Luis A. Miranda Jr. was just 19 years old when he arrived in New York City from a small town in Puerto Rico, a broke doctoral student badly needing a job.

It was 1974 — decades before “Hamilton,” the Tony Award-winning musical created by his son Lin-Manuel, became a sensation and brought his family international recognition and unexpected fortune — when a nonprofit focused on Puerto Rican youth hired Miranda as a researcher in its office a few blocks from the Empire State Building.

“You can imagine the symbolism,” Miranda told the Associated Press. “A job with the Empire State Building in the background? I felt like Debbie Reynolds in ‘The Unsinkable Molly Brown’.”

Miranda planned to complete his doctorate in clinical psychology and return to Puerto Rico. He was an ardent independentista, committed to helping lift his country from the shadow of United States colonialism.