IN THE HEIGHTS.

• Author: Suderman, Peter

In the Heights, a movie musical based on the hit Broadway production by Hamilton mastermind Lin-Manuel Miranda, is set in the heavily Dominican New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights. At heart, it's the story of an immigrant community coming together to determine its own future.

Sometimes that future is forged by fighting with a labyrinthine immigration bureaucracy and racist attitudes. (There's an admittedly too on-the-nose subplot about DREAMers.) But politics are only part of the story.

By and large, In the Heights portrays immigration as an entrepreneurial act. So it is fitting that the community's future is forged through commerce. The plot concerns a neighborhood bodega, but there's also a salon run by two neighborhood women, a taxi dispatch run by another local, a friendly lawyer who handles tough immigration cases, and even a piragua cart run by a character played by Miranda.

These businesses are consistently portrayed as sources of both hard-earned personal wealth and valuable social connection, especially...