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Memories of Puerto Rico
From sand to snow; from sugar
to tobacco; from tropical island to a New England city, the transition
from Puerto Rico to Hartford has not been an easy one for most of the
people who have made it. Regardless of the economic strife that led many
Puerto Ricans to find new opportunities in Hartford, the island continues
to have a strong hold on those born to its soil. Childhood memories conjure
powerful images of tiny homes nestled in the lush mountain landscape.
This is what people left behind.
My Mama
My mother…planted for our food… She sold coffee, but she worked, the same
as my brothers, the older ones, harvesting coffee, picking it from the
trees, processing it…washing it, taking off the skin in a machine, then
drying it.
Haydee Montalvo-Feliciano 
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- 1, 999 KB WAV)
Games with the
Clouds
But one of the loveliest things that I always remember about my life in
Puerto Rico…there was like…a hill and there on the hill was …a lot of
grass…and especially on fall and spring afternoons we went there at night
and lay down …with our arms behind our heads…to look up at the sky and
we played games…with the clouds.
Haydee Montalvo-Feliciano
Trip to San Juan
…In May 1924, at five o'clock in the morning, dark, I left with my grandmother,
my father, my aunt Benigna, and my cousin…for a trip to San Juan. In a
Model T Ford. We left at five o'clock in the morning in Coamo and we arrived
in San Juan when the sun was almost fading. We took the whole day, because
the car would only go about ten miles and you had to get out and fill
the radiator with water again.
Florencio Morales
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- 1, 767 KB WAV)
Music and Dance
of Puerto Rico
You know the bomba? My father played bomba. And I had cousins that played
plena, but the way they dance the bomba and the plena now, that's neither
plena nor bomba. Because…it was a unique style. The women used wide skirts,
like you see now, and my mother sewed the petticoats that they wore, she
put on a lot of ribbons and all that.
Joaquina Rodríguez
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- 1,984 KB WAV)
My Father was
a Farmer
My father was a farmer…sugar cane, coffee, cattle…horses… There were eleven
of us and I was the oldest one… My daughter was asking me a couple of
weeks ago, "How did you all manage…to live in that little house?" …But
back when I was a kid, it was a big house.
Juan Román
When I was a Kid
...You were out there on your own with the mangoes, with the mameyes,
eating coconuts from the coconut trees, and all those good things. Even
today when I go to Puerto Rico…I like to just sit and think, bring me
back to my days when I was kid.
Juan Román
Listen in English (57
KB MP3 - 902 KB WAV)
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