Lin-Manuel Miranda on Puerto Rico, ‘Hamilton’ and the election

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The ferocity and velocity of the ethnic, sexist and racist rhetoric emanating from the Madison Square Garden stage at Sunday’s rally for former President Donald Trump meant many of the most controversial comments weren’t called out. One, however, cut through the coarse cacophony and became a major political issue a week before the election.

“I don’t know if you guys know this,” said comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, “but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now.

“I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

The crowd roared. An uproar across the country followed, with the Puerto Rican reaction especially intense and incensed from everyday citizens and superstar musicians like Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin.

Another star — more like a cultural supernova — said that while he was saddened, he was not surprised.

“I think every Puerto Rican’s phone went off around the same time on Sunday; I know mine did,” Lin-Manuel Miranda said in an interview. “I wish I could say I was surprised, but I think a lot of New Yorkers were anticipating that MSG rally with trepidation, the fact that the chaotic, dark energy of the rallies we’ve seen on television was coming into the middle of our city.”

Miranda, the Pulitzer Prize-, Grammy-, Emmy- and Tony Award-winning actor, songwriter, producer, director and creator of “Hamilton” and “In the Heights,” among other works, was in Pennsylvania campaigning for Kamala Harris. En route from Philadelphia to Bethlehem (to see “if there was room at the inn,” he quipped), Miranda said that “it was a reminder of how poorly the Trump administration treated Puerto Ricans, both on the island and in the diaspora, in our darkest days after Hurricanes Irma and Maria.”

Miranda and his family’s foundation, conversely, were a light shining through those dark days, partnering with the Hispanic Federation to help raise more than $50 million for relief and recovery. In addition, Miranda reprised his role as Alexander Hamilton in a 2019 revival of his hit show in San Juan, bringing millions more to the beleaguered island.

The comic’s comments hurt many of Puerto Rican descent, said Miranda. “First of all, no one’s garbage.” (A point President Joe Biden should have heeded when he appeared to label Trump supporters “garbage,” although White House handlers, scrambling to quell the controversy that Republicans pounced on, said he was referencing the rhetoric, not the people. For her part, Harris rebuked Biden in clear terms.)

Puerto Rico “is this small piece of land in the middle of the Caribbean; it’s 100 miles across and has given you some of the greatest art in the world,” said Miranda, naming a litany of Latin pop and sports stars. “It’s given you countless contributions to every sector of American society, and it hurts to be dismissed in that way.”

The native New Yorker seemed more Midwestern modest in not including himself in that list. Instead, the “Hamilton” creator mentioned the founding father at the center of his show as a prototypical island striver.

“The connect-the-dots moment for me when I was reading Ron Chernow’s amazing book [’Hamilton’] about our founder who was not born on the mainland but was born in the Caribbean was that Hamilton got a scholarship to reach the mainland because of the prodigiousness of his writing and his intellect and came to the mainland before it was the United States in search of an education, in search of a better life. And that’s what most Puerto Ricans come here to do, too.”

Hamilton’s story reminded Miranda of his father’s, he said, adding that “there’s a reason ‘immigrants — we get the job done!’ was the biggest [’Hamilton’] applause line we had during the horrible four years of the Trump administration; it’s because it’s true. It’s because I think we are in awe of the people who uproot their lives in their homelands to come here to make a better life for their families and in doing so, so often enrich our country.

“That’s the narrative I grew up with about immigration. It has been so disheartening to see Trump take every ill that has ever faced a human and say it’s the immigrants’ fault this is happening to you. And I think the American people are tired of it.”

Immigrants’ ingenuity and energy isn’t just central to “Hamilton” but “In the Heights” too. The musical-turned-movie is an exploration and celebration of Miranda’s mostly Dominican New York neighborhood. But before that, he stressed, Washington Heights was mostly Irish (”We’re still mourning the loss of Coogan’s at 169th and Broadway,” he said) and after World War II he said it was predominantly a Jewish neighborhood (Yeshiva University is still rooted right there, Miranda added).

“Immigrant communities learn to get along,” Miranda said. “And that, to me, is the America I grew up in and the America I’m proud of and the America I know still exists despite the rhetoric coming from the Trump [campaign].”

It’s the one he thinks Hamilton would want to emphasize, too.

“I think that the thing that not even the founders saw was that the United States was an amazing idea created by imperfect people and there are contradictions in that founding,” Miranda said. “And the fights we have as a country are the fights we have been having since our inception — that was the key thing I figured out while writing the show.”

And the show helped many Americans figure out the country Hamilton and his brethren birthed. A show that wasn’t just a hit on Broadway, but on Main Streets throughout the nation — a sensation artistically but socially and politically, too.

“I think about this all the time,” said Miranda when asked about the musical’s impact. “One, in its specificity about who we were, there’s lots of echoes of who we are as a country, and I think some of the laughs and some of the applauses are just in recognition of those moments, just our shared humanity with people who were in this city 200 years before us.

“The other thing, I think, is that it’s really a dramatic story about two different temperaments that grew up under very similar circumstances. [Aaron] Burr experienced a lot of loss, Hamilton experienced a lot of loss, but their temperamental reactions to that early trauma and loss is completely opposite. Hamilton is trying to do as much as he can because tomorrow’s not promised, and Burr is terrified to make a mistake because tomorrow’s not promised.

“So the kind of emails I would get after people saw the show were not like, ‘Hey, great music, I love your show.’ They were like, ‘What am I doing with my life?’ Because we reckon with what they accomplished, and we reckon with what the engine for accomplishment even is. What is it that drives us to want to even create a legacy, to want to create a country, to want to make a mark on the world?

“And so, in this particular week in which I’m talking to you, your voice is your vote, and if I could [I’d] encourage your readers to vote, because it’s the final analysis of this election season.”

“I think,” Miranda concluded, “that’s why [’Hamilton’] still resonates with people. It’s: What are we meant to do with our short time here?”