Dear Puerto Ricans,
We need to talk about the Hamilton film.
Since it just so happens to be US Independence Day, and the billionaire executives at Disney decided to bestow upon us the gift of a Broadway musical-turned-film in the midst of a global pandemic, I think we need to finally talk about it.
As of this weekend, audiences around the world will be able to experience the film: a project in which art imitates history — but also imitates present day life. I urge Puerto Ricans to watch Hamilton, as it is a brilliant use of storytelling, but I feel we must consume it with the context provided by our reality as citizens from an unincorporated territory of this country; a reality that is stranger than fiction.
So, let’s talk about the connections between the story Hamilton and our own history with the US.
On Friday morning, I sat down to watch the Hamilton musical film, a capitalist byproduct of the Broadway play birthed by famous Nuyorican Lin Manuel Miranda. By now we all know how the play became a meteoric success worldwide. Miranda credits the biography of Alexander Hamilton as the inspiration that changed his life. He claims to have learned something from Hamilton’s “ability to write his way out of his difficult circumstances” — an exercise Miranda would put to use in his own art.
Hamilton the Musical quickly became the hottest ticket in the world.
The musical’s production made its Puerto Rico debut on January 11, 2019 with its original cast, who came to the island to perform at Centro de Bellas Artes in San Juan. The performance coincided with a fundraising campaign by the show’s producers for Puerto Rico in the wake of the disastrous hurricanes Irma and María.
The release of Hamilton in Puerto Rico was initially scheduled to debut at the University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras theater. However, when Miranda gave a talk at the University of Puerto Rico theater in 2017, students from the University protested his presence with signs that read “Lin Manuel, nuestras vidas no son tu teatro,” which translates to “our lives are not your theater.”
Why did Puerto Ricans protest a man they had acclaimed in previous occasions? Why were Puerto Ricans, who crave representation and a voice, boycotting a man and a cultural phenomenon that had raised over $15 million dollars for the island’s hurricane relief?
As Puerto Rican activist Amárilis Págan Jiménez wrote in an Op-Ed last year defending the protestors, why should we as an island “welcome a show that chronicles the history of the same country that has Puerto Ricans living under a colonial state that resulted in PROMESA?”
What’s more, Lin Manuel Miranda had a direct relationship with what became PROMESA, the law passed by Congress that created a federal oversight board to manage the entirety of Puerto Rico’s finances. The artist initially campaigned for its passing, after pleading for congress to take action on Puerto Rico’s ever-mounting debt.
His support for the bill angered many Puerto Ricans on the island, who questioned his involvement as someone who was born and raised as a resident of New York City.
The New York Times published an Op-Ed by Miranda in 2016, where he used Hamilton’s own words to plead for debt relief for Puerto Rico. He began by writing about a letter the founding father wrote after his birthplace of St. Croix was ravaged from a hurricane. He thought about Hamilton’s plea for help from his countrymen. Miranda quotes Hamilton’s description of the destruction caused from the hurricane, which said it was “sufficient to strike astonishment into angels.”
Miranda said he was effectively “invoking Hamilton’s words today, in this plea for relief for Puerto Rico.”
Congress would follow suit, passing the PROMESA law, which created the oversight board colloquially known as La Junta. It gave the federal government supreme authority over the Puerto Rican government. This federal board would essentially take away Puerto Rico’s control over its own economy, without any need to provide transparency in its operations to the citizens on the Island.
After Hamilton’s debut in Puerto Rico, Miranda sat down for a post-show press conference in San Juan, and retracted his support for the austerity measures taken by La Junta, explaining that he initially saw the law as a bipartisan solution but now believes debt forgiveness is the only way forward.
But the initial damage was already done. The austerity measures that began to take place after La Junta were a cure as bad as the disease itself.
Puerto Ricans protested Hamilton because the island was in extreme danger, and its author contributed to that destruction.
As I watched the musical at my apartment in Brooklyn, I thought about the students and university employees protesting the debut of the play in our theater a few years back. (I specifically write “our theater” because I want to emphasize that the University of Puerto Rico belongs to Puerto Ricans, regardless of geographical location).
Then I thought about the Puerto Rican summer, and the series of protests that resulted in the resignation of the Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Roselló. Puerto Ricans on the island pressured him to resign after a corruption scandal, which finally happened on July 25th — the same day Puerto Rico celebrates its own Constitution, instituted via the Commonwealth.
Fourth of July weekend has always been a big beach holiday for us in my hometown of Moca, a fact that I never questioned because I’m human and love a good beach party. This year, four months into a global pandemic that’s advanced more social justice causes in the United States than anything in the last decade, the Fourth of July feels like a different event entirely.
Independence Day 2020 lands in the midst of another American uprising. Citizens across the country are mobilizing for civil rights thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement. The marches happening nationwide are amounting to the largest protest movement in the history of this nation.
On this Fourth of July weekend, Americans all over the country will continue with their brave acts of protest and organizing. These are the “young, scrappy and hungry” protestors that are taking to the streets to demand social justice and equal protections under the law for all persons in the United States, similar to the story celebrated in Hamilton.
It’s wonderful that this will be taking place on the day the nation declared its independence — but those who join the protests, and the Puerto Ricans who support this movement, must not forget their own fight for freedom and a just future.
We should include Puerto Rico and the oppression it still faces when discussing the Hamilton Musical Film and its impact. As this nation rebuilds itself in a post-pandemic world, we can’t forget about the island territory of Puerto Rico and it’s current subordinate relationship with the United States. If you watch Hamilton this weekend, use it as a gateway to caring about the American citizens in Puerto Rico who are yearning for a voice.
