‘I like to think of Lolita Lébron’

Following are the lyrics of a song written by Phil Wilayto nearly 30 years ago, which he dedicated to the struggle of the Puerto Rican people for independence.

When it seems like my courage is failing,
and it feels like my strength is all gone,
When the months and the years are punctuated by tears,
and it feels like I just can’t go on,
I like to think of Lolita Lébron.
When Lolita Lébron was a young girl,
with her nation she fought to be free;
When her people were rising in nineteen and fifty,
with her comrades she travelled to Washington, D.C.,
And they climbed to the gallery of Congress
as independence was voted away,
And rudely interrupting, their pistols erupting,
they shouted, “!Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre!”
When the struggle seems to go on and on,
I like to think of Lolita Lébron.
For twenty-five years in a cold Yankee cell,
far from the island that she loved so well;
And they told her that she could be free anytime,
and all it would take was her name on a line,
A promise that she’d never fight them again,
and in twenty-five years, she never took up that pen;
When the struggle seems to go on and on,
I like to think of Lolita Lébron.