[soothing beat music] - [Narrator] How does an artist connect with their roots when their hometown is forever changing?

In Hoboken, a playwright and after created a hip-hop musical that explores identity and parenthood in a city very different from the one he grew up in, in the 1980s.

- It was a really tough time for Hoboken.

8,000 Puerto Ricans left across like half decade.

Definitely not as Latinx as it once was.

When I'm out in the world and I say that I'm from Hoboken, almost everyone is surprised.

Hoboken leads with its gentrification history.

My parents were gentrifiers.

My parents moved to Hoboken in 1980 from the Lower East Side.

And that's how it works.

Only one class of people gets to choose where they live.

[Gabriel rapping] "Quarter Rican" is a hip hop play about how we transmit identity to our children.

You thought my towel was a girl 'cause the color is blanket.

Who gets to claim what cultures?

Who gets to live where it specifically centers around this father named Danny, who finds himself in a playground and he is stewing in all of these questions of identity, trying to figure out if the 25% Puerto Rican that his kid is, is enough.

Is that enough Puerto Ricaness to claim it?

And then the flip side of that is the halfie that he is, is the 50% Puerto Rican is that that Danny is.

Is that gonna be enough to adequately teach it?

- His name is Adrian or Adriane.

- Parenthood is both very wonderful and very complicated.

Everyone who says it's the hardest thing you'll ever do, I think is right.

My co-writer, who is the creator of the piece and who wrote the book as well, is also my husband Gabe Hernandez.

We have two kids together.

Elias is five and a half and Nico is almost two.

- My father is from the island.

My dad's Puerto Rican is not an open question, right?

Like my dad's Puerto Rican is very clear.

And then I come along and I'm like mixed up, right?

Like my dad happened to fall in love with an Ashkenazi Jewish lady from Rhode Island.

Looking at this baby, who's 75% white and will be seen as white and will in all likelihood identify as white.

Kinda reckoning with the fact that there's a piece of myself that my kid might not ever understand.

Not quite.

And it's an important piece.

[Gabriel rapping] - [Narrator] In March 2023, Gabriel Diego Hernandez premiered "Quarter Rican" at the Mile Square Theater in Hoboken.

Named after the city's mile square footprint, The theater has been a cornerstone for arts and culture in the city since 2003.

- My vision for Mile Square Theater is that we are making brand new plays, world premier plays, for the people of Hoboken.

I want to focus on local playwrights who are saying something both about Hoboken and the society at large.

A playwright like Gabriel Diego Hernandez, this would be a great opportunity to give him a platform in his hometown, to talk about what it's like to have been here and to be raising kids here.

- I wrote this show about place and claiming things and communities and I have to share it like in this theater, right in my hometown.

It's almost like too good to be true.

- Someone's pretty far from home.

What business do you have here on the wrong side of the tracks?

- No business of yours.

- Oh.

[laughs] - Gabriel has been working on it and developing it with Pregones/PRTT, the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater.

And we are co-producing this world premier production with Pregones.

The whole production is directed by the great Jorge B. Merced.

So I reached out to them and said, "We'd love to do the world premier with you.

We'd love to co-produce it.

Start it off in our space.

It'll be just the second leg of a world premier production at your space."

- Like a week after- - Immediately we were like... We were definitely collaborating with Mile Square Theater.

We were kindred spirits who understood why we do art, and why art is essential, and why the theater that we do has a role in our communities to really question who we are in society and to try to inspire us to be a little bit more than what we think we are.

- I haven't done much talking to other grownups this week.

- The play takes place in a park in Hoboken.

His son is playing on the playground and he's talking to another parent.

[DJ humming] - [Narrator] The Danny character is joined on stage by his musical alter egos, the beatboxing DJ Quenepa.

- Now what on God's green earth is going on.

- [Narrator] And the acerbic rapper and commentator, MC Platano.

- So "Quarter Rican" was a solo show for much of its early development.

We really expanded the field and in particular the character of MC Platano... MC Platano talks to the audience and offers commentary ♪ New Jersey, now Washington Park's on the border ♪ - About a month before we we're getting ready to share the piece, Jorge is like, "Hey, I think MC Platano needs to be speaking in hip hop."

There was a tiny bit of rap in the show at that point, but not very much.

I was like, "Ooh, good idea."

"But we have like three and a half weeks."

So then I was like all right Rachel, "You're up."

[laughs] - So my background is in musical performance, rather than theater.

When we first moved to New York many years ago now, I used to gig around and perform my own music.

Gabe was my accompanist.

So we were a tag team in that way.

[upbeat cultural music] and I wrote "Balada de Pablo" in the car, recorded it on a voice memo, sent it to him and he was like, "Great, done."

- Gabriel is a first time playwright, but has been around plays his entire life and career.

He is not afraid to push the boundaries of what a play is.

- When Hoboken was on fire, 8,000 Puerto Ricans fled and a bunch of them came here.

I'm allowed to move here too.

- I think Hoboken, it straddles many worlds.

It's not just sort of the gateway to New York for Jersey residents and vice versa.

It's also straddling a lot of socioeconomic differences and racial differences.

Hoboken's racial makeup has changed a lot and is still changing a lot.

And I think that's a huge part of what makes Hoboken special, but also what makes Hoboken complex.

- This is a piece that he just wants people to enjoy.

The fact that he has this play, and it's not only about identity, it's also about parenthood.

I think it's just perfect for the community.

- A lot of the things that who we are, how we stand, how we talk, the things that we like, they are so informed by the role that family plays in our upbringing.

And this show is really about that.

- As long as we raise a good boy, who becomes a good man- - What began very much as a exercise and like memoir, free writing, ultimately became kind of like this love letter to my kid.

[audience cheering] It's like a show about family.

[mellow beats music]