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In[to] the Heights

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month

Peeling Back the Layers of an American Identity in the 2020s by Taking a Deep Dive In[to] the Heights

Amidst on-going national debates about immigration in the U.S., the film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2005 stage musical, In the Heights, celebrates urban working-class immigrant life in the gentrifying neighborhood of Washington Heights in New York City. In this talk, Dr. McCleary will take a deep dive In[to]the Heights, by discussing the ways in which the film draws from Hollywood film history and Latinx/o/a and Latin American cultural traditions to present a joyous celebration of transnational belonging. She argues that In the Heights, directed by second generation American, Jon M. Chu, deliberately constructs a new vision of what it means to be American in the 2020s.

Dr. McCleary will contextualize the film version of In the Heights through a discussion of film representations of cities and the Latin American and Latin/a/o/x community in particular. She will draw connections between In the Heights and her own research on popular theater in an immigrant-heavy Buenos Aires, ca. 1910. She will highlight some of the ways in which a Latin American and Caribbean heritage is represented in the film. Finally, she will underscore how In the Heights pays homage to iconic Hollywood film and musicals and reproduces some of the film industry’s bias towards whiteness in casting.

About Dr. McCleary:

Kristen McCleary is an Associate Professor of history at James Madison University. Her book manuscript, “All the City’s a Stage:  Theater and Society in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1810-1920,” is currently under review with University of Pittsburgh Press. She has published a number of articles about urban and popular culture in Argentina and Uruguay. These articles investigate the rise of mass culture with the Spanish zarzuela on Buenos Aires stages in the 1890s, the transformation of carnival celebrations as a result of the late nineteenth century urbanization process, the performance of masculinity on the city’s stages, and the intersection of popular culture and ethnic identity. She has co-directed a study abroad program to Buenos Aires, Argentina since 2008. She teaches about expressions of gender, popular and urban culture, film and representation, and power and society in Latin America and the Latinx United States. She understands cultural expression as a way in which marginalized social groups express their own identities and foment democratic change and inclusivity in ways that are often not identified in the mainstream press or contemporary political discourse. Her publications include "Buenos Aires: The View from the Streets," and "Popular Theater in Buenos Aires: the Madrid of South America." Find more articles by Dr. McCleary on her JMU website.