My Old San Juan
It came out like a lament, notes of melancholy drifting past the clinking glasses at a tourist cafe and the laughter of crowds strolling through Old San Juan. Tucked into a shuttered doorway, his frame frail and brittle, Tony plunked away on his accordion, arthritic fingers moving through memory as his tired voice crackled with lyrics:
Adiós, adiós, adiós (Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,)
Borinquen querida (beloved Borinquen,)
Tierra de mi amor (land of my love.)
“It’s an old classic,” said a passerby, born in Puerto Rico but, like so many, raised and living in the mainland as part of a long and vast diaspora. “It’s about loving Puerto Rico and missing it, missing what it was.”
I’m guessing Tony is in his 80’s (he declined — with a smile — to tell me). He said he’s played here in Viejo San Juan for a long time, maybe decades. He remembers its better days, days of vibrance and hope dashed by disasters, by corruption in La Fortaleza, and by neglect and disdain from the White House.
As his song played, it was drowned out by the crowds, especially the laughter of families gathering for group photos under a giant, fluttering Puerto Rican flag nearby. Perhaps they were some of the diaspora, some of those who left the island in search of opportunity, of a better chance for themselves and…
