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In 2017, Category 5 Hurricane Maria swept across small islands in the Caribbean Sea. One of the hardest-hit areas was Puerto Rico.
The hurricane killed 3,057 people on the island, destroyed all of its power system, and destroyed 80 percent of the island's agriculture — in short, a catastrophe. To this day, Puerto Rico is still in the middle of its recovery period.
This is hard to accept for Lin-Manuel Miranda, who has always regarded Puerto Rico as her spiritual homeland.
● Miranda Benda
Miranda is not a native of Puerto Rico and doesn't work here either — but he considers it his hometown.
He was a big name on New York's Broadway. Chinese fans familiar with musicals jokingly refer to him as "Lin Marvel"; and like Marvel superheroes, "Lin Marvel" is also a powerful "avenger" in the musical theater industry.
He wrote and starred in two musicals, In the Heights and Hamilton: An American Musical. Both musicals were acclaimed and acclaimed. In particular, the second part, which uses a lot of rap to tell the life of Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of the United States, completely refreshed people's ears and eyeballs.
● On the left is Miranda's "Hamilton" on stage, and on the right is "In the Heights"
Obama once joked, "The appreciation of 'Hamilton' is something I agree with Dick Cheney." "You know, Cheney and he are political enemies.
Miranda is determined to help her hometown in her most talented field, musical theater.
● Miranda starred in stills from "New Joy On Earth"
He has an inextricable involvement with Puerto Rico.
Miranda was an authentic New Yorker, born and raised in New York. His parents are from Puerto Rico. Eight weeks after her birth, the infant Miranda visited the island for the first time in the arms of her parents. Every year after that, he and his sister would come here to visit his grandparents and stay for a summer.
For children born to many immigrant families, where a person's hometown is is a question they often torture themselves. But for Miranda, he identified himself as his hometown from an early age.
His grandparents lived in a small town in Puerto Rico. There are two differences between this place and New York: first, this is a natural world, not a metropolis of cement; second, everyone in the city knows each other almost everywhere, and when they meet, they can call each other's names, and the interpersonal relationship is very harmonious.
● Miranda that can be sweet and salty
"This integration with nature is natural and real. It's all an experience you wouldn't have in New York. That's how the culture is here, because some of the friendliest people I know are here. When it comes to hometown, Miranda says so.
Here he learned to live with nature. Catch lizards, touch mimosa, look at the stars... These are all things that Miranda, who lives in New York, is out of reach. What's even better is that he was most impressed by the simple folk customs here.
As a child, Miranda loved to make movies. Grandfather borrowed a video camera from the unit, and he took the camera and recorded all the people and things here.
The neighbor lady often appears in Miranda's films. The old lady often pretended to faint, sing, and play guitar for his "artistic career." "He's like my son," she said, "my beloved baby." ”
● "Marvel Lin" spent childhood summers in Puerto Rico
As she grew older, Miranda gradually integrated the people she knew, the familiar community, into her life's greatest interest: musical theater.
Miranda has been writing musicals since high school. In college, he's already working on the musical "In the Heights," a story about young people in a Latino community.
The storyline is based on what he sees and hears. In a Latino neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York, as descendants of the first generation of immigrants, these young people inherit their cultural traditions while hitting several walls that every young person encounters – college tuition shortages, love, a sense of belonging...
● Miranda's "In the Highlands" musical
He also uses the right elements of music: rap, hip-hop, and Latin music that fits the context of the story. The story conveys the joys and sorrows of the little people, and with his great musical talent, it naturally gives him a firm foothold on Broadway.
In 2008, when he won the Tony Award for the musical, he carried a Puerto Rican flag to the podium to declare his love for his homeland.
• Miranda delivered her acceptance speech, holding the flag of Puerto Rico
Miranda explains her behavior this way: This is a "bat signal" to your fellow citizens, I have done it, and you can do it. (Note: Bat Signal refers to the signal that summons the superhero Batman in the DC "Batman" series of comics in the United States)
After the performance of "In the Highlands", Miranda read a biography of Hamilton: Hamilton was born in the United States, also grew up in the Caribbean, and then returned to New York to begin his political career.
For Miranda, who has always been so focused on her hometown, such a familiar plot appears in front of his eyes, which inevitably evokes a new desire for creation.
After only a few chapters, Miranda saw the possibility of bringing the historic figure to the musical theater stage— though Hamilton was not a much-regarded creative archetype.
● Stills from Miranda's Hamilton
How to say it? In the same historical period, all the creators were concentrated in the light of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and other big figures, and Hamilton was unattractive to them. Miranda looked up for half a day: Before him, Broadway had only ever put the founding father on stage — and that was in 1917.
Miranda did it in a big way. A My Shot, which he polished for a year; it took him four or five years to create the whole project, in order to fully integrate the wisdom of the founding father into his rap lyrics.
He's crafted the lyrics to the effect that you may not be able to pass the history and have no idea what Hamilton did, but after listening to Miranda's rap, you'll be brainwashed into becoming a Hamilton expert.
● Hamilton's avatar, along with Miranda's lyrics, became a popular Meme among young people
He completely turned Hamilton in the biography into a lifelike figure on stage. YouTube commented best: "Other people read books and write reading notes, Lin is different, he writes a whole musical." ”
In 2015, the "Hamilton" musical successfully debuted on stage and received a lot of praise. Miranda's career reached a new peak, he earned tens of millions of dollars by drawing, won 11 Tony Awards, in addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Grammys he also pocketed, can be described as a real acclaim and acclaim.
● Audience members who watched "Hamilton" gave a standing ovation
But also in 2015, his beloved Puerto Rico fell into a debt crisis.
At that time, Puerto Rico's government debt-to-GDP ratio had exceeded 70 percent, and the economy was in between collapses. Not to mention the hurricane that started, it was even worse.
Miranda had just taken a breath from Hamilton and was immediately thrown into the initiative to save the economy of her hometown. He wasn't used to life after he became famous. The success of Hamilton brought him great influence.
"[Puerto Rico] needs help and attention," he said, "and one of the big side effects of Hamilton is that it became a megaphone that I didn't know how to use at first." ”
He has always been a living treasure that is not very active on social media, and everyone loves to follow him on Twitter. At this time, he turned his influence into propaganda for his hometown.
Miranda in her speech
He published an open letter in The New York Times calling on the United States Congress to intervene in Puerto Rico's economic situation. He contacted Then-U.S. President Barack Obama to discuss the issue.
At the same time, he moved his "Hamilton" to Puerto Rico to be staged – he himself returned to the lead role as an opportunity to raise money. Fifteen million U.S. dollars (about 100 million yuan) from the performance were donated to the island.
And the island loves him just as much — if you're lucky enough to come to Puerto Rico, to the small town where Miranda's grandparents lived, you can see Miranda's billboards and buy his neighborhood. On the billboard was a large photograph of him, with the words "#YoSoyVegaAlta," meaning "I am Vega Alta"—a place where he was loved to the point.
● Miranda billboard on the island of Puerto Rico
Two-way love allowed Miranda to find recognition of his identity, allowing him to boldly discuss this issue in his artistic creation; and also allowed the island to gain a trustworthy "son" when it needed help the most.
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