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RevistaIslasEnglishSept09 11/10/09 8:43 PM Page 15 Reflections on the Race Problem in Cuba Reflections on the Race Problem Horrors of Yesteryear, Shadow of the Present José Hugo Fernández Writer and journalist Havana, Cuba hile the violent nature of human seems ambivalent in origin but also twists the beings has not changed in its essence spirit of the ideas. It alters the very real princi- Wsince the days of Cain till now, it did ple that we should all be treated and helped become somewhat malleable with the advance equally without having the essential details of of civilization. Thus, it doesn’t take much to our lives ignored. These represent the inert understand the violence Cubans of African words of a pipedream whose ideals far sur- descent sense in the fact that the revolutionary passed their fulfillment, and actually makes it government promulgated social equality with- difficult and prevent its realization. We should out attending to its true establishment, a pur- have begun by crafting a plan that would have pose turned axiom. The reason for this is ensured equality, declaring it as both a right because it did not take the time to first study and goal. Yet, everything seems to indicate that the specifics of identity or resources—real or the declaration was made a priori. With that, subjective—to which each population group we stalled. Our objective became a strictly fixed had access as part of a conglomerate, so it and apodictic slogan with which we accom- could promote their development under condi- plished nothing more than to violate its inten- tions equal to those of everyone else. tion, obstructing the establishment of true This inexcusable ‘quick fix,’“we are all equality. Today, Cuba’s slave descendants, equal here,”which for fifty years has forcibly blacks who constitute mostly a mass represent- silenced (preemptively sealing, with one stroke) ing the humblest strata of our society, suffer a any possible debate concerning our opinions three-fold kind of cold violence. They must about the specificities of our own nature as a first endure the irremediable weight of the race, or about our historical legacy, not only inequalities they continue to encounter around ISLAS 15 RevistaIslasEnglishSept09 11/10/09 8:43 PM Page 16 them. Secondly, they must acknowledge (and requires no common sense to be able to con- express gratitude about, however caustic it clude that we are not all equal, and I say this sounds) the revolutionary progress the slogan with due respect to the idealists, and the con- implies, no matter how much their daily lives sent of more than one respectable historian. don’t reflect the equality they’ve so often heard about, incessantly, for half a century. In the For those with a good third place, they affirm, with frustration, that conscience what at the beginning might have been a prop- er goal has turned against its own objectives. Famous black Cuban Juan Manuel This is further complicated by the fact that if Chailloux Cardona wrote his doctoral thesis in anyone who feels adversely affected by this rais- Law, Social Science, Politics, and Economics in es his or her voice to question “we are all equal the 1940s. Los horrores del solar habanero [The here,”because the facts seem to contradict this Horrors of the Havana Tenement Yard] started declaration, he or she runs the risk of being cropping up in Havana bookstores around considered a dissident, and even a traitor to the 1945, destined to become an essential read for anti-discriminatory desires of his or her socio- any study of our city. racial group. Chailloux Cardona was detailed and pre- Isn’t it the case that there is violence in the cise in his examination of the evolution of situation that has blacks feeling morally and housing in Cuba –from the indigenous bohío politically obligated to express their claims not hut to the colonial manor– focusing on so- as blacks but only as Cubans? Despite the cen- called tenement yards, bunkhouse-style turies, and the march of history, doesn’t this dwellings, and other hovel-like housing in the violence resemble the kind their ancestors capital. This was his basic goal, to create his endured when they were torn from their native own relevant contribution to Cuban historiog- soil, treated like animals, had their origins raphy and sociology by focusing on the devel- confused, and were denied full acknowledg- opment of Havana society in his own time, ment of their combined sense of identity? before and after. Yet, the truth is stubborn, and always In fact, this book was without precedent challenges dogma, putting speeches in their and has yet to have any book with the same proper minimized place. Just one example will kind of passion follow in its path. No other suffice to prove this –the housing situation in book has had the impact Los horrores del solar Cuba. A cursory review of the conditions in habanero did; with is exposition, description, which most black Cuban families live, particu- and denunciation of the conditions in which larly in Havana, reveals enough to see the con- the poor Cuban masses, most of them, not tradiction in this supposed equality relative to coincidentally, descendants of the African race or class. This is not the only evidence of slaves brought to the island, and the offspring this, yet it is so obvious that one need neither of the Mambí soldiers who were heroes of the statistics nor empirical details. The ability to independence wars against colonial domina- see and count is all one needs to confirm that it tion, lived. is mostly the descendants of slaves who today In minutely examining the housing hor- inhabit tenement blocks, bunkhouse-style rors of everyday life for this sector, Chailloux dwellings, and other kinds of hovels in Cardona put his Cuban readers face to face Havana– just like years ago. This is a fact that with one of the greatest calamities of the 16 ISLAS RevistaIslasEnglishSept09 11/10/09 8:43 PM Page 17 Entrance to tenement yard building on Monasterio Street. Cerro. republican era; a national drama marked by ness help us better appreciate a reality essential indigence, frustration, and discouragement, for the study and understanding of our histor- and an endless list of the negative outcomes ical past, and allows us to weigh the present in these produce. As such, he might have greatly an objective and responsible manner. In the disturbed the digestion of not only govern- prologue he wrote for the new edition, Torres- ments and also politicians but any sensitive per- Cuevas states that even at the time of its initial son with a minimum sense of social responsi- release, the book’s title “was itself both strik- bility. This may well apply to people of subse- ing and worrisome for those of good con- quent generations and, in fact, Los horrores del science at that time.”1 It also deserves equal solar habanero is still a disturbing book. attention today, and as well should worry those It may or may not be a coincidence that of good conscience today. this book was reissued in Cuba (La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2008), with a Horror and its Shadow new prologue by well-known historian Eduar- do Torres-Cuevas. We should be doubly grate- Time gets bogged down in those tenement ful for this book because of its rigor and rich- yards and blockhouses. Too little have they ISLAS 17 RevistaIslasEnglishSept09 11/10/09 8:43 PM Page 18 changed since they were first built till now. their inner ceilings have been divided into two, Seven and even eight people can inhabit one because they are very high, in order to create room in one of these hovels, crafted from rusty two units in the same space. These factors defi- panels of zinc, lumber remnants, bits of con- nitely contribute to creating bad and over- crete, dry wall, or other discarded materials. crowded living conditions.”5 They live “in colonies like mushrooms in stag- This refers only to this kind of housing in nant water.”2 Bathroom facilities are rare, Old Havana, where the oldest of these sorts of shared, as are sinks or sometimes stoves. dwellings exist. Generally, they were built on Running water neither runs nor is clear: dark- the ruins of colonial-era mansions that were ness and lack of ventilation persist. Their loca- occupied by freed slaves, when their owners tion is not so much on streets, per se, but in a decided to move to other parts of the capital. maze of inner alleys. It is disheartening to see Nowadays, there are 11,000 such dwellings in how little difference there is between the cur- only one of the city’s 15 municipalities, which rent situation and the one described by is a shocking fact when one considers how big Chailloux Cardona over sixty years ago: “All the rest of Havana is. For example, Cayo around one sees poverty. Broken chairs, dilapi- Hueso, a neighborhood that is barely part of dated frames on boxes serving as beds, pieces of Central Havana (the second to be constructed tables leaned up against a wall, buckets full of outside the old city’s walls), has more than 200 dubiously clean water, which makes up for lack tenement yards in less than one squared kilo- of the precious liquid when the pipes are shut meter. More than 18,000 people in the Los down. The air is heavy and suffocating, even in Pocitos neighborhood of Marianao live in the higher floors.

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