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historia del lamento borinqueño - Puerto Rico - TT: The History of LAMENTO BORINCANO - TA: Puerto Rico
Latin Beat Magazine, Oct, 1999 by Frank M. Figueroa
Ever since the caveman, man has sought relief from pain and sorrow through cries and lamentations. Experience has taught him that verbalizing the aches of the body and soul is an efficient way to find consolation and ease the pain. This strategy is used by members of every culture in the world. They give voice to their suffering in very distinct ways such as cries, moans, wails, and lamentations. The ancient Hebrews institutionalized wailing in the Lamentations in the Book of Jeremiah of the Old Testament. Modern Jews have preserved the tradition by gathering weekly at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem for prayer and lamentation. African cultures have traditionally unburdened themselves of pain and grief through individual and community singing. Orientals have also devised an elaborate system of wails and laments.
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This custom worked its way to the West and reached Spain through the Moors. Today we can hear it in flamenco singing. In the New World as well, moaning and wailing is a common practice among the indigenous people. In 17th century Europe, they were an important part of Italian opera. Spanish composers also made use of the lament tone in their compositions.
Latin American writers of popular songs, drawing upon their mixed cultural heritage, further developed this music form. There was no shortage of sorrow and sadness among the population groups in America. The Spaniards longed for their Iberian home. The Africans endured slavery, separation from their native land, and later, oppression and discrimination when they became free. The Indians were driven from their land, enslaved and generally brutalized. Once the Spaniards were forced to leave, many countries in Latin America became colonies of the United States and the native citizenry continued to suffer. Facing this reality, the composers of "lamentos" provided people the opportunity to vent their frustrations and pain through singing or crying. The Spanish expression llori-cantar (to sob and sing) perhaps best describes this mixed reaction.
The lamentos have been called the protest songs of their time, but they lacked the anger and demanding tone of today's protest songs. They were truly lamentations directed at God or to any sympathetic ear. In many cases, the composers were not members of the oppressed groups and their message was more conformist than rebellious. Among the best known lamentos are Lamento Africano, Lamento Bohemio, Lamento Borincano, Lamento Campesino, Lamento Cubano, Lamento Español, Lamento Gitano, and Lamento Jarocho.
Perhaps the best known of all lamentos is the Lamento Borincano written by Puerto Rican composer Rafael Hernández. He was born in 1891 to a poor, black family in the coastal town of Aguadilla. As a child, he witnessed the occupation of Puerto Rico by the U.S. Army.
In the years that followed, Rafael endured the miserable economic conditions forced upon his homeland by its status as a colony. The island's economy was strictly dependant on sugarcane production anti the sugar industry was almost totally in the hands of foreign investors. Thousands of sugarcane cutters worked the field for fifty cents a day. There was no running water or electricity in most of the rural areas. Trying to escape those conditions, the jíbaros sold their land for anything they could get and moved into the city slums of San Juan, Ponce, and Mayaguez. Life in the cities proved to be even more pathetic for them. Employment opportunities were scarce or nonexistent. They could no longer depend on homegrown products for food, and under nourishment made them victims of tuberculosis and anemia, the scourges of the time. Rafael Hernández internalized the woeful plight of his people and expressed their sorrow in songs such as Lamento Borincano.
Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship in 1917, making possible migration to cities on the mainland such as New York. Those who could afford the price of a steamship ticket reluctantly left their island paradise for the uncertainty of life in a foreign land. Among the expatriates were several musicians and composers such as Pedro Flores and Rafael Hernández. They are responsible for some of the most patriotic and inspirational songs in Puerto Rican music. Flores and Hernández wrote under conditions of exile and this intensified their passion for their country.
In 1929, Rafael Hernández wrote his Lamento Borincano while living in New York City. There are several versions of where he wrote the song. It is clearly established that he wrote it in Spanish Harlem, but the exact place is under question. Latin music historian Max Salazar claims that Rafael's sister, Victoria, told him that the composer wrote the tune on the sidewalk in front of the Hernández Music Store in the Spanish Barrio. In an article published in Latin Beat, Salazar wrote as follows:
...In a room at the back of the store there was a piano that was utilized to teach students. One summer day in 1929, Victoria urged Rafael to leave the room so she could instruct a student. Rafael took his guitar and a tin can of black coffee out onto the sidewalk, sat down near the edge of the curb, feet in the gutter, turned his guitar and began to sing and write lyrics on a piece of paper.
