Celia Sánchez Manduley by Tiffany A. Sippial

Author:Tiffany A. Sippial
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press

Celia in Office

Throughout her life, Sánchez held numerous political offices within the revolutionary government, and received countless awards. Garnering positions of influence, as well as many of the country’s top accolades, marked Sánchez as a political insider with a secure seat at the most influential tables on the island. The range of the awards she received also certified her accomplishments as an elite veteran of the revolutionary war. Despite dismissive portrayals of her as merely Castro’s housekeeper, secretary, or lover, Sánchez was an indisputable political heavyweight within a highly centralized government structure that permitted only a handful of individuals—and very few women—access to core decision-making power. In addition to serving as secretary to the president, Sánchez was elected as a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba on 1 October 1965, and again in 1975. In 1976 she became secretary of the Council of State and a delegate to Cuba’s legislative parliament and its supreme body of state power, the National Assembly of Popular Power. She received a commemorative medal from the FAR on the twentieth anniversary of the Moncada attack (figure 5).

Sánchez also served her country in a diplomatic capacity. In 1996 I had the opportunity to interview historian Nydia Sarabia—a collaborator on Sánchez’s Office of Historical Affairs project—and she described Sánchez as a “passionate internationalist.” She recalls that during the Vietnam War, Sánchez was active in “gathering food, medicines, clothing for children, and above all, helping the Vietnamese people maintain the faith that they would win the war even though they were fighting against the most militarily sophisticated army in the world.” In 1960 alone Sánchez traveled to the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. She also traveled to Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Romania, Hungary, Algeria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. The Media Luna museum displays Sánchez’s collection of diplomatic gifts, which includes clothing and jewelry from the countries she visited. As early as 1959, Sánchez accompanied Castro to New York. She accompanied him to New York in 1960 for the United Nations General Assembly when he famously left the Shelburne Hotel amid accusations of harassment and unfair treatment of his entourage by hotel staff and relocated to the Hotel Theresa in Harlem. A photo shows her sitting in the front seat of the car he traveled in that night (figure 6). She was at his side in New York again in 1979 when he made his famous address to the nonaligned countries at the United Nations.

FIGURE 5 Climbing Turquino Peak for medical graduation ceremony, 1965. Author’s collection.

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