Rafael Hernández Ramos The stocky and robust farmer, Rafael Hernández, sat under a tree near his home in Yauco surrounded by visitors. Friends had come, as they frequently did, to consult with the socialist leader and poet. Hernández was seventeen years old when he first attended one of Pedro Albizu Campos' orations. It was a July 25 celebration at Guánica in observance of the landing of the United States Army there in its military takeover of Puerto Rico. Won over to the cause of independence, he joined the Nationalist Party under the Yauco leadership of Rafael Brigante. The Cuban revolution of 1959 further influenced Rafael with increased fervor for independence, and also towards socialism. He has made two trips to Cuba which convinced him that this was the system needed throughout the world. Since the Nationalist Party does not advocate any particular party line, he turned to the Socialist Party, PSP, and now serves on their central committee. He does not view independence as likely within the near future. Yet, he muses, history sometimes leaps ahead faster than expected. Liberation depends on world conditions, and on Puerto Rico's relationship with other Latin American countries. It depends also on overcoming a current attitude that Puerto Rico is like a patient in a hospital dependent on oxygen, and that once the oxygen is cut off, the patient dies. Unfortunately, there is a lack of access to communications media to teach people otherwise. We were privileged to get a copy of his first published book of poems, Estampas Y Semblanzas Yaucanas. In it he pays tribute to each of the barrios of Yauco. We had been with him and our host Guillermo de Jesús on a photographing trip throughout all of the barrios. The poems express the love he feels, as a farmer, for the landscape of his country. This, combined with a historical perspective, lends a poignancy to his writings. On the golden banks of my Yauco originated the aboriginal capital where Gueybana was born. Of this man is venerated his sublime heroism with combat before Ponce de Leon. He distinguished this nation for posterity.