Lin-Manuel Miranda on How 'Hamilton' has Educated Future Generations | Google Zeitgeist 2019

when I play Hamilton I'm playing my father it is that oh I wouldn't I wouldn't say it no I don't think it's at all it's sort of like oh my god he's relentless calm down well welcome I think the audience is very excited yeah yeah look it's like as we got our phones out I hope they're all pixels alright well we are gonna have quite a conversation we're gonna talk about economic recovery economic opportunity we're gonna talk about so many things but let's start with the most important things your kids yeah really so in addition to everything that you're doing in your career I know you're you're also a family man you have two children and do that two boys two oh two boys okay I think this audience would like to know what they're gonna be for Halloween yes that's exactly what they came to pictures oh yeah I bet you do we're in major Lion King mode also my older son Sebastian is obsessed with all things Lion King as a menagerie of animals wherever he is he sets up a Pride Rock situation so he's gonna be he's gonna be Simba actually no he's gonna be kion which is the TV spin-off son of Simba those of you children already know and and his little brother is gonna be a cub we bought a lion outfit for his little brother too and he said that has a mane Cubs don't have Mane's oh wow all right very specific letting little brother no he's still cub yes yes well let's start with Hamilton I think we have some interest in the global phenom that is Hamilton you know one of the things that I read about and doing research for this conversation is that the average Broadway attendee is a sort of middle-aged white woman upper income and yet you hear I think she's here you know not mentioning it any maids or anything but better but you know the the Madeleine Hamilton is that you created this piece of art this show that features a cast that's mostly people of color in the music influenced by hip-hop just what does that say to you about the ability to have art speak to all of us and in these times to bring us together what was interesting you you mentioned the average Broadway attendee because I grew up we grew up not really being able to afford Broadway shows we grew up falling in love with cast albums which is how most people fall in love with Broadway I remember playing my parents Man of La Mancha and Camelot and Fiddler on the Roof and then falling in love with theatre as we did it and it always felt like something old rich white folks wrote an old rich white folks saw and we got to listen to the cast album though middle-aged white woman that's not old I'm talking for my little kid perspective right and and so I remember seeing rent for my 17th birthday and it was the first show I saw that felt contemporary and it felt like oh this is about now they always took place in some other land and in some other place and and it's what gave me permission to start writing musicals it was sort of that musical more than any just said you're allowed to write about what you know and put it in a musical it doesn't have to take place in France or in London like phantom and lamia's which were the only two musicals I'd ever seen and and so what's been incredible about the success of Hamilton is that I mean from the moment I picked up Ron chernow as biography I I realized I realized two things one I learned for the first time that Hamilton was sort of the only one of those founders who was not from from the colonies he was he was the outsider he was the immigrant and I suddenly stood him in a way because I was like I know that guy he's the guy who has to work five jobs while everyone else only has one job that's always been the story of the immigrant in our country and you take that as a prerequisite that's the asking price for the American dream he reminded me of my father he came to New York at the same age my father came to New York my father didn't speak the language that was an additional barrier that Hamilton didn't face and then he was just sort of relentless in writing articles under pseudonyms I just thought he was so hip up because he wrote his way into every situation and he wrote his way into trouble and out of trouble and I it reminded me of the energy of my favorite hip-hop artists and so we cast it accordingly and and I think the real big takeaway bless you has been that that the show has done well and that the that despite this preconception that you know and I was sort of startled that the casting of it was such a big deal I was like well if I wrote a hip-hop R&B musical it was all white people on stage what do you think I messed up wouldn't you think that's not the right fit for the music that you've written it was always the goal was to write this hip-hop R&B musical to cast the best people to deliver that music and and tell the story of America then told by America now now that being said we love that lady that middle-aged lady she's the one I proposed to certainly theater every season but to me this whole thing would be a failure if we didn't expand sort of the opportunities for everyone to see it we realized really quickly off-broadway like Oh school groups aren't going to be able to see the show unless we prioritize them so we started edge' ham which is this curriculum and by the end of next year we'll serve how many by the end of next year our goal and by the way thank you very much yeah well it's one of the supporters yeah Hamilton education program 250,000 kids from throughout the country in title one schools yeah would have gone through the curriculum that uses the music and the lyrics of Hamilton the actual American history that we all learn tenth or eleventh grade and then they create their own pieces of art presented on stage and then they enjoy Hamlet and the best part is that I think that's the real legacy of the show is this program because you know Hamilton is two and a half hours of whatever I could fit in and as much time as I have with you in an evening of theater but what these kids do is they begin to write pieces based on history that's interesting to them they perform it on stage for us this is not like you see a show and hey we taught you goodbye this is weeks of curriculum they pick the best groups from their schools they perform on the Broadway stage they get their Broadway debut we watch them perform they cheer for each other they do a Q&A with the cast then we perform for them and the pieces these kids write i mean google it if you google it press I'm feeling lucky and and and you'll see the most incredible performances by these kids that are just scratching the surface of telling stories and historical stories and realizing that the teller of the story I mean we just had time to hazy codes what what what better proof is there of like if you don't that the teller determines the story and uncovering the stories that we don't always learn in school and Hamilton just served as the portal for history yeah they could go to any of the characters that are peers as part of American history but they could go through the website and pick whomever they want that was part it's pretty cool about American history so Lin one of one of your songs non-stop because has lyrics why do you write like you're running out of time right day and night like you're running out of time every day you fight like you're running out of time keep on fighting in the mean time non-stop do you want to share with us the inspiration for that yeah it's I mean it's pretty simple listen my job is really simple and really complicated when I am writing a musical I research the world I'm writing about I think about what that character is feeling in that situation and then I talked to myself and I play that character until it feels true and when it feels true write it down it's not much deeper than that but getting to that moment is is the hardest part and in that song I am distilling all the post-war years and all of hamilton's activity from the moment of the end of the American Revolution to you know the first government the first president being set up it's about ten years I got a cover in about four minutes three minutes and Hamilton passed the bar exam set up a legal practice wrote 50 51 of the Federalist Papers had a load of kids you know it's an enormous amount and so I told it from the perspective of Aaron Burr of whom we know less and and so me writing about that is really me writing about Hamilton of how do you how do you operate as if you were aware a clock is ticking all the time because I think we all like to think we operate that way and then five episodes into our Netflix binge you realize oh maybe I didn't use this time so great and I'm sort of you know I think we all are in awe of people who really who make their mark on the world I think of the Beatles who you know they they broke up before they turn 30 you know how what do you do in the face of that and so you know it's not hard for me to get in that place I am the laziest member of this family as you'll see when you talk to Lewis Moore yes and and so yeah so I I really it comes from a very perfect place so let's let's talk about identity and we've had some really good conversations today in fact about identity and belonging and inclusion so Lewis you've come and spoken to my team and we talked about your sense of identity and how that's informed your work I know you Lynne as well having grown up in New York Porto Rican descent what's what really strikes me about both of you is just how deep that runs on how that informs how you choose to engage in the world I think that at the end of the day you are more than the sum of your parts there was an identity that I got in my first 18 years in Puerto Rico that actually sort of flourished right after Maria I was always involved in Puerto Rico but it was more from a family perspective I will go and see my parents I would go and see my family I will do little things in the island but right after Maria I realize reminding the audience Maria Hurricane Maria that history go on September 20th two years ago and right after that I realized now is your time to sort of paint back and sort of be part of that community that helps uh Puerto Rico and quite frankly in addition to everything we did and continue to do again with your help you know Google was one of the first to on Puerto Rican Day Parade day in New York you guys started a match program where you were matching every dollar that people were giving to recovery efforts in Puerto Rico and quite frankly in addition to all the good that we have done the most rewarding part of this experience it's to realize that my kids in spite of the fact that they were born and raised in New York they're poor Rican and that was such a revelation I knew they like Puerto Rico and knew they liked her family in Puerto Rico but you know Lee Manuel and my daughter Lucia Sita stopped their lives to work for Puerto Rico for six months and you don't do that intellectually you could only do that if your heart and your mind are in the right place and you together as a family have raised more than forty five million for recovery efforts and an additional 15 million to support the Arts in Puerto Rico do you want to speak to us a little bit about how that recovery work is going in Puerto Rico now yeah absolutely I mean you know the first six months like it's true Hurricane Maria hit and our lives went on hold and I was I was out of the country when it hit and I began writing I began writing a song because that's how I know how to enter the world and I and I so I wrote this song called almost like praying again stealing from my musical theater forebears realizing Maria would forever have a different Association after this hurricane so I took from the song Maria from West Side Story I took the hook and the lyrics of the songs are the 78 towns in Puerto Rico and we and we use that for fund raising efforts immediately after and it was really critical efforts that we funded through the Hispanic Federation and the Hispanic Federation was able to sort of work locally with mayors and and get to all 78 municipalities in Puerto Rico and then sort of the next phase of that was was Hamilton and Puerto Rico we were I always wanted to bring Hamilton to Puerto Rico I always want to bring everything I do to Puerto Rico and so we yeah there we are and so we knew we were gonna go and then the conversation after Maria became well how can we leave Puerto Rico better than we found it and so we decided to focus on arts organizations which are always forgotten in recovery efforts but there's artists on our island and I think the arts are Puerto Rico under Puerto Rico's greatest cultural exports and we wanted to make sure the artists and artistic organizations on the island flourished so we tried to raise we raised 15 million dollars through me coming back to Hamilton and and basically we we opened a new tour of Hamilton in Puerto Rico that tour is now in San Francisco if you want to see it they're an incredible cast now but I only did it with them in Puerto Rico they don't have Berto Rican flocks in San Francisco it would be weird but it's uh but you know it was it was an incredible incredible month and and we kind of continue to help wherever we can great well we'll come back to more to some of the work in Puerto Rico and have an invitation for the audience to join us but you also mentioned Lynn your father's work starting the Hispanic Federation this is another partnership that we have together do you want to speak to how your father started this work and the work that they're doing in the world and sure I was 10 years old when he began it coming from working for the mayor's office and and really it was it's it's funny to now I I work with this national organization but it was where I did my homework ha ha ha when I was a kid in their old offices on 37th and 8th but I mean you can speak more to how it began but began as a way to unite Latvian organizations there was no sort of larger umbrella organization that was not only uniting these groups but but also collecting data on them releasing an annual census saying this is what the Latino United States is starting to look like this is how they vote this is what they buy and and and really sort of growing into a really powerful force in the room and sort of taking whichever way we have now evolved in terms of what its politically correct Hispanic Latino next creating that as a reality is when we started back in 1990 people felt they were Mexican or Mexican descent for a weekend of poor Rican descent and every single one of our countries so it was creating an organization that could work with every group and figure out what brings us together and how can we support the organizations that are helping in those communities so that was the concept and help them with the things that partly no one one's too fond but no one wants to fund an audit but if you don't have an audit you cannot do a 990 and you cannot go to your Foundation and request dollars so thinking of the ways in which we could be helpful to organization beyond programming which it's always critical for communities yeah so um I've had now some time with with with you individually and you together and I say I can say one of my favorite things is to just watch you interact as the father-son duo because you you both have so much energy so much love for one another but I'm also just curious about your relationship and curious about you know what happens when you disagree with one another that's every five minutes but it's also you know when we've got it looks like we've got oh oh that's my grandma's old porch swing that's some serious here there louise yeah that's I know it was my bunch over yeah look but you know I say this with no sort of exaggeration when I was when I play Hamilton I'm playing my father it is that oh I wouldn't I wouldn't say it no I don't think it's at all it's sort of like oh my god he's relentless calm down you know that he is that he is the person who when we had finished one task he goes okay on to the next task and I go can we just celebrate that we finished one task for a second and we celebrate basically I used to work for him in the summers and that did not work that was sort of the worst our relationship ever was I for better or worse if you know any artists they care about what they care about and it is very hard to get them to care about what they don't care about and so I got busted down to data entry when I worked under him and now that we work together side by side it's a lot easier because we find the things that we care about together and work very passionately you saw him doing data entry or do you no no no no he makes too many mistakes spoken spoken like a true father fair enough sorry I also hear as part of your relationship that you like writing each other handwritten letters so no actually did the handwriting was in previous 2000 yeah we in college we wrote each other letters and actually I I keep those letters I you read some of them the other day yeah he was seen in the house last year for like a week or so because he got sick and he couldn't get everyone else contagious in his home so he figured you know my dad and mom are old anyway [Laughter] they get sick who cares and my wife saves everything but you don't get it I have my dear Santa letters like everything like huh I was looking at stuff and I could see his kindergarten letters and in those letters I found all of the letters that we wrote to each other while he was in college and many of them were around in the heights at what was gonna happen in in the height since he started writing in the heights and Wesleyan yeah and they were very insightful he was he he's he's a wonderful kid and very very bright ah and he was then as brightest wonderful is now thank you one of the most moving ones I found and that pile was I I wrote him because my first job out of school was teaching I taught seventh grade English a my old high school and they offered me a full-time position and I actually wrote to my dad which is crazy I lived five blocks away from him but I wrote him a letter and I said I I really want to finish in the heights and see it through but I love teaching I truly loved it and I can see myself doing that and he wrote me back this letter saying I really want you to teach too because it means you pay your rent job stability but I would be if I told you to do that I would be ignoring the part of me that came to Puerto Rico that came to New York from Puerto Rico without a plan and just trusting my gut so if you trust your gut and you need to write this show you need to write this show and and I'm very grateful to him for that and why we're sitting here believe me I I thought long and hard hahaha teaching him to be responsible mmm but it worked that it looks like it worked out it looks like that was a good life choice all right so why don't we finish our discussion on coffee and a soul Inman well I understand that you have a tattoo I have coffee tattoo yeah yeah yeah it's on my ankle won't you so me and my cousin's in Puerto Rico we wanted to get out there's a picture that's where that's better I mean now everyone can go home and be like Lynn said Mia's tattoo my sister and I are very close with our cousins in Puerto Rico who are a little younger than us and we it was one of those like drunken we're all getting a cousin tattoo we're getting a tattoo there's New Year's Eve yeah I'm hearing then the old last thing we sort of could agree on that we all loved equally was coffee ha ha ha so New Year's Day we're all in the West Village getting these coffee tattoos the boys have them on their ankles and the girls have them on their wrists it's five of us yeah well it's really you know prescient in a way because now you've come full circle back to coffee because it's such an important cop and opportunity and I was learning from doing honest research but the Pope drinks Puerto Rican coffee in the bath I grew up with what I thought was a myth that the Vatican ordered poor Rican coffee and I was at some talk where I mentioned that and a history professor at the Graduate Center then sent me actual invoices from the Vatican buying coffee from Puerto Rico in the 1870s Wow so it is not a myth it was a reality so knowing that I figure the Vatican needs some coffee yes yeah and you know coffee crops were I mean crops were just completely decimated by Hurricane Maria and coffee crops in particular take a long time to grow this is not something that grows back the next spring these are two three four five year investment so we formed something we informally call the coffee Avengers which is Nespresso Starbucks technoServe who am I forgetting world coffee research world coffee research and a whole bunch of foundations that are working with us yeah basically it's work with local farmers get them back up on their feet and it's a multi-year investment because it doesn't grow back that quickly there are very tricky and the reality of coffee in Puerto Rico it's that it's lots of small coffee growers you're talking about acres you're not talking about thousands of acres you're talking about 75 acres we're working now with 1,500 coffee growers in the island that we're actually committed to make sure that they get two and a half million little coffee trees yes to start crops again in the island so audience so I understand you're trying to raise enough for two and a half million trees and each one cost a buck a buck it's very simple and very simple math all right so here we go there's an opportunity if anyone would like to contribute a tree or two or a million Google dorg is gonna match all donations up to $500,000 so zeitgeist together we could plant a million trees and some trees get us that's incorrect and and a great thing by having technoServe and world coffee recent research it's that we're also taking the farmers and moving them to ways in which they can use their knowledge and use it in a way that it's more effective it's really nice less trying times new things it's it's what you have and move them forward but they need the trees to do that all right well let's join in together and let's thank when Manuel and Luis thank you

Channel: Google Zeitgeist

Views: 4,589

Rating: 4.9097743 out of 5

Keywords: lin-manuel miranda, lin manuel miranda, lin manuel miranda talk, lin manuel miranda hamilton talk, lin manuel miranda google, lin manuel miranda in the heights, lin manuel miranda 2019, lin manuel miranda 2020, luis miranda, lin manuel miranda interview

Id: _PwP9Qu7oOw

Length: 26min 31sec (1591 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 14 2020