The Cuba Reader

Cuba is often perceived in starkly black and white terms-either as the site of one of Latin America’s most successful revolutions or as the bastion of the world’s last communist regime. The Cuba Reader multiplies perspectives on the nation many times over, presenting more than one hundred selections about Cuba’s history, culture, and politics. Beginning with the first written account of the island, penned by Christopher Columbus in 1492, the selections assembled here track Cuban history from the colonial period through the ascendancy of Fidel Castro to the present. The Cuba Reader combines songs, paintings, photographs, poems, short stories, speeches, cartoons, government reports and proclamations, and pieces by historians, journalists, and others. Most of these are by Cubans, and many appear for the first time in English. The writings and speeches of JosÉ MartÍ, Fernando Ortiz, Fidel Castro, Alejo Carpentier, Che Guevera, and Reinaldo Arenas appear alongside the testimonies of slaves, prostitutes, doctors, travelers, and activists. Some selections examine health, education, Catholicism, and santerÍa; others celebrate Cuba’s vibrant dance, music, film, and literary cultures. The pieces are grouped into chronological sections. Each section and individual selection is preceded by a brief introduction by the editors. The volume presents a number of pieces about twentieth-century Cuba, including the events leading up to and following Castro’s January 1959 announcement of revolution. It provides a look at Cuba in relation to the rest of the world: the effect of its revolution on Latin America and the Caribbean, its alliance with the Soviet Union from the 1960s until the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989, and its tumultuous relationship with the United States. The Cuba Reader also describes life in the periodo especial following the cutoff of Soviet aid and the tightening of the U.S. embargo. For students, travelers, and all those who want to know more about the island nation just ninety miles south of Florida, The Cuba Reader is an invaluable introduction.

Aviva Chomsky is Professor of History and Coordinator of Latin American Studies at Salem State College. She is the author of West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870–1940 and coeditor of Identity and Struggle at the Margins of the Nation-State: The Laboring Peoples of Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean (published by Duke University Press). Barry Carr is Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Marxism and Communism in Twentieth-Century Mexico and coeditor of The Latin American Left: From the Fall of Allende to Perestroika. Pamela Maria Smorkaloff is Director of Latin American and Latino Studies and Assistant Professor of Spanish at Montclair State University. She is the author of Cuban Writers on and off the Island: Contemporary Narrative Fiction and Readers and Writers in Cuba: A Social History of Print Culture, 1830s–1990s and editor of If I Could Write This in Fire: An Anthology of Literature from the Caribbean.

Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 I. Indigenous Society and Conquest Christopher Columbus "Discovers" Cuba / Christopher Columbus 9 The Devastation of the Indies / Bartolome de Las Casas 12 Spanish Officials and Indigenous Resistance / Various Spanish Officials 15 A World Destroyed / Juan Perez de la Riva 20 "Transculturation" and Cuba / Fernando Ortiz 26 Survival Stories / Jose Barreiro 28 II. Sugar, Slavery, and Colonialism A Physician's Notes on Cuba / John G. F. Wurdemann 39 The Death of the Forest / Manuel Moreno Fraginals 44 Autobiography of a Slave / Juan Francisco Manzano 49 Biography of a Runaway Slave / Miguel Barnet 58 Fleeing Slavery / Miguel Barnet, Pedro Deschamps Chapeaux, Rafael Garcia, and Rafael Duharte 65 Santiago de Cuba's Fugitive Slaves / Rafael Duharte 69 Rumba / Yvonne Daniel 74 The Trade in Chinese Laborers / Richard Dana 79 Life on a Coffee Plantation / John G. F. Wurdemann 83 Cuba's First Railroad / David Turnbull 88 The Color Line / Jose Antonio Saco 91 Abolition! / Father Felix Varela 94 Cecilia Valdes / Cirilo Villaverde 97 Sab / Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda y Arteaga 103 An Afro-Cuban Poet / Placido 110 III. The Struggle for Independence Freedom and Slavery / Carlos Manuel de Cespedes 115 Memories of a Cuban Girl / Renee Mendez Capote 118 Jose Marti's "Our America" / Jose Marti 122 Guantanamera / Jose Marti 128 The Explosion of the Maine / New York Journal 130 U.S. Cartoonists Portray Cuba / John J. Johnson 135 The Devastation of Counterinsurgency / Fifty-fifth Congress, Second Session 139 IV. Neocolonialism The Platt Amendment / President Theodore Roosevelt 147 Imperialism and Sanitation / Nancy Stepan 150 A Child of the Platt Amendment / Renee Mendez Capote 154 Spain in Cuba / Manuel Moreno Fraginals 157 The Independent Party of Color / El Partido Independiente de Color 163 A Survivor / Isidoro Santos Carrera 167 Rachel's Song / Miguel Barnet 171 Honest Women / Miguel de Carrion 180 Generals and Doctors / Carlos Loveira 186 A Crucial Decade / Lolo de la Torriente 189 Afrocubanismo and Son / Robin Moore 192 Drums in My Eyes / Nicolas Guillen 201 Abakua / Rafael Lopez Valdes 212 The First Wave of Cuban Feminism / Ofelia Dominguez Navarro 219 Life at the Mill / Ursinio Rojas 226 Migrant Workers in the Sugar Industry / Levi Marrero 234 The Cuban Counterpoint / Fernando Ortiz 239 The Invasion of the Tourists / Rosalie Schwartz 244 Waiting Tables in Havana / Cipriano Chinea Palero and Lynn Geldof 253 The Brothel of the Caribbean / Tomas Fernandez Robaina 257 A Prostitute Remembers / Oscar Lewis, Ruth M. Lewis, and Susan M. Rigdon 260 Sugarcane / Nicolas Guillen 264 Where is Cuba Headed? / Julio Antonio Mella 265 The Chase / Alejo Carpentier 270 The Fall of Machado / R. Hart Phillips 274 Sugar Mills and Soviets / Salvador Rionda 281 The United States Confronts the 1933 Revolution / Sumner Welles and Cordell Hull 283 The Political Gangster / Samuel Farber 287 The United Fruit Company in Cuba / Oscar Zanetti 290 Cuba's Largest Inheritance / Bohemia 296 The Last Call / Eduardo A. Chibas 298 For Us, It Is Always the 26th of July / Carlos Puebla 300 Three Comandantes Talk It Over / Carlos Franqui 302 History Will Absolve Me / Fidel Castro 306 Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War / Che Guevara 315 The United States Rules Cuba, 1952-1958 / Morris Morley 321 The Cuban Story in the New York Times / Herbert L. Matthews 326 V. Building a New Society And Then Fidel Arrived / Carlos Puebla 337 Tornado / Silvio Rodriguez 340 Castro Announces the Revolution / Fidel Castro 341 How the Poor Got More / Medea Benjamin, Joseph Collins, and Michael Scott 344 Fish a la Grande Jardiniere / Humberto Arenal 354 Women in the Swamps / Margaret Randall 363 Man and Socialism / Ernesto "Che" Guevara 370 In the Fist of the Revolution / Jose Yglesias 375 The Agrarian Revolution / Medea Benjamin, Joseph Collins, and Michael Scott 378 1961: The Year of Education / Richard R. Fagen 386 The Literacy Campaign / Oscar Lewis, Ruth M. Lewis, and Susan M. Rigdon 389 The "Rehabilitation" of Prostitutes / Oscar Lewis, Ruth M. Lewis, and Susan M. Rigdon 395 The Family Code / Margaret Randall 399 Homosexuality, Creativity, Dissidence / Reinaldo Arenas 406 The Original Sin / Pablo Milanes 412 Where the Island Sleeps Like a Wing / Nancy Morejon 414 Silence on Black Cuba / Carlos Moore 419 Black Man in Red Cuba / John Clytus 424 Post-modern Maroon in the Ultimate Palenque / Christian Parenti 427 From Utopianism to Institutionalization / Juan Antonio Blanco and Medea Benjamin 433 Carlos Puebla Sings about the Economy / Carlos Puebla 443 VI. Culture and Revolution Caliban / Roberto Fernandez Retamar 451 For an Imperfect Cinema / Julio Garcia Espinosa 458 Dance and Social Change / Yvonne Daniel 466 Revolutionary Sport / Paula Pettavino and Geralyn Pye 475 Mea Cuba / Guillermo Cabrera Infante 481 In Hard Times / Heberto Padilla 488 The Virgin of Charity of Cobre, Cuba's Patron Saint / Olga Portuondo Zuniga 490 A Conversation on Santeria and Palo Monte / Oscar Lewis, Ruth M. Lewis, and Susan M. Rigdon 498 The Catholic Church and the Revolution / Ernesto Cardenal 505 Havana's Jewish Community / Tom Miller 509 VII. The Cuban Revolution and the World The Venceremos Brigades / Sandra Levinson 517 The Cuban Revolution and the New Left / Van Gosse 526 The U.S. Government Responds to Revolution / Foreign Relations of the United States 530 Castro Calls on Cubans to Resist the Counterrevolution / Fidel Castro 536 Operation Mongoose / Edward Lansdale 540 Offensive Missiles on That Imprisoned Island / President John F. Kennedy 544 Inconsolable Memories: A Cuban View of the Missile Crisis / Edmundo Desnoes 547 The Assassination Plots / Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities 552 Cuban Refugee Children / Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh 557 From Welcomed Exiles to Illegal Immigrants / Felix Roberto Masud-Piloto 561 Wrong Channel / Roberto Fernandez 566 We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This? / Achy Obejas 568 City on the Edge / Alejandro Portes and Alex Stepick 581 Singing for Nicaragua / Silvio Rodriguez 588 Cuban Medical Diplomacy / Julie Feinsilver 590 VIII. The "Periodo Especial" and the Future of the Revolution Silvio RodrÍguez Sings of the Special Period / Silvio RodrÍguez 599 From Communist Solidarity to Communist Solitary / Susan Eckstein 607 The Revolution Turns Forty / Saul Landau 623 Colonizing the Cuban Body / G. Derrick Hodge  628 Pope John Paul II Speaks in Cuba / Pope John Paul II 635 Emigration in the Special Period / Steve Fainaru and Ray SÁnchez 637 The Old Man and the Boy / John Lee Anderson 644 Civil Society / Haroldo Dilla 650 Forty Years Later / Senel Paz 660 A Dissident Speaks Out / Elizardo SÁnchez Santacruz 664 One More Assassination Plot / Juan Tamayo 666 An Errand in Havana / Miguel Barnet 671 No Turning Back for Johnny / David Mitrani 678 Suggestions for Further Reading 691 Acknowledgment of Copyrights 701 Index 713