Lin-Manuel Miranda often cites his childhood years as a source of inspiration for his work. He was born on January 16, 1980, in Washington Heights, a majority-Latino neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York. His parents were of mostly Puerto Rican descent; his mother worked as a clinical psychologist, and his father was a Democratic Party consultant who advised New York City's mayor in political situations. Growing up in Washington Heights gave Miranda a love for music, especially hip-hop. For one month each summer, Miranda also went to stay with his grandparents in Puerto Rico. As a teenager, he wrote jingles for advertisements.
Miranda started attending Wesleyan University in 1998, where he co-founded a hip-hop comedy group called Freestyle Love Supreme. In his second year, he wrote his first full-length musical and titled it In the Heights; the story was set in his own home neighborhood of Washington Heights. Wesleyan's student theater group accepted it and performed the musical over one weekend in April of 1999. During the rest of his time at the school, Miranda wrote and directed other plays and musicals with the student theater program.

License information: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
MPAA: G
Go to source: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/lin-manuel-miranda