Dominican-Americans

Subterms

    Latest story

    63 Shares159 Views

    ‘Beba’ Review: Learning From Ancestors

    by

    An Afro-Latina filmmaker explores her identity and generational trauma growing up in New York City and attending a predominantly white college.What’s most striking about the autobiographical documentary “Beba,” aside from the intimate lens and stunning cinematography, are its moments of vulnerability, which plunge the viewer into the Afro-Latina filmmaker’s familial and personal traumas, including heated arguments with her mother and her white friends.The film, written, directed and produced by Rebeca Huntt, traces her family’s migration to New York City, through her years at Bard College upstate, and then her move back to her parents’ place on Central Park West.“Beba,” which refers to Huntt’s childhood nickname, is not a glossed-over immigrant redemption story. Through poetry, narration — featuring the voices of writers like James Baldwin and Audre Lorde — and interviews with family and friends, Huntt, the daughter of a Black Dominican father and a Venezuelan mother, pieces together painful parts of her family and social history, extracting her own identity out of the remnants of her trauma. “Every one of us inherits the curses of our ancestors,” Huntt states. A focus is on her adversarial relationship with her mother and the tension that unfolds between them on and off camera. Huntt also interrogates her relationships to white friends amid rising racial and political tensions.Underexplored are the dynamics with and between the men in the family. Huntt’s father, who seems to be an idealized figure, is interviewed, but shies away from difficult questions. One gets the sense that he is let off the hook, perhaps because Huntt’s relationship with her mother takes up so much space. Though Huntt’s brother is a large part of the narrated story, the two are estranged, and his absence in the film is palpable. Still, “Beba” is profound. The filmmaker delves into all of who she is, including darker or more destructive aspects of her identity, pushing viewers to see Huntt’s complexity — and perhaps their own.BebaRated R for language. Running time: 1 hour 19 minutes. In theaters. More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      El Alfa, the King of Dembow, Dazzles at Madison Square Garden

      by

      The sold-out show by the Dominican artist was a watershed moment for the dembow movement.“Who said the Dominican Republic couldn’t go global?” El Alfa announced in Spanish from the stage halfway through his first concert at Madison Square Garden, as red and blue Dominican flags fluttered across the crowd of thousands. The 30-year-old performer, born Emanuel Herrera Batista, had good reason to celebrate: On Friday night, the global ambassador of dembow became the genre’s first artist to sell out the storied venue.It wasn’t just a personal success, but a watershed moment for the dembow scene he has spearheaded for over a decade — a street sound that contains the spiraling histories of the Caribbean. Dominican dembow is an Afro-diasporic music genre born in the Black and working-class neighborhoods outside of Santo Domingo in the late ’90s and early ’00s, reimagined from Jamaican dancehall riddims (from the Patois for “rhythm”), which form its foundation. But rather than lingering in a slow liquid haze, dembow producers crank the tempo up to lightning speed, stitching and alternating different riddims while rappers deliver breakneck, electric bars. Then, beatmakers chop up and duplicate hooks in the chorus, yielding supreme quotability and catchiness.Lyrically, dembow is a creative playground where artists are constantly inventing their own slang and vocabularies of becoming. The genre embraces the euphoria of everyday pleasures, like sex, dancing and partying. Unsurprisingly, it is often used as a scapegoat for Dominican social problems, a critique informed by racism and classism. Elites malign dembow as a breeding ground for crime, drugs and “sexual deviance,” characterizing it as pure vulgar expression — like the history of most music genres born out of struggle. The Dominican government regularly censors dembow songs it deems “explicit” and “obscene.” Also like many genres, dembow must contend with its patriarchal past and present, but it’s too simple, too narrow-minded to reduce it to plain raunch or misogyny. Dembow is also a gesture of defiance — a refusal to submit to colonial, “proper” ways of being, speaking and living.And honestly, it’s also just a lot of fun. El Alfa is a maximally charismatic performer, a comedian whose charm can transcend the stage and saturate an arena. Over the course of the night, he repeatedly demanded audience members scream if they were proud to be Dominican, conducted thousands of concertgoers sitting on different sides of the venue in a competition of volume and jokingly dedicated a song to parents who buy Louis Vuitton and Gucci for their children. When he brought out the merengue icon Fernandito Villalona, who strolled onstage in a shimmering silver jacket encrusted with red and blue rhinestones in the shape of the Dominican flag, El Alfa got on his knees in a gesture of deference and referred to Villalona as his father.The show was filled with wisecracking banter and playful antics, but it was above all a showcase of El Alfa’s artistry.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesUnder El Alfa’s command, the Garden, an already carnivalesque venue, became bacchanalian. At every turn, the artist reveled in excess and humor. He performed his laugh-out-loud summer hit “La Mamá de la Mamá” not once, but twice, a cabal of dancers in matching costumes gyrating behind him. Featured artists El Cherry Scom and CJ joined him onstage, a spectacle that ended in El Alfa climbing a monitor and the lime-haired Cherry taking his pants and shirt off, twerking passionately in his boxers in front of thousands. Before the show’s end, El Alfa claimed that he and his team had been fined for having too much fun and letting the show run over time.But focus too much on the wisecracking banter or the playful antics onstage, and you’ll miss the artistry. El Alfa has staggering control of his voice. On “Mueve La Cadera,” he sculpted it into percussive babbling; on “Tarzan,” it was ululating yells; on “Suave,” high-pitched baby talk. During his rendition of “Acuetate,” El Alfa had his D.J. cut out the track so he could spit the lyrics a cappella in double-time, effortlessly showing off his dexterity as a rapper. On “Sientate en Ese Deo,” his D.J. slowed the tempo so the lyrics could land with decelerated precision. It was a sublime display of El Alfa’s ability to stretch the boundaries of speech and language. For some, his voice might call to mind the falsettos of the Bee Gees; for others, the yelps of Atlanta rapper Young Thug. But let it be known: This is a distinctly Dominican way of speaking and manipulating language.Detractors often dismiss dembow for being repetitive, but that critique fails to recognize the creativity embedded in iteration. Repetition is part of why El Alfa can turn anything into a hook, and make listeners cackle in the process; quotable, recurring punch lines are an essential part of his brand. “La Mamá de la Mamá” is a song rooted in double entendre about oral sex, a gag that fully reveals itself once the chorus hits. When El Alfa performed it on Friday, the lyrics flashed onscreen in neon colors: “Dale cuchupla-pla-pla, cuchupla-pla-pla.” To an unsuspecting ear, this sounds like gibberish. I paused briefly and giggled to myself, wondering how I would translate the cleverness of this addictive, onomatopoeic hook into English. I realized it was futile, and that was precisely where the ingenuity bloomed.While the concert was a display of El Alfa’s agility and showmanship, it will go down as a celebration of a movement. A few minutes into the show, he set the tone for the evening, declaring, “This isn’t my success; it’s my country’s success.” He pointedly shared the spotlight, bringing out a parade of other Dominican artists (the pink-haired Kiko el Crazy, the playboy vocalist Mark B, the tough talking dembowsero Shelow Shaq) and a crew of non-Dominican collaborators who’ve helped him along the way (the Colombian pop star J Balvin, the New York radio personality Alex Sensation, the Puerto Rican reggaeton artist Farruko). Notably, none of the women who have helped push dembow forward were present. But the gesture still felt like a gleeful jab to those who said dembow would never travel beyond the borders of its birthplace. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      Qué pasa cuando una minivan se transforma en una máquina musical

      by

      En una bochornosa tarde de agosto en Randalls Island, me encontraba en un campo de Honda Odysseys y CR-Vs, carros equipados con filas de tweeters y subwoofers: altavoces especializados de altas frecuencias y de subgraves. Las bocinas estaban colocadas en los techos de los automóviles o alineados en los maleteros de los vehículos como artillería […] More

    • 88 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      When a Minivan Becomes a Music Machine

      by

      On a muggy August evening on Randalls Island, I stood in a field of Honda Odysseys and CR-Vs, tricked out with towering rows of tweeters and subwoofers. Speakers were affixed to the roofs or lined the trunks of the vehicles like light artillery, painted in canary yellows, blood reds and indigo blues. This is Dominican […] More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      Ynairaly Simo Reps the Bronx (and Tweenage Zest) in ‘Vivo’

      by

      The 14-year-old Dominican American actress makes her big screen debut in the animated musical on Netflix, with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda.Every time Ynairaly Simo’s mother asks her what she wants to eat at home, Simo tells her the same thing: moro de guandules con bistec, or rice with pigeon peas and steak.But if they’re dining out? It’s got to be the mofongo — a Puerto Rican dish made with fried plantains — from a shop two blocks away from where Simo lives with her family in the West Bronx.The rich food culture in Fordham Heights is a piece of what makes their life so full there.“We are proud to live in the Bronx, and we are proud that we are Latinos,” Ynairaly’s mother, Ydamys Simo, said in an interview. “And we always encourage that to her: Always be proud of who you are. And never change the essence that makes you you.”Ynairaly (pronounced ya-NAH-ruh-ly) Simo, 14, is the voice of Gabi, an energetic and eccentric preteen, in the animated musical “Vivo” on Netflix. Though Ynairaly was born and raised in New York, both sides of her family are Dominican.“I’m very glad to be playing Gabi and be Dominican,” Simo said in a video interview, in front of a canary yellow wall in her mother’s room. “Because girls my age — or younger — can be like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s Dominican! And she’s an actress? I could be an actress. I’m Dominican.’”Simo felt a similar spark when she saw Zoe Saldaña as Gamora in Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.” She instantly loved the green warrior character, and looked up who played her.When she realized Saldaña played Gamora — and that the actress was Dominican — it hit her: She could be in a Marvel movie someday, too.Four years later, Simo and Saldaña would end up working together. Saldaña plays Rosa, Gabi’s mother, in “Vivo.” Since their recording sessions took place separately, the two have never met, but Simo still hopes to meet her idol.“I’m very glad to be playing Gabi and be Dominican,” Simo said.Josefina Santos for The New York Times“Vivo” is Simo’s first major role — although she’s been acting for years — and she worked alongside a cast of “icons,” as she put it, including Saldaña.Lin-Manuel Miranda voices the titular Vivo, a singer-musician kinkajou; the Buena Vista Social Club legend Juan de Marcos plays Andrés, Vivo’s owner; and Gloria Estefan plays Marta, Andrés’s old musical partner and unrequited love.Because of the nature of voice performance, Miranda was the only cast member Simo met in person. She was more than familiar with his work — she had, in fact, auditioned for a role in the film version of “In the Heights” — and was eager to collaborate with him.Miranda spent one-on-one time with Simo in the recording studio, helping her pin down high notes in her head voice and low notes in her chest voice. (Simo attends the Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music, where she learned she is naturally an alto.)The actress sings on five songs on the movie’s soundtrack, including “My Own Drum” — an earworm rap about being true to yourself — and its remix with the Grammy winner Missy Elliott. Miranda, known for his signature rapid-fire rapping, guided Simo along her first time in the genre.“He taught me: Get a deep breath,” Simo said. “And then learn the words, spit them out and make sure to say them, pronounce them very sharply.”Onscreen, “My Own Drum” unfolds in Gabi’s tween tornado of a bedroom (her backpack is full of slime) in Key West, Fla. It features, in the words of the director Kirk DeMicco, “almost like a Busta Rhymes, fisheye lens, fun-house scene,” intended to shake Vivo out of his comfort zone. Here, the role fit the actress.“There was this exuberant unpolished-ness to her that she just had, and this moxie that you can’t even act,” DeMicco said in an interview. “The way she delivered her lines” and “the little improvs that she did, the way she filled things in, the texture was just her.”Simo’s father, Joseph Simo, is a big fan of the scene, the song and the soundtrack. It’s his “No. 1 pick” whenever he’s at work, he said: He flips on the soundtrack and listens straight through from beginning to end.“One of the things that she always wanted to do is inspire kids: Latinos — and all the kids that are into acting and into music — to follow their dreams,” Joseph said in an interview. “And I told her the other day, ‘You see, your dreams are coming true.’”Simo’s parents are, of course, her biggest fans: Two weeks into August, they had already watched the movie 16 times. (The film began streaming on Aug. 6.) They’re not planning on stopping anytime soon.Ynairaly, center, with her parents, Ydamys and Joseph Simo.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesThey have supported their daughter’s career in the arts since it began. At age 3, Simo started modeling. At 5, she started acting — doing smaller gigs, like commercials. “Vivo” was her first singing role (although since its premiere, she’s performed the national anthem for the Brooklyn Cyclones, the Gotham Girls and the New York Liberty).But the road here was by no means easy. In July 2019, while “Vivo” was in production, Ynairaly underwent an almost 10-hour surgery to correct advanced scoliosis. Twenty screws and two metal plates later, doctors told her parents she might not be able to “move the way a normal child could” — at least for a while.The day after the surgery, the physical therapist asked her to take a couple of steps, one step at a time, her father said. She walked 20. That same summer, she learned how to swim. She danced. A month after the surgery, she convinced the doctors to let her go back to Los Angeles to record.Her family called her “Ynairaly la guerrera,” or Ynairaly the warrior. “Because that’s who she is,” her mother said. “She’s really determined.” More

    • 200 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      ‘In the Heights’ y el colorismo: lo que se pierde cuando se borra a los afrolatinos

      by

      La película, ambientada en un barrio neoyorquino conocido como la Pequeña República Dominicana, no incluyó a latinos de piel oscura en los papeles principales. Críticos y reporteros del Times analizan cómo repercute esa ausencia.In the Heights, la muy postergada adaptación de Hollywood del musical de Broadway, se presentó como un avance para la representación latina en Hollywood, pero ha suscitado una conversación sobre el colorismo y el reparto de la película.El barrio neoyorquino en el que se desarrolla la historia, Washington Heights, es predominantemente afrodominicano. En una entrevista, Felice León, productora de video para The Root, le preguntó a Jon M. Chu, el director, y a algunas de las estrellas sobre la falta de protagonistas de piel oscura en la película: “Como mujer negra de ascendencia cubana, específicamente de la ciudad de Nueva York”, le dijo, “sería negligente por mi parte no reconocer el hecho de que la mayoría de sus actores principales son personas latinas de piel clara o blanca”. Chu dijo que se trataba de una conversación pendiente y de algo sobre lo que necesitaba educarse. Al final, dijo, trataron “de conseguir a la gente que era mejor para esos papeles”.Lin-Manuel Miranda, integrante del equipo creativo de la película, que incluye a la escritora Quiara Alegría Hudes, abordó las críticas la semana pasada en un comunicado en Twitter. Se disculpó por quedarse corto al “intentar pintar un mosaico de esta comunidad”. Varios latinos destacados salieron en defensa de Miranda, incluida la pionera actriz latina Rita Moreno, que más tarde se retractó de sus comentarios. No es la primera vez que Chu tiene que responder a cuestionamientos de identidad. Su éxito de taquilla Crazy Rich Asians también tuvo que enfrentarse a cuestiones similares en lo que respecta al elenco de asiáticos y asiáticoestadounidenses en la película. (El actor principal de esa película, Henry Golding, es birracial).Pedí a cinco críticos y reporteros del Times que opinaran sobre las críticas y lo que significa para la representación en las artes. Estos son extractos editados de la conversación. MAIRA GARCIAEl equipo creativo de la película, en el que participan Jon M. Chu, a la izquierda, y Lin-Manuel Miranda, enfrenta acusaciones de colorismo.Macall Polay/Warner Bros.Mi primera ida al cine desde que comenzó la pandemia, como la de muchas personas, fue para ver In the Heights en la gran pantalla. Fue un momento de gozo, después de un año lleno de cosas sin alegría. Era emocionante ver cuerpos morenos cantando y bailando en la ciudad que ha sido mi hogar durante casi una década.Durante mucho tiempo ha habido una falta de representación latina en Hollywood, e In the Heights pretendía ser un avance para rectificar. Sin embargo, la entrevista de León planteó importantes cuestiones sobre el colorismo en el reparto de la película, que se centra en un barrio que tiene una gran población afrolatina. ¿Hizo el equipo creativo lo suficiente en lo que respecta a la representación?CONCEPCIÓN DE LEÓN En mi opinión, no. Desde que salió el tráiler me preocupaba el tema del colorismo en la película. Aparte de Leslie Grace, la actriz dominicanoestadounidense que interpreta a Nina, una estudiante universitaria puertorriqueña que tiene dificultades para encajar en la comunidad de la Universidad de Stanford, ninguno de los papeles principales lo interpreta un afrolatino. Hollywood lleva mucho tiempo valorando y destacando a los latinos de piel clara por encima de los afrolatinos, negándoles a menudo papeles que reflejan su cultura. Es una representación limitada e inexacta de los latinos, que son diversos en cultura y aspecto.Pero lo que hace que estas decisiones de reparto sean especialmente indignantes es que la película está ambientada en Heights, una zona que se conoce como la Pequeña República Dominicana. Al menos el 90 por ciento de los dominicanos somos afrodescendientes, según un reciente estudio de población. Entonces, ¿por qué no aparecemos de forma destacada? En cuanto a lo que el equipo podría haber hecho de forma distinta, parece sencillo. Podrían haber contratado a más actores negros y latinos, no para llenar una cuota de diversidad, sino porque eso habría reflejado la realidad del barrio. O, al menos, podrían haber sido más claros y decir que esta película no pretendía representarlos.SANDRA E. GARCIA Los dominicanos son afrodescendientes, son un pueblo negro y no vi que eso se representara. Los latinos que vi eran del tipo que Hollywood siempre ha favorecido: latinos que se parecen a Jennifer López y Sofía Vergara. Los latinos como yo, en los que no hay ambigüedad sobre su negritud, los que llevan su negritud en la cara, apenas pasan el corte en alguna producción, ya sea de Hollywood o de Univisión. Hay una razón por la que mi madre sabe los nombres de todos los presentadores de noticias de piel oscura en Telemundo y es porque es raro verlos en los reflectores. In the Heights continúa con el gaslighting o manipulación que los negros latinos han soportado desde que tengo memoria. Tenemos una cultura hermosa, tenemos una música es hermosa, pero no somos lo suficientemente dignos para que se nos destaque junto con ellas. Todo lo que creamos, como el salchichón y el mangú que se muestran en la película, o el merengue y la bachata, son dignos de celebración, pero nosotros no.Varias banderas aparecen en la escena del ‘Carnaval del Barrio’, pero no muchos rostros negros.Warner Bros.MAYA PHILLIPS Debo reconocer que no lo noté al principio; mis ojos estaban demasiado encandilados por la felicidad de ver un gran y brillante musical en una pantalla grande. Pero sí empecé a notar la ausencia: por ejemplo, en el número del Carnaval del Barrio (que está muy bien coreografiado, por cierto), hay una parte en la que la cámara se desplaza para mostrar a diferentes grupos de residentes que llevan varias banderas, y me di cuenta de la falta de rostros negros. Y Benny me llamó la atención porque aparentemente era el único personaje de piel oscura ¡en todo el barrio! A veces, mi madre y yo vemos una película o una obra de teatro, o simplemente estamos en algún lugar del mundo y jugamos a un juego llamado “Encuentra a los negros”, como “¿Dónde está Waldo?”, pero menos divertido, ja. Parece que muchas artes y reuniones públicas hacen como si los negros no existieran.Me pasa lo mismo, Maya. Soy una gran aficionada a los musicales y a la música latina, así que creo esto en parte nubla la realidad de este barrio: que es predominantemente afrolatino y que la falta de rostros negros se ha convertido en una omisión más flagrante.ISABELIA HERRERA He visto justificaciones que dicen que In the Heights no es un documental y no pretende representar al verdadero barrio dominicano de Washington Heights sino que se trata de un barrio latino de fantasía. Claro que entendemos que se trata de un musical, una historia con elementos surrealistas y fantásticos. Incluso si aceptamos la opinión de que una fantasía no tiene que ser representativa, ese argumento supone que de todos modos, los latinos negros no pertenecen a estos mundos imaginarios. Al mismo tiempo, el director, los actores y los productores han utilizado el lenguaje de la celebración comunitaria y la historia cultural del barrio real de Washington Heights para comercializar la película. Esto parece una contradicción, y una que para mí resulta muy reveladora.¿Qué significa el colorismo en la comunidad latina y cuáles son las formas en que se manifiesta? ¿Qué perdemos al no tener un amplio espectro de representación en las artes?DE LEÓN El colorismo en la comunidad latina se manifiesta de forma parecida a como sucede en la comunidad negra estadounidense: cuanto más clara es tu piel, más hermosa y deseable se te percibe. Mi complexión era siempre un tema de conversación cuando era niña, y a mis primas que son más oscuras que yo les iba peor, a menudo ridiculizadas con palabras denigrantes como “mona”, que están normalizadas pero tienen un trasfondo racista.En República Dominicana y en otros lugares existe el concepto de “mejorar la raza” al salir con blancos, para blanquear el linaje. Es una noción que tiene sus raíces en la colonización, cuando España implantó un sistema de castas en la isla de La Española, que la República Dominicana comparte con Haití, donde se situaba a las personas de ascendencia europea o mestiza más arriba en la escala social y se les permitía más oportunidades de progreso. Aunque este sistema ya no existe, todavía hay rastros de él en la forma en que se ve y se trata a los latinos negros. Son más pobres y tienen menos acceso a educación de calidad, vivienda o salud que los latinos de piel clara. Al borrarlos en la pantalla, estamos perpetuando este daño y fomentando la narrativa de que solo lo blanco es adecuado.En mi familia (soy mexicanoestadounidense), soy de piel más oscura que algunos de mis parientes y eso me ganó el apodo de “Prieta”. Tengo hermanos y primos que son más blancos que yo, incluso que pasan por blancos. Aunque algunos podrían considerar que palabras como prieta son términos cariñosos, también pueden ser muy perjudiciales, ya que transmiten una diferencia: no eres la norma, es decir, blanco.GARCIA Como alguien que ha existido como latina de piel negra toda la vida, el colorismo está en todas partes en la Latinidad, un término académico que dice que los latinos comparten hilos comunes de identidad. Las cicatrices de la colonización y de un dictador que se ponía polvos en la piel para parecer más claro siguen siendo visibles en la cultura dominicana. Para la gente como yo, esas cicatrices todavía se viven de forma muy visceral. Creo que los dominicanos están despertando a una negritud que se les ha enseñado a evitar, y creo que ahora más que nunca hay más espacio para los dominicanos de piel oscura. Dicho esto, el statu quo es que los latinos de piel más clara son mejores y mucha gente no está dispuesta a renunciar a eso, por la razón que sea.A.O. SCOTT Ese parece ser el caso de gran parte del cine y la televisión latinoamericanos. Es raro ver protagonistas negros o indígenas en las películas del Caribe o de Brasil, y más raro aún encontrar directores de esos orígenes.PHILLIPS Creo que todo esto refleja la visión terriblemente estrecha que tiene nuestra sociedad de la representación racial, que una persona latina debe tener un aspecto muy específico y una persona negra debe tener un aspecto muy específico, y que esas identidades no pueden cruzarse. Es como si existiera miedo a que tener ese amplio espectro de representación pueda ser confuso.Leslie Grace, a la derecha, es la única afrolatina entre los protagonistas de “In the Heights”, entre los que se encuentra Gregory Diaz IV como un ‘dreamer’.Warner Bros.La película no contaba con grandes estrellas en los papeles principales porque el equipo creativo quería arriesgarse con nuevos talentos. Parece que podría haber sido la oportunidad perfecta para evitar los problemas de colorismo. Chu dijo que seleccionaron a los mejores actores para los papeles. ¿Qué le pareció su respuesta? More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Theater

      ‘In the Heights’ Premiere Celebrates the Neighborhood That Started It All

      by

      As throngs of residents watched, the stars of the movie, set in Washington Heights, walked a sunny yellow carpet outside the United Palace.At the Plaza de las Americas in Washington Heights, fruit and vegetable vendors usually sell produce until dusk. But on Wednesday, it was transformed into a replica of any other block in the neighborhood. There was a mock bodega, decorated with three Dominican flags that hung from an awning, a faux fire hydrant and a plastic fruit stand. Underneath the entire set ran a yellow carpet.The reproduction served as a backdrop for the luminaries attending for the premiere of “In the Heights,” the big-screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Tony-winning Broadway show. The sunny carpet welcomed the cast and crew back to the Upper Manhattan neighborhood where it was filmed. The premiere, which also served as opening night of the 20th Tribeca Festival, was held at the United Palace, a majestic 91-year-old theater with a projection system that, years earlier, before his success on Broadway, Miranda had helped raise money to buy and then helped install.While the actors, producers and executives streamed down the yellow carpet, pausing for pictures with photographers and interviews with the news media, the real Washington Heights whirred behind them. Waitresses at Malecon, a Dominican restaurant across the street from the plaza, peered outside the windows in between serving heaps of rice, stew chicken and beans, trying to figure out why crowds had formed in front of their restaurant on a sticky 90-degree day.Maritza Luna, left, and Eglis Suarez were among the fans waiting outside the theater for a glimpse of the stars.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesDiners at El Conde Nuevo, another Dominican restaurant across the street, stood on the corner also trying to decipher the rumpus outside. And then, Miranda — wearing a pale blue, long-sleeve chacabana, jeans and the same Nike Air Force 1s, often called Uptowns in the City, that he wore to the Broadway opening of “In the Heights” — arrived with his family, and everyone erupted in cheers.Jorge Peguero, 71, was on his way home when he stopped and became a proud member of the crowd.“I’ve lived here my whole life, and this is fantastic,” said Peguero, a resident of Washington Heights since 1969. “It’s a big deal that Tribeca chose to represent the Dominican community, and it’s the first time ever that we see anything like it.”Miranda, who still lives in Washington Heights, had hoped to premiere the movie where it is set.“All I ever wanted was this neighborhood to be proud of themselves and the way they are portrayed,” said Miranda, who was within walking distance of his home and his parent’s home. “I still walk around here with my headphones on, and everyone is just like well, Lin-Manuel is writing.”“I feel safe here,” he added.Lin-Manuel Miranda, left, who wrote the music and lyrics for “In the Heights,” and Anthony Ramos, who stars in the movie.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesMany Washington Heights residents have not yet had their encounter with Miranda in the neighborhood. Eglis Suarez, 48, was hoping to change that.“I want to see Lin,” she said. “We are so proud, this is progress for this community and for the city.”Exuberant and critically adored, “In the Heights,” directed by Jon M. Chu, is a look at the shifts that happen between first- and second-generation immigrants. The elders hope to make it out of the neighborhood they left home for, while their younger counterparts plan to stay in the neighborhood they call home. It is a story that has occurred a million times over in the area and one that Hudes, who also lives there, encountered daily while filming.“This isn’t about a hero or a protagonist, it’s about what happens when a community holds hands together and life kind of pushes those hands apart,” said Hudes, who wore large hoops and a flower-print jumpsuit. “It’s about these blocks and these living rooms where you go after school and do your homework or play bingo during a blackout, it’s all here.”Washington Heights has been home to middle- and working-class Dominicans since the 1960s. In the 1980s, the neighborhood, like many others in the city, was flooded with cocaine and crack, making it unsafe for the community. Those days are past now and some residents say it’s time to move on from a narrative in countless movies and rap songs that no longer fits the neighborhood.“I’m so proud of this movie,” said Sandra Marin Martinez, 67, a lifelong Washington Heights resident. “Who wouldn’t be? At least there’s no shooting.”“Everything is dancing, these are my people, I grew up dancing here,” she added as she waited for a glimpse of the cast walking into the theater.“In the Heights” Premiere13 PhotosView Slide Show ›Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesYudelka Rodriguez, 51, was standing with her daughter waiting for the cast to arrive. She was excited to see her hood in the movie and herself represented.“I am so emotional,” Rodriguez said as she leaned on a metal gate. “This is the most beautiful thing, to see that your barrio is involved in this; it’s the best feeling.”That feeling is something Paula Weinstein, an organizer of the Tribeca Festival (which dropped “film” from its name this year), hoped to replicate all over the city with this movie.“This is what we’ve been dreaming of — New York is back,” Weinstein said. “This is a tribute to the Dominican community, this is what is the best of New York. Every generation of immigrants start one place and move into the community, That’s what’s great about New York, that’s what we want to celebrate.”In the theater, Robert De Niro, a founder of the festival, introduced Miranda, who then introduced the rest of the cast. The energy was electric from the stage to the seats. When a title card that read “Washington Heights” appeared on the screen, the crowd whooped and applauded.When the movie’s star, Anthony Ramos, arrived, the makeshift set was surrounded by a small crowd. As he stepped out in black-and-white cheetah-print pants, with a matching shirt and jacket, gingerly placed on his shoulders, the crowd at the corner of 175th and Broadway thundered with applause and cheers.“I didn’t grow up even going to Broadway, and most New York people don’t grow up going to Broadway,” said Ramos, who is a Brooklyn native. “To tell a New York story about a community that’s so familiar and so special to people from New York is particularly special for me.” More