Burgos: Francisco Lindor and the roar heard across the Puerto Rican diaspora

From SABR member Adrian Burgos Jr. at La Vida Baseball on April 23, 2018:

Lamento Borincano. Puerto Rican Mourning.

Each time I hear the song written by the great Afro-Boricua composer Rafael Hernández, I am reminded that “Lamento Borincano” and his other beautiful (and similarly soulful) song “Preciosa” were written while Hernández was living in Spanish Harlem in the 1920s and not residing in Puerto Rico.

These two songs were inspired by a longing for home. They describe the migrant’s lament, even a mourning, as he recalls and celebrates the beauty of our querido Borinquen, Puerto Rico.

Hernández’s songs powerfully express the Puerto Rican longing, the looking back across time and space, of ocean waters that separate the migrants from the land of their forebears, from nuestra familia, yet knowing that distance cannot dilute their love for the island and its people.

With that swing of the bat in the first game of last week’s Puerto Rico Series, Francisco Lindor did more than launch a pay-off pitch from Jake Odorizzi over the right-field wall, he had connected with Puerto Ricans everywhere.

Read the full article here: https://www.lavidabaseball.com/francisco-lindor-face-of-puerto-rico/



Originally published: April 24, 2018. Last Updated: April 24, 2018.