Transnationalism in In the Heights – The Best Days of My Life
Josefine Wunderwald (2023)
The smell of fresh coffee, the blistering heat of a New York summer, and a cacophony of sounds: traffic, street music, the Piragua man hawking, voices mixing. The vision the musical In the Heights creates of Washington Heights is one of a place teeming with life. Here, people of different cultures live together – immigrants from Cuba, Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic, and their children born in New York. Yet, they all seem to be united by a common identity, a shared feeling of connection and similar life stories. This is what the concept of transnational identity describes: an identity that is not tied to one place but shaped by two or more cultures at once.
The musical In the Heights explores the themes of transmigration and transnationalism through the character of Usnavi. His character embodies transnational identity; his idea of home spans national, cultural, and geographic borders and is shaped and constructed through the ties within his community in Washington Heights. Usnavi’s complex and ambiguous identity is particularly reflected in his relationship with Vanessa, who acts as his opposite with regards to the space of the barrio and the notion of home. Looking forward, Vanessa wants to ‘get out’ in hopes of fulfilling her dreams of a successful career; looking backwards, Usnavi wants to leave the barrio behind to reconnect with his roots in his home country.
Throughout the musical, Usnavi’s character evolves through his battle with his identity and his search for a home. These feelings of uncertainty and longing for his place in the world are already presented in the introductory scene. Usnavi wakes up in his small, dimly lit bedroom with the trains rattling outside the window. This setting creates a stark contrast to the open sea and sunlight of the previous scene, the frame story. His room seems to be a mirror for his current mental state, the closed-off, dark space reflecting his feeling of dissatisfaction with his living situation in which he does not feel free or fulfilled. The photos on his wall of himself as a child and his father on a beach in the Dominican Republic allow a peek into a different life – Usnavi calls these times the “best days of [his] life.”
His childhood home, which he left when he was only eight years old, still functions as a mental refuge for him. It is the idealised vision of a place to which he truly belongs. His memories of the place he grew up in are hazy. Like the three pictures on his wall, they present a romanticised vision of a past with his father on the beach, their little shop, the sea, and sunshine – a sense of freedom that he lacks in his current life in the barrio. Like many immigrants, he “[carries the] embodied experiences of past spaces” (Rodriguez 12), he is immensely shaped by the memories of living in a different country. The importance of these experiences and his pride in them are illustrated by the line “’Cause I immigrated / From the single greatest little place in the Caribbean / Dominican Republic, I love it” in the opening number “In the Heights.”
Simultaneously, Usnavi is deeply rooted in the barrio. Just like his childhood home, Washington Heights and its community is a major force in the construction of his identity, a connection that is already established in the first song, “In the Heights,” by means of an audio dissolve – a way of connecting diegetic and nondiegetic music in musicals in which the “nondiegetic accompaniment fades in and merges with the diegetic music” (Heldt 138). In the song, this is achieved through including the sounds of Usnavi’s morning: the news on the radio first in English, then Spanish; his alarm clock, him shutting his front door and locking the garden door, a man cleaning the street with a water hose, Usnavi’s keys, the chewing gum he steps on, and finally opening the grate in front of his shop. Leading into the opening number, in which Usnavi introduces himself, these are everyday elements of his life. Hence, this audio dissolve displays how strongly his life and personality are interwoven with his neighbourhood.
It is the duality in Usnavi’s sense of belonging to two places at the same time and the ambiguity regarding his idea of home that is typical for a transnational identity. The concept of transnationalism describes the “ongoing interconnection or flow of people, ideas, objects, and capital across the borders of nation-states” (Glick Schiller 449), creating identities that transcend national and cultural borders. Specific places are hugely important for these processes, as transnationalism describes the “impact of global processes at a local level” (Retis, Narratives 9). The experience of moving from one place to another and building a home in both leads to an “intensified relationship to place” (Rodriguez 3) and a strong attachment to the neighbourhood that becomes their new home. This commitment to a place balances the instability in other aspects of their identity, such as their nationality or dominant language (ibid.). By maintaining connections in and to two places and countries at the same time, immigrants and their children create a link between “their societies of origin and settlement” (Basch 6).
Consequently, immigrants unite attributes that seemingly contrast; they assimilate to a new country and at the same time hold on to their home country (Retis, “Understanding” 362). Considering this, their identities too are not stable and fixed, and neither is their notion of home since they span national borders (Retis and Román-Velázquez 13). Hence, immigrants’ identities are complex, varied, and open to change. This is what can be observed in Usnavi’s character: Whilst he has built a life in Washington Heights and is deeply connected to the place and its community, he also maintains ties to the Dominican Republic, calling it his home and constantly switching between English and Spanish. Still, throughout most of the musical, Usnavi struggles with this ambiguity, which also seems to be the reason for his dream of going back home, which would imply shedding his dual identity.
In this regard, Vanessa’s character acts as an opposite to Usnavi. The line “I’m runnin’ to make it home / And home’s what Vanessa’s runnin’ away from” shows both the ambivalence of the meaning of the word “home” in the song and the two characters’ different approaches to it. It seems that Usnavi feels that Vanessa is running away from her heritage. The repetition of the word “home” not only creates rhythm and musicality but also underlines the importance of the word – the search for their place in the world unites the two characters. Additionally, the line demonstrates the opposition in their aspirations and wishes. Usnavi wants to reconnect with his roots, nostalgically looking back. In contrast, Vanessa wants to leave the barrio and cultural heritage behind, looking forward. The chiasmus in the line strengthens this contrast and at the same time makes it clear that, whilst seemingly going in different directions, the two characters’ aspirations are similar; they both hope to escape the barrio. For Vanessa, the barrio represents a cage, she feels as though she is held back, while for Usnavi, it is not similar enough to the place of his upbringing.
This paints the barrio as an in-between space, one both characters think they are only passing through. Yet, this space and its community end up being the deciding force in both Usnavi’s and Vanessa’s search for home. For both characters, the community of Washington Heights leads them to unite contrasting parts of their identities. The song “Carnaval del Barrio” highlights this by showing how a common transnational identity can function as a unifying force. It reintroduces the flag motif from the opening song “In the Heights,” in which Usnavi sings “In the Heights, I hang my flag up on display” through the recurring line “Alza la bandera [raise the flag].” The flag thus functions as a metaphor for pride in one’s transnational identity, as it claims both the space in New York in which it is put up and the country it stands for. Furthermore, the naming of different flags, such as “La bandera Dominicana / […] / La bandera Puertorriqueña,” demonstrates that the different cultures in the barrio do not only co-exist but are also celebrated in their differences. Still, the parallelism in these lyrics shows that despite coming from different countries, everyone in the barrio is united by the fact that they carry more than one culture within themselves. Herein, the barrio in In the Heights is a typical transnational network based upon the “perception of common identity” (Retis, Narratives 10).
Accordingly, identity in the musical is created through solidarity and belonging, not in isolation. In the end, both Usnavi and Vanessa realise that the place they live in does not matter as much as the community surrounding them, which allows them to exist as their full selves. In the “Finale,” Usnavi claims his place in the barrio by realising his position within it. He reclaims the word to which Benny compared him at the beginning of the musical, “streetlight,” and gives it a new and positive meaning: He “illuminate[s] the stories of the people in the street,” understanding that his power lies in creating meaning in other people’s lives and allowing them to create meaning in his. His being rooted in the barrio like a “streetlight” is no longer a weakness, but a strength – he has found his place and identity within his community. In the beginning, in a scene with Sonny, Usnavi states: “If we made it back to the Dominican Republic, then we’ve retained our roots.” It will take him until the end of the musical to realise that he can retain his roots right where he is, in the barrio.
Works Cited
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edited by David Nugent and Jean Vincent, Blackwell Publishing, 2007, pp. 448-67.
Heldt, Guido. “Breaking into Song?: Hollywood Musicals (and After).” Music and
Levels of Narration in Film, Intellect, 2013, pp. 135-70. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv9hj7vv.6. Accessed 7 September 2023.
In the Heights. Directed by Jon M. Chu, screenplay by Quiara Algeria Hudes, based on
the musical stage play by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Warner Bros Pictures, 2021.
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