman are ones that are marked by transitions associated with migration. Dangerous spaces are centered that not only perpetuate negative stereotypes of displaced Puerto Ricans but mark the geography of New York City as dangerous, thereby conflating that danger with the presence of Puerto Rican populations. The dangerous spaces presented in both instances are quite public, as the city’s streets become literal battlegrounds for turf. In these instances, community spaces are complicated by navigating dangerous spaces and questioning with whom one should navigate such spaces. Gang membership in West Side Story is presented as a gang-as-family model in which place-belonging is central. In “The Jets Song,” Action, Baby John, A-rab, Action, and Big Deal enumerate the benefits of being a Jet: status, respect, and power. Despite the fact that “The Jets Song” is performed by gang members who engage in violence so fierce that it leads to murder, there is a lightheartedness to the lyrics and an upbeat, swinging melody. The score presumes a world in which tensions between the Jets and Sharks have never before escalated to such extreme violence, the magnitude of which will take the lives of Riff, Bernardo, and Tony. Instead, gang membership is associated with looking good, standing proud, and garnering the envy and attention of others in the neighborhood. The Shark women have a different set of stereotypes and attitudes toward their urban landscape to contend with. The imagery created throughout the song largely positions tension between industry and agriculture. Not only is “America” depicted as a more civilized place than Puerto Rico, but in Puerto Rico, stateside conveniences simply will not work. Anita refutes Rosalia’s every attempt to integrate life on the island and stateside. Rosalia refers to a Buick, a television, and a washing machine as “American.” Anita counters with Puerto Rico’s poor infrastructure, electricity, and a general lack of resources that precludes the need to keep anything clean. Rosalia’s plans to bring “American” conveniences to San Juan and Anita’s dismantling of her plans are illustrative of the colonial relationship between the two and propose that the two geographic spaces can never be unified, despite Puerto Rico’s status as a territory of the United States. The two geographies, in Anita’s mind, cannot mesh. Two stereotypes of Puerto Rico are reinforced in “America.” First, Rosalia reinforces an idealized view of the “lovely” island with her ­

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descriptions of tropical breezes, pineapples, and coffee blossoms. Anita refutes Rosalia’s view of Puerto Rico as she reinforces another stereotype of the island as an uncivilized, tribal space filled with poverty, violence, and natural disaster as she counters calling Puerto Rico an “ugly” island and pointing to disease, hurricanes, and bullets flying. Subsequently, for every object that is mentioned as an American convenience, it is implied that America is an inherently “better” place than Puerto Rico. Even knobs on doors and wall-to-wall floors are presented as distinctly American. A tongue in cheek exaggeration to be sure but one that reinforces an image of Puerto Rico as unworthy or uninhabitable. Yet, Anita does have an awareness that America is not what she expected. The suggestion that everything in America is free “for a small fee” implies that her colonized status hinders her chance of being economically successful. In this way, Anita in particular demonstrates the antithesis of Maria’s naivete in her attitude toward New York City. It is interesting to note here, however, that in the 2009 revival production of West Side Story (and in its touring production), Maria demonstrates a mature sense of awareness that befits the bilingual adaptation, as was previously illustrated in the Chapter 1 analysis of “I Feel Pretty.” When Lieutenant Shrank questions Maria about the rumble that is to occur between the Jets and the Sharks, he relates a rumor of tension around her dancing with a boy. When he asks her who the boy was, she answers, “another from my country.” When Shrank persists, she answers defiantly, “José!” This defiant delivery, as played both by Josefina Scaglione (Broadway cast) and Ali Ewoldt (Boston tour) in the 2009 revival, is a departure from Natalie Wood’s more demure interpretation of the line in the 1961 film and indicates an embodied knowledge of the stereotypical image that Shrank and the other adults have of the Sharks. This scene occurs in Maria’s bedroom, and her defensiveness is natural as Shrank has infiltrated her limited personal space, and by extension, the Shark’s community space. The Sharks are, however, positioned as invaders of the Jets’ community space. The rumble that the Sharks and Jets engage in is more than territorial; it is a battle between rich and poor, white and non-white, who belongs and who does not. In attempting to find a sense of home, the Sharks are forced to fight for it, quite literally. While both the Sharks and the Jets are gang members who engage in criminal activity (including murder), the focus of wrongdoing is placed heavily on the Sharks, both within the context of the script and in its staging. When Detective Shrank encounters the two gangs on the street, he orders the Sharks to leave. By sending them away and allowing the Jets to stay, the colonizer’s power, represented by Shrank, is reconfirmed. The Sharks are also tagged as serious criminals, whereas the Jets are simply delinquents. Compounding this image is a series of events: Bernardo kills Riff, Tony’s attempts at peace are eschewed by the Sharks, and the Sharks are the first to arrive at the rumble. Despite the fact that Tony kills Bernardo, he too dies at the hands of Chino, who

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is taken away by the police. The Sharks are seen in final retaliation and the only ones punished by the law by the time the curtain closes. In a vulnerable state having experienced the culture shock of moving from a rural island town to New York City, The Capeman’s Sal is a perfect target for Hernandez, also known as “The Umbrella Man,” leader of the Vampires street gang. Upon their first meeting, Hernandez all but demands that Sal join the gang. He first presents gang membership as Sal’s only option and assures him a miserable existence otherwise. Then, he changes his tactic as he equivocates gang membership to the family as he sings “you want to fight for your people, don’t you, Sal?” and “We stand for the neighborhood” (Simon and Walcott). Here, The Capeman goes a step further than West Side Story in strengthening the connection between family, culture and location. With references to “your people” and “the neighborhood,” Hernandez seats the New York City barrio as not only the geographic space where Sal now resides but also a surrogate Puerto Rico, a place that is exclusive to Puerto Rican culture and one that must be defended as such. As part of the Vampires family, Sal will be a representative of his neighborhood and a protector of the landscape. The streets of New York City become tangible manifestations of the Vampires. The Capeman’s Vampires characterize their life experience as selling drugs to Irish gangs in Hell’s Kitchen, where they are verbally assaulted by the Irish boys and their parents who hurl ethnic epithets at the Vampires. Hernandez’s recourse is to engage in physical violence with the Irish boys, fracturing one’s collar bone. He ends the verse with “What home of the brave/This is a fucking war zone” (Simon and Walcott). The Vampires’ New York City is one in which they encounter violence and racism every day. Their rumbles are not arranged as they are between the Jets and the Sharks. They must be ready to fight, perhaps to the death, at any moment. The Capeman certainly reinforces negative stereotypes. It is worth noting though that The Capeman gives a voice to The Vampires, while West Side Story does not do the same for The Sharks. The Shark men do not have a title song, as the Jets do, and it is the Jets men who are centered as the dominant gang. In an attempt to remedy earlier stereotypes, Lin-Manuel Miranda replaces the gang-as-family with a community-as-family model. In the Heights’ geography is also reflective of ideology, but in a way that is distinctly different from the two earlier musicals. The first hint of this change is that the ensemble of In the Heights is always referred to in the script and playbill, as well as on stage, as “the Community.” This simple designation changes these members of the cast from background singers and dancers to essential characters who reinforce a link between space, ideas and ideals. The core biological family in In the Heights is represented by the Rosarios: Kevin, Camila, and their daughter Nina. Usnavi and Sonny are cousins who provide a foundation for a community-as-family model as they own and operate the neighborhood bodega, where regulars pass through each

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day. As Usnavi introduces members of the community to the audience, it is clear that even those who are not blood-related are indeed a family, as he notes that Abuela Claudia is not his biological grandmother but has served as wise and loving matriarch to the entire community. In West Side Story and The Capeman, the characters’ physical space must be protected from rival gangs and their turf marked by acts of violence. The multiple conflicts that occur in these barrios include crime, violence and racial tension. The double signification of Emilie Hicks’ definition of “border families” holds true here, where in order to be a part of the family, one must engage in these conflicts (Hicks, 38). Alternatively, In the Heights’ Washington Heights must be protected from the outside threats of gentrification and displacement. The neighborhood’s windows and corners are marked with cultural symbols, most prominently with the flags of Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, reflecting the largest Latinx communities that populate New York City. Nestor Garcia-Canclini’s describes his theory of “converting yourself into what you are” as one in which an immigrant becomes a member of a hegemonic group (Garcia-Canclini, 135). This concept is exemplified by Maria in West Side Story as she declares “I am an American girl now” (Laurents et al.). The Capeman’s Sal undergoes a double conversion, first as an incarcerated person and then experiencing a redemptive conversion as he is released from prison and travels to the American Southwest, where he is given the opportunity to make a surrogate connection to his Taíno roots by engaging romantically and spiritually with an Indigenous woman, Wahzinak. In the Heights’ Usnavi, however, converts to “who he is:” a Nuyorican, a New Yorker, a bodega owner, storyteller, and caregiver to the community, having realized that Washington Heights, home to his community family, has been his home all along. Moreover, he learns that “home” is an idea of his own construction. His desire to relocate to the Dominican Republic was built on the idea of converting himself into who he thought he was supposed to be (a symptom he shares with Nina), rather than who he truly is. Anna Louizos’s scenic design for In the Heights is realistic and seeks to replicate a neighborhood at New York City’s 181st Metro stop. Consistent with the architecture of Washington Heights, the set includes a flight of stairs leading from the main part of the stage to a small area above. The steep hills of Washington Heights have led to a number of these “step streets,” with stairs and elevators allowing access to the upper parts of the street. Beyond the steps, a silhouette of the George Washington Bridge, lights twinkling, provides a backdrop and a reminder that Manhattan is an island, indicating both a sense of isolation and a possibility of what lies beyond. The four primary structures on stage are the Rosario’s Car and Limousine Service, an apartment building stoop (home to Abuela Claudia), Usnavi’s bodega, and Daniela’s beauty salon where Carla and Vanessa also work. While In the Heights is the only musical set specifically

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in Washington Heights, this barrio can function as a representative of many largely Latinx-populated areas of Northern Manhattan. In In the Heights, a large portion of the play takes place outside, with several indoor scenes taking place in the Rosario’s Taxi and Limousine Service dispatch center, Usnavi’s bodega, Daniela’s salon, and a nightclub. The set is constructed, however, so that the audience always sees the exterior of the entire neighborhood while these interior scenes occur. For scenes in the hair salon, chairs are moved out of the shop for ease of viewing, and it is conventionally accepted that the audience is looking inside the shop. Aside from this practical consideration, the audience views the interior and exterior of the shop simultaneously and is constantly reminded that the shop is a part of this neighborhood. The staging of the musical allows for constant activity in the barrio, and director Thomas Kail and choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler inserted mini-scenes of members of the community passing through, sometimes chatting, sometimes dancing, further familiarizing the space for the audience and situating the neighborhood as a safe yet very public space in which personal information is shared among the community.

Washington Heights The Washington Heights area has a history marked by crime and violence that reached a peak in the 1980s. Residents of Washington Heights were long-considered victims of a “culture of poverty, [mired] in a self-perpetuating cycle of poverty” (Santos, 221). Situated on the northern end of Manhattan, Washington Heights is bordered to the north by Inwood to the south by 155th Street (Harlem), to the East by the Harlem River, and to the West by the Hudson River and is about 30 blocks long. Inwood, where Lin-Manuel Miranda grew up, shares demographic, sociocultural, and economic characteristics with Washington Heights. The history of twentieth-century immigration to Washington Heights began with Irish populations in the early 1900s, followed by communities of European Jews who fled Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, Greek populations in the 1950s and 1960s, and those hailing from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean and Latin-American nations. Those identifying as Latinx became the largest population in Washington Heights by the 1980s and 1990s (Wallace). The 1960s saw increased migration of young people in particular from Puerto Rico to New York City. For new arrivals to the city, who had no pre-established community to welcome them, especially teen boys, gang membership was one way to ensure the preservation of language and culture, as well as protection. From the early to mid-1980s, Washington Heights was considered the largest drug distribution center in the Northeastern United States. Washington Heights’ most infamous criminal, ­Santiago Luis Polanco Rodriguez, better known as Yayo, is

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considered the first, and most wealthy, mass-marketer of crack cocaine in the United States (Lubasch). During Yayo’s time, homelessness in Washington Heights, and in New York City generally, was rampant. Housing projects provided little by way of safety or security and were termed “Crack Cities.” After the murder of police officer Michael John Buczek in 1988, increased police presence and community interventions contributed to a lowering crime rate. With In the Heights, Miranda seeks to resist and reverse stereotypes not only of people but of place as well. Usnavi, acting as narrator, introduces the neighborhood, its places, and its people. Usnavi’s shop is protected by a grate, common to many local shops in New York City. Its necessity is evidenced by the fact that Usnavi needs to shoo away a “little punk” from his stoop. We will later learn that this is Graffiti Pete, the sole visible representative of any kind of mischievous behavior in the neighborhood. We never see the vandals who Graffiti Pete reports are on their way to the bodega during the blackout at the end of Act I. Because they are never seen, In the Heights resists reinforcing a Latinx criminal stereotype. Second, the vandals are not a part of the community represented here, so the suggestion of inter-­ community violence associated with Hicks’ definition of border theatre is also avoided. Finally, because they are never seen, the vandalism is seen as an anomaly, an occurrence that happens during the unique but desperate situation of the blackout, and not every day. The in-the-margin presence of the vandals does reinforce that, in desperate times, these outside factors can and will threaten the community. Therefore, Miranda does not deny that such issues exist; instead, they are presented as an outside force affecting the neighborhood, not one that happens within their own community. The geographic space of In the Heights is familiarized multiple times throughout the production. Reference to New York City landmarks is frequent, with the George Washington Bridge providing a constant focal point as a backdrop to the scenery. Early on in the play, Benny, who works as a driver for Rosario’s Car and Limousine Service, is given the opportunity to work a shift as a dispatcher. In the song “Benny’s Dispatch,” he takes the microphone and raps about current traffic conditions, offering advice to drivers on what route to take to best return to Washington Heights. Benny’s city-specific references, including navigating traffic jams on Riverside Drive, the Deegan Expressway, and near the Jacob Javitz Convention Center, are an homage to the delights and frustrations that are distinctly provided by New York City. Moreover, Benny’s rap is a performance of care meant to guide his drivers safely and conveniently back to a familiar geographic locus – Washington Heights. Later, Vanessa references the elevated train that passes by her window. For local New York audiences, this familiarizes the Washington Heights space presented before them, as Benny and Vanessa build a connection between their neighborhood and the rest of Manhattan through references to the literal

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roads and bridges that link the two. These audiences are likely to share these characters’ frustrations with New York City traffic and accidents. For tourist audiences, there may be a delight in getting a taste of what is, for them, “authentically” New York. These lyrics set the scene, but more importantly, welcome the audience to the neighborhood. This “welcome to the city” sits in opposition to the losses articulated in The Capeman and for one character in In the Heights. The mother of one of The Capeman’s victims expresses her anger by accusing Latinx migrants and immigrants of changing New York City for the worse. She sings, “You Spanish people, you come to this country/Nothing here changes your lives/Ungrateful immigrants asking for pity/When all of your answers are knives/This city makes a cartoon of crime” (Simon and Walcott). Referring to Esmeralda as “Spanish” indicates the ignorance and intolerance of middle-class white Americans, who, in the 1950s and 1960s, felt that they were being displaced by immigration and their cities infiltrated by crime. Her accusation that government officials did not take The Capeman’s crimes seriously is illustrative of ongoing political battles in New York City and the United States as a whole surrounding immigration, the economy, homelessness, and crime in metropolitan areas. The mother of the murdered boy grieves not only the loss of her son but what she perceives to be the loss of her city as well. The geography of In the Heights, as its title suggests, is central to the story. In the opening number, Usnavi introduces the audience to the neighborhood, situating it geographically at 181st street, and offering the audience directions to the neighborhood via the A train, which will take them north of 96th street, even farther north than Harlem, likely unfamiliar territory for an elite, Broadway audience. Within this description is an acknowledgment that this location and the musical are a place and an experience likely unfamiliar to its audience. Usnavi, quick-witted and well-aware of the likely positionality of a Broadway audience, predicts their reaction with, “I’m up on shit’s creek/I never been north of 96th street,” and after offering directions to Washington Heights via the A train, instructs the audience, “I hope you’re writin’ this down, I’m gonna test you later” (Hudes et al., 3). Here, Usnavi uses humor to acknowledge the expected positionality of an audience that may be uncomfortable or unsettled by his rap style of delivery and to address the negative images of the Latinx barrio as perpetuated in popular media. As Usnavi reveals the exact location of his neighborhood, he foreshadows the actual trajectory of the neighborhood from the time of In the Heights debut through a 15-year span of gentrification. In 2022, A Starbucks sits across from the A-train stop at the corner of 181st Street and Fort Washington Avenue. The ubiquitous purveyor of lattes serves as a prominent symbol of gentrification and as a threat to communities of color in particular. The sustainability of transportation options also moves gentrification toward neighborhoods on transit lines, while public transit

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systems for those in limited-income neighborhoods are often less about the sustainability of transportation and more about affordability. The chorus points to “endless fights” in the neighborhood (Hudes et al., 4). While these may initially conjure images of gang fights associated with West Side Story and The Capeman, it is more likely that in the world of In the Heights, tension is between customers, bosses, the struggle to make ends meet and the threat of gentrification. As Vanessa attempts to convince a potential landlord that she will come through with the rent, a sense of mistrust in hierarchies becomes evident. In the Heights resists institutionalized ethnic discrimination historically associated with Washington Heights. Philippe Bourgeois’ study of the “culture of resistance” in Spanish Harlem in the 1980s focused on the ways in which the immigrant and first-generation reaction to outside racism and oppression resulted in an increase in crime, addiction, and inter-community violence (Bourgeois). In the Heights illustrates low or non-existent rates of crime, addiction, and violence. Bourgeois’ study characterizes young Puerto Rican boys working in bodegas as feeling depressed and oppressed in their “least desirable jobs in the nation,” which leads them to lives of illegal activities and crime (Bourgeois). Both Usnavi and Sonny exhibit a life to the contrary. Although both have bigger dreams for themselves, neither is in a desperate economic or social situation in their current situation nor does their current position incite them to violent or criminal behavior. In this way, these characters have more of a universal connection to the young person in a temporary job in which many, not just Puerto Rican, find themselves. Usnavi is well liked among the community and provides not only goods and supplies but also advice to those who visit the bodega. Rather than acting out in violent ways, Sonny uses the barrio as a place to rehearse for his future as an activist or politician. Sonny’s concerns reach beyond the neighborhood to the national scale. He is aware of the threat of gentrification, the racist attitudes inherent in the United States’ government policies toward immigration, and economic circumstances that result in the substandard (mis) education of the youth of the barrio. Sonny’s response to these concerns is to recognize that he has a personal responsibility to his neighborhood and its community. Bourgeois claims that the young Puerto Ricans of his study “seduced by the wealth and power associated with illegal work. Yet, they too seek the ‘American Dream’” (Bourgeois). Their attempts to reach the wealth associated with the American Dream are through selling drugs, theft, and robbery. This idea is perpetuated in The Capeman when Sal and the Vampires shoplift clothing from a local store. The garments they steal are high-priced suits and ties, pieces that give them status and make them look wealthy. What differs between Sal and the subjects of Borgeois’ study is that ultimately, Sal and the Vampires do not share a desire for the American Dream. Nor do the characters in In the Heights. They do

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not seek an American Dream, but a realization of their own individual and community goals that are constructed by their hybrid experiences. In In the Heights, some residents of Washington Heights do share a desire to leave the barrio. In fact, at the start of the play, Usnavi is insistent on relocating to the Dominican Republic, his deceased parents’ home. Nina does leave Washington Heights for college but returns for the summer afraid to reveal that she has dropped out of school. Her reference to the George Washington Bridge illustrates her attachment to New York City and, more specifically, to her Washington Heights neighborhood, where the bridge provides a constant, a backdrop to daily life. For others, like Vanessa, this bridge is a constant reminder of what lies on the other side and the desire to get out of the neighborhood. Reflected in West Side Story and The Capeman is an immigrant as victim narrative that Kevin Koeghan refers to as consistent/repeated in the New York metropolitan area (Koeghan, 229). Bernardo, Anita, and Maria are all victims of violence that take place in public locations within the city, including in the street and in Doc’s drugstore. In Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner’s 2021 film adaptation of West Side Story, Rita Moreno, who originated the role of Anita in the 1960 film, appears as Valentina, replacing Doc as the owner of the drugstore. In the 1960 film, Anita is verbally and sexually assaulted by the Jets after she arrives at the store to deliver news from Maria to Tony that she is waiting to meet him. After the assault, she leaves the space and lies to the group, telling them that Chino shot Maria and she is dead. Keoghan proposes that New York City demographics present an “immigrant as us” model in which generations are connected by a collective immigrant-ethnic struggle and in a location in which ethnicity is celebrated in various forms (parades, festivals, etc.) and immigration celebrated through landmarks, like the Statue of Liberty (Keoghan, 229). In the Heights reflects an “immigrant as us” model through its depiction of intergenerational relationships, a celebration of ethnicity and geography. Carnaval de Barrio presents not only a celebration of ethnicity but also a celebration of the neighborhood during which space is reclaimed after the bodega and beauty salon are vandalized. The celebratory landmark here is the George Washington Bridge. Yet, despite the urgency of the blackout which leaves many of the characters lost and confused, this production number includes the entire community who assist each other in restoring harmed spaces, reinforcing the “immigrant as us” model as one that is rooted in performances of care. Usnavi acknowledges that the neighborhood may be changing forever and that the community may be powerless in fighting external forces. His recourse is to fly his Dominican flag, to find power in the generations of community members that surround him. But he still plans to go to the Dominican Republic. He joyfully persists through the challenge with the assistance of the community and through cultural symbols.

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Casitas and Spiritual Space The inspiration for New York City’s casitas originates in rural areas of Puerto Rico where the small wooden structures with corrugated metal roofs are often stilted, typically painted bright colors, and house vegetable gardens beneath. Casitas were reimagined in urban areas first on the island following a shift in the economic landscape that came with the US colonization of Puerto Rico and the mechanization of industry. Recreations of one and two-room casitas that include larger verandas and open space can now be found in Latinx neighborhoods across the United States, including in the South Bronx where Puerto Rican migrants responded to area disinvestment in the 1970s and 1980s. As the architecture of resistance, the casita is defiantly joyful in its assertion of Puerto Rican identity and values within spaces that had been neglected, abandoned, and vandalized and that had become sites of violence and criminal activity, including as dumping spots for stolen vehicles. This lack of resources and violence against space impacted place belonging among communities. In order to restore a sense of intercommunity wellness and belonging, residents came together to reclaim abandoned spaces by creating and maintaining casitas and garden spaces within urban landscapes. The oldest and largest casita in New York City, Rincón Criollo, was founded in 1978 by the late Jose “Chema” Soto and sits on the site of a former abandoned lot at 158th Street and Brook Avenue, where it hosts cultural and musical events and educational activities and has become an internationally known center for the promotion and preservation of Puerto Rican culture. Luis Aponte-Pares calls these recreations “imagined communit[ies]…that recapture a memory of home” (Aponte-Pares, 274). By reappropriating the casita, Puerto Rican communities honor and remember the island, recreate home space, and alter the identity of the space on which the New York City casita is built, including transforming formerly dangerous spaces into safe spaces. In some ways, these spaces move beyond memory to serve as surrogates for island spaces, especially through the inclusion of community gardening, a popular activity in the Caribbean that brings people together and that offers a sense of intergenerational caretaking. Resident Lydia Pagan calls the casita “a little Puerto Rico in The Bronx” (qtd in Ferier). Marijn Ferier points to New York City casitas as evidence of “the transformative power of consumption” by which gardeners prove their value in growing produce that normally needs to be imported (Ferier). Primarily, these spaces affirm place-belonging for Puerto Rican communities in New York City. Not only does the casita evoke a sense of pride for Puerto Rican communities but they also “articulate a right to the city…a right not to be displaced… [l]andscapes of despair were reshaped into landscapes of hope, rich in values and contributing to a sense of attachment and regional identity” (Ferier). Several New York City casitas feature Puerto Rican and US flags hanging side by side. One such community garden and casita, El

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Flamboyán, in the Bronx bears the name of the national tree of Puerto Rico, a name shared by the Flamboyán Arts Foundation represented by Lin-Manuel Miranda with a goal of supporting Puerto Rico-based artists who create work serving populations on the island. The casita is a site of caregiving and receiving, providing social and cultural gathering spaces, as well as sites of community development, including food production. Ferier notes the “dual meaning of the casita community gardens as an oasis (hope and therapy) and a fort (reclaiming control of space)” (Ferier). The reclamation and repurposing of public space are a source of empowerment for the community, manifested in the casita as a site of rallies and community organizing, as it also provides a safe space for communal social interaction, like holidays and celebrations. The casitas serve as intergenerational spaces, but on a daily basis are most often visited by and cared for by older adults. Soto’s daughter Ivette Rivera credits the casita as a place of cultural preservation. “We learned the culture of Puerto Rico here,” she says, “because they don’t teach us that in school” (Ferier). Communities must function as caretakers of the space. In doing so, they demonstrate caregiving for each other and for the environment and create spiritual spaces, also seen in Quiara Hudes’ Elliot plays. While The Capeman presents New York City as a dangerous place, the advertising that preceded its opening appealed to a collective memory of safe space. Even before playing to audiences at New York’s Marquis Theatre, the publicity team behind The Capeman relied on the memory and nostalgia of its target demographic (Latinx audiences), as well as the tourist-gaze-fueled desire for an “authentic” experience of non-Latinx audiences. The production was heavily advertised in New York City neighborhoods with large Latinx populations, with print advertising featuring an image comprised of wide red, white, and blue brushstrokes, constructed to resemble a casita. In place of a front door was a grainy, black and white photograph of a young Latino boy, wearing a porkpie hat, short-sleeved, button-down shirt, and matching pants. Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez credits this advertisement as one which “awoke feelings of nationalism and home(land) sickness since the picture of the boy evoked memories and marked in black and white with an aura of nostalgia the pivotal era of the Puerto Rican diaspora,” during and post-World War Two (Sandoval-Sánchez, 152). The advertising campaign for The Capeman relied heavily on the casita as a central image, drawing upon inside knowledge and sense of place-belonging for Latinx communities in New York City within a politics of belonging that marginalizes their community. Images like the casita function as a reminder to Salvador of the suffering of those left behind. This is consistent with Aponte-Pares’ argument that, “Barrio residents invoke rural images and narratives as coded interpretations of the reality of poverty and marginalization that their own poor and working-class relatives experience on the island” (Sandoval-Sánchez, 152).

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Of the musicals discussed here, The Capeman is the only one which offers a dual setting of Puerto Rico and the United States. As the musical opens, Salvador, age 7 (Evan Jay Newman) appears in his rural hometown outside of Mayagüez on the west coast of the island. While scenic designer Bob Crowley and lighting designer Natasha Katz’s elements for The Capeman were minimal, the island was created through warm lighting and the silhouette of a palm-tree-covered isle with mountains in the distance. By providing merely the suggestion of an island, the audience was lured into a geographic space with enough ambiguity to create multiple meanings for a multilayered spectatorship. However, even within these multiple meanings, the non-realistic treatment of the island also cued associations provoking a nostalgic and idealized view of the space. Puerto Rican members of the audience were cued to remember home or ancestral spaces. Non-Puerto Rican individuals with home ties to island spaces were similarly cued to return home. First-generation individuals with Puerto Rican ancestry were offered the suggestion of a place they were expected to feel connected to, and non-Latinx individuals were cued toward stereotyping an exotic vacationland. As music and lyrics begin, this idealized island image is shattered. Salvador begins his journey as a young boy in Mayaguez, where images of sugar cane and the Flamboyán are juxtaposed against Sal and his mother Esmeralda’s journey to the Asylum for the Poor. Sal does not nostalgically reconstruct his past, and because the memory is replayed rather than relayed solely through lyrics and dialogue, a recognition of his harsh reality is clear. Sal will have no island home to escape to when tragedy strikes in the states. The audience, having experienced a rupture in their collective memory set forth by the island setting, now share a place with Sal, lost between worlds, and unable to depend upon vague memories for reassurance. It is only through religion and spirituality that Sal is able to transform his memory’s relationship to place. The Capeman relies heavily on religion and spirituality, represented primarily in the form of San Lazaro (Saint Lazarus), a major figure in Puerto Rican and Cuban culture, and in Santería, rooted in Yoruba and Catholicism. Saint Lazarus, also known as the Santería orisha Babalú Aye, is evoked to cure illness. In Catholicism, there are two mentions of Lazarus in the Bible. One is a leper, healed by Jesus. The other is a beggar, who, in a parable told by Jesus, is sent to heaven after he is denied assistance by a wealthy man. The conflation of these facets becomes San Lazaro as he is presented in The Capeman. Consistent references to San Lazaro keep the audience anchored a collective spiritual memory and speak to New York City’s largely Catholic Latinx community. San Lazaro is contrasted with Sal’s stepfather, a Pentecostal minister. Sal’s stepfather is abusive, while San Lazaro offers hope, and throughout Sal’s incarceration, San Lazaro perpetuates a memory of Puerto Rico anchored in Taíno indigeneity. After Sal’s arrest, he spends many years in prison during which he develops a spiritual life that becomes increasingly

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connected to the island despite the fact that Sal will never return there. San Lazaro comes to represent the island, and he appears onstage frequently during Sal’s times of emotional need. San Lazaro repeats, “Yo nací en Puerto Rico/Mi Corazón es Puerto Rico/Mi alma es Puerto,” Rico, situating Lazaro not only as a connection to or representative of the island, but also as an embodiment of the island itself (Simon and Walcott).1 In addition, he represents Sal’s growing Christian-based spirituality as he sings, “I believe I’m in the power of Saint Lazarus” (Simon and Walcott). This also means he is in the power of the island. Through St. Lazarus, memory, nostalgia identity, and place meet to create an imagined geography of peace and comfort within Sal’s incarceration. Deep ecologist Joanna Macy outlines four ways in which people on spiritual paths look at the world. Macy’s perspectives include: first, the world as a battlefield. For the Jets and Sharks of West Side Story and The Vampires of The Capeman, the city streets also become battlefields. Next, the world as a trap. In The Capeman, Salvador is imprisoned in New York City, and upon his release, seeks to escape the trap of the city by heading to the Southwestern desert. Third, the world as a lover. This is true of many of In the Heights’ characters, but especially Usnavi, who perseveres and ultimately declares his love for Washington Heights in the production’s finale. Finally, the world as self. Usnavi becomes a part of his New York City landscape when he accepts it as his home. Similarly, Miranda finds home in Puerto Rico via post-Hurricane Maria philanthropic activities, as the next chapter will show.

Note 1 I was born in Puerto Rico/My heart is Puerto Rico/My soul is Puerto Rico.

Works Cited Aponte-Pares, Luis. “What’s Yellow and White and Has Land All Around It? Appropriating Place in Puerto Rican Barrios,” In The Latino Studies Reader. Edited by Antonia Darder and Rodolfo D. Torres. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing, 1998, p. 274. Bourgeois, Philippe. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Cruz, Migdalia. Miriam’s Flowers. Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2004. Dávila, Arlene. Latino Spin: Whitewashing and the Politics of Race. New York: NYU Press, 2008. Ferier, Marijin. “Casitas in the South Bronx: Making A Place Called Home.” TheProtoCity.com, 19 May 2016, http://theprotocity.com/casitas-in-the-southbronx/. Garcia-Canclini, Néstor. Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995, p. 135. Hicks, Emilie. Border Writing: The Multidimensional Text. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1991, p. 38.

94  Spaces of Care Hudes, Quiara Alegría, et al. In the Heights: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical. Milwaukee, WI: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2013. Huerta, “Representations of ‘Home’ in Three US Latino Plays.” Presented at the Latin American Theatre Today Conference, University of Kansas. March 29–April 1, 2000. Koeghan, Kevin. “A Sense of Place: The Politics of Immigration and the Symbolic Construction of Identity in Southern California and the New York Metropolitan Area.” Sociological Forum, vol. 17, no. 2, 2002, pp. 223–253. Laurents, Arthur, et al. “West Side Story - New Broadway Cast Recording 2009.” Masterworks Broadway. Lubasch, Arnold H. “US Breaks up Major Crack Ring in New York.” The New York Times, 31 Jul. 1987, 1. Ryzik, Melena. “Heights before Broadway.” New York Times, 24 Mar. 2008. http:// www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/theater/14heig.html?scp=3&sq=Puerto+ Rico&st=nyt. Sandoval-Sánchez, Alberto. “Paul Simon’s The Capeman: The Staging of Puerto Rican National Identity as Spectacle and Commodity on Broadway,” In Latino/a Popular Culture. Edited by Michelle Habell-Pallán and Mary Romero. New York: NYU Press, 2002. Santos, Mayra, “Puerto Rican Underground.” Centro, vol. 8, no. 1, 1996, p. 221. Schaffer, Richard, and Neil Smith. “The Gentrification of Harlem?,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 76, no. 3, Sep. 1986, pp. 347–365. Simon, Paul, and Derek Walcott. The Capeman (Original Broadway Cast), Verve (Adult Contemporary), 1998. Wallace, David, “A Few Facts about the Residents of Washington Heights.” The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 1, Part 2: The Washington Heights Master Sample Survey, Jan. 1969, pp. 1105–1106. Westgate, J. Chris. Urban Drama: The Metropolis in Contemporary North American Plays. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

4 Transforming Disaster through Defiant Joy

Audre Lorde characterizes joy as transformative, calling it a “source[s] of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change” (Lorde, 88). Joy is a rich and undervalued resource in American musical theatre and one that is complicated by the genre’s history of oppression and appropriation.1 “Feel good” has become a ubiquitous descriptor throughout the genre. Composer, actor, and activist Lin-Manuel Miranda describes In the Heights (2008) as “a celebration,” a descriptor that was assigned to the long-awaited and much-anticipated film adaptation of In the Heights (2021), directed by Jon M. Chu (“Great Performances”). Community as joy is repeated in marketing campaigns for both stage production and film adaptation. In the poster for the original Broadway production, the cast dances on a street in Washington Heights, a backdrop of the George Washington Bridge behind them. Vertical extensions of arms and legs and tilted chins lift celebratory energy upward. This dancing is transcendent, in conversation with forces unseen. It is a spiritual rejoicing. This image is repeated in announcing the film’s release, which intersects with the easing of COVID restrictions across the United States, setting In the Heights as a temporal marker of relief, renewal, and celebration. The dancing bodies and the characters that they represent are memorialized and archived as “end of pandemic” figures. Chu calls the film “healing” (Li). Additional promotional materials for In the Heights include other markers of celebration: fireworks, pieces of colorful fabric floating above the street, and an ensemble of performers in a swimming pool. In the latter image, the swimmers are arranged in two sets of three concentric circles, holding hands, an infinite link of bodies. This circular pattern recalls Stanislavski’s three circles of attention, in which a character speaks to oneself, then to another, then to the universe (Stanislavski, 72). In this way, the poster invites a multilayered spectatorship to share in the celebration: a Washington Heights audience, a pan-Latinx audience, and a global audience. It operates within a definition of community anchored by geography and cultural identity, which is established at the opening of In the Heights by Usnavi as teacher-narrator-guide. The water in the swimming pool, coupled with its circular pattern of bodies suggests healing, absolution, or a returning to the start, a “coming home.” This theme DOI: 10.4324/9781003282013-5

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is prevalent in In the Heights and is one that Miranda has encountered in interrogating his own relationship with Puerto Rico. The circular form of this striking image also recreates the geometry of a hurricane or the seismic waves of an earthquake moving outward from its epicenter. The swimmers’ joy and the solidarity in their infinite connection float on top of this symbology, indicating a simultaneous presence of symptom and cure. This analysis of the swimming pool image illustrates how it may be mobilized as an act of defiant joy. Interdisciplinary scholar Imani Perry speaks of defiant joy in Blackness and extends the concept to include those who are grieving, regardless of race, saying: Think about how uncomfortable [we] are with grief. You are supposed to meet it with a hidden shamefulness, tuck yourself away respectably for a season, and then return whole and recovered. But that is not at all how grief courses through life. It is emetic, peripatetic; it shakes you and stops you and sometimes disappears only to come barreling back to knock the wind out of you. Joy is not found in the absence of pain and suffering. It exists through it. (Perry) Perry’s peripatetic and emetic imagery of grief emulates the material effects of natural disaster, in particular the migratory patterns and repetitious processes of hurricanes. The most intense winds and rain form the eye wall, resurging after periods of calm. Grief is the storm that impacts mind and body. In response to (un)natural disaster, artists who work as first responders are the eye of the storm. It is the awareness that the storm is still swirling around them, that it may come barreling back, that allows defiant joy to work as simultaneous celebration and protest.

Climate Strike Y no había luz’s (YNHL’s) participation in the 2021 global climate strike provides evidence of the dual nature of defiant joy and the collective’s strong commitment to foster an environmental conscience among young people. Posts to their Instagram page include a series of images of actor Nami Helfeld, dressed as their signature character, Zefirante, an elf wearing a long cap and colorful collar. In these posts, Zefirante stands in a series of locations holding a sign that reads “Huelga x el Clima.”2 Another series of posts includes cartoon versions of two sea turtles in conversation. One asks, “Dame un ladito en su cueva?” The other replies, “Claro, pero, por que no vas a tu rincón?” A swipe to the left reveals the answer: an image of a bulldozer along with the text “porque es en construcción”3 (@Y.no.habia.luz). Zefirante and the turtles act through joy while acting up in resistance. Their messages connect young followers to a network of environmental

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awareness and activism. While appealing to youth a­ udiences, they ­motivate adults to action as well, soliciting comments from users like “Si se comprometen a destruir nuestro paraíso, ten cuidado… los centinelas y guardianes atacarán y romperán sus sueños” (Hopgood).4 In this way, younger followers share a space of belonging with Zefirante as well as with a larger community of adult artist-activists. Zefirante is ready for the next storm but refuses its inevitability, as he passes on a legacy of responsibility to his young followers, future guardians of the environment.

Relief Efforts At an April 2021 symposium hosted at the University of Florida, organized by Drs. Colleen Rua and Rachel Carrico, and featuring a panel that included Y no había luz’s co-founders Yari Helfeld and Julio Morales, scholar Antonio Sajid Lopez noted, “Puerto Ricans are not waiting to be rescued. They are rising up themselves” (Lopez). In the wake of Hurricane Maria, notable Puerto Rican Broadway performers, who did not experience the storm firsthand, engaged in relief efforts that acknowledged their own place within the Puerto Rican diaspora. Marc Anthony, who appeared as Sal in the original Broadway production of The Capeman, and Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness, traveled to San Juan to speak with local leaders and experts in public health in the week following the storm. This led Anthony and ex-wife Jennifer Lopez to establish Somos Una Voz, an alliance of artists with a combined one billion social media followers working to provide food, shelter, medicine, power, and communications to those impacted by disaster. Somos Una Voz and their advisory panel of experts established Somos + Salud, with the goal of creating a long-term healthcare plan for children impacted by the disaster. In 2018, Anthony returned to Puerto Rico to deliver a mobile children’s clinic to Salud Inegral en la Montaña in Orocovis, 40 km southwest of San Juan. Anthony commented, “Our goal was to help provide immediate and long-term relief to as many communities as possible” (Lassalle). Establishing sustainable systems of long-term support was also essential for Anthony Ramos (Usnavi, In the Heights film; John Laurens/Philip Hamilton, Hamilton) and director Spike Lee when they partnered to deliver money and other resources to various organizations on the island as part of an episode of Netflix’s She’s Gotta Have It. The episode, #OhJudoKnow, written by Nuyorican Lemon Andersen, enacts multiple sites of witness through fictional and non-fictional representation. The cast dually performs as their characters and as themselves as they interact with community members from several organizations, including Instituto de Subcultura and Taller Salud.5 The episode is anchored by acts of defiant joy: first in Mars Blackman’s (Ramos) opening monologue in which he indicts Christopher Columbus for Taíno genocide and Puerto Rican

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oppression; and later in the episode, as he and a group of Puerto Rican children ride bicycles and sing “La Borinqueña.”6 The monologue is sonically and visually appealing. Mars’ pop culture references are infused with poetic rhythms as he calls out Columbus as a murderer and pillager and merges past and present by invoking the names of present-day Christophers (“#OhJudoKnow”). A watercolor rendition of rapper Big Pun (Christopher Rios) and photographs of rapper Biggie Smalls (Christopher Wallace) and actor/comedian Chris Rock alternate with shots of Mars in front of colorfully painted buildings in San Juan. The island’s natural beauty is showcased throughout the episode as well, but reminders of the gravity of the situation are present including two spray-painted signs, “No nos abandones” and “Please bring agua y comida.” 7 These signs warn that a one-time visit will not solve long-term problems of food insecurity and economic violence. By performing first-response actions in fictional and non-fictional contexts, She’s Gotta Have It communicates a commitment to action and accountability. Anderson notes: We had these conversations about the life-term effort. Not just being in the short term or the long term, but for the life term. When you give to an organization, or you give to a community…[you] have to be a part of it forever. ( Jackson) The central Broadway figure attached to sustainable Puerto Rican relief efforts is Lin-Manuel Miranda. The Hurricane Relief Fund sends text messages “from” Miranda; Miranda’s face, looking like a presidential candidate, appears on a billboard in his father’s hometown of Vega Alta, next to the words “Yo soy Vega Alta; Tours of Hamilton in 2019 and In the Heights (postponed and ultimately canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic) to San Juan were initiated as fundraising efforts.”8 Miranda became the face of the Hispanic Federation (led by his father, Luis Miranda, Jr.) and the Flamboyán Arts Fund in the effort to recuperate and revitalize a post-Hurricane Maria island. Miranda’s activism has been shaped by his Puerto Rican identity, as well as what Courtney Bliss refers to as “raptivism,” that depends on his identity as a hip-hop and rap artist (Bliss, 12). His musical and linguistic interventions are rooted in bilingualism and rap and mark moments in his evolution as a “healer” figure, which has not been without controversy. He has been both lauded and criticized for his philanthropic work in response to events in Puerto Rico. His father has come under fire for the Hispanic Federation’s involvement with corporate entities. The Miranda’s support of the PROMESA act, their appearance at a gathering of Nuyoricans in Union Square to support Puerto Ricans’ demand for the resignation of Governor Ricardo Roselló, and their involvement in proposed corporate intervention in the Puerto Rican coffee industry

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are all examples of ways in which their philanthropy has become entangled with disaster capitalism. Despite these controversies, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s cultural capital continues to increase in value, fed by his consistent presence in the lives of multiple audiences. As Elena Machado Sáez notes in her thorough analysis of Miranda’s activities on Twitter, Miranda often “blurs the line between personal, profitable, and political,” while participating in an “emotional debt economy in which he provides an excess of expressions of appreciation and gratitude for his followers so that they feel indebted to him” (Sáez). The development of this emotional debt economy parallels Miranda’s transformation from composer-lyricist-rapper to “fixer,” “giver,” “responder,” and “healer,” which began within the context of his theatrical work before moving to offstage interventions. One year after In the Heights’ debuted, countering The Capeman’s criminal stereotypes, Miranda continued a process of “fixing,” by translating lyrics and dialogue for the 2009 bilingual Broadway revival of West Side Story. Several musical numbers, including I Feel Pretty and A Boy Like That, took on Spanish lyrics.9 During this process, Miranda’s work transitioned from “a fix” to what more closely resembled an attempt at a healing intervention. According to B.A. van der Kolk and Onno van der Hart, “traumatic memory cannot be accessed on a linguistic level. Failure to arrange words in music or symbols leaves it to be organized on a somatosensory or iconic level” (qtd. in Taylor, Trauma and Performance, 1675). Miranda’s translations, however, attempt to use language as a tool by which characters can access and transform trauma. The symptom (the source language, English) is treated by the cure (the target language, Spanish), yet evidence of the symptom remains, bubbling underneath the cure by virtue of West Side Story’s iconic status. In grafting the target language onto the source language, Miranda grafts a wound inflicted by patriarchal trauma endured by Maria and Anita while exposing the wounds inflicted by the colonial trauma of an Anglo-created musical. New, Spanish lyrics empowered the “virginal” Maria and “sexy” Anita to occupy spaces previously inaccessible to them. Maria and Anita newly possess the linguistic capability to engage with trauma as the relief of translation is performed upon their bodies. By altering meaning through the translation process, Maria, who had previously marveled at “such a pretty dress” and “such a pretty face,” celebrates her curves while envisioning herself a goddess, unmatched by any star. A devastated Anita sings only in Spanish after Bernardo’s death. Despite this act of linguistic rehabilitation, lyrics reverted to English after just five months into the revival’s almost two-year run, when producers deemed that the Spanish “didn’t have quite the same impact,” as the English lyrics (Healy). This decision retraumatizes and is symptomatic of the American musical as a colonizing force. The version that reverted back to English left in its wake the memory of the bilingual version, a sort of scar tissue as evidence of its healing process. The ephemera of the event is

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memorialized in recordings that, along with the bilingual text, form an archive of defiant joy, protesting and persisting over time.

“Almost Like Praying” In October 2017, Miranda crossed a threshold, becoming a “responder,” with the relief-driven “Almost Like Praying.” A timely effort, the three-minute song debuted on October 6, two weeks after Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico. It opened a space to engage with the disaster while attempting to reshape it by constructing new meanings and focusing on recovery. The collaborative engagement of both island and stateside artists musically linked Broadway and Puerto Rico. Composed by Miranda, “Almost Like Praying” featured vocals by him along with a number of other Latinx-identifying artists united under the name “Artists for Puerto Rico.” The intergenerational group of multi-genre hitmakers and stars of stage and screen included Marc Anthony, Ruben Blades, Rita Moreno, Jennifer Lopez, Camila Cabello, Gloria Estefan, Luis Fonsi, John Leguizamo, Gina Rodriguez, and others, representing Latin America, the Caribbean, and the states. “Almost Like Praying” samples the iconic Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim collaboration, “Maria,” from West Side Story. It begins with lyrics from the classic. “Say it loud and there’s music playing; say it soft and it’s almost like praying” are sung acapella by Miranda before a hip-hop infused salsa beat kicks in (Laurents et al.). The lyrics of “Almost Like Praying” are comprised of the names of cities and towns in Puerto Rico, with phrases like “te adoro” and “te quiero” attached to some.10 The song includes lyrics both rapped and sung to a clave beat and the sound of the Puerto Rican coquí frog can be heard at the outro. Proceeds from the song were donated to the Hispanic Federation’s Disaster Relief and Recovery Program. Multiple traumas of “Maria” are transformed throughout the song. Like the translation of West Side Story, “Almost like Praying” employs Miranda’s characteristic facility with language as it engages in acts that signal symptom and cure, while transforming meaning. Symptoms of colonial, patriarchal, and migrant-related trauma are repeated through the sampling of the melody and lyrics of “Maria,” as the name and sounds recall the on- and offstage traumas perpetrated by the Anglo-created West Side Story. As the song progresses, the Maria of West Side Story is replaced by the Virgin Mary as the words “almost like praying” underscore the naming of locations in Puerto Rico. “Maria” is invoked to heal the individual and social bodies that occupy these spaces. This meditative “Maria” acknowledges the Maria that has traumatized the island but reclaims the sound of the name and transforms it into prayer. In this way, the song performs multiple acts of healing. Cultural healing is enacted by deconstructing Maria’s ties to the musical. Spiritual healing is enacted through the invocation of the Virgin Mary. Disaster healing is enacted through

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fundraising efforts. The traumatic event of the hurricane is transformed by virtue of d­ efiant joy, which is also manifested here in several ways. First, through the engagement of geography and collective memory as each city and town is named. These names still stand, despite what the storm has destroyed. Next, through symbology and collective representation in the sound of the coquí. The tiny frog with a big voice represents a small island with an amplified voice. Finally, through the music and collective sound of salsa, hip-hop, and rap. Upbeat rhythms juxtaposed against the classical melody enact Lorde’s aforementioned “joy as energy for change” model as listeners witness a transformation of “Maria” over the course of the three-minute composition. Miranda’s parallel transformation into “healer” is seen in the accompanying video for “Almost Like Praying,” and the weight of his status is evident, even in this collaborative effort. The first shot is of Puerto Rico’s iconic El Morro national monument, before moving to a shot of Miranda in the recording studio. When paired with the image of El Morro, Miranda, too, becomes a site of Puerto Rico, an embodied monument of place. Next, Marc Anthony, standing next to Miranda, marks himself with the sign of the cross, establishing the event as a spiritual experience, led by Miranda, who conducts it. In one especially poignant moment Miranda, Rubén Blades, and Mark Anthony appear together. This is significant, not only because of Anthony’s Puerto Rican roots but also because the two men shared the titular role in The Capeman. Here, a symbolic fulfillment of Miranda’s aim to “fix” The Capeman is embodied and voiced by three artists united to aid Puerto Rico. Responses to the song from Puerto Rican-identifying fans have been overwhelmingly positive and reinforce the importance of its use of place-naming. “When he said ‘San Sebastián’ i lost it and i got so excited and felt so proud bc that’s where my family is from, and I’ve never heard anyone acknowledge San Sebastián in a song before (sic)” (Vertes). Comments like this one reinforce a sense of belonging associated with public communication that Craig Calhoun argues “knits and mobilizes diverse groups of strangers into a common identity and undertaking” (Calhoun, 547–548). This sense of belonging is reflected in participation by artists from Cuba, Venezuela, Panama, and the Dominican Republic, which moves the effort beyond the island, creating a proposed system of diasporic healing that is pan-Latin, pan-musical, and intergenerational. In “Almost like Praying,” public communication intersects with place-belongingness, a state that arises from “an individual’s attachment to a familiar locality, territory, geographic place or symbolic space that gives one a feeling of being ‘attached to and rooted’ and where one feels comfortable, secure and at home” (Antonsich, 647). “Almost Like Praying” can be read as a witness to trauma as it takes on co-ownership of it through music, sound, and the many Puerto Rican-identifying bodies and voices that lend themselves to the collaboration. “Almost Like Praying” is perhaps Miranda’s

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most successful transformative model of relief-driven performance. Other efforts have been met with more controversy.

Hamilton Tour Hamilton spurred what Sáez calls Miranda’s “grateful caretaker persona,” and what Laura MacDonald calls “a culture of generosity” around the musical (Sáez; MacDonald, 40). This culture of generosity has been well documented by scholars and well marketed by Miranda’s publicity team.11 As his celebrity eventually coincided with Hurricane Maria’s landfall, Miranda’s acts transcended the stage and became tactics of first response. Yet, Miranda’s status as “giver,” especially in relation to Puerto Rico, has been challenged by acts that reiterated or exacerbated trauma. In an April 2017 interview with CBS Sunday Morning’s Erin Moriarty, Miranda was asked, regarding relief efforts, “What is expected of you, as a Puerto Rican?” He responded: Well, it’s complicated, because I didn’t grow up here, so it’s this weird mix of I will do anything to support the island, but I also don’t for a second pretend I know what’s best for the island, because I don’t live here…My job is to amplify the concerns of Puerto Rico. (CBS Interactive) Such attempts have been complicated by Miranda’s celebrity, his family’s philanthropic involvement, his status as a “mainlander,” and a mistrust of relief efforts considering the government’s lack of response to need. As Naomi Klein notes, “resource scarcity and climate change provid[e] a steadily increasing flow of new disasters, [whereby] responding to emergencies is simply too hot an emerging market to be left to the nonprofits” (Klein, 16). While Miranda’s relief efforts are mobilized through nonprofit entities, the line between for-profit and non-profit was blurred with the 2019 Hamilton tour to Puerto Rico, and ethical concerns were highlighted. Miranda’s announcement of the tour was met with University of Puerto Rico student protesters holding signs with slogans like “Our lives are not your theatre” and statements pointing to the glorification of enslavers in Hamilton (Pollack-Pelzner). By entering the geographical site of multiple traumas, Hamilton sparked Perry’s migratory nature of grief, penetrating an open wound. Miranda’s support of the PROMESA Act further aligned him with measures that reaffirmed Puerto Rico’s colonial status. The 2016 Federal Law, which established a financial oversight board of 7 US-appointed members, instituted austerity measures that exacerbated economic hardship and included budget cuts and tuition hikes at the University of Puerto Rico, where Hamilton was set to perform. After non-teaching employees whose benefits had been threatened by the university communicated plans

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for protest, then-governor Ricardo Roselló offered the Centro de Bellas Artes as a new venue. The move further complicated the issue by linking Miranda to the pro-statehood Roselló. Onstage, though, Miranda used the curtain call to demonstrate his commitment to the island by waving a full-sized Puerto Rican flag. Daniel Pollack-Pelzner recalls his Air B&B host in San Juan celebrating the moment. “When Lin-Manuel takes out the flag, it’s like, Yes, we exist” (Pollack-Pelzner). Miranda’s flag performance not only celebrates Puerto Rico in defiance of a hurricane but also affirms his own Puerto Rican identity through co-ownership of the Hurricane Maria period. By claiming witness to the event, he justifies his status as “responder” in the face of criticism, a status that empowers him to validate his Puerto Rican audience. David Korins’ scenic elements migrated to Puerto Rico for the tour, including the turntable that forms the production’s centerpiece. It is actually two pieces: an inner circle, surrounded by a ring, both of which can move independently. The turntable is a temporal marker, slowing, stopping, and rewinding time. When time rewinds, it moves counterclockwise, replicating the pattern of a Northern Hemispheric hurricane. In Act II, Hamilton sings, “In the eye of a hurricane/there is quiet/just for a moment/a yellow sky” (Miranda, 2015). Here, Hamilton enacts survivorship while bearing witness to its audience through shared geographic space. The turntables are still, and a swirling breakup pattern on the floor suggests a hurricane, with Hamilton standing in its eye. As he recounts his experience as a hurricane survivor and his migration to New York, the turntable begins to move counterclockwise. Hamilton remembers his resilience as ensemble choreography begins to swirl around him. Suddenly, he is brought back to the moment of the hurricane and lights change to blue as the ensemble snaps into slow motion, holding pieces of furniture at various angles in re-creations of two storms, nearly 250 years apart. Accounts of the moment report a hush falling over the crowd. “I feel like I’m going back to Maria when I sing it,” Miranda explained (Pollack-Pelzner). With this comment, Miranda again asserts co-ownership of the event. Korins remarks that the turntable “stands for permanence and foundation and sturdiness” (Catlin). Yet, the turntable was built to tour; it must come apart and back together easily. The turntable’s migration to the island not only enacts the descent of a hurricane but also connotes a sense of sturdiness or strength required to migrate. When performed in San Juan with Miranda in the title role, Hamilton becomes part of the Hurricane Maria narrative, reshaping cultural memory of relief efforts. Hamilton’s resilience becomes a surrogate for Puerto Rico’s resilience. Naomi Klein notes, “the best way to recover from helplessness turns out to be helping – having the right to be part of a communal recovery” (Klein, 560). With relief-driven efforts, Miranda seeks not only to promote his work and provide relief; he seeks the right to be a part of community recovery. He seeks the opportunity to witness and to heal himself as he

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reconciles his relationship with Puerto Rico. This is most evident in the Discover Puerto Rico series.

Discover Puerto Rico The final episode of the Discover Puerto Rico series, “Coffee,” continues to anchor Miranda to the island, but it is also the most controversial. In 2018, the Hispanic Federation partnered with Starbucks, Nespresso, and the Rockefeller Foundation to rebuild the coffee industry in Puerto Rico, raising red flags about the project as a potential disaster economy, with major players not only profiting from the project, but also the potential threat of genetically modified seeds damaging soil and further contributing to climate change. In the episode, Miranda displays a small tattoo on his right leg, a coffee cup with steam rising from inside. Discover Puerto Rico positions viewers as tourists, and as Tamara Underiner notes, such moments “empower the audience, who must now make meanings from the consumption of these spectacles, which become their souvenirs of a cultural experience” (Underiner, 182). Miranda, as a canvas for his tattoo, becomes a souvenir of the Discover Puerto Rico experience and, by extension, of Puerto Rico. The first episode of the Discover Puerto Rico series ends with a circle of artists embracing. They are the members of the Y no había luz theatre collective, one of the first recipients of a Flamboyán Arts Fund grant and a recipient of a $25,000 Hispanic Federation Grant. The corresponding Discover Puerto Rico website features an image of two tiny wooden chairs, small enough to sit in the palm of a hand. On one, sits a heart. On the other, a kite. Both are decorated to resemble the Puerto Rican flag (discoverpuertorico.com). These chairs are part of a visual art installation, Circo de la Ausencia (Circus of Absence), created by Y no había luz in 2015, prior to Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

Y No Había Luz Since 2005, the Y no había luz theatre collective has produced work with a mission to “provide artistic experiences that awaken sensitivity, beauty, creativity, freedom of thought and spirit, conscience, solidarity, and social justice in Puerto Rico and the world” (ynohabialuz.com). The collective’s work is characterized by its interdisciplinary and highly collaborative approach. The group is comprised of seven core members who met while studying at the University of Puerto Rico and who have been influenced by Bread and Puppet Theatre, Bertolt Brecht, Augusto Boal, and Pedro Adorno, who still serves as a mentor. Yari Helfeld studied modern dance; Julio Morales is a visual artist, graphic designer, and puppet-maker; Yussef Soto studied clowning; Pedro Bonilla is the collective’s videographer; Nami Helfeld is an actor, director, and filmmaker; Carlos Torres is also a

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member of the experimental dance group Danza Experimental H ­ incapié; and Francisco Iglesias is a trained magician. Their offerings blend theatre, dance, music, film, visual art, puppets, whimsy, and mischief. An aim toward social justice is evident in much of their devised work. Their devising process beings with a provocation, typically a word, for example, “absence.” Using this provocation, each member writes in a stream of consciousness. Next, they draw images inspired by their words. The group then identifies the strongest images, the feelings they evoke, and the characters and stories that might emerge from these provocations. Then, they play, embodying and theatricalizing those images and feelings. The group’s repertoire becomes the archive, which feeds new repertoire. A throughline of joy – in process, product, and organizational structure – guides the collective. From an affective perspective, joy is “the pleasant state experienced when one has made progress toward important personal goals” (Lazarus, 1991). “Phenomenologically, joy feels bright and light. Colors seem more vivid. Physical movements become more fluid. Smiles become difficult to suppress. Joy broadens people’s attention and thinking. [R]epeated experiences of joy are thought to build people’s resources for survival” (Fredrickson, 2009: 230). From a social justice perspective, Audre Lorde characterizes joy as a “source of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change” (2000: 88). YNHL’s aesthetics of care links phenomenological experiences of joy with Lorde’s model to enact care-based solidarity that is specifically grounded in defiant joy. What emerges from YNHL’s work is an ongoing practice of care-based solidarity, defined in this context as collaborative acts of activism toward a goal of positive forward movement carried out through performances that transform collective trauma into healing. For YNHL, the interdependence that accompanies notions of solidarity not only indicates a relationality between individuals and communities but one that is inclusive of natural resources as well. Their care-based solidarity practice includes intergenerational participatory experiences, the repetition of familiar characters, the recreation of disaster juxtaposed against celebration, and a shared sense of responsibility in storytelling. In practice, YNHL’s model of care-based solidarity moves concentrically outward; first in practicing care among members of the collective, then in long-term relationships with impacted communities, then with the Puerto Rican diaspora. This model is also characterized by an attempt to transform cultural memory of disastrous events by inviting participants to explore their own roles as caretakers and by galvanizing young people through what Lawrence Wilde calls “ecological movements extending solidarity to future generations” (2007: 174). In doing so, YNHL and the communities that they serve are partners in resistance, healing, confronting injustice, and raising awareness. Within the context of this model, participants become active agents in their own healing through hope-motivated processes of belonging. This is significant for

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the future of relief-based, community-engaged theatre both on the island and within the Puerto Rican diaspora, as hurricane, earthquake, pandemic, mass migration, and economic violence have changed the ways in which island-based artists create. YNHL’s model of care-based solidarity is exemplified by several works: Diego el Ciego, Centinela de Mangó, a summer 2021 workshop series and the short films Zefirante en Cuarentena (2020) and Cruzando el Charco (2021). Diego el Ciego In a short film to celebrate their 15th anniversary, Y no había luz explores the question “Que lo es esencial?”12 This question repeatedly resurfaces for the collective as they continue to navigate the impact of hurricane, earthquake, and a global pandemic. In the days following Hurricanes Irma and Maria, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz called on Y no había luz to provide workshops for families housed in shelters indefinitely. Unsure as to whether or not their presence would be helpful or a hindrance, members of the collective responded by loading a car with materials and visiting displaced communities across the island. Co-founder Nami Helfeld says: La participación de nosotros que trabajamos con el arte, que no es comida, que no es una planta eléctrica, que no es una cosa de lo se poder llamar una premier necessidad… queremos venir a compartir lo que sabemos hacer; lo que podemos compartir porque es lo que tenemos.13 (“Barrio Bartolo,” 0:00–0:29) Helfeld’s tentative acknowledgment of the value of YNHL’s resources illustrates tensions that arise in the formation of a model of care-based solidarity within the context of disasters, where connections between expectancy, instrumentality, and valence are tenuous. While the collective was willing to expend effort, whether or not that effort would trigger outcomes, and whether or not those outcomes would be considered valuable, remained unknown. In Puerto Rico, a sense of uncertainty has been compounded by a lack of trust in those expected to engage in ethical caring. The Trump administration’s withdrawal of aid after Hurricane Maria, the ensuing privatization of electrical utilities, economic violence, and political corruption that led to the resignation of Governor Ricardo Roselló, all damaged a sense of trust in potential caretakers. Several factors allowed the collective to engender trust within displaced communities. First, the artist-activists of YNHL were also directly impacted by the hurricane, sharing the traumatic experience of disaster with the community members that they visited. Second, YNHL spent multiple days working with community groups and continued to collaborate with them. Finally, their work was guided by a philosophy handed down by their mentor Pedro Adorno, who uses the motto: “we don’t educate, we listen” (2021, personal communication, 25 June). Shared experience, long-term investment, and

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positioning themselves as learners, rather than experts, allowed YNHL to build trust with their participants. Despite hesitation caused by uncertainty as to how their visit would be received, YNHL was nonetheless empowered by the resources that they did have, including puppets, masks, and a repertoire of theatre games, as well as by their own hurricane experiences, to access pathways to performances of care. After hearing stories from members of the community, YNHL shared a performance piece that introduced audiences to their participatory style. In Diego el Ciego (Diego the Blind Boy), audience members witnessed an infant named Diego, a two-dimensional cardboard puppet, who loses his sight in a terrible accident. Immediately following the accident, the audience was told by narrator Yussef Soto, “Diego fue un niño feliz. Pues en el mundo Diego, todo es possible” (“Diego was a happy child. Well, in Diego’s world, everything is possible”). Diego went on to undertake death-defying feats, including riding a roller coaster that launched him into outer space. As he prepared for the ride, Diego transformed into a three-dimensional papier mâché puppet, the size of a small child. He was passed overhead from the back of the audience toward the onstage roller coaster. As audience members supported Diego physically, they ensured that he arrived safely to his destination. At first, some audience members cradled Diego, but as their phenomenological experiences of joy grew, their thinking broadened and Diego was lifted higher above their heads. They began chanting “Diego! Diego! Diego!,” feeling lighter as they laughed, squealed, and cheered him on in support. As Diego was passed from hand to hand, group investment in the child seemed to grow. Individual audience members invested in Diego’s journey were united as caretakers, entrusting each other to reach their mutual goal, extending Lazarus’s individual marker of joy to one that is interdependent. As Naomi Klein (2007) notes in her work on artists’ response to Hurricane Katrina, “the best way to recover from helplessness turns out to be helping – having the right to be part of a communal recovery” (560). United joyfully in pursuit of their goal, artists and audience were empowered to use joy as energy for change in a collaborative act of activism in which they defied obstacles. They facilitated Diego’s transformation from a child limited by trauma into one whose abilities became limitless. Through acts of defiant joy and care-based solidarity, Diego gained agency and power. While the audience enacted care-based solidarity within performance, YNHL became a site of care-based solidarity practice as well. In constructing space for the group to perform an act of care unrelated to the hurricane, YNHL cared for the audience, shifting focus away from current circumstances. This offered the audience a moment of relief while building trust and the willingness to take collective action. In presenting Diego el Ciego, YNHL encouraged the community to reconsider their own limitations and possibilities that might arise through caretaking as an act of solidarity.

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The value of the collective’s resources, among them joy, was recognized most passionately by a community leader in Barrio Lares, on the central western side of the island. Alejandro Román Hernández commented, “Ustedes estan hacienda un trabajo de first response…es levantandole el alma aun espiritu que esta caido…es necesaria su ayuda…es una cosa indispensable” (“Barrio Bartolo,” 0:29–1:25).14 “When we heard that,” Morales said, “there was no question [as to whether or not] we were doing the right thing” (Morales). Alemán words validated the collective’s participation and established a mutually beneficial and sustainable relationship of care between artists and community. It was through caring for the community that YNHL elicited positive responses that affirmed their roles as artists, responders, respected members of the community, and their work as essential to healing processes. Artists and communities alike shared responsibility not only for creating and carrying out artistic work but also for rebuilding community spirit. It empowered the collective to move forward with a confident will to care, as they witnessed their work making a significant impact.

Community Collaboration Y no había luz has been a source of healing for impacted communities and for each other. Simultaneously functioning as survivors, witnesses, and responders, Y no había luz occupies the same geographic space as those whose stories they embody; they are the “I” and the “you” of Taylor’s archive and repertoire (The Archive and the Repertoire, 218). For the collective, artmaking in the face of disaster is not only about survival but also about celebration and a transformation of the very forces that attempt to stamp out or devalue joy, which they deem a human necessity. Defiant joy manifests itself throughout their work in the repetition of narratives reimagined in various forms. Familiar characters appear in visual art installations, children’s books, family engagement workshops, and theatrical performances. These multiple iterations activate afterlives for each story that extend beyond performance to give audiences access to reenact, reshape, and re-remember events and, as Taylor notes, “[transmit] communal memories, histories, and values from one group/generation to the next” (The Archive and the Repertoire, 21). Even as they explore the challenges of the island/stateside relationship and the impact that the idea of “absence” had over the course of the COVID-19 global pandemic, playfulness and hope permeate their work. Their repertoire becomes an archive of relief-based performance, a catalog of resources with which the group can continue to explore and transform the long-lasting impact of these disasters. In 2015, Jorge González noted that Y no había luz had “impacted their community with new ways of performing the city” (González, 78). More recently, the collective has transcended the city boundaries of San Juan

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to perform Puerto Rico and, even further, to perform the Puerto Rican diaspora. Y no había luz’s relief work moves concentrically outward to collaborate with audiences who occupy different spaces and experiences of trauma. Most immediately, their own long-term collaboration allows them to act as first responders to each other, earning their right to communal recovery. In the days following Hurricane Maria, the group celebrated member Yussef Soto’s 35th birthday, gathering at his father’s store, where the roof had collapsed. While repairing the roof, Soto fell from a ladder, sustaining minor injuries. Helfeld remembers: We cried, not because of the hurricane, or the roof, or Yussef falling. We cried because we were so grateful to be together, celebrating a birthday. And now we take a lot of care with each other, checking in. Now we do everything with love. (Helfeld) The collective considers love a serious, essential, and active part of their daily practice, so much so that the organizational structure of the organization now includes the words “with love” in the title of every committee. Y no había luz’s ability to mobilize as responders depends upon acts of healing within their internal community. Next, the group collaborates with communities across the island, listening and co-creating. Shared joy is particularly relevant for Y no había luz in their work with young people. In a June 2021 summer camp program with students aged 12–15, Y no había luz led a devising process that began with a “mapa del cuerpo” exercise. Each participant, assisted by another participant, traced an outline of their body on a large sheet of paper. As popular music of their choice played, participants shared markers and colored pencils, chattily and giggly visiting each other’s mapas. They were instructed to fill in each part of the body with images and words in response to a series of questions: what do you want to eliminate from the world? (head); what are you feeling? (chest); what do you want to create? (arms/hands); where do you want to go? (legs). In response to the first question, there were three answers: poverty, hurricanes, and COVID. As young survivors, shared joy provides a language of common understanding and a space of solidarity. In performance, the mapas were rolled up and shaped to become puppet versions of the participants, dancing to their poetic words of frustration and hope. Charles Snyder’s theory of hope hinges on a three-step process of agency and pathways: having goal-oriented thoughts, developing strategies to achieve goals, and being motivated to expend effort to achieve these goals (Snyder, 46). The mapa del cuerpo devising process simulates these stages at individual and social levels. Goal-oriented thoughts are initiated by the questions, then expressed individually on the mapa before becoming a part of a group pathway, which will inform further devising practices. Goals

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are adopted through a formalized sharing and acceptance by the group, as well as through informal engagement during the initial stages of the process, through which preteen and teenage participants shape and rehearse identity narratives. Here, multiple operations of belonging are enacted. Shared goals, ideas, rituals, experiences, memories, and emotions constitute the group and shape group identity. Yet, there is a sense that an individual sense of belonging is not agentic, or as Amanda Mooney and Chris Hickey argue, belonging is “done to you.” Christine Halse points to identity narratives as “partial, incomplete, performance[s] [that] reflect who individuals believe they are but also who they desire to be” (Halse, 9). In the mapa del cuerpo exercise, participants articulate who they believe they are and who they desire to be by virtue of their relationality to the hurricane, to other participants, to workshop and performance spaces, and to their puppets. Within the context of performance, operations of belonging shift, where both participants and puppets become agents of belonging. In mapa del cuerpo, strategies to achieve articulated goals are embodied in performance, which, in turn, becomes a rehearsal of potential outcomes, giving participants and audience a preview of how hope might be realized. The mapa del cuerpo ensemble performed in the courtyard at San Juan’s Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, which, along with the Y no había luz theatre space, became sites of place-belonging for the young artists. Antonsich assigns four factors to place-belonging: personal experience (including memory), relational factors at a particular place, cultural factors that evoke a “warm sensation of community,” and being among people who are like oneself (Antonsich, 647–648). During the summer 2021 workshops, the Y no había luz theatre space became a significant site of place-belonging, both because it was unable to be used during the pandemic and because for 100% of the summer workshop participants, it was the first time they had shared this kind of in-person experience since the pandemic began. In revitalizing the space, the ensemble reshaped their own pandemic experiences while imprinting pathways of healing into the room. The architecture of the museum courtyard’s roof and its atmosphere evoke a greenhouse, further positioning the performers in relation to their environmental activist identities. While the use of the courtyard was, in part, dictated by outdoor and social distancing regulations, the positionality of the ensemble in this space is worth mentioning. Here, the belonging that is “done to” the ensemble is simultaneously inclusive and exclusive. They perform in a space shared by artists whose work is critically acclaimed. At the same time, they perform adjacent to it. In but adjacent. Belonging, but unbelonging. Centinela de Mangó Y no había luz transforms traumatic expression through community participation, often engaging co-owners of trauma in reinterpretations of events, as they did with the previously discussed multidisciplinary performance piece in response to Hurricane Maria, Centinela de Mangó

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(The Mango Sentinel), which was immediately identified by community ­members as an act of relief. Klein calls such interventions “People’s Renewal, which function to [build] in resilience – for when the next shock hits” (Klein, 249). Y no había luz’s hurricane relief work was still underway when the next shock hit: earthquakes struck southwest Puerto Rico, ushering in 2020. That was quickly followed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented the collective from traveling to meet with families. In a demonstration of resilience and first response, Y no había luz quickly pivoted, re-envisioning the format of Centinela de Mangó as a series of virtual workshops. During “Verano Zefirante,” attendees included families from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Chile, and the Dominican Republic. Throughout the process, children and their adult companions engaged in theatre, music, dance, and puppet-making as they became zefirantes themselves, constructing and wearing the zefirantes’ signature hat and collar. By embodying the character, participants were empowered to add their own voices to stories of healing. While learning about caring for the environment, they created masks in the shape of Puerto Rico. Rather than hiding behind the mask or wearing it over the nose and mouth for protection, the mask was displayed as a mark of pride and celebration, unifying the audience, who had now actively taken part in transforming the hurricane and reshaping collective memory. The circumstances of the hurricane mingled with those of the pandemic. Centinela de Mangó continues to function as a site of defiant joy, protest, and recovery, as it informs new work. While short films have been a consistent part of Y no había luz’s repertoire, the COVID-19 global pandemic centered their filmmaking in 2020 and 2021 as they were unable to host live audiences. The 15-minute Zefirante en Cuarentena premiered on Facebook Live on December 15, 2020. Cruzando el Charco, a ten-minute film commissioned by the School of Theatre and Dance at the University of Florida and co-curated by Colleen Rua and Rachel Carrico, previewed at a webinar, “Disaster and the Body,” in April 2021 and will become part of a larger work. Zefirante en Cuarentena In Zefirante en Cuarentena, the audience witnesses Zefirante as he attempts to navigate life in quarantine. In the film, he is half-human and half-puppet, played by Carlos José “Gandul” Torres who dons the cabezudo of Zefirante.15 We first meet Zefirante to the tune of dreamlike music as he tosses and turns, trying to sleep. He awakens to a day of mundane tasks: washing dishes, sweeping the floor, and scanning the fridge for snacks. Another series of tasks highlight Zefirante’s isolation: putting on a mask, gloves, and spraying his entire body with sanitizer. He tries to find delight in riding a tiny bicycle and tries to find calm in yoga. He is finally inspired by the plants that grow just outside his door. As Zefirante interacts with the plants, sniffing, watering, really noticing them, dreamlike

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slow-motion camerawork kicks in. The moment is suspended in time and is one in which Zefirante is able to transcend his current circumstance by finding gratitude for the bit of nature in front of him. It is as though he and the plants tend to each other. He begins to create, using strips of cardboard and paint. Gazing longingly through a wall of windows to the world outside, an idea strikes. In an act of People’s Renewal, “start[ing] from scrap, from the rubble that is all around,” he paints an image of Earth on the inside of a trash can lid (Klein, 413). Surveying for its completeness, he lovingly adds a mask onto the face of the planet, protecting it. Zefirante begins to display his work across the windows, asking the world outside: “¿Qué es lo esencial?” The answers to his question are at once simple and profound, each painted on a sign: “Agua,” “Salud,” “Familia,” “Respirar,” “Amor,” “Bañarse,” “Aprender,” “Sembrar,” and “Justicia.”16 Zefirante’s protest is staged in isolation. Yet, as the camera pulls away from the windows, the building, the sounds of traffic outside, finally resting in the dense trees beyond the city, the viewer is reminded that pandemic isolation is a shared experience. The collective is called to action. “Luchar contra todo aquello que contamine la vida.”17 Zefirante en Cuarentena highlights viewers’ own isolation while offering the comfort of a space to share with Zefirante. He often breaks the fourth wall, seemingly making eye contact with the viewer, despite the fact that his eyes carry a fixed expression. Torres’ ability to connect to the viewer is remarkable and speaks to both the magic of the collective’s collaborative art direction and Torres’ nimble physicality that work together to create a character, capturing both the free-spiritedness of the spritely elf and the longing of being cooped up. In a nondiscursive acting through, Torres’ movement provides an embodied language that constructs Lorde’s bridge of understanding as ways of knowing trauma and healing that are grounded in defiant joy.

Cruzando el Charco While in COVID quarantine, the members of the collective were physically absent from each other for over a year, unable to fully engage in their creative work and feeling a lack of human connection. For Puerto Ricans, including the 300,000 residents who migrated post-hurricane, the pandemic exacerbated a sense of absence as inaccessible routes between the island and the United States highlighted the distance between them. Despite such difficult subject matter, playfulness and hope permeate YNHL’s work. Moreover, their work actively protests the devaluation and dismissal of joy which the collective considers a human necessity, furthering Fredrickson’s claim (2009: 230), introduced earlier that repeated experiences of joy may build resources for survival. In the midst of uncertainty, the playfulness with which the collective approaches and realizes

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their work recalls Maria Lugones’s emphasis on community-building in which she calls playfulness a “combination of not worrying about competence, not being self-important, not taking norms as sacred, and finding ambiguity and double edges a source of wisdom and delight” (1987: 17). Throughout their work, YNHL finds this wisdom and delight in song, dance, and most notably puppetry. In Cruzando el Charco, Y no había luz explores absence. It is felt immediately in the screen-mediated distance between performers and viewers. While the film reckons with uncertainty, fear of the unknown, and loss, it is led by an overwhelming sense of hope. Divided into three parts, it opens with an undulating ocean of blue and green tulle fabric. Several fish, manipulated by puppeteers, splash to the soothing sound of strings. Above the water, Funámbulo cautiously walks a tightrope that stretches precariously from one side of the frame to the other. He, too, is a puppet, manipulated by three puppeteers wearing black, with faces covered to bring focus to the isolated figure perched on the rope. One manipulates his feet, another his head, and the third provides his hands; human hands that clutch a small suitcase. Inside the case: a light. Perhaps his dreams, perhaps his memories. Funámbolo’s origin and destination are unclear. His liminality stirs feelings of absence and isolation around migration that loom large for Puerto Rico’s continued struggle against colonialism and a four-year pattern of preparation and recovery in the wake of (un)natural disasters. In part two, Buscando el Balance, Funámbulo demonstrates feats of fearless dexterity as he balances on one foot and dangles from the tightrope, using his hands to pull him across. He performs confidently and proudly, nearly forgetting his predicament, before a wave of insecurity causes him to sit on the rope and hold on. In part three, La Cuerda Frágil, Funámbulo uses his case to defend himself against a hungry alligator. When flames threaten to burn the rope, he opens his case, finding inside a beak attached to an elastic band. He slips the band over his head, beginning his transformation just in time for the rope to snap. As the camera pulls away, we see that not only does he have a beak but also a set of colorful wings. He is tired, and as he gets used to his new appendages, he moves in zigzag and circular patterns. Eventually, he finds his direction and flies slowly but surely toward his future. The evolution of Cruzando el Charco from visual art installation to live performance emphasizes the movement of migration and, through Funámbulo’s power of flight, transcends the idea of borders and of migration as a linear pattern. Like in the performance of Diego el Ciego, defiant joy helps Funámbulo to transform from someone who is limited to someone whose possibilities are limitless. Chris Meadows (2014) assigns transcendence as a dimension of joy “when one senses or has the feeling that he is moving, or has moved, soared, or passed beyond ordinary existence” (114). Funámbulo’s defiantly joyful acts permit a transcendent experience, where he quite literally rises above expectations of physical human experience. The

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Figure 4.1 Cruzando el Charco (2021). A puppet, balancing on a tightrope, reaches out to touch a colorful mermaid in Y no había luz’s short film, Cruzando el Charco. Photo courtesy of Y no había luz.

audience joins in this transcendence metaphorically, where they might envision finding new ways to rise above obstacles. Funámbulo’s obstacles are emetic, bursting forth from the ocean, and peripatetic, striking for just long enough to shake his steadiness. Yet, he persists, moving his body forward across the rope, and resists, illustrating Lorde’s model of joy as energy for change. He is dazzled by colorful fish and reaches out to touch one, grateful to connect with nature. As joy persists through obstacles, his movement becomes more fluid and he shows off his acrobatic skills, standing on one foot. Finally, he broadens his thinking. As Yari Helfeld notes, “he proposes doing something impossible. Perhaps we are at a time in society and in the world where it is up to people to do impossible things” (Proceso Presencial, 2021, 15:04–15:09). The joy that Funámbulo experiences in overcoming his obstacles allows him to transform into a bird and find another way toward a hopeful future. In alignment with Perry’s model, joy exists through pain and suffering for Funámbulo. Lorde’s and Perry’s models function together in Cruzando el Charco to create experiences of defiant joy for both Funámbulo and his audience. Funámbulo does not ignore his challenges but resists them by using joy as energy for transformation, for finding new ways to overcome obstacles. His defiantly joyful experience inspires viewers to find new ways of moving forward. In addition, it offers viewers permission to experience joy in the midst of grief and acknowledges that joy may be a resource for positive change. Zefirante en Cuarentena and Cruzando el Charco open transformative spaces of healing through an aesthetic of defiant joy. Zefirante and

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Funámbulo are both confined in different ways, but through joyful ­movement, actions, colors, and humor, they expand geographic and ideological space. By revisiting Zefirante in quarantine, an audience familiar with the collective’s work is reminded of his role in carrying out an environmental mission. Through shared isolation, viewers may reshape their own experience of the pandemic. In these afterlives, Y no había luz prompts action, ignites possibility, and joyfully celebrates the spirit of community. González notes that “with their performances, Y no había luz proposes new knowledges” (González, 80). Post-hurricane, they continue to propose new knowledges, and in doing so, they activate networks of healing for those impacted by disaster. Their work becomes therapeutic to the individual and to the collective. Participants in Verano Zefirante comment on their Instagram page, “Gracias a ustedes por su gran esfuerzo y por sembrar la semilla de un nuevo país” ( Jorge Aponte).18

Miranda and Y No Había Luz After Hurricane Maria, Lin-Manuel Miranda visited a number of islandbased artists, including the Y no había luz theatre collective. When asked how the group feels about celebrity involvement in relief efforts to the island, co-founder Julio Morales responded: Talking with Lin-Manuel Miranda and sharing stories, that has been awesome. We [speak] the same language. They have to do publicity and press; we have our mission to keep working with communities. We are clear with what we want to do. If [celebrity involvement] helps us get the word out, it is always welcome. We have had good experiences. (Morales) Co-founder Yari Helfeld added: “After Maria we never a felt sensation [from] the artists or entities we are working with of trying to take advantage of the situation” (Helfeld). As survivors of and witnesses to trauma, artists on the island and from afar reinterpret events in ideological safe spaces that allow for a redistribution of acts of diasporic healing that reach communities across the globe. Relief-driven artistic practices rooted in defiant joy, transformed in process, and resulting in multiple afterlives of events that reshape the way in which they are remembered are ones that may be sustained over time. In May 2020, Yari Helfeld said, “This is not a one-day situation; it’s not even a one-week situation. This is not like after a hurricane when you know it’s safely gone. Every single day now feels like the day after Hurricane Maria hit the island” (Helfeld). Wounds are in a perpetual state of healing; healing is always active. As Broadway and San Juan artists work to respond to the immediate need, they activate networks of healing that seek to repair individual and collective bodies,

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including their own, as well as the content and form in which they create. They create joy that exists through pain and suffering. In December 2020, nine months into a pandemic, Helfeld reflected, “We are caged, but we are not sleeping because each day we wake up a little bit more” (Helfeld).

Notes 1 See Hoffman, Warren. The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical. Rutgers University Press, 2014. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vjxk2. 2 “Strike for the Climate.” 3 “Can you give me a little space in your cave?” “Of course, but why don’t you go to your corner?” “Because it is under construction.” 4 “If they vow to destroy our paradise, beware…the sentinels and guardians will attack and break their dreams!” 5 The Instituto de Subcultura is a gallery in the Santurce district of San Juan, featuring work by emerging artists and musicians, and which includes educational programming. Taller Salud is a community-based feminist organization dedicated to improving women’s health, reducing violence within the community, and encouraging economic growth through education and activism. 6 Despierta Borinqueña / Se ha dado la señal / Despierta de tu letargo / Es hora de luchar / ¿No es esa llamada patriótica / Te prende fuego el corazón / Ven, disfrutaremos del sonido del cañón / Queremos libertad / Nuestro machete nos lo dará / Vamos, Borinqueño / Vámonos / Nuestra libertad nos espera ansiosa / Viva Puerto Rico libre. Wake up Borinqueña/The signal has been given/Wake up from your slumber/It’s time to fight/Doesn’t that patriotic call/Set your heart on fire/Come, We’ll enjoy the sound of the cannon/We want freedom/Our machete will give it to us/Come on, Borinqueño /Let’s go/Our freedom eagerly awaits us/ Long live free Puerto Rico. 7 “Don’t Abandon Us” and “Please bring water and food.” 8 “I am Vega Alta.” 9 Miranda’s translation process is more extensively discussed and close readings of the translations analyzed in Chapter 2 of this text. 10 “I adore you,” “I love you.” 11 See Potter, Claire Bond. “Safe in the Nation We’ve Made,” In Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical Restaging America’s Past. Edited by Renee Christine Romano and Claire Bond Potter. Rutgers University Press, 2018, pp. 324–350. 12 “What is essential?” 13 “The participation of those of us who work with art, which is not food, which is not a power plant, which is not something that could be called a first necessity, is…to come here to share what we know how to do; what we can share because it is what we have.” 14 “You are doing first response work...it is raising the soul of a fallen spirit… your help is necessary…it is an indispensable thing.” 15 Oversized head. 16 “Water, Health, Family, Breathing, Love, Hygiene, Learning, Planting, Justice.” 17 Fight against everything that contaminates life. 18 “Thank you for your great effort and for planting the seeds of a new country.”

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Works Cited Anderson, Lemon. “#OhJudoKnow.” She’s Gotta Have It, season 2, episode 7, Netflix, 24 May 2019. Antonsich, Marco. “Searching for Belonging - An Analytical Framework.” Geography Compass, vol. 4, no. 6, 2010, pp. 644–659, doi:10.1111/j.1749-8198.2009.00317.x. Aponte, Jorge. Comment on the post “Con el corazón que va a stellar con el amor de lxs Zefirantes.” Instagram, Y.no.habia.luz, 21 May 2021. Bliss, Courtney. “From B-Boys to Broadway: Activism and Directed Change in Hip-Hop.” Asia Pacific Media Educator, vol. 29, no. 2, 2019, pp. 225–236, doi:10.1177/1326365x19894781. Cahill-Booth, Lara. “Re-Membering the Tribe: Networks of Recovery in Rex Nettleford’s Katrina.” TDR/The Drama Review, vol. 57, no. 1, 2013, pp. 88–101. Print. Calhoun, Craig. “‘Belonging’ in the Cosmopolitan Imaginary.” Ethnicities, vol. 3, no. 4, Dec. 2003, pp. 531–553, doi:10.1177/1468796803003004005. Catlin, Roger. “Hamilton’s David Korins Explains What Makes the Smash Hit’s Design so Versatile.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 23 May 2018, www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/hamiltons-david-korinsexplains-what-makes-smash-hit-design-so-versitle-180969135/. “Discover Puerto Rico with Lin-Manuel Miranda.” Cross, Gabriel, director, https://www.discoverpuertorico.com/lin-manuel-miranda, 2019. Fredrickson, Barbara L., et al. “What Good Are Positive Emotions in Crisis? A Prospective Study of Resilience and Emotions Following the Terrorist Attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 84, no. 2, 2003, pp. 365–376, doi:10.1037/0022-3514.84.2.365. González, Jorge. “New Performance Cartographies in the City of San Juan.” Arizona State University, CORE Open Access, 2015, pp. 1–154. “Great Performances: In the Heights Chasing Broadway Dreams.” Bozymowski, Paul, director. Season 37, episode 16, PBS, 27 May 2009. Halse, Christine. Interrogating Belonging for Young People in Schools. New York, NY: Springer International Publishing, 2018. Healy, Patrick. “Some ‘West Side’ Lyrics Restored to English.” New York Times, 26 Aug. 2009. Helfeld, Yari. Zoom interview with the author. 30 Sep. 2020. . Email to the author. 7 May 2021. . Personal communication with the author. 23 Jun. 2021. Herrera, Brian. “Looking at Hamilton from Inside the Broadway Bubble,” In Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical Is Restaging America’s Past. Edited by Renee Christine Romano and Claire Bond Potter. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018, pp. 222–248. Hopgood, Maryanne. Comment on the post “En defensa de nuestra casa.” Instagram, Y.no.habia.luz, 21 May 2021. Jackson, Jhoni. “‘She’s Gotta Have It’ Writer Lemon Andersen Brought Spike Lee’s Vision of a Puerto Rico Episode to Life.” Remezcla, Remezcla, 4 Jun. 2019, remezcla.com/features/film/shes-gotta-have-it-interview-lemon-andersen/. Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co., 2010. Lassalle, Blanca. “Marc Anthony’s Somos + Salud Delivers State of The Art Mobile Pediatric Clinic to Aid Rural Communities And Donates Additional

118  Transforming Disaster through Defiant Joy Funds to local Organizations to Help Rebuild Puerto Rico.” Marc Anthony, 10 May 2018, www.marcanthonyonline.com/marc-anthonys-somos-salud-delivers-state-art-mobile-pediatric-clinic-aid-rural-communities-donates-additional-funds-local-organizations-help-rebuild-puerto-rico/?lang=en. Laurents, Arthur, et al. “West Side Story - New Broadway Cast Recording 2009.” Masterworks Broadway. Li, Shirley. “Hollywood’s New Crown Prince of Musicals.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 11 Jun. 2021, www.theatlantic.com/culture/ archive/2021/06/jon-m-chu-in-the-heights/619113/. “Lin-Manuel Miranda – Almost Like Praying (feat. Artists for Puerto Rico) [Official Video].” YouTube, 6 Oct. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1IBXE2G6zw. “Lin-Manuel Miranda Brings Help, Hope to Puerto Rico.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 2017, www.cbsnews.com/news/lin-manuel-miranda-brings-helphope-to-puerto-rico/. Lopez, Antonio. “Response to Y No Había Luz.” Panel Discussion. Disaster and the Body, 19 Apr. 2021, Gainesville, Florida, University of Florida. Lorde, Audre. Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. Tucson, AZ: Kore Press, 2000. MacDonald, Laura. “Have I Done Enough?” Performance Research, vol. 23, no. 6, 2018, pp. 40–49, doi:10.1080/13528165.2018.1533760. Mee, Kathleen, and Sarah Wright. “Geographies of Belonging.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, vol. 41, no. 4, Apr. 2009, pp. 772–779, doi:10.1068/a41364. Miranda, Lin-Manuel. “Hamilton: An American Musical.” 12 Sep. 2015, New York City, NY, Richard Rodgers Theatre. Morales, Julio. Zoom interview with the author. 30 Sep. 2020. Perry, Imani. “Racism Is Terrible. Blackness Is Not.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 15 Jun. 2020, www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/ racism-terrible-blackness-not/613039/. Pollack-Pelzner, Daniel. “The Mixed Reception of the ‘Hamilton’ Premiere in Puerto Rico.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 18 Jan. 2019, www. theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/01/hamilton-premiere-puertorico-stirs-controversy/580657/. Sáez, Elena Machado. “Debt of Gratitude: Lin-Manuel Miranda and the Politics of US Latinx Twitter.” Archipelagos, Columbia University Libraries, 16 Jan. 2021, archipelagosjournal.org/issue04/machado-gratitude.html. Schechner, Richard. Between Theater & Anthropology. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Snyder, C. The Psychology of Hope: You Can Get There from Here. New York, NY: New York Free Press, 1994. Stanislavsky, Konstantin, and Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. An Actor Prepares. New York, NY: Routledge, 1989. Taylor, Diana. “Trauma and Performance: Lessons from Latin America.” PMLA, vol. 121, no. 5, 2006, pp. 1674–1677. Accessed July 2, 2021, http://www.jstor. org/stable/25501645. . The Archive and the Repertoire. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. Underiner, Tamara. “Opening the Shaman’s Bag,” In The State of Latino Theater in the United States. Edited by Luis Ramos-García. New York, NY: Routledge, 2002, pp. 180–196.

Transforming Disaster through Defiant Joy  119 Vertes, Jill. Comment on “Lin-Manuel Miranda – Almost Like Praying (feat. Artists for Puerto Rico) [Official Video].” YouTube, 6 Oct. 2017, www.youtube. com/watch?v=D1IBXE2G6zw. Wiltz, Teresa. The Washington Post. WP Company, 2008, www.washingtonpost. com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/12/AR2008061202259_pf.html. Y no había luz (Pt. 1), Loisaida TV, Streamed 16 Sep. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rksCwEULr4. . [@y.no.habia.luz]. Instagram, 27 Jul. 2021, https://www.instagram. com/p/CR1VBV-h3Fn/. . “Barrio Bartolo, LARES, Puerto RICO, Alemán (LIDER Comunitario).” Vimeo, 16 Aug. 2021, vimeo.com/279681952. . “Gira Del ‘CENTINELA De MANGÓ’ En El Pueblo De Orocovis (2018).” Vimeo, 14 Aug. 2021, vimeo.com/283236233.

Afterword

Hurricane Fiona struck Puerto Rico on September 18, 2022, disturbingly close to the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Maria. Fear gripped Puerto Rican citizens as they prepared for the worst. While Hurricane Fiona did not do as much damage as Hurricane Maria had done, the trauma of Maria, from which the island was still recovering, also set up residents for an exhausting continuation of obstacles to a full recovery. As electricity and water service stalled or remained unpredictable, and as temperatures on the island soared to 112 degrees, Lin-Manuel and Luis Miranda, Jr. responded by calling on philanthropists, business leaders, and artists to provide aid to those who were displaced and who had suffered material and non-material losses. They also pointed to arts organizations as those that are often last to recover in a crisis and highlighted the importance of supporting artists who are working to bring relief to communities. Finally, the Mirandas noted the success of their previous efforts with the Hispanic Federation, including securing solar panels for hospital facilities (Miranda and Miranda). On the ground and drawing upon what they learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Y no había luz arranged for “Cultural Brigades” to visit communities in Orocovis, Adjuntas, and Comerío. Supported by a number of fundraising entities, including the Flamboyán Foundation, and through a donor matching program with the Tintín Foundation, the artists traveled to each community with art supplies and meals. Visiting those in shelters and community centers, the artists of Y no había luz offered relief to the spirit, offered the opportunity for participants to engage creatively, and embodied outlets for releasing tension and stress. Funding that supported these Cultural Brigades also supported the Second Annual Fiesta Centinela in Orocovis. On December 11, 2022, the community of Orocovis gathered for the Second Annual Fiesta Centinela. Organized by Y no había luz and their community outreach arm, Arte y Maña, the festival featured a line-up of diverse performances including Chicle the Clown; the Maracatú Caribe band, made up of all women; La Familia Alvarado, a family band of over 50 members; theatre collective Agua, Sol y Sereno; the Proyecto Kokobalé bomba and plena drummers; circus performers Circo Teatro Bandada and DOI: 10.4324/9781003282013-6

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Y no había luz, who performed Centinela de Mangó, this time including a group of children and young adults who had been studying with the Kai dance collective. A festival of short films, including Y no había luz’s Cruzando el Charco, and a series of morning workshops completed the activities. With increased attendance from the year before, about 500 people sat in the audience, after having spent the earlier part of the day participating in these workshops including ones focused on visual art, dance, gardening, and stilt walking. As the performance neared its ending, I made my way to the corner of the basketball court and tied a makeshift belt around my waist. Constructed from rubber tubing, the belt had a section of PVC pipe at its center, an anchoring point for the wooden pole that formed the body of an enormous puppet. I lifted the puppet, who wore a white long-sleeved button-down shirt and whose giant blue-grey head resembled Frankenstein with sleepy eyes, and locked the pole into place in front of me. Holding the wooden pole with my right hand, I grabbed a smaller bamboo pole with my left. This smaller pole allowed me to manipulate Frank’s hand. I took my place in line with the rest of the artists who carried puppets, waved flags, and wore cabezudos.1 Those at the front of the line carried instruments, setting the beat that would guide the movement of the parade throughout the grounds of the Ana Dalila Foundation. As I moved to the beat, I manipulated my puppet to wave, blow kisses, and salute the crowd that returned our greetings. As we rounded the first corner of the parade route, two of my former students from the States readied themselves to join the end of the line. They carried an enormous fish, constructed using a blue tarp, cardboard, and bamboo poles. The fish was painted blue with cartoonish lips and tail and a giant eye. Its scales were a dazzling array of colors. These scales had been created earlier in the day during a workshop in which participants of all ages were prompted to draw on a pre-cut paper scale. They were invited to respond to the prompt, “Como ves tu isla?”2 Many of the completed scales include images of the mango tree, with the Puerto Rican flag at the top. Some included beaches and palm trees, while others included mountains, flowers, and houses. One included the turret of El Morro. Another was filled with the face of a coquí frog. Yet, another featured a bomba dancer and two drummers. Nearly all included images of the Puerto Rican flag. The giant fish fell into line behind us, telling more than 75 stories of those present at and participating in the festival. Each story spoke of the Puerto Rican landscape, its traditions, and Puerto Rican pride. We wove our way up a flight of stairs, down a path canopied by trees, and alongside buildings with extended roofs for shade. I listened to Joel Guzmán’s (Chief Executive Officer of Arte y Maña) warnings of what was ahead and carefully manipulated my puppet to avoid damaging the puppet or the landscape. As we passed the many buildings that make up the foundation, we witnessed visual art created by the community: a mural

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of its volunteers holding hands, signs dotting the many gardens with sentiments like “Yo soy puro amor” and “Sonreír hace las cosas más faciles,” and a staircase with tiny houses painted on each face.3 Finally, we wound our way around an outdoor platform, bordered by stairs on two sides and with an open archway above. The archway is covered in red, yellow, and blue mosaic tile and resembles a rainbow, with the name of the Ana Dalila Burgos Ortiz Foundation across it in black lettering. The side wall of the building next to the archway is entirely covered with a painted image of the Puerto Rican flag. Hundreds of people huddled into the tight space and focused their attention across the street, where a mango tree, a new sentinel, stands. As Carlos José “Gandul” Torres made his way across the street and hoisted the Puerto Rican flag to the top of the tree, the community began singing “La Borinqueña,” fists raising in the air, as if to meet the flag as it landed in position. The final moment of the festival was defiantly joyful as artists and community affirmed their identity, their solidarity, and, through raising fists and flag, their resistance to colonization and to the storms that threatened the mango tree and the very ground on which they stood. As a performance of care, the festival was created by working within the resources available to the group to foster values of solidarity and belonging. As noted previously, Artists for Puerto Rico’s “Almost Like Praying” also performed care in naming each of Puerto Rico’s municipalities and displayed solidarity among the displaced as it connected stateside Puerto Ricans to those on the island. On the ground in Orocovis, a naming project is underway as a performance of care that urges residents of the island as well as visitors to explore its past and present. In the “Puerto Rico Room,” artist Eruco Blanco has created a tour of Puerto Rico. Using sustainable materials, ones that may have been discarded as trash, including Styrofoam, cardboard, and tile and flooring samples, Blanco constructed a series of pedestals arranged in a labyrinthine sequence with an aisle wide enough for visitors to move through. On top of each pedestal sits ephemera from tourism offices from each of the 78 municipalities in Puerto Rico, including postcards, a small flag representing each municipality, and a printed version of each municipality’s anthem. Arranged alphabetically, the tour begins in Adjuntas and ends in Yauco. Visitors can take a small “passport” at the start of the journey and mark each page with a sticker bearing the name of the municipality they have “visited.” Should they decide to make the actual journey across the island, they can engage in activities at each stop recommended in the passport and have the pages stamped by each tourism office. Interspersed among the cardboard pedestals and hung along the walls of the Puerto Rico Room are pieces created in workshops led by Blanco. Images of birds of Puerto Rico are pinned to Styrofoam frames. Outside of the room, on the wall of the building, a map of Puerto Rico, including Vieques, Culebra, and the El Yunque rainforest, made entirely of Styrofoam, invites visitors to add a piece to the map,

Afterword  123

bringing its topographical features to life. Another piece asks visitors to recreate the concrete poem that sits outside the door to the Puerto Rico room. The poem includes a set of images pinned to another Styrofoam map of the island and tells a visual story of Blanco’s relationship to the history of Puerto Rico. In a miniature version of the concrete poem that greets visitors, participants plant toothpicks with images that correspond to each part of the story into a tiny Styrofoam island. If participants choose to do so, they can play a game in which one player draws a card from a deck of 78. On the card is the image of a particular municipality’s flag. A series of clues leads participants to engage with the exhibit more closely in order to deduce which flag is on the card. Putting the Puerto Rico Room in conversation with “Almost Like Praying” is one way in which island and stateside performances of care might work together to create a system of diasporic healing. As Puerto Rican stories told by Puerto Rican creators and performers continue to be in conversation on the island and stateside, they demonstrate solidarity, survivorship, perseverance, and joy. On September 15, 2022, Google Arts and Culture, in partnership with Luis Miranda Jr. and Lin-Manuel Miranda, launched “Puerto Rico: The Sum of Its Arts.” The partnership brought together ten museums, including the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, the Museo de Arte de Ponce, and the Museo de las Americans, among others, to digitize over Puerto Rican 1,100 artworks that are curated into exhibits that tell the story of the performing and visual arts in Puerto Rico. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, many artworks were rendered too fragile to display, and some museums were still undergoing renovation in 2022. Both circumstances have limited public access to these works, a reality that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. While the project began in 2019 with the intent to share visual art, it has expanded to include documenting Puerto Rico’s performing arts. Access to performing arts pieces, like those created by Y no había luz, has also been limited, and through the Google Arts and Culture Project, which hosts video content, they are reaching wider audiences. Present at the ­Google Arts and Culture kickoff event were Y no había luz co-founder and Executive Director Yari Helfeld, who was an invited member of a panel discussion, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, who spoke with several artists (including Helfeld) who were representing various arts organizations across the island. Helfeld and Miranda sharing a stage together formed a strong symbol of solidarity between island and stateside artists working as “fixers,” “givers,” and “healers.” In addition, the image of the two artists is a reminder of Miranda’s personal desire to understand his own connection to the island. As they continue to tell Puerto Rico’s story, artists like Y no había luz and Lin-Manuel Miranda, though working differently, open dialogues and sites of inter-­relational, sustainable, and mutual performances of care.

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Notes 1 Oversized papier mâché heads. 2 How do you see your island? 3 “I am pure love” and “Smiling makes things easier.”

Works Cited Miranda, Lin-Manuel, and Luis A. Miranda Jr. “Opinion | Lin-Manuel and Luis Miranda: How to Get Puerto Rico Help Now.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 29 Nov. 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/20/ lin-manuel-luis-miranda-puerto-rico-hurricane-help/.

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126  Works Cited Cahill-Booth, Lara. “Re-Membering the Tribe: Networks of Recovery in Rex Nettleford’s Katrina.” TDR/The Drama Review, vol. 57, no. 1, 2013, pp. 88–101. Print. Calhoun, Craig. “‘Belonging’ in the Cosmopolitan Imaginary.” Ethnicities, vol. 3, no. 4, Dec. 2003, pp. 531–553, doi:10.1177/1468796803003004005. Catlin, Roger. “Hamilton’s David Korins Explains What Makes the Smash Hit’s Design So Versatile.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 23 May 2018, www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/hamiltons-david-korinsexplains-what-makes-smash-hit-design-so-versitle-180969135/. Chang, Justin. “Review: ‘In the Heights’ Brings the Lin-Manuel Miranda Musical Vividly to Life.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 21 May 2021, https://www. latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-05-21/in-the-heightsreview-lin-manuel-miranda. Crowther, Bosley. “The Screen in Review; ‘Too Many Girls’ Makes Appearance at Loew’s Criterion.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Nov. 1940, https://www.nytimes.com/1940/11/21/archives/the-screen-in-reviewtoo-many-girls-makes-appearance-at-loews.html. Cruz, Migdalia. Miriam’s Flowers. Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2004. Dávila, Arlene. Latino Spin: Whitewashing and the Politics of Race. New York: NYU Press, 2008. Delman, Edward. “How Lin-Manuel Miranda Shapes History.” The Atlantic, 29 Sep. 2015. “Discover Puerto Rico with Lin-Manuel Miranda.” Cross, Gabriel, director, https://www.discoverpuertorico.com/lin-manuel-miranda, 2019. . “Chapter 4: Vega Alta.” YouTube, Discover Puerto Rico, 9 Jun. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=465G7ckXxcQ. .“Chapter 7: Public Art.” YouTube, Discover Puerto Rico, 9 Jun. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPCd1eIhXug. Eliot, Marc. Paul Simon: A Life. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Eoyang, Eugene Chen. The Transparent Eye: Reflections on Translation, Chinese Literature, and Comparative Poetics. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1993. Ferier, Marijin. “Casitas in the South Bronx: Making a Place Called Home.” TheProtoCity.com, 19 May 2016, http://theprotocity.com/casitas-in-the-south-bronx/. Firmat, Pérez Gustavo. The Havana Habit. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010, p. 54. Fredrickson, Barbara L., et al. “What Good Are Positive Emotions in Crisis? A Prospective Study of Resilience and Emotions Following the Terrorist Attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 84, no. 2, 2003, pp. 365–376, doi:10.1037/0022-3514.84.2.365. Fulbright, John. “Graffiti as Ritual Transgression.” FOUNDSF, Jan. 2001, https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Graffiti_as_Ritual_Transgression. Garcia-Canclini, Néstor. Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995, p. 135. González, Jorge. “New Performance Cartographies in the City of San Juan.” Arizona State University, CORE Open Access, 2015, pp. 1–154. “Great Performances: In the Heights Chasing Broadway Dreams.” Bozymowski, Paul, director. Season 37, episode 16, PBS, 27 May 2009. Green, Jesse. “When You’re a Shark You’re a Shark All the Way.” New York Magazine, New York Magazine, 13 Mar. 2009, https://nymag.com/arts/theater/ profiles/55341/.

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Works Cited  129 Sandoval-Sánchez, Alberto and Nancy Saporta Sternbach. “Re-Visiting Chicana Cultural Icons: From Sor Juana to Frida,” In The State of Latino Theater in the United States. Edited by Luis A. Ramos-García. New York: Routledge, 2002, p. 47. Rooney, David. “‘On Your Feet!’: Theater Review.” The Hollywood Reporter, The Hollywood Reporter, 1 Dec. 2015, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ news/general-news/gloria-emilio-estefan-bio-musical-837203/. Rosen, Jody. “The American Revolutionary.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Jul. 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/08/t-magazine/hamilton-lin-manuel-miranda-roots-sondheim.html. Ryzik, Melena. “Heights before Broadway.” New York Times, 24 Mar. 2008, http:// www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/theater/14heig.html?scp=3&sq=Puerto+ Rico&st=nyt. Sáez, Elena Machado. “Debt of Gratitude: Lin-Manuel Miranda and the Politics of US Latinx Twitter.” Archipelagos, Columbia University Libraries, 16 Jan. 2021, archipelagosjournal.org/issue04/machado-gratitude.html. Sandoval-Sánchez, Alberto. “Paul Simon’s The Capeman: The Staging of Puerto Rican National Identity as Spectacle and Commodity on Broadway,” In Latino/a Popular Culture. Edited by Michelle Habell-Pallán and Mary Romero. New York: NYU Press, 2002, pp. 147–161. Santos, Mayra. “Puerto Rican Underground.” Centro, vol. 8, no. 1, 1996, p. 221. Schaffer, Richard, and Neil Smith. “The Gentrification of Harlem?,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 76, no. 3, Sep. 1986, pp. 347–365. Schechner, Richard. Between Theater & Anthropology. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Simon, Paul, and Derek Walcott. The Capeman (Original Broadway Cast), Verve (Adult Contemporary), 1998. Sircus, Kyle Matthew. “Strange Syntax: The Use of Foreign Languages in American Musicals.” Tufts University, 2011. Snyder, C. The Psychology of Hope: You Can Get There from Here. New York, NY: New York Free Press, 1994. Stamberg, Susan. “A ‘West Side Story’ with a Different Accent.” NPR, NPR, 15 Dec. 2008, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98207909. Stanislavsky, Konstantin, and Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. An Actor Prepares. New York, NY: Routledge, 1989. Stuart Fisher, Amanda. “Introduction,” In Performing Care. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020, doi:10.7765/9781526146816.00007. Web. 14 Dec. 2022. Taylor, Diana. “Trauma and Performance: Lessons from Latin America.” PMLA, vol. 121, no. 5, 2006, pp. 1674–1677. Accessed July 2, 2021, http://www.jstor. org/stable/25501645. . The Archive and the Repertoire. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. Tronto, Joan C. Moral Boudaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic Care. New York, NY: Routledge, 1993. Turner, Phil, Susan Turner, and Fiona Carroll. “The Tourist Gaze: Towards Contextualised Virtual Environments.” The Kluwer International Series on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, pp. 281–297. Underiner, Tamara. “Opening the Shaman’s Bag,” In The State of Latino Theater in the United States. Edited by Luis Ramos-García. New York, NY: Routledge, 2002, pp. 180–196.

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Index

Note: Italic page numbers refer to figures and page numbers followed by “n” denote endnotes. Adorno, Pedro 11, 104, 106 Agrón, Salvador 7, 8, 79 Aixela, Javier 33 “Alabanza” 34, 58, 62 Alemán 108 Allende, Isabel 62 “Almost Like Praying” 100–102, 122 Alvarez, David 32 Alvarez, Julia 62 ‘American Dream’ (Bourgeois) 41 American musical theatre 2, 95 Ana Dalila Burgos Ortiz Foundation 66, 71, 121, 122 Anderson, Lemon 97, 98 Anglo-American audience 23 Anita, Afro Latina 6, 14, 28–29, 32, 89, 99 Anthony, Marc 100; The Capeman 2, 5–11, 15, 22, 24, 40, 51, 55, 61, 63, 65, 72, 77–79, 81, 83–84, 87–89, 91–93, 97, 99, 101 Antonsich, Marco 49 Aponte-Pares, Luis 90 Arnaz, Desi 6, 23, 24 Arthur Selen theatre 19 “Artists for Puerto Rico” 100 “At Sunrise” 80 Avenue Q 25 Aye, Santería orisha Babalú 92 Ball, Lucille 23 Banderas, Antonio 73 Barrio, Carnaval del 65 Batista, Fulgencio 41 Benítez, Lucecita 47 Bernardo, Latino 6, 27, 29, 32, 78, 82, 89

Bernstein, Leonard 6, 24, 100 Biaggi, Roberto 48 bilingualism and translation, as caring performance 19–22; The Capeman 24; Hamilton 38–39; In the Heights 32–37; linguistic interventions 39–42; Too Many Girls 22–24; West Side Story 24–32 Blackman, Mars 45, 97 Blades, Rubén 8, 100, 101 Blanco, Eruco 122 Blankenbuehler, Andy 85 Bliss, Courtney 98 Bloomberg, Mike 73, 74 Boal, Augusto 11, 104 Bonilla, Pedro 11, 104 Bourgeois, Philippe 88 Bousquet, Alexis 45 ‘A Boy Like That’ 28–30, 99 Bread and Puppet Theatre 11, 104 Brecht, Bertolt 11, 29, 104 The Bronx 19, 21, 38, 76, 78, 90, 91 Buczek, Michael John 86 Bunny, Bad 38 Buscando el Balance 113 Cabello, Camila 100 Cabrera, Eduardo 28 Cahill-Booth, Lara 1 Calhoun, Craig 101 The Capeman (Anthony) 2, 5–11, 15, 22, 24, 40, 51, 55, 61, 63, 65, 72, 77–79, 81, 83–84, 87–89, 91–93, 97, 99, 101 care-based solidarity 105, 107 care, spaces of 71–72; casitas and spiritual space 85–89; commodified space 72–77; community space

132 Index 81–85; safe/dangerous space 77–81; Washington Heights 85–89 caring performance, in public art 45–47, 55–56; care as commodity 59–61; Centinela de Mangó 65–68; flags 63–65; form, technique, intent, and purpose 53–54; Güisin, Miranda 47–50; In the Heights 65–68; Pete, Graffiti 50–51, 56–58; ritual/ resistance 51–53; witness/survivor 61–62;Y no había luz 65–68 Carnaval de Barrio 64, 89 Carrico, Rachel 97, 111 Casey, Consuelo 23 casitas and spiritual space 85–89 celebrity-as-healer 10–11 Centinela de Mangó (The Mango Sentry) 16–17, 65–68, 110–111, 121 Chang, Justin 39 Chaves, Dolores 62 Chernow, Ron 9 Christian-based spirituality 93 Chu, Jon M. 5, 95 Circo de la Ausencia (Circus of Absence) 104 Cisneros, Sandra 62 Ciudad de Sueños project 72–74 Claudia, Abuela 8, 34, 51–62, 65, 76, 84 climate strike 96–97 Colón, Willie 73 Columbus, Christopher 97–98 commodified space 72–77 community-as-family model 56, 57, 72, 83 community collaboration 108–112 community space 81–85 “Conga” 40 COVID-19 global pandemic 3, 19 Crayone 52 Criollo, Rincón 90 Crowley, Bob 92 Cruzando el Charco (Crossing the Ocean) 17, 111–115, 114, 121 Cruz, Celia 62 Cruz, Migdalia: Miriam’s Flowers 77 crypto community 77 CSI see culture-specific item (CSI) Cultural Brigades 120 cultural healing 100 “culture of resistance” in Spanish Harlem 88 culture-specific item (CSI) 33

Dávila, Arlene 73 DeBose, Ariana 32 defiant joy 2–4, 12–16, 22, 38, 39, 49, 50, 58, 63–65, 67, 71, 72, 95–96; “Almost Like Praying” 100–102; climate strike 96–97; community collaboration 108–112; Cruzando el Charco 112–115, 114; Discover Puerto Rico series 104; Hamilton 102–104; Miranda, Lin-Manuel 115–116; relief efforts 97–100;Y no había luz 104–108, 115–116 DeJesus, Robin 8 devising process 12, 105, 109 Diego el Ciego (Diego the Blind Boy) 106 Diggs, Daveed 9, 40 Dinelaris, Alexander 40 Diner, Hillside 74 disaster healing 100–101 Discover Puerto Rico series 5, 13, 16, 47, 48, 104 Dominican flag 89 Dominican Republic 53, 65, 76, 84, 89, 111 Drama Book Shop 19–20 The Dream Ballet 32 El Barrio 73–74 Ellington, Duke 21 Elliot (Hudes) 91 Encanto 5 “energy for change” model 57 Eskae 52, 61 Estefan, Gloria 41, 100 European ancestry 25, 31 European Jews 85 Ewoldt, Ali 82 FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy 23 Federal Law 3, 102 Ferier, Marijn 90, 91 Ferre, Luis A. 65 Fiddler on the Roof 8 “Fiesta Centinela” 68 Firmat, Gustavo Pérez 23 Fisher, Amanda Stuart 4 flags, as caring performance 63–65 Flamboyán Arts Foundation 2, 5, 65, 91, 98, 120 Flamobyán Arts Fund 65, 66 Fonsi, Luis 38, 100 Fredrickson, Barbara 3, 105, 112

Index  133 Freestyle Love Supreme (Miranda) 5, 14, 19–22, 32 Fulbright, John 15, 49, 52 Funámbulo 113–115 gang-as-family model 81 Garcia-Canclini, Nestor 84 “genteel trash talk” (Chang) 39 George Washington Bridge 84, 86, 89, 95 “girl-crazy Argentine” 23 “Go Home Gringo” 45 González, Celso 48 González, Jorge 108, 115 Google Arts and Culture summit 17 graffiti artmaking 4, 13–15, 22, 45–47, 49, 50–56 Green, Cody 29 grief 13, 58, 96, 102, 114 “Gringo Go Home” tag 46 Guzmán, Joel 11, 121 Halse, Christine 11, 110 Hamilton (Miranda) 2, 5, 6–10, 15–16, 19, 21, 22, 38–39, 40, 72, 98, 102–104 Hamilton, Alexander 9, 39, 40, 47–48, 54 “Harlem USA” 73 Hart, Onno van der 99 Hatcher, Tom 25 healing interventions 4, 11, 14, 22, 99 healing process 17, 99, 108 Held,Virginia 56 Helfeld, Nami 11, 96, 104, 106, 109, 123 Helfeld,Yari 11, 17, 97, 104, 114–116, 123 Hernández, Alejandro Román 83, 108 Herrera, Brian 9 Hickey, Chris 110 Hicks, Emilie 84 Hill, Cypress 38 Hispanic Federation’s Disaster Relief and Recovery Program 2, 5, 10, 65, 74, 98, 100, 104 Hochschild, Arlie 59 Holler if Ya Hear Me 39, 40 Hollywood Reporter (Rooney) 41 Hope Theory (Snyder) 17 Hove, Ivo van 5, 32 Hudes, Quiara Alegría 8, 13, 14, 21, 22, 32, 52, 53, 56; Elliot 91

Hurricane Fiona 9, 120 Hurricane Irma 5, 9, 11, 12, 15, 47, 61, 64, 72, 104, 106 Hurricane Katrina 107 Hurricane Maria 3, 5, 9–12, 15, 16, 31, 45, 47–48, 61, 64, 66, 68, 71, 72, 77, 97, 100, 102–104, 106, 109, 110, 115, 120, 123 Hurricane Relief Fund 98 “I Feel Pretty” 26, 27, 29–32, 78, 82, 99 Iglesias, Francisco 11, 105 In the Heights (Miranda) 2, 5–11, 13–16, 20–22, 32–39, 41, 47, 49–51, 53–59, 59, 60–68, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 84–89, 93, 95, 96, 98, 99 Jackson, Christopher 9, 19, 40 Jackson, Shannon 56 Jefferson, Thomas 9, 39, 40 Jets 29, 30, 78, 79, 81, 89, 93 “The Jets Song” 81 Joe, Fat 38 José, Carlos “Gandul” 111, 122 joy 2–4, 12–17, 22, 27, 38, 39, 49, 50, 53, 57, 58, 63–67, 71, 72, 80; see also defiant joy “joy as energy for change” model 101 Kail, Thomas 19, 85 Kapchan, Deborah 14, 22, 38 Katz, Natasha 92 Keersmaeker, Anne Teresa de 32 Khalo, Frida 62 Klein, Naomi 3, 102, 103, 107, 111 Kolk, B.A. van der 99 Korins, David 103 Kreidler, Todd 40 Kushner, Tony 31, 32, 89 La Cuerda Fragil 113 La Familia Alvarado band 120 Laraia, Carolina Maria 6 Lares, Barrio 108 Larson, Jonathan 21 Latin American culture in New York 24 Latin Media and Entertainment Commission 73 Latinx migrants and immigrants 87 Laurents, Arthur 6, 7, 25, 30 Lawrence, Carol 6 Lazarus, Saint 92 Lee, Spike 97

134 Index Leguizamo, John 100 linguistic interventions 22, 39–42 Lopez, Antonio Sajid 97 Lopez, Jennifer 25, 73, 97, 100 Lorde, Audre 12, 27, 57, 67, 95, 101, 105, 112 Louizos, Anna 84 Lugones, Maria 113 Lynch, Manuelito 23 MacDonald, Laura 102 Macy, Joanna 93 “A Man Like That” 29 mapa del cuerpo devising process 109, 110 Maracatú Caribe band 120 Marcus, Joan 40, 59, 79 Maria 26–29, 89, 99 Marisol (Rivera) 78, 80 Martin, Ricky 25 Mary Poppins (Miranda) 19 McCannell, Dean 63 McDaniels, Daryl 39 Meadows, Chris 113 Mirabal, Maria Teresa 62 Mirabal, Minerva 62 Mirabal, Patria 62 Miranda, Carmen 6, 23 Miranda, Lin-Manuel 2–5, 8–11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19–22, 25, 26, 31, 32, 37, 39, 40, 47–49, 54, 63, 65, 74, 83, 85, 91, 95, 96, 98–104, 115–116, 123; Hamilton 2, 5, 6–10, 15–16, 19, 21, 22, 38–39, 40, 72, 98, 102–104; In the Heights 2, 5–11, 13–16, 20–22, 32–39, 41, 47, 49–51, 53–59, 59, 60–68, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 84–89, 93, 95, 96, 98, 99; Mary Poppins 19; Tick...Tick... Boom! 19 Miranda, Jr., Luis 10, 47, 123 Miriam’s Flowers (Cruz) 77 Mizell, Jason 39 Mooney, Amanda 110 Morales, Julio 1, 11, 67, 97, 104, 108, 115 Moreno, Rita 62, 89, 100 Moriarty, Erin 102 The Motorcycle Diaries 25 National Hispanic Media Coalition and the Free Press 9 Nederlander, James 19 Negrón-Muntaner, Frances 6

NoMAA see Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA) Non-Puerto Rican 92 Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA) 74 Obama, Barak 41 On Your Feet! 40–42 Pan’s Labyrinth 25 performances of care 2, 4, 5, 12, 17, 21, 46, 47, 53–58, 63, 65–67, 72, 76, 89, 107, 123 Performance,Trauma and Puerto Rico in Musical Theatre 2, 4, 5 Perry, Imani 12–13, 22, 96, 114 Pete, Graffiti 49, 50–51, 54, 56–58, 61, 62, 86 “Piragua” 33, 34 Piragua Guy 64, 76 “A Place for Us” 34, 80 Placita Güisin 47–50 Pollack-Pelzner, Daniel 103 post-Hurricane Maria 5, 45, 62, 64, 72, 77, 98 PROMESA see The Puerto Rican Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) public art performances of care 45–47, 55–56, 66; care as commodity 59–61; Centinela de Mangó 65–68; flags 63–65; form, technique, intent, and purpose 53–54; Güisin, Miranda 47–50; In the Heights 65–68; Pete, Graffiti 50–51, 56–58; ritual/ resistance 51–53; witness/survivor 61–62;Y no había luz 65–68 “Puertopia” 3, 10, 15, 46, 72–77 The Puerto Rican Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) 10, 49, 77, 98, 102 Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) 64 Puerto Rico/Puerto Rican 1, 2, 6–7, 9, 10, 21, 22, 24, 37, 42, 47, 72, 77, 83; “Almost Like Praying” 16; ancestry 92; arts and artists in 65; audiences 7; Broadway performers 97; characters in 4, 5, 25, 45; citizens 12; colonial trauma 14; communities 1, 20, 31, 46–47, 71, 90; culture 34, 83, 90; diaspora 91, 97, 105, 106, 109; disaster relief efforts 13; flags of

Index  135 15, 34, 48, 63, 66, 68, 84, 103, 104, 121–122; Hamilton tour to 13, 102; in Hurricane Maria 31; hurricane relief in 2; identity 8, 11, 16, 20, 47, 90, 98, 103; justice in 17; migrants 78, 90; musical theatre 2; performance in 50; populations 12, 81; post-Maria public art in 15; relief efforts 98; resilience 103; Rosalia’s view of 82; scenes of 79; solidarity 67–68; stereotypes of 81; three-dimensional map of 67; traumas 2; unnatural disasters in 5; US colonization of 90; youth 7 Pun, Big 38 Quiñones, Denise 47 Ramos, Anthony 2, 45, 97 raptivism 98 Redlener, Irwin 97 relief-driven artistic practices 115 relief-driven performance 3–4 relief efforts 97–100 Rent 8, 25 response 1, 3–5, 9, 10–17, 24, 31, 32, 40, 57, 58, 60, 67, 72, 74, 88, 96, 98, 101, 102, 107–110 “Rhythm is Gonna Get You” 40 Rigoberta 62 Rios, Christopher (Big Pun) 98 ritual/resistance 51–53 Rivera, Chita 6, 62 Rivera, Ivette 91 Rivera, José: Marisol 78, 80 Rock, Chris 98 Rodriguez, Gina 100 Rodriguez, Isel 31 Rodriguez, Santiago Luis Polanco 85–86 Rogers and Hart musical 22 Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) 6, 27, 30 Rooney, David: Hollywood Reporter 41 Roosevelt, Eleanor 7 Roselló, Ricardo 10, 72, 77, 98, 103, 106 Rua, Colleen 97, 111 Ruben-Vega, Daphne 73 Ryzik, Melena 74, 75 Sáez, Elena Machado 99 safe/dangerous space 77–81 Sandoval-Sánchez, Alberto 6, 23, 63, 91

Santurce es Ley Walk (Santurce is Law Walk) 45, 46 Scaglione, Josefina 27, 82 Schaffer, Richard 76 Schechner, Richard 3 Schuyler, Angelica 39 Second Annual Fiesta Centinela in Orocovis 120 Segarra, Josh 40 Seller, Jeffrey 19, 25, 30 Shakespeare, William: Romeo and Juliet 6, 27, 30 Shakira 25 Shakur, Tupac 40 Sharks 29, 78, 79, 81, 93 She’s Gotta Have It 45, 97, 98 Sierra, Horacio 40 Simmons, Joseph 39 Simon, Paul 5, 7, 8, 24, 80 Smith, Neil 76 Smith, Oliver 78 Snyder, Charles 17, 109 socio-spatial theatres of New York City 72, 81 solidarity 2, 11, 12, 17, 28, 48, 50, 53, 57, 63–68, 96, 104–107, 109, 122, 123 Somos Una Voz 97 Sondheim, Stephen 6, 21, 24, 25, 39, 100 Soto,Yussef 11, 104, 107, 109 spaces of care 71–72; casitas and spiritual space 85–89; commodified space 72–77; community space 81–85; safe/dangerous space 77–81; Washington Heights 85–89 Spanish Harlem (“SpaHa”) 72 Spanish language 23 Spielberg, Steven 5, 31, 89 spiritual healing 100 spiritual space 85–89 Statue of Liberty 89 Strayhorn, Billy 21 Stuart Fisher, Amanda 46, 49, 55, 57–59 Taller Salud 97, 116n5 Taylor, Diana 3, 14, 49, 59, 62, 108 Theatre Journal 40 “The Umbrella Man” 83 Tick...Tick...Boom! (Miranda) 5, 19 Tintín Foundation 120 Tonight Quintet 29 Too Many Girls 22–24

136 Index Torres, Carlos “Gandul” 11, 68, 104, 112 transforming disaster, through defiant joy 95–96; “Almost Like Praying” 100–102; climate strike 96–97; community collaboration 108–112; Cruzando el Charco 112–115, 114; Discover Puerto Rico series 104; Hamilton 102–104; Miranda, LinManuel 115–116; relief efforts 97–100;Y no había luz 104–108, 115–116 “trash talk” 14, 22, 38–39 trauma and healing 1, 13, 14, 21, 22, 26, 112 Tronto, Joan 53, 55, 59 Trump, Donald 1, 3 Underiner, Tamara 63, 104 “Un Hombre Asi” 29 Union of Independent Art in Puerto Rico 46 “United States-Cuba Normalization” 41 Uptown Investment 75 Uptown New York Project 72, 73 Urban Investors 76 “urban shamans” 52 Urban Strategic Partners 73–76 Usnavi 21, 33, 34, 39, 50–54, 56–58, 60–62, 65, 66, 75, 76, 84–89, 95 The Vampires 7, 83, 88, 93 Vanessa 75, 84, 86, 88

Vega Alta 11, 20, 47–49, 64, 66, 98 Veneziale, Anthony 19 Verano Zefirante 111, 115 Villafañe, Ana 40 Virgin Mary 100 Wagner, Paula 39 Walcott, Derek 5, 7, 80 Wallace, Christopher (Biggie Smalls) 98 Washington, George 9, 19, 39 Washington Heights 14, 84, 85–89, 95 Westgate, J. Chris 15, 72, 78 West Side Story 5–11, 13–15, 21–22, 24–32, 34, 37, 41, 51, 55, 56, 61, 65, 72, 77–78, 79, 80, 81, 83–84, 88, 89, 93, 99, 100 Wilde, Lawrence 105 witness/survivor 61–62 Wood, Natalie 82 Wright, Sarah 68 Yankee, Daddy 38 Ybarra, Patricia 53, 56, 60 Yemaya’s Belly 52 Y no había luz (YNHL) 1–5, 11–13, 15, 16, 65–68, 71, 104–108, 110–113, 114, 115–116, 120, 121, 123 #YoSoyVegaAlta 48–49 “Yo! That’s my wall” 50 Youmans, James 27, 78 Zefirante 96–97, 111–112, 114–115 Zefirante en Cuarentena 16–17, 111–112, 114