detailed main character analysis

Usnavi is the narrator of the play's story and a major character throughout; he is the owner of a small salon in Washington Heights. He was named after one of the first sights his parents saw when they arrived in America: a US Navy ship. He dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic, a place he was born but too young to remember. Abuela Claudia, the neighborhood matriarch, "practically raised" him when his parents both died during his early childhood. He is in love with Vanessa.

"Abuela" Claudia is the loving matriarch of the neighbourhood who knows everybody and is like a grandmother to all  She is the one who looked after Usnavi when his parents died. She and her mother moved from Cuba to New York in 1943 while she was a child. She worked as a maid for several years but never earned the money for her and her mother to travel home.

Vanessa is Usnavi's love interest who works at Daniela's salon. She is very pretty and catches the eye of every guy in the Heights, however she takes interest in Usnavi. She lives with an alcoholic mother and dreams of getting out of the neighbourhood and getting an apartment downtown, but cannot yet afford it.

Nina Rosario is the first in her family to go to college, and everyone in the neighborhoor admires her as the "one who made it out." However, she returns home from school for the summer to reluctantly tell her parents that she has become overburdened and dropped out. She is the typical "good girl" and always got along with her parents. Now, though, she loses patience constantly over her father's overprotectiveness and his refusal to accept Benny.

Benny works for  Nina's father, Kevin. Perhaps the only character in the play who does not speak Spanish and is not Hispanic, he falls in love with Nina. He dreams of opening his own business.

Sonny is Usnavi's sassy,  lazy, yet ambitious younger cousin who works with Usnavi in the salon. He is typically the jokester of the neighbourhood, but he also has an intelligent and thoughtful side that yearns for and wants social equality

Daniela is the overdramatic owner of the salon where the neighborhood girls come to gossip. She is very bold and loud and loves to banter.

Carla works at Daniela's salon along with Vanessa, and is Daniela's close friend; young and pretty, but a little slow to get the others' jokes and innuendos, she is of Chilean, Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican descent.

Kevin Rosario is Nina's overprotective father, who, coming from a long line of farmers, but worked hard to break tradiction. He now owns his own taxi cab service: Rosario's.

Camila Rosario is Nina's strong-willed mother, who wants what is best for Nina. She is typically tolerant of Kevin's control issues, but in the course of the show, reveals her real feelings.

The Piragua Guy (Piragüero) is the owner of a small restaraunt stand that competes with Mister Softee.

Graffiti Pete is a graffiti artist and friend of Sonny. Usnavi believes he is a trouble-making vandal, until Pete reveals his skills as an artist.