In The Heights By Lin Manuel Miranda Research Papers

In The Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda is a multi-award winning classic musical. The story takes place in the poor neighborhood of Washington Heights and follows Nina, an eighteen year old college dropout. She has always made the grade, been the best and outshined others in her town. After getting a scholarship to Stanford, she is the first person in Washington Heights to go to college. After working jobs and all the homework, she wasn’t able to do it all. Now, she has to come home to all these people who are very proud of her that she failed. The song, Breathe, explains her emotions about having to tell everyone she wasn’t as amazing as they thought.

The lyrics in Breathe let you see inside Nina’s feelings. You get to see the conflict inside of her, she wanted to succeed but she didn’t. One lyric that is very important is, “So how can I say that I while I was away I had so much to hide” This talks about how Nina has to tell everyone how she failed and has been lying about where she was. This is an important line because she has been the smartest and can do the impossible and everyone believed in her and this is who she has been. Now she isn’t this person so she doesn’t know who she is anymore.

Another lyric, “I got every scholarship/ Saved every dollar/
“Sigue andando el camino por toda su vid. Y si pierdes mis huellas que dios te bendiga. Respira.” This lyric literally translates to, “Continue walking the way of your life. And if you lose your way that God blessed you. Breathe.” This lyric is very important and wouldn’t be as important if sung by Nina. This is the community of Washington Heights reminding Nina if she loses her way, she should just breathe and it will be ok in the long run. This could also be a way of Washington Heights saying that when she is far from them that they will be supporting and sending their