Content provided in partnership with
historia del lamento borinqueño - Puerto Rico - TT: The History of LAMENTO BORINCANO - TA: Puerto Rico
Latin Beat Magazine, Oct, 1999 by Frank M. Figueroa
Borinquen.
Y triste, el jibarito va
And sad and forlorn
llorando así, diciendo así,
the jibarito treks along the path
pensando asé, por el camino.
crying like tis, saying like this,
"Que sera de Borinquen,
thinking like this on his way,
mi Dios querido,
"What will become of Borinquen,
qué sera de mis hijos
my dear God? What will happen to
y de mi hogar.
my children and my home?
- Most Popular Articles in Arts
- Art since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism
- Free-standing cardboard sculpture
- What makes a successful business person? Business people who are tops in ...
- Take advantage of local advertising: TV, newspaper or magazines? If your ...
- Tino Sehgal at the ICA
- More »
The song now turns into a lamento heard everywhere in Borinquen. The entire population is suffering the effects of the economic depression. In this composition, Rafael Hernández never uses the name Puerto Rico to refer to his home-land. He chooses Borinquen instead, the ancestral name of the island. This term is symbolic of the mother country for Puerto Ricans.
The jibarito, like the legendary Don Quijote, now realizes that he is facing an unbeatable foe. Nothing but Divine Intervention can save his beloved Borinquen. He directs his lamento to the Almighty in an appeal for help to save his country, his children, and his home.
In his heart, he vows just like the Cervantes character, to fight with his last ounce of courage to overcome adversity.
Borinquen,
Borinquen,
la tierra del Edén
the Garden of Eden.
la que al cantar el gran Gautier
The land that the great Gautier
llamó la Perla de los Mares.
called the Pearl of the Seas.
Ahora que tu te mueres
Now that you are
con tus pesares.
drowning in your sorrows,
Déjame que te cante yo también.
allow me to sing to you
Yo También...
as well...
In the last verses, Hernández joins another great Puerto Rican, Manuel Gautier Benítez, who raised his voice in defense of the island and extolled its beauty. The Lamento Borincano became ah instant hit among Puerto Ricans at home and those living abroad. Although it specifically depicted the miserable conditions of the poor and peasant class of the island, all Puerto Ricans adopted it asa patriotic hymn. In time, many campesinos in Latin America adopted the song as well. They could identify with the jibarito's problems and found comfort in singing the lamento.
Today, seventy years after it was written, Lamento Borincano is still relevant. When Rafael Hernández was asked why his songs has remained popular and is timeless, he said:
Unless there is a better opinion, I believe that my Lamento Borincano still continues to press on the sensibility of the great Latin American public, notwithstanding the changes in musical taste that have occurred. I think that is due principally, if not exclusively, to the fact that the song expressed in its time, better than any other song, a social reality that far from being a "thing of the past" is still prevalent in most of the countries of the long-suffering subcontinent. The tragedy of the Puerto Rican jibarito, who was the victim of material misery and spiritual anxiety in the 1930s, today continues to be the tragedy of the Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Bolivian, Paraguayan and Ecuadorian campesinos. In Puerto Rico, let me say ir clearly in order to avoid misunderstandings, misery has put on a cloak of opulence and spiritual anxiety is stifled under indifference. In spite of that, no Puerto Rican, no matter how misguided or irresponsible he may be, can avoid feeling the weight of those concerns on his shoulders.
