LOCKING THE CLOSET DOOR: REFORMATION OF THE CUBAN MAN AND THE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE HOMOSEXUALITY, 1950-1962 By ROBERT BRITO UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2015 To my mother, and everyone else who has put up with me over the last year as I embarked on this endeavor. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my parents for their unwavering support and willingness to listen to draft after draft, and to put up with me after numerous nights of no sleep. I would also like to thank my advisor Dr. Lillian Guerra, without whose support I would have never been able to embark on a project of this scope. I would also like to thank Lauren Krebs for countless all-nighters working with me to work out the logical framework and argument of this piece. Additionally, I would like to thank Dr. Abel Sierra for his help and expertise on the history of Queerness in Cuba. Finally, I would like to thank every individual who has listened to me talk about Cuba and homosexuality ad nauseam for without their patience and understanding, I would never have been able to push myself past the finish line. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 3 LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 6 1 RECUPERATING A QUEER LIFE IN 1950S HAVANA ............................................ 8 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 8 Setting the Stage: Night Clubs as Imperialist Centers of Power ............................. 10 Development and Decline of the Tourist industry ............................................. 10 Concentration of Control: Nightclubs ................................................................ 15 2 HARNESSING POPULAR HOMOPHOBIA: TIMELINE OF TERROR 1940-1961 .. 28 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 28 Psychological and Legal Treatment of Homosexuals in Cuba 1936-1958 .............. 30 Popular Press: Education of the Masses ................................................................ 31 Gente de la Semana ........................................................................................ 32 Don ................................................................................................................... 34 From casual homophobia to arrested development, 1959-1961 ............................. 37 3 DE/RE-COLONIZING THE CUBAN MAN, 1959-1965 ............................................ 44 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 44 Development of the “New Man” .............................................................................. 45 Militarization of Everyday Life ................................................................................. 49 Machismo as Prerequisite for Commitment to the National Project ........................ 52 Queremos Que Sean Como El Che ........................................................................ 55 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................. 62 EPILOGUE .................................................................................................................... 64 4 LIST OF FIGURES Figure page 1-1 Inside cover of “Cuba: 700 Miles of Playground”, reprinted with permission from Special Collections & University Archives, Green Library, Florida International University ....................................................................................... 16 1-2 Pamphlet for the Tropicana Nightclub circa 1950s, reprinted with permission from Special Collections & University Archives, Green Library, Florida International University ....................................................................................... 18 1-3 Cover of the Album de la Revolución Cubana 1952-1959, Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. ............................................................................................ 27 2-1 Covers of Gente demonstrating the sexual availability of women, (left) January 6, 1952, and (right) February 24, 1952. Photo Courtesy of the Author. ................................................................................................................ 33 2-2 Fulgencio Batista sporting a white suit when meeting with then U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower (left) and example of a man in white suit from July 1958 issue of Don (right). ............................................................................ 36 2-3 “Negativo, Compañero ” by Nuez, May, 5, 1961 Revolucion. ............................. 39 2-4 Image from Revolución depicting “a map of Cuba and various cables U.P.I. and A.P. giving information on the development of the invasion. All this is quite ironic since it titled, "The small total war UPIAP". ...................................... 40 3-1 “Drawing in salute of the International Day of the Proletariat by Rafael Landa.” From Con la Guardia en Alto, March 1964. ........................................... 53 3-2 Cover of Con la Guardia en Alto, depicting Fidel leading the Cuban people, rifle in hand, January 1969. ................................................................................ 61 5 INTRODUCTION A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.1 -Fidel Castro As Fidel consolidated power in Havana over the first few years of the Revolution, it appeared as though life was changing in very real and tangible ways for the Cuban populace. Revolutions, as defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary are, “sudden, extreme, or complete changes in the way people live, and work.” For homosexuals, Havana appeared to undergo a series of radical changes between 1958 and 1961. However, the nature of the shift in attitudes towards queer men in Cuba was not a break from the past, but rather an intensification of homophobic attitudes. Those attitudes, were then co-opted by the revolutionary regime, and became a source of bottom-up support for the initiatives of the revolution. As I will show in this thesis, the development of Cuban homophobic attitudes is linked to the evolution of the Cuban tourist industry, and was simultaneously a reaction to U.S. imperialist ventures which sought to emasculate the machista Cuban nation. Chapter 1 will focus on the development and subsequent decline of the tourist industry in Cuba from the end of the 19th century until the 1950s. I will then focus on the extension of imperial power that manifests in Havana’s nightclubs. After discussing how nightclubs were crucial to the exercise of imperial control, I will discuss how race and gender conflated to create distorted perceptions of the Cuban people. Then I will 1 Fidel Castro, “Speech at the Second Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution,” Havana, Cuba, January 5, 1961. 6 discuss the existence of homosocial spaces in which queer men could thrive economically, relatively speaking.2 Chapter 2 will focus on the period immediately after the revolution until 1961. I will examine the fundamental legal changes that occurred within the Cuban state between the 1940s and the early 1960s. I will then re-examine the popular understanding of homosexuality through the lens of the psychological industry. Then I will examine the portrayal of sexuality in Cuba’s popular press both before and after the revolution, specifically how masculinity was portrayed. Finally, I will then discuss the enshrinement of homophobia into law. I will conclude with an account of the arrest of Virgilio Piñera during The Night of the Three Ps, and a brief discussion of how the accounts of the homosexuals served as a source to accumulate power. Chapter 3 will be an examination of the theoretical framework for how the revolutionary government sought to reform Cuban men into New Men. The New Man would serve as functionaries of the vanguard of the revolution. These New Men would help bring about a shift in collective consciousness and serve as the means for bringing Cuban society to Communism. I will examine the New Man’s origins in the enlightenment, and track his movement to the Caribbean. Subsequently I will describe the New Man as Che Guevara saw him. I will then argue that Che embodied the New Man during the period of the early-mid 1960s. After that I will then argue that Fidel came to embody the New Man after the regime fundamentally began taking steps towards achieving Communism. 2 Lourdes Arguelles and B. Ruby Rich, “Homosexuality, Homophobia, and Revolution: Notes towards an Understanding of the Cuban Lesbian and Gay Male Experience, Part I,” Signs 9 (1984). 7 RECUPERATING A QUEER LIFE IN 1950S HAVANA “It’s true, you could not be openly marícon in the daylight but at night everything was different.”3 -José “Pepe” Rodríguez, 2006 Introduction In the late 1940s, PANAM airlines released a travel almanac of all of the destinations that their fleet of “Flying Clippers” serviced. Each entry describes the locale and the service it provides to tourists. Gambling, one of the “star attractions of Havana” was sold alongside Cuban nightlife which was heralded as “gay as any in the world and as varied.” Allegedly,