["My Shot" playing]
♪ I am not throwing away my shot ♪
♪ Hey, yo, I'm just like my country I'm young, scrappy and hungry ♪
♪ And I'm not throwing away my shot ♪
[man] As an artist, I have learned
that I cannot control the success or failure of a thing I make.
So when I make decisions on things I want to do creatively,
the biggest decision is, if it doesn't leave me alone.
Like Hamilton did not leave me alone for seven years.
All right. All right. I'm writing it.
♪ Burr, check what we got Mr. Lafayette, hard rock like Lancelot ♪
♪ I think your pants look hot Laurens, I like you a lot ♪
♪ Let's hatch a plot blacker Than the kettle callin' the pot ♪
That's always the guiding principle: What am I passionate about?
And what am I going to learn from this experience?
[song ends]
Dear Lin,
As an undocumented immigrant, you helped me stand up for my community.
Dear Lin, You taught me to be proud of who I am.
When you spoke out, you opened up a whole new world for me.
When I felt like giving up, you gave me hope to keep going.
I get letters from all over our country and all over our world.
And I realized that every time you make something,
you're throwing rocks in a pond,
and you have no idea the ripples that are gonna come back to you.
Every time you make something.
- [woman] Dear Lin-Manuel... - [man] Dear Lin...
- [woman 2] Dear Lin... - [woman 3] Dear Lin...
[voices continue]
I have always believed that if you fancy yourself a writer,
every experience is valuable.
I grew up off 200th Street, at the very top of Manhattan.
The top of Manhattan has always been the first chapter in many immigrant stories.
My dad came from Puerto Rico to get his education,
and I think always intended to go back to Puerto Rico.
But then he met my mom. My mom was also born in Puerto Rico.
So, when I was growing up,
it was like, what does home mean to you if your parents grew up somewhere else
and you grew up here?
And where do we find home?
When I was a kid, I loved musicals, I loved hip-hop.
I remember having the Fat Boys' albums and Run-DMC.
And then at the same time, a steady diet of cast albums.
We didn't have money for Broadway when I was a kid.
I remember my mom cranking the volume knob on those songs as a kid,
and just rattling our house.
I meet so many kids who are like,
"I love Hamilton, but I've only listened to the album."
That was me with pretty much all my shows.
My first time seeing West Side Story was the movie,
because I got cast as Bernardo in the sixth grade play.
I was one of five Latinos in my elementary school.
Every one of you hates every one of us, and we hate you right back.
Let's get at it.
I wanted a life in this business so badly.
But I sort of realized that there weren't many opportunities for Latinos
other than gang members in the 1950s.
[grunts]
But the thing that changed everything for me was, um, in 1997.
For my 17th birthday, I went to see Rent.
♪ 525,600 minutes ♪
And it's hard to overstate the importance of that.
It was a game changer,
because musicals always took place somewhere else and in some other time.
But here is a musical that takes place right now.
It's a contemporary score.
And that blew my mind.
By existing, it said to me,
"You're allowed to write musicals about what you know, about your friends
and things that matter to you."
♪ Remember the love ♪
♪ Oh, you got to You got to remember to love ♪
♪ Remember the love ♪
♪ Don't you know that love is a gift From up above ♪
♪ Remember the love ♪
♪ Share love, give love ♪
So, this is what hit me like a ton of bricks
senior year of high school.
One, no one's gonna write your dream show.
And two, if we don't tell our own stories,
they're gonna tell the story of gang members from the 1950s again.
And so, I think In the Heights was born out of that,
out of those twin realizations.
My first attempt at a full-length musical was In the Heights.
I started writing my sophomore year at Wesleyan.
And it was everything I'd always wanted to see in a musical.
It was Latino characters, but also playing with hip-hop and musical theater.
It's basically about home.
People come from somewhere else.
They make a neighborhood their own. They make it special.
They make it so special that other people want to move in.
And then suddenly they can't afford to live there anymore.
And that's what happens in In the Heights.
And it happens over and over again, all over our country and our world.
So, I put it up at Wesleyan.
♪ In Washington Heights ♪
Because it took place at the top of Manhattan,
I really had to look far and wide across campus
to find people of color to play the roles.
And as a result,
my show was just so much more diverse than the typical Wesleyan fare.
And so many more people came to see it, because everyone had a friend in the show.
♪ In Washington Heights ♪
So, I graduated with a degree in theater, and what do you do with that?
It does not guarantee income in any way.
So I taught seventh grade English for a year,
and I loved it.
And I could see the version of my life where I teach for 30 years
and I never write one show.
Um, and it scared the crap out of me.
And so, I started to devote my time to writing In the Heights.
In 2003, I met a great director, Tommy Kail.
And we started talking about what In the Heights could be.
And he was so smart, he was so fast,
and at every step of the process was more patient than me.
The first time a producer said to us,
"I like the show and I like the music, but I think it needs to be higher stakes.
Where's the drugs? Where's the prostitutes?"
My face changed colors.
The meeting ended and Tommy said, "We don't need him.
We'll find the person who wants to tell the story we want to tell."
So, one of his biggest contributions
was teaching me how to say no until it was right.
Because we did have opportunities, but we waited for the right opportunity.
And then, In the Heights opened, uh, off Broadway in 2007.
♪ Me and my cousin Runnin' just another dime-a-dozen ♪
♪ Mom-and-Pop, stop-and-shop ♪
♪ And oh, my God It's gotten too darn hot ♪
And I began to see what it did to Latinos
who saw the show and finally saw themselves represented on the stage
in a way that wasn't holding a knife.
And that's enormously gratifying.
-[song ends] -[applause]
Dear Lin,
I've lived in a tightly knit Latino community my whole life,
and I'm very proud of my culture and where I come from.
I went to college to pursue my love of dance,
but it was a culture shock.
"At times, in order to fit in, I felt like I had to hide my Mexican heritage
so that I would be accepted by my peers."
When you don't see people who look like you onstage
or in front of cameras, it feels like there isn't a place for you.
But then I discovered In the Heights. It's the first musical I could relate to.
When I found out my college was doing a production of your musical,
I auditioned and was thrilled to be cast in one of the lead roles.
You opened new doors for us in the Latino community.
And you empowered me to step onto the stage
and try musical theater for the first time.
"In the Heights is more than a musical to me.
It opened me up and made me free to celebrate who I am and where I'm from."
[woman] It made me proud of what Latino immigrants, like my mom and dad,
have had to endure to make it to where we are today.
In the week leading up to the opening,
I wanted to make sure everything in my performance was perfect.
Okay, can we run those lines really quick?
-[woman 2] Yeah, yeah. -Okay, uh, from...
One night, a group of us stayed late after our dress rehearsal to practice.
I'd made plans that night to go dancing with my friends.
And just as I finished rehearsal to go meet them,
a cast member told me there was a shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill,
the same place I was headed to meet my friends.
[male officer] We got multiple people down. We need a lot of ambulances.
You never think something like this will happen in your community.
My fellow cast members huddled around.
We were all in shock. We just sat on stage crying.
Later that night, I learned that four of our friends never made it out.
[helicopter whirring]
Less than 24 hours later,
one of the worst wildfires in California's history broke out
and completely upended our community.
We were forced to evacuate, and the university shut down.
We were paralyzed with shock and grief.
The sense of community we built was falling apart.
And then something amazing happened.
Somehow, you had heard about everything our production had gone through,
and you invited us to come meet you in Los Angeles.
I can't describe how much that meant.
You were our light amid all of the darkness.
"You were a shoulder for us to lean on, and you gave us hope in our time of need."
[woman] You told us that art can be healing in times of tragedy.
After meeting you, we were all motivated to keep going.
And thanks to my incredible drama teachers and our university,
we were able to put on our production of In the Heights.
And that helped us bring our community back together again.
We performed three incredible shows in front of sold-out crowds.
-[salsa music playing] -[singing]
I'll never forget the look on my parents' faces
as they watched from the front row.
I felt connected to them and my Latino heritage unlike ever before.
But more importantly,
performing In the Heights for our friends and community
lifted all of us up and helped us heal when we needed it most.
[audience cheering]
Hi. I made that.
Thank God I sucked in my gut in that picture.
I'll never go through a bigger change in my life
than going from substitute teacher to Broadway composer.
That is the biggest leap I will ever make. I can't make a leap that big again.
Um, and-- Everyone says don't read the reviews.
But my professional life and personal life depended on good reviews,
because we didn't have any stars in the show,
we didn't have any stars behind the scenes.
And so, we were so grateful for the reviews.
Even though they did carry a whiff of
"Why are there no knives? Why is there no crime?"
They got us to the Tonys, and that was game changing for me.
And the Tony Award for Best Score, which I already opened,
goes to...
-In the Heights. -[cheering]
Music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
[Miranda] It's still a blur.
I was happy I won.
Um, we really needed the win.
♪ I don't know what else I got ♪
♪ I'm off the dome ♪
♪ I know I wrote a little show About home ♪
♪ Mr. Sondheim, look ♪
♪ I made a hat Where there never was a hat ♪
♪ It's a Latin hat at that ♪
Uh, and then when we won the Tony Award for Best Musical,
that was a very surreal moment,
and I'll never forget it.
[Whoopi Goldberg] The 2008 Tony Award goes to
In the Heights.
[cheering, applause]
It's the great joy of my life
that I actually get to make a living doing what I do.
But I would be doing it if no one was watching
and if I was doing it between grading papers.
2008. We've just won the Tony Award for Best Musical.
We are very happy, 'cause it means our show is going to run.
And I have my first vacation in a really long time.
We went to Borders on 59th Street and looked for books to read on vacation.
I read the glowing reviews of Ron Chernow's book on Alexander Hamilton.
I thought, "This is a nice big book. Only have to pack one."
All I knew about Hamilton was his son died in a duel,
and he died in a duel three years later.
And I thought, "How do you walk into that?"
It seems like the most avoidable mistake of all time.
But as soon as I started reading it, I just thought, "I know this dude."
He was born in the Caribbean, like my father was born.
And I realized, "Of course, this is an immigrant story."
Would he have been called an immigrant back then?
No, he wouldn't have.
But the notion that he's gonna have to work three times as hard as anyone else
just to get his foot in the door--
to me, that's what makes this an immigrant story.
That's what I saw all around me in my neighborhood in Upper Manhattan,
was we just have to work harder,
uh, to get half the chance that someone born here gets.
And I thought, "This is hip-hop."
This is what the great hip-hop artists do: They write about their struggle.
And they write about it so well that they transcend it.
So, even the first time I'm reading the book,
I'm already not thinking about a traditional musical.
I was thinking, "As an album..."
[applause]
I'm thrilled the White House called me, uh, tonight,
because I'm actually working on a hip-hop album.
In 2009, the White House invites me to perform something from In the Heights
at their first evening of poetry and spoken word.
But with the...
with the asterisk,
"Unless you have something about America you'd like to perform."
I have 16 bars about Alexander Hamilton. Uh, that's all I've got.
It's a concept album about the life of someone I think embodies hip-hop,
Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.
You laugh, but it's true!
Um, he was born a penniless orphan in Saint Croix of illegitimate birth.
Became George Washington's right-hand man, uh, became Treasury Secretary.
Caught beef with every other founding father.
And all on the strength of his writing.
I think he embodies the word's ability to make a difference.
So, I'm going to be doing the first song from that,
uh, and snap along if you like.
[scattered laughter]
[playing "Alexander Hamilton"]
♪ How does a bastard, orphan Son of a whore and a Scotsman ♪
♪ Dropped in the middle of a forgotten Spot in the Caribbean ♪
♪ By providence impoverished in squalor ♪
♪ Grow up to be a hero and a scholar? ♪
♪ The ten-dollar founding father Without a father ♪
♪ Got a lot farther By working a lot harder ♪
♪ By being a lot smarter By being a self-starter ♪
♪ By 14, they had placed him In charge of a trading charter ♪
♪ And every day while slaves Were being slaughtered and carted away ♪
♪ Across the waves ♪
♪ Our Hamilton kept his guard up ♪
♪ Inside, he was longing for something To be a part of ♪
♪ The brother was ready to beg Steal, borrow or barter ♪
♪ Then a hurricane came And devastation reigned ♪
♪ And our man saw his future drip Dripping down the drain ♪
♪ Put a pencil to his temple Connected it to his brain ♪
♪ And he wrote his first refrain A testament to his pain ♪
Who on earth would tell you that a hip-hop R & B musical
about America's founders and the Treasury Secretary
would be a good musical?
Doesn't sound good on paper.
♪ And the world is gonna know your name ♪
♪ What's your name, man? ♪
-♪ Alexander Hamilton ♪ -[audience laughs]
♪ His name is Alexander Hamilton ♪
♪ And there's a million things He hasn't done ♪
♪ But just you wait ♪
♪ Just you wait ♪
But you can't chase what's happening now.
You have to chase something bigger, which is your own passion for your work.
And I think people recognize that authenticity.
-[song ends] -[applause]
[Miranda] Thank you.
After the White House, I sort of realized, "Oh, this isn't an album. This is a show."
And I was like, "This is going to be the story of America then
told by America now."
When I was writing for Hamilton,
particularly once we got into rehearsal and production,
we had the system down by then.
I had a shorthand with this creative team, who I'd worked with on In the Heights,
and there's a bedrock level of trust there.
It took us seven years of writing.
And then Hamilton opens, uh, off Broadway in 2015.
I did think, "We'll do okay with school groups,
given how much of AP US history is covered in rhyming verse in our show.
Teachers will want to bring their kids to this."
I could not have anticipated
how many people found their way in because of different things in the show.
- ♪ And when I meet Thomas Jefferson ♪ -♪ Uh ♪
♪ I'm gonna compel him To include women in the sequel ♪
♪ Work ♪
This was a show that as soon as it started,
everyone who left told five people, "You have to go see this show."
And that's the thing no one can buy. History buffs want to go see the show.
Hip-hop fans see the show. Musical theater fans see the show.
Kids really liked the score.
They could see history as something that could be cool
and really engage with it.
You realize what you have.
I'd be lying if I didn't say it was exhilarating.
And so, because of Hamilton's off-Broadway success,
we opened on Broadway just a few months after that.
All of that happened so fast.
- ♪In the greatest city in the world ♪ - ♪In the greatest city in the world ♪
♪ In the greatest city in the world ♪
[song ends]
Dear Lin-Manuel,
My name is Sydney. I love gymnastics.
My friends and I used to practice at my house all the time.
[man] Ooh!
[Sydney] But a few years ago, I had trouble training because my back hurt.
I thought I had pulled a muscle, so my dad took me in for a checkup.
Dear Lin-Manuel,
After countless tests,
we found out that our daughter has a rare form of brain cancer
located in her spine.
Sydney means the world to me.
As a parent, you pray your child never has to go through anything like this.
You care so much, but feel so helpless.
We were so afraid we might lose her.
I had two surgeries on my back to remove the tumor.
But I had to go to the hospital for chemotherapy treatment
every Friday for nine hours at a time.
It was really hard because it made me feel very sick.
My parents would do little things to try to make it easier for me.
They hung sheets up and made a fort around my bed
so I could pretend to be somewhere else.
[dad] It was torture watching Sydney go through that pain.
Every time we brought her home from chemo,
she'd be sick for three to four days at a time.
She should have been playing with her friends, going to school, learning,
not just trying to survive and get through each day.
Fighting cancer forced me to give up everything I loved.
I was really starting to lose hope.
Then one day, my dad showed me something he thought I would love.
♪ Ooh, I do, I do, I do, I do ♪
It was the Hamilton soundtrack.
He was right. It was awesome.
Listening to the Hamilton soundtrack filled me with so much joy
and transported me to a magical place.
♪ Look into your eyes And the sky's the limit, I'm helpless ♪
"When it finished, I played it again,
and again, and again."
There were so many things I couldn't do when I was sick.
But the one thing I could do was listen to your music.
Hearing your songs helped me forget about chemo
and made me feel better when the treatments got really hard.
♪ And no one else is in the room Where it happened ♪
I probably listened to Hamilton 400 times.
I love Hamilton, but after hearing it 400 times,
I'd had all any normal human could take.
[whispers] Me too.
All I wanted to do was take my daughter's pain away, and I couldn't.
But you could.
You gave her joy during the hardest time in her life.
As her father, I can't tell you what that means to me.
After 60 weeks, my doctors told me the treatment had worked.
I was cancer free.
[scanner beeps]
When Sydney was well enough,
we surprised her with a trip to Chicago to see Hamilton.
This time we wanted her to fully experience and listen to Hamilton
to celebrate how she had beaten cancer once and for all.
"When I felt like giving up, you gave me hope to keep going.
Thank you, Lin-Manuel, for helping me get better."
♪ Yeah, you'll blow us all away ♪
♪ Someday ♪
♪ And I am not throwing away my shot ♪
[female reporter] It's the hottest ticket in town, Broadway's smash hit Hamilton.
[male reporter] The nominations have been announced for the 2016 Tony Awards.
And the big story is, you guessed it, Hamilton.
The blockbuster musical set a new record with 16 total nominations.
I was very happy and grateful and could not believe what was happening.
[male announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, Lin-Manuel Miranda!
Hamilton, and listen, this is no surprise to you,
- completely blew me away. - Thank you very much.
You knew you were doing something different and great,
but did you think it was going to be this great?
Well, you can't control that part of it, right?
The success of Hamilton was remarkable.
And it was...
It's still a blur.
I feel honored.
I feel honored that people feel they can lean on the work.
On the day of the Tony Awards,
I pull out my phone and read about the Pulse shooting.
America is just now coming to grips
with what unfolded in the early morning hours here in Orlando.
A massacre at a gay nightclub...
And we're horrified.
The victims are mostly Puerto Rican. It's in a gay nightclub.
I knew that this was going to both be a day of celebrating
all of the work we'd done with Hamilton to get it to Broadway,
and a day of unimaginable tragedy for our country.
And we were gonna be on TV.
We are the favorite to win, so I know I have to prepare something.
But here's the thing: so much of writing...
is just about meeting the moment as honestly as possible.
And sometimes you have years to do it.
I had a couple of hours to meet the moment.
And the Tony goes to...
Hamilton, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
I would've loved nothing better than to just thank my wife
and thank all of the hundreds of people who helped Hamilton to get to what it is,
but I couldn't that day.
And I had to tie this tragedy of hate and fear
to the themes of our show.
When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised,
not one day.
This show is proof that history remembers.
We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger, we rise and fall.
And light from dying embers, remembrances that hope and love lasts longer.
- And love is love is love is love, -[applause]
cannot be killed or swept aside.
I sing Vanessa's symphony, Eliza tells her story.
Now, fill the world with music, love and pride.
Thank you so much for this.
[cheers, applause]
I remember shutting off my phone after that.
I basically wasn't online for the next couple of days.
And then seeing the "Love is love" start to pop up in places.
Seeing it on the side of churches, seeing people writing about it.
I was very moved by it, because I'd heard "love is love" before,
and I just wanted to double, triple, quadruple, quintuple,
sextuple, septuple, octuple down on it.
And so, if me stringing those words together helped someone,
then I'm very, very grateful.
Dear Lin, My name is Dylan and I'm 19 years old.
I live in a small town in the Bible Belt in Tennessee.
"Hunting and football are really big here, but musical theater isn't."
Been there.
[Dylan] I love theater, and I was bullied a lot in high school because of it.
It was really hard for me, because I had no safe place where I could be myself.
I always had to hide who I was.
[crowd groans]
People already didn't accept me,
so I thought there was no way I could tell anyone that I was gay.
But then I saw you win the Tony for Hamilton in 2016.
You took the opportunity to speak out against bigotry and homophobia.
Up to that point, I had been too scared to come out.
But you gave me the courage to find my voice
and be the person I truly am inside.
So I put on your song "My Shot" from Hamilton
and sat down at my computer and poured my heart out.
And then I posted it onto social media.
[exhales]
"You sang about seizing opportunity and owning the moment
in hopes for a brighter future."
[Dylan] That's exactly what I did.
And for the first time, I was me. It was liberating.
Not everyone was okay with it, and that was hard.
A few days later, something truly amazing happened.
Someone from my school who I barely knew
read my post and texted me to tell me he was going through the same thing.
Other people in my town started confiding in me,
telling me I gave them the courage and strength to come out too.
"So many people around me were hiding who they were, just like I had been,
but because you helped me find my inner strength...
[exhales]
I could help other people find theirs."
Now I wear my gay pride pin every day.
I'm in college studying musical theater.
And I'm also a teaching assistant for English Lit classes.
Because I've created a safe, welcoming environment
where it's okay to be who you are,
I've had many students actually come out to me during my office hours.
Now I am an advocate for both gay rights and all human rights.
"I want everyone to know that it's okay to be yourself
and follow your passion, whatever it may be.
Thank--"
Thank you, Lin, for helping me and countless others
follow our hearts, stand up for ourselves,
and bring more love and equality into the world.
[man] We proudly welcome to the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Lin-Manuel Miranda.
[cheers, applause]
I realized that the success of Hamilton has doubled the size of my megaphone.
And then one day, I realized, "Whoa! This thing is really loud."
[speaking Spanish]
Articles were being written based on things I'd tweeted.
You know, it's just different.
That shift happened because of Hamilton, to be sure.
[crowd cheering]
But I treat the issues I get involved with the same way I treat creative ideas.
The compassion of the American people is real and it is still here.
It's only the things that won't leave me alone.
[reporter] Hurricane Maria barreled through Saint Croix overnight
before roaring ashore in Puerto Rico.
That extends to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
It's shocking and maddening.
It's part of the reason we're here today.
Or performing in solidarity with the Parkland kids
at the March for Our Lives concert.
♪ If you only look around ♪
♪ You will be found ♪
♪ And when our children tell their story ♪
Or being at the immigrants' Families Belong Together rally.
[reporter] It's estimated that more than 2,000 families have been separated
as a result of President Trump's zero tolerance policy
regarding illegal immigration.
I remember feeling horrified.
My stomach hurt for days, like I'm sure yours did.
Our kids are gonna look back on this day
and they're gonna know we were on the right side of history,
and we were fighting for families, and we were fighting for our future.
That affected me so deeply.
We're here because there's parents right now
who can't sing lullabies to their kids.
The world's on fire all the time, and you can't put out every fire.
But you can respond to the things that don't leave you alone,
whether it's an idea or whether it's an injustice.
I have this big megaphone. How can we help?
We love you. Don't give up.
[woman] Dear Lin,
I came to America with my mother on Christmas Day in 2007
in search of a better life.
I was 12 years old and undocumented, and I didn't know what to expect.
We were taken across the border by a coyote,
a person who smuggles you into America.
And once he had been paid,
he let us go to start our new lives in the United States.
I grew up in a vecindad in Mexico.
It's a tightly knit community
where one person's struggles become all of our struggles.
And one person's success is celebrated as everyone's success.
"The idea is that wherever you go in life, you bring your community with you."
When I was little, I knew I was undocumented,
but I didn't realize what that actually meant.
When I got older in high school,
all of my classmates started getting their driver's licenses,
finding jobs and applying for colleges,
all things I wanted to do but couldn't.
I just wanted to be a teenager like everyone else.
But I had to live my life in the shadows, afraid that if I drew attention to myself,
my family and I would be deported back to Mexico.
I felt invisible.
This wasn't the life that I wanted for myself.
And because we had to hide in our community,
I never knew the power of theater until a friend told me about Hamilton.
I listened to the cast recording,
and suddenly a whole new world opened up for me.
You taught me about Alexander Hamilton,
an immigrant who came to America and hoped for a better life.
Just like me, he fought for his place in this country,
and I saw my story in him.
- ♪ Monsieur Hamilton ♪ - ♪ Monsieur Lafayette ♪
- ♪ In command where you belong ♪ -♪ How you say, no sweat ♪
♪ We're finally on the field We've had quite a run ♪
-♪ Immigrants ♪ -♪ We get the job done ♪
[woman] Then I started learning about you and how outspoken you've been
in support of immigrants like me and my family.
You stood up for DACA and for DREAMers.
You talked about how immigrants helped build this country.
"You showed us in a new light
and you used your platform [sighs] to make a better world."
I wanted to be a part of the movement, and you encouraged me to find my voice.
I began organizing voter registration drives for immigrants
across high school and college campuses
so that they vote and are represented by their government.
And now I serve my immigrant community in the Nevada State Legislature
as a personal attaché to an assemblyman.
"Lin, not only have you empowered me to stand up,
you've shown me that representation matters."
When I first arrived to America, I had to leave my home behind,
and it was difficult for me to feel like this was my country.
But after watching Hamilton,
you helped me see that this is my country too, and I belong here.
Today, I'm no longer undocumented.
I have a visa that has put me on the path to citizenship.
There's a line from In the Heights that says,
- "Wherever we go, we rep our people." -[sighs]
Because of you, wherever my life takes me, I will always represent my people.
Thank you, Dulce. Thank you.
Art's role is always the same: it's to tell stories.
And it's to tell stories that can only be told by those creators.
That's the art that lives forever.
Thank you for opening the door for all of us.
Thank you, Lin, for helping me find my voice.
Your music brought a smile to my face when life was really hard.
You wanna write shows that affect people the way Rent affected me,
the way Les Misérables affected me,
the way "Beef" by Boogie Down Productions affected me.
Because we lean on art.
In my darkest times, I lean on other work,
um, that expresses what I'm going through in a way that maybe I can't,
or is a distraction for what I'm going through.
We lean on art sometimes more than we lean on people.
Thank you, Lin, for inspiring me to share my story with the world.
Sincerely, Dylan.
Sincerely, Melina.
Thank you, Dulce.
-Sincerely, Sydney. -And Chris.
I think most of all, I feel grateful that this art could serve a bigger purpose.
And that's kind of joyous.