Jennet Rodriguez Betancourt

egins to surface filled with elements of Puerto Rican-ness. At the same time, amid the
idealized humorous jíbaro verses, in his writings in prose, Alonso cautiously masked his
criticisms using multiple literary devices (folklore, dreams, humor, a story within a story,
fictive characters and settings, etc.). The struggle and ability of this gifted writer in
composing such a significant literary work full of colorful vignettes packed with hidden
transcripts, in a period of so much oppression is extremely remarkable and valuable.
There are those who criticize Alonso’s appropriation of the jíbaro as an unfair
one. Puerto Rican intellectual, José Luis González claims in his controversial work, el
país de los cuartro pisos (1987) that the black population was omitted from the scenario
and that Alonso’s jíbaro is not Puerto Rico’s true jíbaro. “Jose Luis Gonzalez attempts to
deconstruct motivations behind the appropriation of the jíbaro in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries and to expose the reasons for its continuing resonance in Puerto Rican
national discourse in contemporary times” (Guerra 54).
Alonso’s jíbaro may not have been the true depiction of the jíbaro at the time, or
perhaps there just was not a true jíbaro, but without a doubt, his text contributed to the
beginnings of a collective distinctiveness. A personality and sense of Otherness created
by giving the jíbaro a voice and a visibility never before granted to this rural figure. By
cautiously orchestrating as a costumbrista writer illustrating the traditions of this
romanticized character, this talented author not only survived strict colonial conditions,
but he wrote a Puerto Rican classic.
Whatever Alonso’s intentions in writing this canonized work were, this text most
certainly contributes to documenting the popular culture of the jíbaro while contributing
to the beginnings of a Puerto Rican national identity. A reading of the verses will reveal
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