“…mejor que un adinerado.”
Recently, I shared some lyrics from a Puerto Rican décima composed by Don Francisco Roque Muñoz and popularized by Juan Morales Ramos. The song, “Allá en las alturas,” features the “pie forzado” (repeated closing line): “Yo vivo aquí mejor que un adinerado.”
The song celebrates the simple yet fulfilling life of a rural farmer in Puerto Rico, contrasting it with the lives of the wealthy. The narrator describes their serene life in the mountains, cultivating crops like taro, yams, plantains, and more. They take pride in their work, preparing the land with a plow and finding happiness in their self-sufficient lifestyle, which they consider far richer than material wealth.
I share this in context of November 17, which has been celebrated since 2002 as both the Day of the Puerto Rican Cuatro and the Day of Don Tomás Rivera Morales, affectionately known as Maso. You can read the official 2002 law and declaration here.
The Puerto Rican cuatro, the national instrument of the archipelago, is a 10-string instrument belonging to the lute family. Though shaped more like a violin, it functions like a guitar. Its name, cuatro (Spanish for “four”), references the four strings on the instrument’s earliest versions.
To celebrate, I’m sharing a video of cuatrista Fabiola Méndez performing “Allá en las alturas” at the 2019 Betances Festival hosted by Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción in Boston’s South End.