Cachita's Streets by Jalane D. Schmidt

8/20/2019 Cachita's Streets by Jalane D. Schmidt

1/25

The Virgin of Charity, Race, & Revolution in Cuba Jalane D. Schmidt

CACHITA’S

STREETS


2/25

CACHITA’S

STREETS


3/25

Series editors:

Jacob K. Olupona, Harvard University,

Dianne M. Stewart, Emory University, and

Terrence L. Johnson, Haverord College

The book series examines the religious, cultural, and political expres-

sions o Arican, Arican American, and Arican Caribbean traditions.

Through transnational, cross-cultural, and multidisciplinary approaches

to the study o religion, the series investigates the epistemic boundaries o

continental and diasporic religious practices and thought and explores

the diverse and distinct ways Arican-derived religions inorm culture

and politics. The series aims to establish a orum or imagining the cen-

trality o black religions in the ormation o the “New World.”


4/25

CACHITA’S

STREETS

The Virgin of Charity, Race,

and Revolution in Cuba

Jalane D. Schmidt

2015


5/25

© 2015 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States o America on acid-ree paper ∞

Typeset in Quadraat Pro by Westchester Book Group

Library o Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schmidt, Jalane D., [date]

Cachita’s streets : the Virgin o Charity, race, and revolution in

Cuba / Jalane D. Schmidt.

pages cm—(The religious cultures o Arican and Arican

diaspora people)

Includes bibliographical reerences and index.

978–0–8223–5918–0 (hardcover : alk. paper)

978–0–8223–5937–1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 978–0–8223–7531–9 (e-book)

1. Caridad del Cobre, Virgen de la. 2. Mary, Blessed Virgin,

Saint—Devotion to—Cuba. 3. Cuba—Race relations.

4. Revolutions—Cuba—History. 5. Cuba—History. . Title.

. Series: Religious cultures o Arican and Arican diaspora

people.

.

277.291'082—dc23

2015009507

Cover art: Feast day procession o the Virgin o Charity in the

streets o Havana, Cuba, September 2014. Photo by Alejandro

Menéndez (Mene).


6/25

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments vii

“Antes”: Processions Past 1

PART I. Cuba Profunda, 1612–1927

From Foundling to Intercessor:

Our Lady Help o Slaves 17

Mambisa Virgin: Patrona o the Patria 49

PART II. Regal Streets, 1931–1936

Royalty in Exile: Banishing Bembes 69

Crowning La Caridad:

The Queen o Republican Cuba 94

PART III. Martial Streets, 1951–1958

The Virgin General on the March:

Conquering Cuba? 131

Rebel Sierras and Lowlands:

Petitioning the Mother o Cuba 164


7/25

vi

PART IV. Revolutionary Streets, 1959–1998

“¡Todos a la Plaza!”:

Mobilizing in Revolutionary Time and Space 185

“The Streets Are or Revolutionaries!”:

Prohibiting Processions 207

Luchando in the Special Period: Papal Visit 235

Processions Present:

Returning to the Streets, 1998–2012 273

Notes 299

Reerences 323

Index 347


8/25

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A book is not produced rom the work o just one individual writer. So manypeople in many locations in two countries that are dear to me, but that are

long at odds with one another, took steps (and sometimes assumed risks)

and gave o their time to welcome, support, and guide me. Over the years,

I have mourned the deaths (+) o some teachers and riends who helped

me. E.P.D.

In El Cobre, I would like to express gratitude to María de los Angeles Gar-

rido Pájaro, Ariel Sr., Joelito, and their amily or taking me in, eeding me

papas fritas, teaching me, having conversations over the years, and watchingmy children; Felicita (+) or teaching me about her century o lie, about the

Virgin and my own compatriots’ shameul role in the 1906 destruction o her

shrine; the “vendepiedras” or the copper and lie lessons; Mario (+) y Victo-

ria (+) or conversations over much coffee and cigarettes; security offi cials

who unwittingly taught me about surveillance; José “Chino” Seoane or the

many meals when ood was scarce, showers when water was scarce, con-

versation when clarity was scarce, and or his beautiul art; Carlito “Chino”

Fong Novelles (+) or his willingness to talk about his religious experiencesand expertise; the Hermanas Sociales Maria Paísan (+), Rita Llanes, and

Marta Lee or their openness; the staff o the Hospedaria or their hospital-

ity; Adita (E.P.D.) or opening my eyes to the problem o ood insecurity;

historian Julio Corbea Calzado, mi hermano, a true organic intellectual, col-

league, and riend, who introduced me to all the viejitas here unnamed (no

escribo sus nombres—Ustedes ya saben como son las cosas— pero estan en mi corazón)

who taught me so much, and o course, Cachita.

In Santiago de Cuba, a sincere thanks to Olga Portuondo Zúñiga or her

generous collegiality; Manuel (E.P.D.) or all his delicious comida, conversa-

tions over café y ron, taking me to carnival and on pilgrimage, and his insights;


9/25

viii

Raael Duarte or lessons about class and economics in Cuba; Nancy Pérez

Rodríguez or teaching me to take carnival seriously; Gladys González Bueno

or introducing me to barrio Los Hoyos; José Millet or all his oundational

eld research; Herbert, Ruby (+), Herbert Jr., and Renato Pérez or their pa-

tience in teaching a clueless norteamericana; Mons. Pedro Meurice (+

) or his willing assistance, and his assistant, Mercedes Ferrera Angelo; Padre Jorge

Catasús or sharing insight and assistance over the years, and or sharing

his musical gifs; Rector o Seminario San Basilio, Father Joan Rovira, SJ,

or assistance; Camilo Raael Fabra González or indispensable help with

translation archivists Raael Nacimiento (+) in the Arzobispado and Anto-

nio López de Queralta Morcillo at Museo del Arquidiócesis de Santiago or

their enthusiasm or history. Thanks to Caridad Victoria López Panenque

(E.P.D.), a daughter o Ochún and Templo Aché; Edrey Alvaréz León andother parishioners o Iglesia Santo Tomás in Los Hoyos; the staff at Biblio-

teca Provincial Elvira Cape or their assistance; people o the Universidad de

Oriente such as “Proe” Ana Maceo, descendent o the “Bronze Titan,” or

lessons in Spanish and lie in Cuba, and Dean María Teresa Fleitas Monnar

or explanations o urban planning; Casa del Caribe colleagues Julian Mateo

(E.D.P.), Abelardo Larduret, Carlos Lloga, and Carlos Rodríguez Rodríguez

or their riendship and scholarship; Roberto and Maria Elena, Ronny and

Nayelin Ochoa, Frank and Evelyn, Frank Jr., and René or their hospitality;María “Maruchi” Berbes Ribeaux, daughter o Ochún, or her hospitality,

guidance, conversation, and support.

In my brie stays in Camagüey, the ollowing people offered much assistance:

Henrietta Price, Rosita Betancourt, and Berta Díaz at the Iglesia de la Car-

idad. I am grateul to the Alumnae o Oblate Sisters o Providence schools

or introducing me to this important religious community o Roman Cath-

olic black women and the still-reverberating effects o their work. Thanks

also to Angelita Salvador Soliz or introducing me to Camagueynos; JoaquínEstrada-Montalván and Carlos A. Peón-Casas or assistance in the archives;

Osvaldo Gallardo or logistical support; and Monseñor Adolo Herrera (+)

or his willingness to talk with a complete stranger.

In Havana, I would like to thank Jeanny Zamora Betances (“Kindelan”)

or steady riendship hace años, help nding uel afer Hurricane Michelle,

willingness to transport my amily and riends, and his street smarts de re-

solver so many situations into which I stumbled; Jesús Espinosa Jenkins or

his consistent care through the years; Monseñor Carlos Manuel de Cespedes

García-Menocal (+) or his erudition. I am grateul to the many individuals

o Iglesia Caridad del Cobre: María Caridad Martínez Armesto or sharing


10/25

ix

her considerable historical knowledge; Monseñor Ramón Suárez Polcari

(“Padre Polki”) or his openness; Padres Carlito Borges and Elpidio or shar-

ing their insights; Maria Anselma, y los jovenes, and Beatriz or riendship and

childcare; Greder Rojas, Ana, and Papo or their riendship y todos sus vecinos

del solar Campanario or their welcome, café y ron, and generous childcare. I would also like to thank Padre René David (+) at Seminario San Carlos or

his explanations o his work; Mirta at the Archbishop’s archives or her as-

sistance; the booksellers in the Plaza de Armas or their savvy in acquiring

materials; Enrique López Oliva or his candor; Eduardo Mila or his hospi-

tality; Bruno Gato (+) or sharing his experiences; in barrio Jesús María en

la Calle Gloria, Alain Castro and his mother (E.P.D.), a daughter o Ochún

who I never met in this lie, but who exerted posthumous inuence upon

our conversations; residents o barrio Los Sitios or the welcome to theirceremonies; Miguel Barnet and Trinidad Pérez Valdés o the Fundación Fer-

nando Ortiz or sponsorship; Gloria Rolando or her sharp interventions;

Oelia and others on Calle Manrique, Milagros Machado, and Giselle or

their hospitality; and Sussette Martinez and Eduardo Yanes Hidalgo or in-

troducing me to contemporary Cuban art that treats the Virgin, and or their

considerable assistance.

In my native United States, various unding sources and sponsoring agen-

cies supported my research trips to and in Cuba over the years: HarvardUniversity David Rockeeller Center or Latin American Research Tinker

Research Grant (July 1997); Harvard University Committee on the Study o

Religion Mellon Research Grant (July–September 1998); Harvard University

Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, Harvard University David Rockeel-

ler Center or Latin American Research Tinker Research Grant; Universidad

de Oriente and Casa del Caribe in Santiago de Cuba, Fundación Fernando

Ortíz in Havana (August 2000–May 2001, June 2001–November 2001); Fund

or Theological Education, Atlanta, Georgia (May– June 2002); University oNorth Carolina () at Chapel Hill, Vice-Provost or Research and Eco-

nomic Development Postdoctoral Fellowship (August–September 2005);

University o Virginia () Humanities Dean (May– June 2008, May– June

2009); Vice-Provost or Research and Faculty Development, Coner-

encía de los Obispos Católicos de Cuba (May– June 2010, June– July 2011);

Arts & Sciences Research Fellowship (March–April 2012);

Program (May– June 2014).

At Harvard, I owe gratitude to David Hall or introducing me to the con-

cept o “lived religion,” to Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and Cornel West or

pushing me orward in my intellectual pursuits, and to Jorge Domínguez


11/25

x

or his early counsel about Cuba. Thanks to Lawrence Sullivan, J. Lorand

Matory, Robert Orsi, and Linda Barnes or all o their dissertation advice

and input; Danielle Widmann and Ludger Vieues or riendship during

the long ordeal o graduate school and beyond; and Chris Tirres and Jen-

nier Sheper-Hughes or teaching me about Latin America. In greater Bos-ton, thanks to Steve Quintana III and the House o Obatala in Dorchester;

and Father Tom Clark, SJ, Father Bob McMillan, SJ, Theresa Perry, M. Shawn

Copeland, and parishioners o St. Francis de Sales-St. Philip (now St. Katha-

rine Drexel) parish in Roxbury or spiritual lessons learned.

In the United States, I am grateul to the many Cuban exiles who availed

themselves to share their knowledge: Narciso Hidalgo or passionate con-

versations about the revolution; Marcos Antonio Ramos or sharing about

his experiences o Cuba and his insight; Ada María Isasi-Díaz (+) or shar-ing her memories o Roman Catholicism in early revolutionary Cuba; and

the exiled Hermanas Oblatas Cubanas o the Oblate Sisters o Providence

Convent, Baltimore, Maryland, or their time and sharing.

Many U.S. colleagues participated in the improvement o my pro ject, in-

cluding María Elena Díaz, who I thank or her scholarship and collegiality.

Thanks also go to Rebecca Marvil or those early, ormative conversations; and

Oberlin College, where I was given time and space to think, write, teach, and

have my second child. I could not ask or better conversation partners thanmy colleagues at the University o Florida Departments o Religion and Latin

American Studies: thanks to Carmen Dianne Deare or ghting the good

ght against the state o Florida’s misguided and ortunately short-lived ban

on proessors’ travel to Cuba; Helen Saá (E.P.D.) and John Dumolin or their

insights and bibliographic suggestions; Manuel Vasquez; and David Hackett

or ruitul conversations about religions in the Americas. At -Chapel

Hill, I am grateul to Tom Tweed or his scholarship and mentorship; Julie

Byrne and the American religious history PhD reading group or their curios-ity and eedback; my Carolina postdoctoral ellow cohorts, especially Renee,

Tanya, and Lyneise; William Christian Jr. and my international “Visioneers”

summer seminar participants or their teaching and eedback; Kenneth

Routon, who read and commented on rst drafs; and Grete Viddal, Kris-

tina Wirtz, Laurie Frederik, Reinaldo Román, Judith Bettelheim, and all the

Orientalistas. May our tribe increase! At the University o Miami, I would like

to thank Michelle González Maldonado and the Cuban Heritage Collection.

At , thanks go to Yarimar Bonilla, Roquinaldo Ferreira, Cynthia Hoehler-

Fatton, and Chuck Mathewes or their encouragement and orbearance. Val-


12/25

xi

erie Cooper and Claudia Highbaugh: thank you or your intrepid visits to

Cuba and your resh questions that helped me to see Cuba with new eyes.

I must thank my amily—my parents, the Reverend Steve Schmidt and

Wanda Ream Schmidt; my sister, Jill Schmidt Weaver; and my grand-

parents, Kenneth and Winnie Ream (+

) and Roland and Ethel Schmidt (+

)—or their early encouragement and consistent support (moral, spiritual, and

nancial) o my educational pursuits, which made it possible to achieve my

aspirations. At Bethel College, I acknowledge my undergraduate mentors

Duane Friesen or introducing me to religious studies, Patty Shelly or pro-

viding me with my rst example o eminist scholarship and or seeing my

potential, and Jim Junke or exempliying the historian’s task as one o ethi-

cal engagement.

Finally, I am grateul to Whitney Pollock or her support as I nished, andto Greg Goering, and our beautiul daughters, Ana Mercedes and Aurora

Inéz, or making memorable amily trips to Cuba and or enduring my long

process o writing this book.


13/25

INTRODUCTION

“Antes”

The esta [today] is not as popular. Now it is more religious. Beore,

it was in the streets, now it surrounds the church. Beore, people liked

to party, more in the town. Now, people come to see the Virgin.

—María de la Caridad LaGuna

Afer offering me sweetened café cubano inside her home, an older

woman (affectionately termed viejita) residing in El Cobre, Cuba, inthe early years o the twenty-rst century described to me the Septem-

ber 8 east day processions in honor o the Virgin o Charity, Cuba’s

patron saint, and estivities that used to take place in the streets antes,

beore 1959. The word antes—its prerevolutionary temporal reerent

considered so obvious as to render unnecessary any explanation—

was ubiquitous in my conversations with Cubans, particularly those

who came o age prior to 1959 (c. Frederik 2012, 6). Whatever their

ideological orientation, whether praising the revolution or challeng-ing the United States’ economic dominance and or addressing the in-

equities in access to health care and education that were so prevalent

beore the revolution, or lamenting the disappearance o quotidian

things that were taken or granted in prerevolutionary times, such as

religious processions in the streets, Cubans repeatedly spoke to me

about their nation’s twentieth-century history in terms that empha-

sized the 1959 victory o the Cuban revolution as a denitive temporal

dividing line.

With some wistul nostalgia, the viejitas to whom I spoke described

the street processions dedicated to the Virgin o Charity o antes as


14/25

2

solemn acts o devotion, “a beautiul thing,” which preceded urther estiv-

ity, the more proane entertainment that also took place in the streets. But

“aferward, this was dropped [se cayó] with the change in customs o the

country,” they reported, in the passive voice in subdued tones. For these

individuals speaking to me in the early years o the twenty-rst century,

the memory o past processions and estivities haunted present-day street

activities. “From the church the procession would come to the town, on Sep-tember 7. But the nuns were there above [in the church]. Down here [in the

streets] was the party [ parranda]” (Hernandez 1993, 97, 105). Antes, the vieji-

tas recalled, the townspeople (with the occasional participation o visiting

pilgrims) would carry an image o the Virgin o Charity rom her national

sanctuary and into the streets, a location that Cubans identiy as the site o

lo popular, or popular sensibilities.

La Cubanía and La Cuba Profunda

Cuba’s patron saint ( patrona), the Virgin o Charity o El Cobre, has long

served as a symbol whereby Cubans interpret themselves and their condi-

FIGURE I.1 “Antes”: Local women processing with La Melliza (“twin”) image o the Virgin

o Charity returning rom the streets o El Cobre to the National Sanctuary o Our Lady

o Charity, “beore” the revolution, in the early 1950s. Note the uniormed offi cials in

the background, saluting the Virgin. Archbishop Enrique Pérez Serantes is acing the

camera, middle right, wearing a black cassock and glasses. (Photographer unknown,

ca. 1950.)


15/25

3

tions. As twentieth-century Cuban intellectual Jorge Mañach (1948, 24) once

asserted, “There is no nation without the Virgin o Charity.”

When I rst ventured to Cuba in 1997, I assumed that the Virgin o Charity

had always and everywhere been as I then understood her to be: inextricably

linked to notions o Cuban national identity, iconographically representedas a mulata (a woman o Spanish and Arican descent), and “syncretically”

identied with the Regla de Ocha oricha Ochún, a irtatious goddess o resh

waters, ecundity, and wealth. The longer I stayed in Cuba, the more my

ascination grew with the island’s cultural, religious, and political history—

as well as how this history collided (chocado) in ofen painul ways with the

geopolitical ambitions and economic aims o my own nation, the United

States. In electing to conduct a research pro ject on the Virgin o Charity,

Cuba’s patron saint and the island’s premier religious symbol, I was touch-ing the candela (re) o Cuban debates over nationalism. In time, Cuba’s re-

gional rivalries, racial hierarchies, political history, and religious variations

emerged into ocus, and I saw how these actors inuenced the Virgin’s

cult, which I began to understand as an evolving historical phenomenon e-

ected by many different agents throughout history who possessed various

motivations.

Our Lady o Charity is usually described by devotees as a benevolent

maternal saint who patiently listens to the petitions o her devotees. Mostdevotees recount that they rst learned o this Marian advocation rom their

mothers, grandmothers, or other emale relatives, inside the domestic, tac-

itly emale-gendered private sphere o the home, which ofen had a space

reserved or an image o the Virgin o Charity. Learning Marian devotions

within domestic spheres, with its attendant kinship relationships and the

use o amilial titles and roles—“Mary our mother”—as well as the ofen

personal nature o a devotee’s petitions to the Virgin all point to the intimate

quality o the relationship that is orged between the devout and the saint(Orsi 2006). In Cuba, as in other locations o Latin America, such tender-

ness or warm amiliarity is ofen marked by the use o the diminutive “-ito”

or “-ita” orm o an individual’s name when calling them. Thus Cubans’

affectionate appellation or their patron saint, also reerred to as simply La

Caridad or Cacha (a common nickname or Caridad), is Cachita. I concur

with Cuban ethnographer José Millet Batista, who disputes his colleague

Miguel Barnet’s contention that the Virgin o Charity is, or most Cubans,

intertwined with the sensuality o the Regla de Ocha (aka Santería) oricha

Ochún. Rather, argues Millet Batista, or most Cubans, “she’s Cachita, la

virgin de la Caridad” (Millet Batista 1993a, 84, 85).


16/25

4

Streets as Stages: Piety, Political Pedagogy, and Pachanga

Certainly, these devotions learned in the home and subsequent petitions

to Cachita or help with individual matters are important elements in the

spread o the cult. Devotion to the Virgin o Charity in Cuba takes a widerange o local orms, whether a devotee practices popular versions o Roman

Catholicism, spiritism, Regla de Ocha (or some combination thereo ), or

simply maintains a devotion to the saint that they do not categorize within

any o these religious traditions. Cuba’s twentieth- and twenty-rst-century

Roman Catholic leaders attempted to standardize these practices by encour-

aging Cubans, o whom only a small percentage were considered practicing

Catholics, to participate in large-scale ceremonies o the sort described in

this book, where orthodox Marian piety was placed on public display in thestreets.

In planning large-scale ceremonies in which the Virgin’s original

seventeenth-century image was brought out o her El Cobre shrine and into

the tacitly masculine-gendered arena o the streets (c. Chevannes 2003), the

male hierarchy o Cuba’s Catholic Church pressed claims, in this competitive

public space, about the collective identity o the nation. Cubans’ twentieth-

and twenty-rst-century “genealogies o perormance” (Roach 1992), or cu-

mulative repositories o public events, are intended, by their organizers, toremind participants o a “master narrative” (Connerton 1989, 70) in an effort

to produce successive denitions o “Cubanness” in the streets (see M. A.

Torre 2003).

These ritual events must be interpreted alongside other, contempora-

neous street spectacles, whether planned by carnival organizers or civil au-

thorities, which advance other, at times competing claims about national

identity—such as that Cubans are naturally pachangueros (acionados o

pachangas, or raucous street parties) or are united in their support or therevolution. Although competition within street estivals, particularly carni-

val, has ofen been studied (Carlsen 1997; Guss 2000; McAlister 2002), I look

at competition between contemporaneous street events as agonistic cultural

perormances. In so doing, I investigate how planners and perormers at

street spectacles vie to claim interpretive supremacy or the nation, and how

participants navigate the tension between these at times competing claims.

In her authoritative treatment o the colonial-era origins o Cubans’ sig-

nature religious devotion, Cuban historian Olga Portuondo Zúñiga deemed

Cuba’s Virgin o Charity a “symbol o cubanía,” twentieth-century Cuban eth-

nographer Fernando Ortíz’s term or a “eeling o deep and pervasive iden-


17/25

5

tication with things Cuban.” This discussion o cubanía became more

salient afer Cuba’s 1959 revolution, as the vernacular cultural habits o the

nation’s economic and social margins— what Cuban cultural interpreter Joel

James Figarola (1998), borrowing Cuban Minister o Culture Armando Hart’s

term or Oriente, called “Cuba prounda” (deep Cuba; Hulme 2011, 9)— wereaccorded privileged status in national reection. Contemporary Cuban cul-

tural historian and ethnographer Abelardo Larduet Luaces has recently re-

ned James Figarola’s ormulation by contrasting conocimiento, which in this

usage connotes offi cial, elite knowledge, with sabiduría, by which Larduet

signals the popular wisdom ound in Cuba prounda.

This book contends that i the sabiduría o Cuba prounda were distilled

in one locale, it would be the streets, where versions o la cubanía are per-

ormed, consolidated, and mobilized. Streets are ofen likened to a stage(Schechner 1993). Thus political and ecclesial leaders attempt to strengthen

their respective claims by staging their spectacles in the streets, rom which

they attempt to demonstrate affi nity or—ofen by borrowing perormative

cues rom or claiming alignment with—still other popular expressions ound

in the street.

Over the course o the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-rst centuries,

public perormances that were at times deemed denitive o Cuban identity

were at other times prohibited, while previously banished practices gainednew visibility in the streets and were vested with increased prestige to sym-

bolize the nation. Cubans’ planning o and participation in these events pro-

duced, in effect, a revolution in their streets.

A Note on Method

Taking cues rom historical anthropology (Comaroff and Comaroff 1992;

Price 2002), I seek to “redeem the ragments” by situating contemporary

eld work data within a broader historical and cultural context, beingattentive to the relationship between phenomena and multiple axes o

power. This ethnohistorical commitment has translated into much more

investigation o archival documents than I originally intended when I began

this pro ject, including unanticipated research o seventeenth-century colo-

nial history and o the history o Cuban urban planning. The book interprets

archival accounts, including commemorative albums published by Cuba’s

Catholic Church, contemporaneous newspaper and magazine accounts,

and government-issued texts that recount these large-scale events rom

planning phase to perormance and afermath (Chamah Fetué and Grul-

lón 1937; Semanario Católico 1952; Congreso Católico Nacional 1960;


18/25

6

1998; Instituto Cubano del Libro 1998). I then weave in data collected rom

structured oral history interviews as well as observations and everyday con-

versations, so that the book becomes more ethnographic as the chapters ap-

proach the present day. The result is, I hope, a uller narrative o the changes

in conceptions o the Virgin o Charity and Cuban street perormances overthe course o Cuba’s colonial (1492–1898), U.S. First Occupation (1899–1902),

republican (1902–58), and revolutionary (1959–present) periods.

Since 1997, I have made more than a dozen trips to Cuba, and conducted

participant-observation eld research as well as archival research. I spent

the majority o my cumulative three years o residency in Oriente, the island’s

eastern region. I was initially disoriented there, because the authoritative

studies o “Cuba,” such as the writings o the pioneering Cuban ethnogra-

phers Lydia Cabrera (1992), and her better-known brother-in-law FernandoOrtíz ([1906] 1973), which I had read to prepare mysel, usually described

phenomena that predominated in urban enclaves o Cuba’s two western

provinces o Havana and Matanzas (c. Frederik 2012). Orientales (East-

erners) were more likely to eat caldosa, a modest, albeit spicier version o

Cuba’s vaunted ajiaco—a rich stew o meats and root vegetables that Ortíz

proposed was an apt metaphor or the ethnic “mixture” o “transcultured”

Cuban society itsel (Ortíz [1940] 1995). But reorienting mysel to Oriente

was more than simply learning regional vocabulary such as pluma in placeo pila or aucets or papaya instead o fruta bomba. Living in Cuba’s “heroic

city” o Santiago de Cuba—so called or its rebellious history o vigorous

participation in Cuba’s armed struggles—pulled my rame o reerence to

encompass neighboring islands that have exerted such cultural inuence on

Cuba’s “most Caribbean” city.

Over the centuries, many Caribbean migrants have settled in this “most

hospitable” city o la tierra caliente, which, with a population o hal a mil-

lion, is the nation’s second-largest city. There I lived variously near Plaza deMarte, on Carnecería at the center o the city, and passed time near and

in barrio Los Hoyos. I also resided in El Cobre, a small, predominantly

black and mulatto town o ve thousand, located seventeen miles outside

the provincial capital o Santiago de Cuba in an other wise rural area o the

low-elevation Sierra Maestra mountains o eastern Cuba. When I lodged in

El Cobre’s church-operated guesthouse or pilgrims or a period o several

months in 2001—the year that the town’s centuries-old copper mine shut

down—I interviewed clerics, nuns, and lay church workers, as well as pil-

grims who stayed there, and consulted records at the national shrine. In

returning to El Cobre or the Virgin’s annual September 8 estival on our


19/25

7

occasions (1998, 2000, 2001, and 2005), I was able to interview some o the

same pilgrims rom various locations in Cuba, and the amily members who

accompanied them, over successive years. I also spent some weeks in Ca-

magüey and Bayamo conducting archival research and interviews, and vis-

ited both Holguín and Guantánamo on two occasions. Additionally, I madeseveral brie research trips to Matanzas in the western region, and resided

or over eight months in the capital city o Havana, living in Old Havana,

Central Havana, and circulating in barrio Colón as well. I spent ample time

in Barrio Chino at the Church o Our Lady o Charity at the corner o Man-

rique and Salud streets, attending Masses, observing devotees who came to

visit La Caridad, and interviewing pilgrims, Catholic laypeople, and clergy.

In the nearby barrios o Jesús María and Los Sitios, bisected by Calzada del

Monte (“Avenida Máximo Gómez,” offi cially), I was invited to and attendedthe rituals hosted by the many practitioners o Aro-Cuban religions who

reside there.

Describing and interpreting the past activities and motivations o histori-

cal subjects is a challenging task, particularly when examining these data

in conversation with present-day experience (Tweed 2002). Some rsthand

witnesses have died, or, in the case o revolutionary Cuba, may not wish to

speak or have gone into exile. When I tracked down exiles now living in the

United States or abroad, I ound them eager to talk about their experiencesin Cuba with respect to the Virgin—as were, or the most part, Cubans still

residing on the island. On a handul o occasions, some Cuban residents

did not eel comortable talking to a North American researcher, which is

understandable given the deplorable history o the United States’ treatment

o Cuba: repeated military interventions, propping up authoritarian govern-

ments and dominating the island’s economy during the republican era, and,

in the revolutionary era, sponsoring an invasion and other aggressive, covert

operations, pressuring the Organization o American States to isolate Cubadiplomatically rom its Latin American neighbors, and imposing a trade

embargo o more than a hal century’s duration. Cubans justiably charac-

terize these U.S. actions as “imperialism,” and the resulting mistrust that

still denes relations between our respective countries sometimes colors

interpersonal relationships between Cuban and U.S. nationals. But in most

cases, my many repeated long-term visits over the course o seventeen years

allowed me the opportunity to listen and learn, to deepen riendships, and,

I believe, to interact more candidly.

I engaged in many conversations, drank many caecitos, quaffed aguar-

diente (cheap unrened rum), smoked cigarros suaves, ate comida criolla (or at


20/25

8

times went hungry), attended and documented numerous religious rituals

(Roman Catholic, Spiritist, Regla de Ocha, Vodou, and Palo Monte), inter-

viewed practitioners o these respective religions, as well as Protestants and

Jews and those who described themselves as unaffi liated with any religion, and

participated in numerous street spectacles, such as mass pilgrimages, carnivals, estas populares, and rallies where anti-U.S. protests were prominent. I also

examined Cuban media accounts, and consulted government and church

archives and interviewed government and church offi cials and laypeople,

regarding the memory and representation o street estivals dedicated to

the Virgin o Charity as well as carnivals, protests, and civic rallies. This re-

quired that I maintain good relationships with two sectors o Cuban society

that, since 1961, have ofen been in tension with one another: government

offi cials, who controlled my visa status as a student and temporary resident(and thus my ability to be in the country to conduct research, and to have

access to public archives), and offi cials o the Roman Catholic Church (who,

particularly in Oriente, at times cautiously guarded access to their ecclesial

archives). During successive visits, I eared that the uncomortable ques-

tions I at times posed to government offi cials and church leaders about the

tension between religion and the state might jeopardize my uture access to

them, their respective archives, and even the country itsel.

When I interacted with certain government-affi liated contacts, I some-times endured withering lectures about U.S. imperialism and why the

Catholic Church in Cuba should still be regarded as an enemy o the revolu-

tion. When I was in the presence o church authorities, some o my ques-

tions resulted in awkward pauses and pained glances, and I had to gingerly

probe more deeply or answers, sometimes on repeated visits over a period

o years. Rank-and-le Cubans o every sector o society—elderly retirees

(viejitos), schoolchildren, sel-employed small business owners ( propiacuen-

tistas), intellectuals, artists, religious practitioners, hustlers ( jineteros), bu-reaucrats, the politically disaffected, as well as Marxist stalwarts (militantes

and cederistas)— were, almost without exception, hospitable to me, the visit-

ing Yuma (North American). I learned something rom every conversation

that I had, and I am grateul or the welcome that was shown to me. The

opinions that I ormed over the years are, o course, my own.

Scope and Outline

The Virgin o Charity—in her various local religious permutations—is argu-

ably the most widespread object o Cuban religious devotion, both on the

island and abroad. Although there are pious histories (Bravo 1766, Veyrunes


21/25

9

Dubois 1935 [Fonseca 1703; Ramírez 1782]), micro histories o colonial-era

Cobreros and their devotion to the Virgin (Marrero 1980, M. E. Díaz 2000a),

histories o the colonial era o the cult (I. A. Wright 1928; Arrom [1959] 1980;

Portuondo Zúñiga 1995; Ortíz 2008), and an ethnography o Cuban exiles’

devotion to La Caridad in Miami rom 1961 to the 1990s (Tweed 2002), therehas not been a comprehensive treatment o twentieth-century Cubans’ de-

votion to their patron saint. This book offers an ethnohistory o the cult o

Cuba’s Virgin o Charity, and, in the process, a history o twentieth- and early

twenty-rst-century Cuban religions, particularly Roman Catholicism, as

these relate to the republican, and later, revolutionary Cuban state.

Cachita’s Streets is also an “object history” (Sheper Hughes 2010, 16) o

the adventures and travails o the Virgin’s original effi gy. Devotees con-

sider Cachita’s seventeenth-century image to hold such sacred potency thatit draws them to her— whether she is residing in her usual home in her El

Cobre sanctuary, or she is temporarily visiting Cuba’s city streets. In this

sense devotion to Cachita may be said to create a “network o relationships”

(Orsi 2006, 2) between the saint, her devotees, state and church offi cials,

and their nation. These relationships “make homes and cross boundaries”

in physical spaces in a manner that binds (the Latin etymological root o

religāre) devotees, to “intensiy joy and conront suffering” (Tweed 2006, 54),

to make use o Robert Orsi’s and Thomas Tweed’s denitions o religion.This book traces the local permutations o devotion to the Virgin and the

varying ates o religions in Cuba, particularly as these are expressed in re-

lationships to changing racial, cultural, and political conceptions o Cuban

nationality. Part I (“Cuba Prounda”), beginning with chapter 1, “From

Foundling to Intercessor,” reviews the historiography o the Three Juans’

legendary nding (hallazgo) o the Virgin’s effi gy in 1612, and the growth o

her cult among slaves in El Cobre, while chapter 2, “Mambísa Virgin,” traces

the subsequent spread o what became Cuba’s signature Marian advocationduring Cuba’s nineteenth-century wars or independence and its early re-

publican history.

The remainder o the book, ound in Parts II, III, and IV, concentrates

on twentieth-century events that postdate the 1902 ounding o the Republic

o Cuba and the Vatican’s 1916 offi cial recognition o the Virgin o Charity

as Cuba’s patron saint, in order to explore the variation, contestation, and

interaction between these key terms, patria and patrona, or “nation” and “pa-

troness.” The symbol o the Virgin has been mobilized by various Cuban con-

stituencies to promote their historically specic claims regarding religious

practice, ascriptions o race, and political ideologies o Cuban nationhood.


22/25

10

Thus this study will investigate what anthropologist Michael Herzeld (1997,

72) terms the “rhetorical uses o iconicity”: How have various sectors imag-

ined Cuba’s pre-eminent religious symbol, the Virgin o Charity? How have

these groups brandished their local denition o the Virgin in their attempts

to univocally represent the nation? How have street perormances, with theiramplied public displays, been an important modality o these Cuban par-

ties’ mobilization o the symbol o the Virgin?

The core o this book examines a series o extraordinary large-scale

public ceremonies dedicated to the Virgin. Beginning in 1936, and again in

1952, 1959, 1998, and 2012, the Virgin’s original seventeenth-century effi gy

was removed rom her sanctuary in the mountain village o El Cobre and

transerred to the streets o urban areas in order to preside over religious

ceremonies o successively greater size and scope. Thus streets serve as theinrastructure or this book, since the streets are the literal and gurative

thoroughares between the events in question, and the streets were consid-

ered—by supporters and detractors alike—to be important venues or the

Virgin to visit.

Almost by denition, large-scale planned street perormances—those

that receive the necessary offi cial permits to use the public thoroughares—

carry the tacit approval o (or at least tolerance by) political authorities. But

the attempts by planners o these events to capture the center o attentionhave the effect o dening a periphery to which I must also attend. Some

street events were variously encouraged or prohibited in different epochs

by Cuban authorities in an effort to showcase (or discourage) certain raced

versions o popular culture, to bolster (or diminish) the ranks o practicing

Roman Catholics, or to reinorce (or challenge) support or various political

positions. At times one sort o street activity was suppressed and replaced by

newly ascendant sanctioned practices.

In these public religious ceremonies, the claims linking the Virgin withher nation were broadcast rom ever-larger public stages, employing emerg-

ing media technology and new public architecture to do so. Prior to the

1959 Cuban Revolution, these Marian spectacles took place in ad hoc public

spaces that could hold tens o thousands o participants. Advances in mid-

twentieth-century Cuban urban planning would later provide the suffi ciently

large-scale plazas—able to hold public gatherings o hundreds o thousands

o attendees, deliberately constructed to showcase the “nation”— where the

Virgin’s postrevolutionary ceremonies took place. These events, and other

contemporaneous large-scale street spectacles, “made possible the emer-

gence o a common national language o ritual activity,” as Simon P. New-


23/25

11

man (2000, 3; c.. Anderson 1991) has noted with respect to the symbiotic

relationship between civic estivals and print culture in the early U.S. repub-

lic. A similar dynamic holds sway in Cuba, particularly in the revolutionary

era in which attendance at manifestaciones is ofen pressured by government-

controlled workplaces and schools, and rallies are rebroadcast by and subjectto extensive commentary in state-administered mass media.

In different eras, various Cuban leaders have characterized street peror-

mances as debauched or superstitious spectacles that retard modern prog-

ress, as pious gatherings that “no heart can resist,” as the sel-evident political

“will o the people,” or as pastoral events where “the Virgin must visit her

children.” It is these large cultural perormances in Cuba’s streets that this

book interprets.

In successive twentieth- and twenty-rst-century spectacles, the Virgin was êted as a monarch, hailed as a conquering general, promoted as a mater-

nal custodian who could calm a roiling civic realm, and invoked as an advo-

cate o national reconciliation. Each o these public perormances coincided

with or closely ollowed important events in Cuban history that ramed the

Marian spectacle and contemporaneous trends in devotion. For her part,

the Virgin was ofen the mediating symbol through which the devout made

sense o these historical events, and thus, o their lives.

Part II (“Regal Streets”) examines devotions to the Virgin that drew uponroyal imagery during the 1930s, an era when afrocubanistas and origenistas o-

ered competing Arican- and Spanish-inected accounts o Cuban culture,

respectively. The Machado dictatorship (1925–33) sought to order Cuba’s

streets via massive public works projects to improve the nation’s inra-

structure as well as by prohibiting perormances associated with black

Cubans, such as bembes, drumming ceremonies dedicated to regal deities,

and comparsas, street displays o carnival monarchy. Chapter 3, “Royalty in

Exile,” interprets the account o a surviving witness as well as Cuban pressreports o the Santiago police orce’s 1931 raid on a bembé celebrated by

black Cubans in honor o the Virgin. Chapter 4 treats the “orderly streets”

o the 1936 Roman Catholic coronation o the Virgin’s original effi gy in San-

tiago, in the wake o the chaotic Revolution o 1933 that eatured violence in

the streets and the overthrow o the Machado dictatorship.

Part III (“Martial Streets”) examines military models or the Virgin and

armed campaigns during Cuba’s tumultuous 1950s. Chapter 5 interprets

the 1951–52 nationwide pilgrimage o the “Virgin General” through Cuba’s

streets, where she reviewed a ull range o Cuban cultural and religious ex-

pressions. The Virgin’s march was temporarily stalled by General Fulgencio


24/25

12

Batista’s March 1952 coup d’état. Two months later, when her effi gy was im-

periled during its advance through the streets o Havana, many Cubans

retroactively blamed the caudillo (strong man) or a “disaster” that the Virgin

suffered. The 1952 Batista coup d’état inspired Fidel Castro’s July 26, 1953,

rebel counterattack, discussed in chapter 6, which was deliberately planned tocoincide with Cuba’s rowdiest annual street estival, the carnival in Santiago

de Cuba. “Rebel Sierras and Lowlands” interprets how residents o Santiago

de Cuba narrated this revolutionary history with reerence to their actions

during successive carnival seasons o 1957 and 1958, when these street esti-

vals were effectively canceled, and instead thousands o protesters marched.

In the late 1950s, guerilla insurgents in Oriente’s Sierra Maestra mountains,

which surround the Virgin’s shrine, coordinated with the urban underground

to incite strikes and acts o sabotage in the streets, stirring many anguishedappeals to, and endangerment o, the Virgin.

Part IV (“Revolutionary Streets”) investigates the transition rom repub-

lican to revolutionary Cuba through the perormance o distinctive street

events that were meant to mark, and to bring into being, a new era o Cuban

political commitment. Spontaneous street celebrations greeted the victo-

rious rebel army in January 1959, and ever-larger government-planned as-

semblies in Cuban streets and Havana’s recently constructed Civic Plaza

synchronized the perormance o revolutionary resolve. Chapter 7, “¡Todosa la Plaza!,” treats the massive November 1959 Eucharistic Congress in Ha-

vana’s Civic Plaza, an event during which attendees thanked the Virgin or

the victory o the revolution, and some showcased their dissent to emerg-

ing revolutionary policies by invoking the presumed blessing o the Vir-

gin. In its scale, gestures, and utterances, Catholic planners o the 1959

Eucharistic Congress sel-consciously competed with the previous months’

mass revolutionary rallies and challenged the emerging Marxist leanings o

the provisional government. As discussed in chapter 8, tensions between theCatholic Church and the state came to a head in 1961, when the revolutionary

government cancelled the annual street procession or the Virgin’s September

east day in Havana. “The streets are or revolutionaries!,” the rallying cry o

the new political order, supplanted, or orty years, the Catholic Church’s or-

merly privileged status in planning and executing religious processions in the

streets. Instead, new civic perormances in the streets, such as revolutionary

rallies and “street plans” or children, were implemented or the purpose o

cultivating Cuba’s revolutionary “New Man.” Chapter 9, “Luchando in the

Special Period,” looks at the economic diffi culties o the 1990s, when Cuba

had to survive without the economic support o its ormer Eastern Bloc


25/25

13

allies. The deprivations o this era were epitomized by the physical and so-

cial deterioration o Cuban streets and the occasional public eruptions o

rustration there. Pope John Paul II’s groundbreaking 1998 visit to the island

and the Pope’s recoronation o the Virgin’s original effi gy in Santiago’s

Revolution Plaza awakened hope among some Cubans or a renewal o reli-gious street processions. The book’s concluding chapter, “Processions Pre-

sent,” describes how Aro-Cuban religious events in the streets gained an

increased audience rom Cubans and tourists alike, at times sparking de-

bate, as these perormances amplied religious notions and promoted con-

ceptions o national identity that challenged the prior Catholic monopoly

on religious rituals in the streets. The twenty-rst century witnessed the

re-establishment o processions in honor o La Caridad during a cautious

détente between the Catholic Church and the revolutionary state, punctu-ated by a 2012 visit rom Pope Benedict XVI that marked the our hundredth

anniversary o the nding o the Virgin’s effi gy, and the amplication o the

church’s claims about the cult o the Virgin and its ties to Cuban national

identity.

Beore turning to the chapters that interpret these Marian spectacles in

the streets o twentieth- and twenty-rst-century Cuba, I must rst more

ully introduce the book’s central gure, the Virgin o Charity o El Cobre,

and the geographic location o much o this book. Chapter 1 attends to thelegend o the Three Juans’ 1612 nding (hallazgo) o the Virgin’s effi gy in

Oriente, Cuba’s eastern region, and the genesis o her cult among enslaved

devotees in El Cobre.

Documents

Cachita's Streets by Jalane D. Schmidt