Last Dance in Havana by Eugene Robinson

Author:Eugene Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Press

8. “LOOK, THERE’S ONLY ONE LEADER”

Santiago de Cuba is the anti-Havana—tight instead of sprawling, cramped instead of wide, hilly instead of flat, Caribbean in flavor rather than Hispanic. The population is overwhelmingly black and a surprising number of people have surnames like Malveaux or Johnson or Robinson, descendants of immigrants from nearby Haiti and Jamaica who came generations ago to prosperous Cuba to work in the cane fields and sugar mills. Historically Cuba’s second city is prone to upheaval and revolution, which is one reason Fidel Castro chose to launch his epic campaign right here; his raid on the impregnable Moncada Barracks ended in abject and almost comic failure, but it made Castro a star and sent him on his way. In Santiago’s central square, Céspedes Park, you can sit on the terrace of the city’s best hotel and look out over Cuba’s entire bloody history. Across the park is the oldest house on the island, a gloomy sixteenth-century pile where the conquistador Diego Velásquez once lived. Looming to your left and lording over the graceful square is the massive cathedral, built to be one of the grandest in all of New Spain. To your right is the flag-draped building where Castro announced his victory, hours after the dictator Batista had fled, coming out onto the balcony to give his first speech as Cuba’s Maximum Leader.

The music in Santiago is anti-Havana too. It’s like Delta blues as opposed to Chicago blues—less amplified, more acoustic, in some ways more authentic, anchored by deep roots, evocative of long days in endless fields under the scorching sun. Around the corner from Céspedes Park is the Casa de la Trova. It’s a performance space and cultural center, established by Castro’s revolutionary government and dedicated to the preservation and celebration of traditional Cuban music. There is a Casa de la Trova in every provincial capital, but the one in Santiago is the most famous because Santiago is the source of most of the island’s musical heritage. Every afternoon, musicians come to the Casa de la Trova to jam—grizzled old guitarists, slick young trumpeters and drummers, bassists with thick layers of hornlike callus on their fingers. Locals drop by to listen and, of course, to dance. Someone always produces a bottle of rum. It’s a pleasant way to pass the afternoon before night falls and the real party begins.

Céspedes Park is headquarters for Santiago’s hustlers, and a couple of them latched on to me and offered to show me the city. I was in town to do a story on race and racism, and these two young men were black, so I let them walk me around for a while through the city’s compact downtown. Their names were Ariel and Osmel. Both looked about twenty, both were high-school graduates, neither had a job or was bothering to look for one. They spoke passionately about the discrimination they felt as Afro-Cubans, and even more passionately about the despair they felt when they tried to imagine what kind of future they might have.

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