HAYDÉE SANTAMARÍA, CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY

Margaret Randall

HAYDÉE SANTAMARÍA

CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY
SHE LED BY
TRANSGRESSION

Duke University Press Durham and London 2015

© 2015 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper ∞
Designed by Heather Hensley
Typeset in Whitman by Graphic Composition, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Randall, Margaret, 1936–
Haydée Santamaría, Cuban revolutionary : she led by
transgression / Margaret Randall.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8223-5942-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-8223-5962-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-8223-7527-2 (e-book)
1. Santamaría, Haydée. 2. Revolutionaries—Cuba—Biography.
3. Casa de las Américas. I. Title.
f1788.22.s265r36 2015
972.9106'3092—dc23
[B]
2015003794

Cover image: Haydée Santamaría. Archivo Fotográfico

Casa de las Américas
for haydée
CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ix

chapter 1 Before We Begin 1

chapter 2 Why Haydée? 11

chapter 3 Early Life 31

chapter 4 Moncada 53

chapter 5 War 81

chapter 6 Witnesses 107

chapter 7 Casa de las Américas 127

chapter 8 Two, Three, Many Vietnams: Haydée and Che 159

chapter 9 The Woman beneath the Myth 177

chapter 10 Impossible Possibility:

Elegy for Haydée Santamaría 195

Notes 207
Bibliography 217
Index 221
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

without the encouragement and always loving support of my partner,

Barbara Byers, this book would not exist. For many years she experienced
my need to write it, convinced me the time was right, and backed me up in
more ways than I can say.
In Cuba, I want to give special thanks to Roberto Fernández Retamar
and Silvia Gil, who understood the importance of the project before I even
knew I had the courage to begin; to Chiki Salsamendi, who worked tirelessly
to get me the photographs that make the book so much richer; and to Ana
Cecilia Ruiz Lim, who held my hand throughout my fieldwork in Havana.
Marcia Leseica, who was with Haydée at Casa’s inception in 1959, made her-
self available to me for a fruitful interview in 2014. At Casa de las Américas I
am also personally grateful to Yolanda Alomá, Idelisa Escalona, Juan Calzada,
Jorge Fornet, Myriam Radlow, Alicia Varela, and Jorge Vivas for aiding me
in different ways.
I consulted many documents by and about Haydée at the Casa de las
Américas archive and was given generous access to them all. Casa’s library
was also extremely helpful. The Office of Historic Affairs at the Cuban Coun-
cil of State was forthcoming with its valuable holdings. And the newspaper
Granma’s document center kindly allowed me to use the photograph of Hay-
dée’s funeral procession.
With regard to the photographs, many come from Casa’s archive. In most
cases the original photographers are unknown and so cannot be credited. I
am grateful to them for having made these images that capture Haydée in so
many moments of her life.
Among the few living members of Haydée’s family, I am deeply grateful
to her nieces Norma Ruiz and Niurka Martín Santamaría, and to her grand-
nephew Boris Javier Martín Santamaría. Norma, especially, provided invalu-
able help, both in Cuba and later when I was back home and bombarded her
with questions about this or that detail.
Also in Cuba, Arturo Arango, Rebeca Chávez, Norberto Codina, Ambrosio
Fornet, Michele Frank, Ana Maite Gil, Juan Luis Martín, Christina Mills,
Aimée Vega, and Lesbia Vent Dumois pointed me in important directions,
helped with my fieldwork, were there for fruitful discussions, and aided me
in many other ways. Through the years, Arturo Arango in particular has al-
ways been available for friendship, resources, and consultation.
Outside Cuba, Ana Bickford, Bernardine Dohrn, Doug Dunston, Sarah
Mondragón, Ximena Mondragón, Jane Norling, Rini and V. B. Price, Greg-
ory Randall, John Randall, Robert Schweitzer, Susan Sherman, Nancy Stout,
Tineke Ritmeester, and Alba Vanni were all helpful in a variety of ways.
Gisela Fosado, my wonderful editor at Duke University Press, supported the
book with the sort of intelligent enthusiasm that makes any writer want to
do her best. Her assistant, Lorien Olive, was helpful, patient and reassuring.
Last but certainly not least, thank you Haydée, for living the life.

x | Acknowledgments
1 BEFORE WE BEGIN

Cuba is an independent and sovereign socialist state of workers,

organized with all and for the good of all as a united and democratic
republic, for the enjoyment of political freedom, social justice,
individual and collective well-being and human solidarity.
—Article 1 of the Cuban Constitution

In these times of global economic crisis,1 the poor and middle classes of
countries calling themselves capitalist, Socialist, Communist, Social Demo-
cratic, Christian Democratic, monarchist, liberal, Islamist, conservative, or
based on the principle of happiness2 lose jobs and security while small groups
of the powerful rake in more and more of the profit stockpiled by their la-
bor. This gulf between rich and poor, between gluttonous and desperate, has
become so sharp it seems irreversible. Even more troubling to those of my
generation who believed we could change the world, current powers favor
the reverse direction from the one we imagined.
Dramatic climate change and devastating natural disasters, the increas-
ing interdependence of nations, a liberating but also dangerously controlling
information revolution, race and gender manipulation, the intentional com-
plexity of corporate markets with their tricky bundling and devious hedge
funds, the destruction of public education and consequent failure to teach
young people critical thinking, the glorification of violence, fabricated need,
elaborately deceptive official rhetoric, and expertly induced fear: all com-
bine to convince us healthy change is impossible.
Endless wars mask ordinary need and overcome our longing for peace.
Obscene amounts of money buy elections. Pseudopatriotism has taken the
place of reason. The mentally ill are denied the services they require, and
some of them take their frustrations out shooting up schools or other public
places. Whistle-blowers, once respected and protected, are now considered
traitors and exiled or imprisoned. Evil is blamed on anyone different from
ourselves, and a cultivated fear of difference nurtures a racist and xenopho-
bic status quo that keeps mainstream America from asking the complex
questions. Many of those we misunderstand, disregard, and treat as childish
underlings hate us with good reason.
Against this backdrop and through the systematic erasure of historic
memory, few Americans recall that only fifty-five years ago, a small group
of rebels on a Caribbean island ninety miles from the Florida coast ousted a
dictator and took the future of its nation into its hands. A successful social
revolution right offshore! The United States was stunned when it suddenly
lost control of one of its nearest clients. Public officials, unaccustomed to
thinking such a thing could happen, weren’t prepared. The US power struc-
ture wasted no time in devising ways to undermine what it saw as an incon-
gruous and unacceptable upstart.
The United States sought and received help from regional dictators, such
as Somoza of Nicaragua and Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. Members
of Cuba’s owner classes were afraid of losing their fortunes. Churches were
nervous about an atheist imposition (which the revolution, unfortunately,
did nothing to counteract). And an irrational anti-Communism made it easy
for a rapid dissemination of lies and unfounded rumors to spread fear even
among many in Cuba’s middle class.
Inside the United States, the first two Cuban counterrevolutionary or-
ganizations were founded before 1959 had even come to an end: La rosa
blanca (The White Rose) and Milicias obreras anticomunistas (Workers
Anti- Communist Militia). The cia funded them from the beginning. In
March 1960, Eisenhower approved a government program aimed at bringing
down the revolution. It consisted of four parts: sabotage, the introduction
of paramilitary groups to spark an internal uprising, the establishment of a
subversion and intelligence network, and a broad campaign of psychological
warfare. In this same year, the first important group of business owners and
those with large landholdings left the island.

2 | Chapter 1
 While the US government’s posture was becoming more and more crim-
inal, many on the American Left, on the other hand, were inspired; their
understanding of this new revolution varied, but they were quick to see in it
the answers their diverse visions conditioned them to understand.
To the United States, prerevolutionary Cuba had been a convenient play-
ground where high-end businessmen could go for a weekend of fun at one of
the US crime syndicate–owned casinos, spend a few hours with a voluptuous
mulata, and drink rum and Coca- Cola oblivious to what life was like for those
who serviced their whims. In old Havana, a US marine had a few too many
beers, climbed a statue of José Martí, and urinated on the patriot’s head. Such
incidents, harmless jokes in the imperialist mind, to Cubans were symbolic
of decades of domination.
For them, their country was a land where a one-crop sugar economy ex-
ploited vast numbers of cane cutters who had work only a few months of the
year. These people were indebted to the company store and subsisted under
miserable living conditions with little access to education and health care.
Sugar, tobacco, and coffee production was in the hands of US companies.
Cuba depended as well on US oil and imports of all kinds. The nation’s raw
materials and human resources meant huge profit for foreign interests, with
a bit trickling down to an ostentatious local oligarchy.
All this got much worse on March 10, 1952, when an ex-president and
general named Fulgencio Batista staged a coup and took power. The left-
center Orthodox Party had been expected to win the upcoming elections,
but Batista put an end to even such modest dreams of reform. The United
States immediately recognized the new government, which it knew would
continue to protect its interests. All over the island, young people were look-
ing for ways to take back their country.
In Havana, a young lawyer named Fidel Castro was able to rally a group
that would later emerge as the July 26 Movement. The name was derived
from the attack 160 of his men and two women launched against Moncada
Barracks, the nation’s second-largest military garrison, in Santiago de Cuba
on July 26, 1953. The action was a military failure but lit the spark that be-
came the Cuban Revolution.
The young revolutionaries, some of whom are featured in this book, gave
a great deal at Moncada: brothers, husbands, fathers, lovers. They also lost
their innocence—but gained immeasurably in dignity. The Cuban people
learned there were those among them committed to sacrificing everything
for justice. Moncada’s survivors, including Haydée Santamaría and Fidel Cas-

Before We Begin | 3
tro, were captured, tried, imprisoned, and eventually released in 1954 and
1955. Fidel found it too dangerous to continue the struggle on home soil and
retreated to Mexico. There he gathered and trained a group of less than a
hundred men. He vowed they would be back in the mountains of his home-
land, fighting or dead, before the end of 1956.
Embarking upon an overloaded and risky sea voyage, the secondhand
yacht they called Granma departed from the Mexican port of Tuxpan and
landed at Las Coloradas beach on Cuba’s eastern coast in the early morning
hours of December 2, 1956. The Santiago underground had planned an up-
rising to coincide with the landing and provide cover for the returnees, but
choppy seas and slow going on the part of the novice sailors made for miscal-
culation. Most of the revolutionaries were gunned down upon arrival. Fidel,
his brother Raúl, Che, and a few others made it into the nearby mountains;
some have said twelve, some sixteen, some only seven. They may have been
able to salvage seven weapons. With these in hand, Fidel famously declared
the war won.
What followed were two years of increasingly well-organized guerrilla
warfare. It would become a model emulated, with varying degrees of success,
by other liberation movements throughout the next two decades. Nothing
like it had been seen in the Western Hemisphere since Haiti’s successful de-
feat of French colonialism in 1804. Finally another small country, exploited
by US imperialism, was demonstrating the courage and capacity to rebel.
Cuba’s revolutionaries, women as well as men, proved brave, strategic,
ingenious, and extremely capable. They built an impenetrable stronghold
in the Sierra Maestra mountains and a perfectly coordinated underground
movement in the cities. In February 1957 they were even able to bring New
York Times reporter Herbert Matthews safely into and out of the mountains,
where he interviewed Fidel and gave worldwide lie to Batista’s claim that the
rebel leader had been killed in the landing.
At first the guerrillas suffered a string of defeats. But they learned from
their mistakes and by the end of 1957 were winning battles, capturing mili-
tary posts, and taking prisoners—whom they treated with a generosity that
set them apart from their adversaries. Fidel and a number of other leaders
demonstrated an unusual integrity. News of the Argentine doctor named
Ernesto “Che” Guevara began to surface. Toward the end of the war, in Sep-
tember 1958, a woman’s platoon went into battle: a first for the times.
From a motley group of visionaries—lost, hungry, and without enough

4 | Chapter 1
weapons to go around—and in a surprisingly short period of time, the rebel
army grew to thousands: several well-trained columns capable of coming out
of the mountains and advancing the length of the country, liberating cities
as they went. Just as important, the Cuban people supported their liberators
in ways rarely seen before or since. Thousands of those who weren’t directly
involved warned the revolutionaries of approaching danger, hid people in
their homes, supplied food and other provisions, carried messages, or simply
stayed silent and out of the way.
On January 1, 1959, Batista and his inner circle fled. The July 26 Move-
ment had won the war. It then continued the sometimes messy job of in-
corporating other progressive forces—those of the old Socialist Party (psp,
Moscow-oriented Communists), the Student Directorate in Havana, and
other groups—into a cohesive governing body and began to construct a so-
ciety that politically, economically, and socially was the antithesis of its pre-
decessor. Had the United States observed a hands-off policy, this would have
been difficult enough. Given the obstacles it devised to bring the revolution
down, the task became titanic.
Fidel was the acknowledged leader, admired and beloved in almost ev-
ery quarter. By February 1959, he was the country’s new prime minister.
In April the casinos were closed and Cuba’s pristine beaches opened to the
public. In May the first agrarian reform law was enacted. An urban reform
law followed. In October a people’s militia was established to protect a revo-
lution already being sabotaged by the United States and disaffected Cubans.
Neighborhood groups called Committees to Defend the Revolution (cdr)
were also set up, creating a nationwide web of “people’s eyes and ears” to
guard against attack.
The next few years would see giant advances in the creation of a more just
society: the nationalization of sugar mills and foreign oil interests, a literacy
campaign that taught almost all Cubans to read and write, the establishment
of free and universal health care, and an emphasis on putting people to work,
building schools, creating day care centers, and retraining domestic workers
and women who had been forced to work in the sex industry so they could
use new skills to seek more dignified employment.
Coca- Cola, the iconic thirst quencher favored by a people deeply im-
mersed in US culture, was no longer the popular soft drink. One of many
commodities that disappeared or were in very short supply, it was replaced
by Son, a substitute that never quite satisfied. More important, because

Before We Begin | 5
shortages appeared and the revolution prioritized equal access, a rationing
system was soon implemented. It affected almost all basic necessities, in-
cluding food and clothing.
When I moved my family to Cuba in 1969, we opted for the ordinary
ration book rather than the special one most foreigners had. I remember
the five of us receiving three-quarters of a pound of meat every nine days,
a liter of fresh milk a day for those under twelve, a can of condensed milk
per person per month, three eggs a week for each of us. Coffee was in short
supply. Nonsmokers, my partner at the time and I traded our cigarette ration
for something more to our liking. My three older children were at boarding
school all week and ate well there, so we were able to invite friends to eat
with us on weekends. When one harvest or another came in, extra potatoes
or vegetables appeared at market. There were lots of jokes about split peas,
and lots of recipes made the rounds, often featuring something that might
have been thrown away to create a new dish or making what we had last as
long as possible. The knowledge that no one in Cuba went hungry mitigated
the stringent rationing. I can’t remember feeling deprived.
Although new global political configurations, the Cold War, and some
important internal errors kept Cuba from the sort of rapid development it
envisioned, making people’s basic necessities rather than capitalist profit the
priority enabled the revolution to fulfill dreams of universal health care, an
educated population, and access to culture and sports. Even today, fifty-five
years later and in its complicated transition to open markets while retaining
its principal socialist gains, what has been maintained is astonishing.
In July 1960, the United States suspended its quota of Cuban sugar; the
Soviet Union immediately agreed to buy that sugar at favorable prices. In
September of that year Cuba nationalized all US banks. In January 1961,
Washington broke diplomatic relations with Havana. The United States in-
creased its program of covert and overt actions against the young revolution
and in April 1961 launched a full-scale military attack, called Bay of Pigs in
the United States and Playa Girón on the island. The Eisenhower and Ken-
nedy administrations expected Cubans to rise up and join the mercenaries.
What happened instead was that they defended their revolution and defeated
the invaders in two days. The 1,200 mercenaries captured were later traded
for $54 million dollars worth of medicine and baby food.
Subsequent years would see the Cuban Revolution developing its unique
brand of socialismo en español (socialism in Spanish). US public intellectual

6 | Chapter 1
and philosopher Susan Sontag 3 visited Cuba in 1969 and wrote perceptively:
“Like all Revolutions, the Cuban one is a reorganization—and a vast release
of human energy [. . .] this release of energy is experienced as ‘liberating.’
Even deprived of the right to go into private business or to see pornographic
films, the great majority of Cubans feel vastly more free today than they ever
did before the revolution.”4 Sontag remarked on the cultural nature of the
revolution, differentiating it from the Old Left models in which changed
relations of production were prioritized above all else. She pointed to Che
Guevara’s “Man and Socialism in Cuba” (1965) and its emphasis on creating
a new consciousness as well as new economic relations.
From its inception, the Cuban Revolution saw itself as part of a global
struggle. Even as it consolidated its own process, it looked to movements
in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. “Two, three, many Vietnams”
became a rallying cry. Cuba’s goals were full independence and the right to
design a responsive relationship between the people and their leaders. It
contributed a great deal to world revolution, including the extraordinary
generosity of its internationalist contingents of doctors, teachers, soldiers,
and other experts still working in dozens of colonized and underdeveloped
countries.
Sontag considered “the greatest discovery of the Cuban Revolution [to
be] the invention of Cuban internationalism, that peculiarly intense form of
fraternal international feeling [. . .]. Havana today,” she wrote, after the rev-
olution’s first decade, “starkly denuded of commodities and comforts as it is,
is vibrant with the conviction of being a world capital. [. . .] One feels more
in the world, more in touch with events, in Havana, capital of this poor small
Caribbean island, than one ever does in such genuinely provincial cities as
Rome or Stockholm.”
Many who have written about the Cuban Revolution have pointed to this
internationalism, this sense of being part of a vast human community, this
new consciousness so often mentioned by Che and Fidel, as indicative of
change that is human as well as political. No one in the revolutionary pan-
theon embodied this spirit of politics as a set of human relationships more
than the subject of this book, Haydée Santamaría.
Cuba became an example for people throughout Latin America and the
world; to a great extent it still is. At the same time, its revolution never
stopped aggravating the United States, its powerful neighbor to the north. A
series of US presidents vowed to destroy the beautiful experiment, launch-

Before We Begin | 7
ing an economic blockade, a trade embargo, constant counterrevolutionary
propaganda, outright military attack, and hundreds of covert military and
sabotage actions aimed at bringing the project to failure.
For many years, the United States was able to prevent Cuba’s natural al-
lies from establishing diplomatic or trade relations with the island. The few
nations that defied US threats, such as Mexico and Canada, served as bridges
but were unable to make up for lost revenue. Cuba’s adhesion to the Soviet
Union saved it from early ruin but also tied it to policies that ultimately
proved to be counterproductive. When the socialist bloc imploded in 1989
and 1990, the revolution once more found itself alone.
Although all these maneuvers, actions, and reactions have meant addi-
tional hardship for the Cuban people, the multipronged US campaign has
not worked. The Cold War ended a quarter century ago, but this remnant
of its politics continues: a woolly mammoth in a land of sun and palms.
Despite the fact that sectors of the US business community and increasing
numbers of lawmakers have pleaded for a different approach, a powerful but
aging exile lobby continues to oppose the normalization of relations, holding
US Cuba policy hostage. With slight shifts in one direction or another, the
United States continued in what can only be described as a bully standoff
against a country much smaller and much poorer, a country that wants noth-
ing more than to be left alone to shape the future it has chosen. A relentless
blockade and travel restrictions that are in place to this day have separated
families and attempted to separate ideas.
The revolution itself has not been perfect; it is made of human beings:
brilliant, creative, courageous, and fallible. All it has ever demanded has
been its right, as a sovereign state, to make its own decisions, follow its
own path. The Cuban Revolution’s great achievements have been near-full
employment, universal health care, free education from day care through
university, and subsidized culture and sports. Important (although as yet in-
conclusive) strides toward gender and racial equality have been made. Cuba
alone among nations has been able to stabilize its hiv / aids crisis—no mea-
ger list of accomplishments. Although it is poor, different priorities have
made possible a degree of social change of which we can only dream.
Solidarity with other disenfranchised peoples and a generosity of spirit
almost forgotten in the United States have characterized Cuba since the in-
ception of its revolution. But new values are hard to sustain when faced
with ongoing aggression and the exhaustion that comes when years pass and
promises cannot be kept. The younger generation, with no memory of the

8 | Chapter 1
ravages of the neocolonialist state, has seen a return to a degree of individu-
alism and social fatigue. Some major problems, such as inadequate housing,
have eluded solution. New ones, such as exhaustion and substance abuse,
have emerged.
Currently some 36,000 Cubans emigrate each year, many of them hav-
ing obtained professional degrees at no cost to themselves. Approximately a
third that many return from abroad, but these tend to be older people who
are no longer productive and require considerable state investment in their
health and well-being. As the country transitions from a socialist system to
include certain features of a market economy, corruption has also taken a
toll. The majority of Cubans, however, continue to reject a purely consum-
erist society and the distortions it brings. They are struggling to preserve
the rights and dignity the revolutionaries of 1959 sacrificed so much to win.
The Cuban Revolution’s survival and the level of social welfare it has been
able to provide its people are nothing short of extraordinary. Its continued
existence seems miraculous. Mistakes? Yes, plenty of them. Wrong turns?
Some of those as well. Interested readers can consult hundreds of books on
all aspects of Cuban history and life.5
On December 17, 2014 US President Barack Obama and Cuban President
Raul Castro announced reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the
two countries. Ending the half-century blockade will take an act of Congress,
so the degree of real change will only unfold over time. We wait to see if this
is a change in method or in policy.
My purpose here is not to analyze the revolution’s successes and failures
but simply provide some background for those who may not remember a
moment, 55 years ago, when a tiny island nation challenged a major world
power and threw off the imperialist yoke. I have begun in this way in order
to jog the collective memory, pique the interest of young activists, and set the
stage for the story I want to tell. It is the story of Haydée Santamaría, one of
the extraordinary women who made the Cuban Revolution possible.

Before We Begin | 9
Haydée Santamaría, 1970s. photo by margaret randall.
2 WHY HAYDÉE?

. . . the mere mention of Haydée Santamaría signifies a world, an

attitude, a sensibility, and also a Revolution, which she did not conceive
of as confined to the land of José Martí but to the future of all our
peoples.
—Mario Benedetti (1920–2009), Uruguayan poet and novelist

Haydée Santamaría was a heroine of the Cuban Revolution, a brilliant,

strong but unassuming woman among powerful men. One of only two fe-
males among 160 males, she helped organize the 1953 attack on Moncada
Barracks in Santiago de Cuba and fought on its front lines. Following that
first military operation, when she was captured and shown her brother’s eye
and lover’s mangled testicle to make her divulge information about their
movement, she replied: “If you did that to them and they didn’t talk, much
less will I!”
Haydée—like Fidel, all who knew her called her by her first name—was
a provincial woman who had never before left her island country. Yet during
the revolutionary war she found the courage to travel to the United States,
organize its Cuban community, and buy weaponry from Mafia thugs. After
that war was won, despite growing up in a small rural village and never hav-
ing gone past sixth grade, she founded and ran the most important cultural
institution in Latin America, which drew artists and intellectuals such as
Violeta Parra, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Laurette Séjourné, Ju-
lio Cortázar, Eduardo Galeano, Ernesto Cardenal, Idea Vilariño, and Gabriel
García Márquez to visit and satiate their curiosity about that small nation
with enormous dreams.
Haydée conceived of change and participated in actions—military as well
as political—beyond those accessible to the vast majority of women in her
time and place. She took enormous risks and avoided detection with an un-
canny calm and remarkable talent for deception and disguise. She was one
of the founders of Cuba’s July 26 Movement and later its Communist Party
(pcc), remaining at its highest levels of leadership throughout her life. Yet
she had no interest in the positions of power such membership bestowed.
She led by transgression.
In her work at Casa de las Américas, Haydée rendered ineffective the
cultural blockade the United States tried so hard to establish, along with its
diplomatic and economic counterparts, and protected and encouraged more
than a few creative spirits persecuted during repressive periods in Cuba’s
revolutionary history. She was a courageous innovator, deeply sensitive to
the needs of others, a bountiful mother, and warm friend.
Her life was also rife with contradictions. When she committed suicide,
at the age of fifty-seven, Havana historian Eusebio Leal eulogized her, saying:
“Haydée was Moncada’s last victim.” I prefer the word casualty. Haydée was
not someone who allowed herself to be victimized by anyone or any cir-
cumstance. Yet she lived with profound loss and grief. There was Moncada,
where she lost the two people she loved most—her brother, Abel, and fiancé,
Boris Luis Santa Coloma—and whose brutal and sadistic deaths accompa-
nied her for the rest of her life.
There were other losses as well: Che Guevara, with whom she shared the
dream of Latin American liberation. Celia Sánchez, perhaps the only other
woman who understood her completely and whose deep friendship helped
her stand tall in a world of men. Other close friends, whose lives were cut
short for one reason or another. Colleagues who abandoned the revolution-
ary project. And some dreams of social change that never came quickly or
permanently enough for her vision of immediate justice.
Justice, revolution, loyalty: these were her mantras. Depression ran in her
family, requiring sensitivity and compassion. Betrayals, of close comrades as
well as ideals, pained her to the core. Armando Hart Dávalos, fellow revolu-
tionary and the man she married after losing Santa Coloma, gave her a son

12 | Chapter 2
and daughter and for a while provided love, stability and comradeship. To-
gether they parented their biological children as well as a number of others,
orphans from Latin American revolutionary struggles. When Hart left her,
suddenly and without discussion, it was an additional blow. Just like revolu-
tion, marriage was forever in her worldview.
She was plagued by depressive episodes and periodically took to her bed
in despair. Today we understand more about depression than we did back
then: how debilitating it can be and what courage it takes to confront its
ravages. Yet Haydée’s work at Casa and other important projects were more
than successful; they achieved a level of excellence and set standards of col-
lectivity few have been able to match. All the children she raised described
her as an extraordinary mother. She challenged power wherever and when-
ever she saw its corrosive damage and espoused feminist ideas long before
the philosophy was accepted in Cuba. She produced and sustained more in
the way of creative change than anyone I have known.
This is not a biography. I will provide enough data so the reader will have
the “facts”: birth, childhood, role in the Cuban Revolution, professional and
family life. But my intention is to veer from the confines of traditional ha-
giography and probe deeply into the paradoxes, as only someone who trusts
intuition as much as reason can. Further developing a genre I began to ex-
plore in Che on My Mind, I am interested in looking at tensions and trying
to decipher how this woman negotiated multiple contradictions. This is an
impressionist portrait, written by a poet rather than a historian. Mine is a
rebel and feminist lens. First, I want to tell the reader why I have chosen to
write about Haydée Santamaría.
I must say upfront that I loved Haydée, loved and admired her as a friend
and as an exceptional twentieth-century woman: an extremely unique spirit,
brilliant intellect, courageous and creative revolutionary, and generous hu-
man being. Even in death, she remains a mentor.
I first met her on my initial visit to Cuba in January 1967. I was living in
Mexico City and had been invited to participate in El encuentro con Rubén
Darío,1 hosted by Casa de las Américas, the exemplary arts institution of
which she was the director. That visit to “the first free territory in America”
(as we called the country back then) was illuminating in all sorts of ways.
But no part of the experience had a more profound or lasting impact than
meeting Haydée.
She was a small woman and ordinary in appearance; some might even
say plain. Slightly stooped and with the telltale rise in her chest common to

Why Haydée? | 13
those who suffer from severe asthma, she nevertheless carried herself with a
dignity that stopped you in your tracks.
I remember her in simple pants and shirt, sitting on the floor talking
animatedly with groups of visitors. And I remember her delighting in a hand-
embroidered peasant dress someone had given her. She didn’t flaunt the lat-
est in elegance or fashion but was vain about her hair, often wrapping her
head in a scarf or turban or indulging in one of several wigs. I imagined these
as expedient solutions to bad hair days for someone I doubt had much time
for beauty parlors. She always had an inhaler in her hand.
Her piercing hazel eyes didn’t flinch; they grabbed you and held on, some-
times almost accusatory, always inviting. You could lose yourself in those
eyes but might not be able to bear what you found there. You understood that
she held you to standards you would find hard to achieve. We all knew her
story; the drama she had been forced to endure might have seemed exagger-
ated or even macabre if she hadn’t been right there in front of you, genuinely
interested in every aspect of your life, conversationally at ease and serene.
You sensed she saw through you to a place you yourself might discover
years down the road. But it was her voice that made the most profound im-
pression: what she said and how she said it. She spoke directly, forcefully,
clearly, often wandering and seemingly lost until she brought her discourse
back to a more linear configuration. What others shrouded in hyperbole she
put out there, simply, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And
coming from her it was. You believed her without question, and that proved
to be a good idea 99 percent of the time. But you weren’t doing the math, not
in her aura. Essence was more important than detail.
Our relationship deepened after I went to live in Cuba in 1969. I was
like many whose lives she touched, in that she never became the sort of
close friend who frequented my home. Yet we had an immediate and deep
connection, and I experienced an intimacy that has remained with me. I
remember some of our conversations verbatim. I suspect that almost every-
one who crossed paths with Haydée felt a similar connection, for she had an
uncanny ability to see, listen, and empathize. Until 1980, when she died and
I left Cuba, we shared moments that included formal interviews as well as
private conversations. Her suicide still sometimes wakes me at night, bereft
and shaking.
I have written about Haydée in several prose texts and poems.2 The mem-
oir I published about my eleven years in Cuba is dedicated to her.3 That dedi-
cation reads: “To Haydée Santamaría, who took the secrets with her.” I wasn’t

14 | Chapter 2
referring to those supposed secrets the revolution’s detractors are so quick to
imagine must exist, hiding this or that error or betrayal. Neither did I mean
purely personal secrets, such as those we all keep. I meant a knowing that
only someone as pure as Haydée possesses and projects quite naturally.
Despite its clichéd connotation, I use the word pure with intention. There
are people for whom no other adjective fits. Revolutions—great, complex
social upheavals that turn society on end and, if successful, change the way
we relate to one another—are made by all manner of people. They neces-
sarily think outside the box, are courageous, and willing to make enormous
personal sacrifices. But like all humans, they also have their contradictions.
Some start out with a vision that bends and erodes as time goes on. Most
believe some future end justifies means that fall short of espousing their pro-
claimed values. When those once engaged in guerrilla warfare must switch
gears and manage the affairs of state, certain compromises may become nec-
essary. There are also those who jump ship at some point along the way,
suspicious of an ideological turn, dragged down by difficult times, or unable
to continue making do without the creature comforts.
In my lifetime, Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh and South Africa’s Nelson Man-
dela have been exceptions, exceptional. Among the many good men and
women of the Cuban Revolution, a few embody this purity—a particular
combination of innocence, vision, courage, brilliance, creativity, inclusive-
ness, and genuine humility. I think of Fidel,4 first and foremost. I think of
Ernesto “Che” Guevara,5 Celia Sánchez,6 and Haydée Santamaría. There are
others, of course, but these four names are at the top of my list. I do not mean
they are perfect, whatever that may mean, only unwavering in their search
for justice and profoundly principled.
Each was his or her own person, shadowed by contradictions, capable of
regret or egregious error, perhaps even going down the wrong political path
for a time. Each may have hurt others as he or she searched for the greater
good. And each was a product of a particular place, time, culture, and historic
necessity, bound by those limitations even when reaching beyond them. But
all were ahead of the time they inhabited and ultimately transcended that
time, place, culture, and necessity.
I had written about Haydée, but never deeply enough. I hadn’t asked the
right questions or ventured enough answers, which is what I hope to do here:
bringing my own imaginings to the clues she left. The books and articles
written by others unfortunately range from extremely partial to frustratingly
superficial. Eulogies at the time of her death and remembrances on its anni-

Why Haydée? | 15
versaries are among the most moving testimonies. Her closest associates and
family members, including both her biological children, are mostly gone.
In order to create the portrait I hope to bring to life, I traveled to Cuba
in April 2014, where I was able to research archives, interview people who
had been close to my subject, visit her birthplace and childhood home, and
gather material from different sources. Fortunately, I am at a point on my
own journey where I consider no hero to be beyond a probing lens. In fact,
I understand that only when we are willing to apply that lens will we bring
them into the sort of focus that allows an honest exploration of what made
them so extraordinary.

In Haydée’s case, it helps to be able to go back and understand what life was
like for women in Cuba at mid-twentieth century. They inhabited a narrow
space, and depending on economic status, education, and culture, it might
have been narrower still. As a woman, particularly one who lived at a time
so constrictive to women’s opportunity and agency, Haydée transcended
gender, class, racial, sexual, and cultural prisons. She didn’t do this through
economic status, formal education, theoretical study, or by spending time
deconstructing the hypotheses of her day, though all these played a role. Her
childhood on an early twentieth-century Cuban sugar plantation had given
her a hard look at exploitation, the inequality between the bosses and those
who cut the cane or labored in the mill. She was a woman of action, and
action informed her ideology as surely as Martí,7 Marx, Lenin, her younger
brother Abel, and Fidel.
She completed only a primary education, at a one-room plantation school-
house where a single teacher taught all the grades. Was it common at the
time for girls not to seek further schooling, or was there some other reason
she didn’t go on to high school and university? What were the educational
expectations common to her class and gender? She was certainly bright and
curious enough that one would have thought a higher education was some-
thing she’d have been eager to pursue. From a traditional immigrant family,
did she endure pressure to marry young?
In the early 1950s she traveled to Havana with her younger brother, Abel.
Several texts emphasize the fact that she went “to take care of him,” the pro-
verbial housekeeper and cook. He as well as she made it clear that this wasn’t
the case. Knowing she was passionate about social change, he was rescuing
her from a conservative, stultifying family life. They were both members of

16 | Chapter 2
the leftist Orthodox Party 8 enraged by Fulgencio Batista’s 1952 coup.9 Jesús
Menéndez’s10 organization of sugar workers in their native Las Villas also had
had an impact on Abel and, through him, on her.
Haydée had long been influenced by her brother’s ideas. In Havana she
met his comrades, including Fidel Castro, “that tall guy who flicked his cigar
ashes all over my clean floor,” and quickly became involved in their work. She
and Melba Hernández were the only women who participated in the July 26,
1953, assault on Moncada Barracks, although other women were active be-
hind the scenes. Abel and Haydée’s fiancé, Boris Luis, were tortured to death
following the attack. Haydée and Melba survived, were tried, and sentenced
to seven months in prison. Fidel and the other male survivors were given
much longer prison terms but released through a general amnesty in 1955.
The attack on Moncada Barracks signaled the group’s appearance on the
political map. One hundred sixty rebels took part in that action, which was a
military failure but is credited with initiating the armed struggle that would
liberate Cuba five and a half years later. Although Haydée was one of the only
two women directly involved, her two sisters were also part of their move-
ment. They supported the action but stayed home to be with their parents
because it seemed more than likely that many of those taking part would not
survive.11
During the war against the Batista dictatorship, Haydée did what she had
to do, creatively and responsibly. When ordered to travel to the United States
to buy weaponry from the Mafia, she reported having been terrified. But
she carried out that risky mission and was successful in securing what the
rebels needed. Less well known is the crucial role she played in organizing
the exile community, dealing with contentious differences and achieving a
tactical unity.
She sewed bullets into tiny individual pockets on the undersides of the
circle skirts that were popular then; that’s how she got many of them into
Cuba. Back home, she played an active part in preparing the uprising in
Santiago de Cuba. And in the Havana underground, when it was her job to
send men out to place bombs in strategic locations, she always sent those she
knew would hate the task.
Of that experience, she has said:
I think it has to be difficult for people to be violent, to go to war, but
you’ve got to be violent and go to war if it’s necessary. . . . What you can’t
lose in that kind of situation is your humanity. . . . When someone had to

Why Haydée? | 17
 place a bomb during the war, and in the underground sometimes I was
the one who had to decide who was going to do that. . . . I always chose
the best, the one who had the highest consciousness, the greatest human
qualities, so whoever it was wouldn’t get used to placing bombs, wouldn’t
get pleasure out of placing bombs, so it would always hurt him to [have
to do that].12
Haydée had an unwavering belief in human beings; she appreciated them in
the full range of their identities and possibilities. And she had interesting in-
sights about the differences and interactions among groups and individuals.
I remember her once talking to me about meeting Ho Chi Minh on her first
trip to what was then North Vietnam. She described his small figure standing
at the end of a long room and then watching him walk toward her. “I never
knew if Ho Chi Minh was the kind of man he was because he was Vietnam-
ese,” she said, “or if the Vietnamese are how they are because of Ho Chi
Minh.”13 She didn’t need to say more. I pondered her observation for years,
and when I myself visited Vietnam it was never far from my consciousness.
Following the end of the Cuban war, in January 1959 Haydée was charged
with founding and heading an arts institution that would do nothing less than
break the US blockade. Along with its economic and diplomatic counter-
parts, the United States had established a cultural boycott in order to isolate
and destroy the revolution. Haydée’s sixth-grade education hardly prepared
her for the complexity or subtleties of the job. She had never been to college,
never studied art or literature, but carried out that endeavor brilliantly, mak-
ing Casa de las Américas a place where the world’s greatest creative spirits
felt at home. Because of her legacy, it continues to be such a place.
She looked the world’s great artists and intellectuals in the eye, noticed
and remembered their most intimate concerns, and gave so generously of
herself that they fell instantly in love. And she was open to all their expres-
sive manifestations. Within Cuba itself, her vision enabled her to see talent
in those who were spurned by party hacks or misunderstood by correct-liners
who preferred the safety of mediocrity to the uncertainty of the new. With-
out her patronage, the innovators of La nueva trova (New Song Movement)
would not have become who they are today.14 She sought artists and writers
from among the most marginalized populations. She respected nonconfor-
mity and embraced authenticity. Inclusivity was natural to her. She resisted
the clichéd socialist realist art that was being promoted in the Soviet Union.
She listened, paid attention, and learned.

18 | Chapter 2
 I don’t mean to give the impression that Haydée disparaged party disci-
pline or refused to go along with the leadership’s decisions. She was part of
that leadership, although without relinquishing her integrity, individuality,
or capacity for criticism. She was as disciplined and loyal as the best of them
but never unquestioning. Whenever and wherever she saw injustice, she
challenged it. One of her attributes that most interests me is her ability to
walk a courageous but fragile critical line, especially as a woman.
Another aspect of Haydée’s thought process that excites my mind was
her complex relationship to nationalism. I believe nationalism to be one
of the most troubling tendencies of our time, provoking racist or xenopho-
bic policies and justifying terrible crimes (such as genocide in its most ex-
treme form).
An island is always besieged territory, and Cuba is no exception. A small
island can and often does become a political football. Throughout its history,
Cuba has been invaded, appropriated, and occupied by one major power af-
ter another. A heavy dose of nationalism was certainly necessary for Fidel
and his revolutionary movement to win the support needed to liberate the
country. Haydée, too, embodied this feeling. She often talked about Cuba’s
sun, beaches, and royal palms, saying that for those three things alone it was
worth waking each morning. She had such a profound love of homeland,
in fact, that after the amnesty of 1955 she refused to leave with her com-
rades for Mexico; in her own words, she was afraid she “might not be able
to come home.”
Yet Haydée’s work at Casa involved honoring other lands and their artists,
making room for their work and their ideas within the Cuban paradigm,
and—precisely because she was working with a group of people known for
their creative idiosyncrasies—learning to understand and respect other cul-
tures and ways of being in the world. This is antithetical to extreme nation-
alism. It provides a balance, and I think in time came to temper the rough
edges of the Cuban nationalism she too had embraced.
What she created at Casa was a model that the country’s other institutions
respected and some tried to emulate. The way Haydée positioned herself, the
way she used what she learned from the world’s artists to enrich the Cuban
experience, offers a great deal to be analyzed and understood. In Cuba, the
revolution’s generous internationalism also provides a counterpoint to what
might have remained a highly nationalist experience. Cold War tensions cer-
tainly favored the latter, but Fidel and the Cuban Communist Party empha-
sized the importance of the former.

Why Haydée? | 19
 Cuba’s participation in Angola and other African battlefields began in
1975, five years before Haydée’s death. She was fervent in her support of
those campaigns. The schools for foreign students that existed on Isle of
Youth (formerly Isle of Pines) also excited her imagination; students from
some of the poorest and most war-ravaged countries studied there without
cost. And the revolution made sure their cultural traditions accompanied
them—in memory and relationships, music, art, and native foods.
During Chile’s short-lived democratic revolution in the early seventies,
there was a great deal of collaboration between the two countries. Nicara-
gua’s Sandinista Revolution was victorious just a year before Haydée died,
and she traveled there in her last months, so she also knew firsthand about
the teachers and doctors and other specialists Cuba sent to that Central
American nation. One of them was a niece.15 She would not live to see the
crucial aid Cuba gave to other parts of Latin America and the world. Still,
at Casa and throughout the revolution in broader terms, she breathed and
contributed to the internationalism that remains one of its defining features.
Haydée never let gender discrimination diminish her or prevent her from
doing what she knew she had to do. Which is not to say that many of her male
comrades didn’t regard her with the kind of pseudo respect with which they
treated women—back then and still. To a disappointing degree this formal-
istic approach to gender equality continues to exist—in Cuba and almost
everywhere. In her personal life, Haydée went to elaborate lengths to try to
make the point that gender discrimination is unjust.
She was also conscious of racial inequality. She spoke about how she was
criticized as a child for befriending the black children in her community.
Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando has spoken about the difficulties in getting
her documentaries about Cuba’s black history exhibited but says Casa de las
Américas always supported her work.16 This, as well as the fact that there are
so many more people of color heading departments at Casa than are visible
in revolutionary leadership overall, is a testament to Haydée’s legacy.
Upon her death, because she chose suicide and despite an exemplary rev-
olutionary life, the Cuban leadership failed to honor Haydée as she deserved.
For years, at least in certain quarters, you could sense a palpable discomfort
around the fact that she took her life. Some silently accused her of coward-
ice, some felt betrayed, some simply did not know what to do with their
complex emotions, and many short-changed her memory in different ways.
Those who worked with or were otherwise close to her mourned but were
powerless to buck the conservative current. In recent years this situation has

20 | Chapter 2
changed. Suicide does not provoke such blanket condemnation, and Hay-
dée’s undeniable luminosity has sparked a degree of reconsideration. Still,
the memorial she deserves has yet to materialize.
Haydée had been a founding and highly valued member of a clandestine
revolutionary organization, the July 26 Movement, previously Moncadistas,
as many of those involved in that first action called themselves. Later she
was one of the initiators of the Cuban Communist Party. She served on its
politburo and remained on its central committee until her death. Yet she
did what her brother Abel asked of her first and later what Fidel instructed.
Until taking on Casa de las Américas, she followed rather than led. And even
during her tenure at Casa, she was subject to the larger political apparatus.
At the same time, often at great personal risk, she never toed a strict party
line, nor could she abide the bureaucracy inherent in such organizations.
From Moncada on she participated in many of the revolution’s pivotal
moments. She was imprisoned following that action and, when she was re-
leased from prison, played a major role in disseminating Fidel Castro’s de-
fense speech—the programmatic text that came to be known as “History
Will Absolve Me.” She held leadership roles in both the Santiago and Havana
underground movements and traveled outside the country to buy arms. She
was indispensable on several fronts yet never, during the insurrection or fol-
lowing victory, achieved high military rank.
In 1967 she presided over the internationally important Latin American
Organization for Solidarity Conference (olas), held in Havana. She was
always one of the Cuban Revolution’s few exceptional women; in close to
sixty years their number has grown but it has yet to approximate the clear
dominance of men. For too many of those years the Cuban hierarchy con-
sidered feminism a dirty word. Even, perhaps particularly, its mass women’s
organization, the Federation of Cuban Women (fmc), disparaged the philos-
ophy. The Cuban Party subscribed to the international communist dictum
that gender analysis would divide the working class and weaken the unity
necessary to confront outside threats.
Haydée knew instinctively that this was wrong. Although she didn’t refer
to herself as a feminist, she was open to and appreciative of feminist ideas.
I had an experience with Haydée that illustrates her concern for the degra-
dation of women. In 1970, soon after I moved to the island, she asked me to
help judge the yearly pageant to choose a carnival queen and her two atten-
dants. I was appalled. I hated such contests and couldn’t imagine validating
them with my presence. But if Haydée asked, I couldn’t say no.

Why Haydée? | 21
 Distraught at the task before me, I wrote a short text about why beauty
pageants have no place in revolution. When the event was over, I handed it
to a reporter from the official pcc newspaper, Granma. The next morning it
appeared on its front page. Several years later, when I finally had the oppor-
tunity to ask Haydée why she had subjected me to such discomfort when she
could have made any man’s day by sending him, she replied: “Because I knew
you would hate it, and find a way to help us put an end to such affairs. Which
you did, as I remember, with your excellent article!”
Haydée’s authenticity and loyalty encouraged her to take chances. She
was seldom wrong but often disappointed. She rarely spoke ill of anyone. I
think now of the months before her death, when 125,000 Cubans fled the
island en masse and those who stayed subjected them to epithets, to psycho-
logical and even physical violence. How she must have hated those displays
of vitriol and pseudo patriotism! Looking back, I am sure that the whole
Mariel exodus must have caused her a terrible sadness. Could she have felt
overwhelmed by this evidence of social revolution’s crass underbelly?
When a close associate left the country, she was shattered; unless you
were as convinced as she was that devotion to the revolution was the highest
human calling, it must have been difficult to work with her. Yet her col-
leagues have written volumes about that privilege. They speak of the enor-
mous attention she paid to each detail of what went on at the institution and
about her far-ranging eye and profoundly democratic work ethic that made
Casa a special place, unique even among other such places on the country’s
cultural map. It was that eye and that work ethic that make Casa, three de-
cades after her death, a place that continues to function as the revolution it-
self should function but often doesn’t: engaging in truly democratic decision
making and inviting new generations to take leadership, thereby ensuring
both continuity and change.
Throughout Haydée’s tenure at Casa, artists on the cutting edge of new
ideas, genres, and imaginaries visited Cuba and lent their allegiance to the
sociopolitical experiment that was taking place. Since her death, they have
continued to come. They write about what they see and feel. In and outside
their work, they spread the word, breaking through a worn but still obsti-
nate blockade and exposing the lies disseminated by US-based Radio Martí,
sectors of the exile community in Miami, and other sources of counterrevo-
lutionary propaganda.
The Cuban people, through Casa, come in contact with a variety of inter-
esting ideas and with the new poetry, novels, theater, painting, sculpture,

22 | Chapter 2
photography, dance, and music being made in other parts of the world. It is
in this way that Cuban intellectuals and artists have been able to participate
in the great conversations that have characterized international art and liter-
ary communities through the last half of the twentieth century and into the
twenty-first. Although they live on an island, one that has been blockaded
by the United States going on six decades now, Cubans are as in touch with
avant-garde art and literature as citizens of Paris or Buenos Aires, Mexico
City or New York, Johannesburg or Bangkok.
Much of this can be traced to Haydée’s vision. A woman of simple country
origin and scant formal education, she understood art as the highest form of
human expression and a necessary component of social change. Even today,
so many years after her death, you can go through Casa’s doors and feel her
presence. To those of us who knew her in life, it is a visceral experience.
For Haydée art—all creative expression—was a form of revolution, one that
feeds, reflects, stretches, strengthens, and pushes forward the struggle for
justice.
Martí’s concept of Our America—an organically unified continent—was
especially important to Fidel, Haydée, and others of the Centennial Gen-
eration (the generation that came of political age around the centenary of
his birth). At Casa, Haydée pierced the walls separating the countries of
the Americas, even those where languages other than Spanish are spoken.
She also recognized the growing pockets of Latin America that exist within
the United States, paying attention to work by Chicanos and Latinos living
inside “the belly of the beast” and bringing them into the great discussions
about identity, ownership, and resistance taking place south of the border. In
this way she also enabled them to contribute to those discussions.
Under her tutelage, Casa’s important literary contest, held every year in a
variety of categories, branched out to include the literatures of Portuguese-
speaking Brazil, Guaraní-speaking Paraguay, the French-, Dutch-, and
English-speaking Antilles, the art of dozens of indigenous cultures, Latino
literature in the United States, and more. She promoted writing by women.
She provided space to gay artists at a time when ignorance and fear pre-
vented them from being accepted by the revolution’s reigning bureaucracy.
Each year, when the contest judges gathered to read the hundreds of entries
and award prizes in a growing number of categories, she would make a point
of telling them not to worry about the political message in the texts they
would read. “Remember, this is a literary contest,” she would insist.
Her methods were ingenious, creative, often surprising.

Why Haydée? | 23
 Her conversational style, privately as well as in public, also issued from
her unique way of positioning herself in the world. She employed a simple
lexicon even when putting forth complex ideas. She often failed to bring
sentences to their expected conclusions, and her recorded talks are as scat-
tered as they are emotional. But no one ever doubted what she meant to
say— because she said it perfectly.
At times she rambled, but she always came back to the point she was
making, her detour having pierced membranes of feeling that enriched it
enormously. Her silences were as exquisite and powerful as the words she
uttered. Other spokespeople for the Cuban Revolution—Fidel, Che, Raúl
Roa,17 Carlos Rafael Rodríguez,18 and Armando Hart—gave expertly con-
structed lessons in history or economics. Haydée’s voice was of a different
timbre. And this was not only a gender issue. There were plenty of women
among the Cuban leadership or at the grassroots level whose speeches were
well ordered, even powerful. Haydée’s discourse was informed by her mag-
ical thinking, the same magical thinking that made it possible for her to
understand and embrace a myriad of creative spirits.
I have written about Haydée, thought about her, dreamed her presence,
and pondered her dilemmas. She has come to me at unexpected moments,
bringing a comforting word or revealing something about myself I thought I
knew but didn’t. Because, like her, I am largely self-taught, she has made me
less inhibited by my own lack of formal education. The dimensions of her
sacrifice and grief put my own in perspective. She continues to push me to
risk but also to slow down and pay attention. I am constantly amazed at how
advanced her thinking and action were, especially at a time when women
were still considered helpmeets and servers, when precious few were able to
fight their way to positions of power. Time and my own experience have also
taught me to respect some of the contradictions that tore at her equilibrium.
For years I did not feel up to writing about Haydée Santamaría. Later I
believed I was too old and would no longer be able to endure the fieldwork
required. My partner, Barbara, convinced me it was now or never. At the
beginning of 2014, I proposed the idea for this book to Gisela Fosado, my ed-
itor at Duke University Press. She supported it enthusiastically. A couple of
months later I was in Cuba, interviewing those who knew my subject, going
through archives, and gathering material.
I wanted to visit Encrucijada and the Constancia sugar mill, now renamed
Abel Santamaría, hoped to see what she saw and breathe the air she breathed.
It was encouraging to find generous support from those who loved Haydée

24 | Chapter 2
as I do. I was moved that almost everyone with whom I spoke expected me
to explore the complexities as well as the heroism.
What constitutes a hero? How to evoke the condition without resorting
to stereotypes or creating a one-dimensional image? Much of the complexity
inherent in memorializing Haydée, as I’ve said, comes from the fact that she
committed suicide. It was not a choice that was easily accepted by the pcc
and others, especially in 1980. As with the Catholic Church, an institution
that rejects suicide because one’s life belongs to God, Communists rejected it
back then because they believed one’s life belonged to the party. Haydée was
mourned in a Havana funeral parlor, like any ordinary citizen, rather than
at the Plaza of the Revolution, an honor befitting her revolutionary stature.
For years after her death, her memory carried a burden of hesitancy in some
quarters.
In the end, Haydée’s personal history guaranteed her respect. Still, as a
woman she remained an exception to the rule. Was she a token? Outside
Casa, how much authority did she really have? I often wonder what went on
behind closed doors when, expected to go along with some mistaken policy
or witnessing opportunism, she must have disagreed with a passion that was
hers alone. Yet I’m sure her party discipline was impeccable. Although she
would not have voiced disagreement publicly, I cannot imagine her remain-
ing silent within party chambers.
In her best-known talk about the origins of the Cuban Revolution, pub-
lished in many languages, she says: “For me being a communist is not about
belonging to a party; for me being a communist is to embrace a certain atti-
tude about life.”19 I am interested in exploring what it cost her personally and
politically to walk such an uncharted line between power and powerlessness.
Haydée described the pain of revolution by evoking childbirth:
When my son Abel was born I suffered some very difficult moments, mo-
ments like those any woman experiences when she’s about to give birth,
very difficult. The pains were tremendous, they tore at my entrails, but I
found the strength to keep from crying, screaming or cursing. When one
has such pain it is natural to cry, to scream, to curse. So where does the
strength not to do so come from? It comes from the fact that you are hav-
ing a child. That’s when I realized what Moncada had been . . . we were
able to resist because we knew something great was being born.20
She was close to her children and deeply concerned about the conditions
under which all children lived. I remember how surprised I was when, on

Why Haydée? | 25
a visit to her home, she rather conspiratorially led me up the stairs to her
bedroom, opened the closet door, and showed me a collage of photographs.
There were pictures of the children of friends and colleagues, sent to her by
people she knew well and some perhaps whom she’d met only casually. Right
away I spotted two small snapshots of my own Gregory, Sarah, Ximena, and
Ana. I had sent them to her from Mexico, just after we met. Why? Probably
because I wanted this extraordinary woman to have images of those who
were most important in my life. I could not have guessed she would place
them, among others, on the inside of her bedroom closet door.
Haydée, as I say, gave birth to a son and a daughter, Abel Enrique and
Celia María. He became a lawyer, she an astrophysicist and also, in the last
years of her life, a member of the Fourth International. When I lived there,
Trotsky was almost ignored in Cuban schools; the revolution was beholden
to the Soviet Union, and its educational curriculum tended to follow that
country’s version of history. But a number of Cuban Communists who were
more inclined toward independent thought read Trotsky with interest.
Armando Hart 21 had the Russian revolutionary’s books on his shelf and
shared them with his daughter. Before Abel and Celia’s tragic death in an
automobile accident in 2008, Celia gave a number of speeches and wrote
some illuminating texts for international Trotskyist publications. Her ad-
hesion to Trotsky’s ideology never conflicted with her love for or defense of
the Cuban Revolution or her admiration for Fidel. Her ideas in this respect,
especially that of permanent revolution, bore similarities to those evident in
Che Guevara’s late writing.
It would be 2005 before Hart published an article critical of Stalinism,
in which he pointed out that, because the revolutionary leader had never
traveled outside the Soviet Union, he lacked the broad culture possessed by
Lenin and others. Among many other salient points Hart makes, he writes:
“In order to promote revolutionary policy, one must understand the mobiliz-
ing importance of art and culture, understand that in these the basis of our
redeeming ideas reside.”22
Despite its rejection by the Cuban party, I don’t imagine her husband’s
critique of Stalin seemed unusual or unsettling to Haydée. I believe she
shared his views. I also think she was less concerned with the finer points
of ideological sparring than with how social change manifests itself on the
ground. Furthermore, in her expansive reading her tendency was always to
add rather than subtract.
I want to explore Haydée’s relationship with her children. From what I

26 | Chapter 2
have been able to gather from listening to Haydée and reading Celia María,
she was a passionately loving mother and also expected no less from her
children than the highest standards of idealism, exemplary behavior, and sac-
rifice. Celia María has written about receiving a box of dolls one childhood
birthday, being allowed to play with them for a single day, and then being
instructed by her mother to pick the one she wanted to keep and give the
others to children who didn’t have access to such bounty.
In this context, the way in which Haydée took her life is noteworthy. I am
haunted by the knowledge that she shot herself in the home she shared with
her children, both young adults at the time. Some of my interviewees told me
that her son and daughter were home, others say only her son. He was the
one who found her. That act, perhaps shaped by desperation and certainly
removed in her mind from the impact it would have on her progeny, had to
mark the latter for the remainder of their days. On the other hand, there is
evidence that her suicide may have been calculated and deliberate. About her
last days, Silvio Rodríguez has said: “She was saying good-bye. I got her to
write a dedication in her book Haydée habla del Moncada. She wrote ‘Silvio,
understand me and love me.’”23
Most people I interviewed felt that Haydée was out of control when she
killed herself. A few believe she was absolutely sane. One saw it as a final act
of free will. Celia María, in a moving elegy, wrote:
We have no choice but to respect those who decide they would rather
be dead than alive. The old cliché about revolutionaries not committing
suicide (she used to tell us this herself) is so foolish that just a few names
are enough to refute it. . . . Defarge decided he was more useful to the
cause of the proletariat dead than alive. . . . Who would say that Violeta
didn’t give “Thanks to Life” honestly, and journey into death without fear,
sure of her decision.24
Despite her efforts to overcome them, however, the pain Celia María en-
dured at her mother’s suicide can be felt in a further fragment from this
same text: “A single detail escapes me: I am her daughter or was, and ob-
jectively speaking she left me alive in her death, surrounded by other living
dead. . . .”25 I don’t believe there is a way we, who do not choose that route,
can decipher or make sense of suicide. It is always a mystery to those who
remain.
In her personal life, Haydée was burdened with ghosts who never left her
side: her brother Abel, her early fiancé Boris Luis Santa Coloma (who many

Why Haydée? | 27
told me was the great love of her life), and scores of other comrades who had
been killed during the struggle to overthrow Batista. Year after year, every
time she was called upon to speak about Moncada, her first words were for
those she had loved and lost. She emphasized their immortality in struggle
and reiterated that without their sacrifice the revolution would not exist.
But those who heard her tell the story knew that each comrade’s face was
indelibly seared into her memory. Rather than time healing those wounds,
they remained open, raw. She could rise above them when her duties de-
manded, and she did. But once out of the public eye and alone again, I’m
sure she heard their voices, saw their faces, relived the pain of their absence.
For two decades, Haydée Santamaría and Armando Hart had what ap-
peared to be the perfect marriage. Dedication, struggle, and survival had
brought them together. She often said that during the insurrectional period
Armando was so bad at clandestine life she wished he would just stay in
prison—where she knew he’d be safe. He was clearly the theoretician, one of
the architects of the country’s 1961 literacy campaign, and responsible for a
number of welcome shifts in Cuban educational and cultural policy. She was
illuminated, passionate, spontaneous. Separately, each played an important
role in the construction of the new society. Together they seemed an example
of what a revolutionary marriage could be. Whatever else Armando Hart may
have been to Haydée, he provided comfort in a long relationship that had
seen many dramatic moments.
And then he left her.
Looking at a relationship from the outside, we can never know what issues
unite or create divisions, what failures of one member of a couple become
intolerable to the other, what may finally make life together impossible. Mid-
life crisis? A younger woman? Rumors abounded at the time. I preferred to
ignore them then, and they seem superfluous to me now as well. Two people
of such proven trajectory and unquestionable brilliance clearly also had their
frailties and passions. As deeply as I loved and admired Haydée, I can imag-
ine that living with her may not have been easy. Their separation took place
shortly before Haydée took her life and may have weighed on her decision,
but it never seemed to me to be the central reason for that act. I don’t believe
a single event, but many, compelled Haydée to choose death. It was as if she
had come to the end of a journey.
Other possible “reasons” were whispered from Cuban to Cuban during
the terrible days following her suicide. She had been devastated by Celia Sán-
chez’s death from cancer earlier that same year. Celia, another great woman

28 | Chapter 2
of the Cuban Revolution, had been a close friend. In terms of integrity and
in other important ways, they were like identical twins in an inner circle in
which women were rare. For Haydée, Celia’s death meant not only the loss
of that friendship but also the disappearance of the person closest to Fidel.
According to her daughter, Celia María, “Above all else, between one tear
and another, [my mother] told me, ‘Now we must worry about Fidel. Who
will care for him like Celia did?’”26
There had been other excruciating losses, such as Che’s death a dozen
years earlier, and with it a delay in the dream of Latin American liberation
they shared. An automobile accident several months before the end had al-
most taken Haydée’s own life, leaving her with chronic pain. Disillusionment
with certain tendencies evident in the revolution at the time may also have
troubled her. And then there was the ongoing exhaustion from so much loss,
what today we call post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd). I will leave further
speculation for later.

Why Haydée? | 29
Haydée (in foreground), possibly on the occasion of her
first Communion with siblings Aida, Abel, and Aldo.
photo courtesy casa de las américas.
3 EARLY LIFE

Life on a sugar plantation was limited back then, even for a rural family
of the petite bourgeoisie . . .
—Haydée Santamaría

I am going back in time, moving through layers of legend, memory, through

stories both apocryphal and real.1 Most stories are some combination of
both. Three or four decades don’t seem like much when looking for a woman
whose imprint on history was so great. Some of those who knew her are still
alive and some, like me, continue to hold her piercing eyes in ours, preserve
the sound of her voice, feel her presence at unexpected moments. Each of
us carries a different set of memories, and some have faded unevenly—as
memories do—their images eroded by time, weight, relationship to the
roads we’ve traveled. Shifts in meaning make for a thickening transparency.
As the great Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez once said, “What
matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how
you remember it.” This is true in our own life and as we try to remember the
lives of others. But the larger those lives, the more room there is for myth
and memory layered upon memory; until warp and weave flow together in
a fabric that may defy decipherment. I am a code breaker now, fleeing even
my own preconceptions, places that feel too familiar or not familiar enough.
 I’m headed for the municipality of Encrucijada, in cane field–blanketed
central Cuba. When Haydée was born and grew up, this was Las Villas prov-
ince. Since the administrative reorganization that took place in 1976, it is
divided into Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus, and Villa Clara. It was to what we
now call Villa Clara that Haydée’s Spanish immigrant ancestors arrived from
Galicia and made a life for themselves and their descendants. She was the
oldest child of her generation, born at a sugar refinery called Constancia,
near the village of Encrucijada, on December 30, 1922.
Or was it December 26 or 31? There has been some confusion. Her
government-issued certificate records her birth as having taken place on Feb-
ruary 26, 1923. It is her baptismal paper that has the correct date. Haydée
liked to celebrate on December 31 because it was the more festive occasion.
She was known, throughout her life, for an aggressive certainty. Once she’d
made up her mind, it wasn’t easy to sway her. Growing up in a family of
strong women, she came to this trait easily.
There is a story about her paternal grandmother, María Pérez de Cas-
tro, having suffered a coronary thrombosis that kept her out of commission
for several days. When she came to on December 31, 1922, and discovered
her granddaughter had arrived, she proclaimed that to be the child’s birth-
day. Into adulthood, Haydée herself was uncertain about exactly when she
came into this world: “You know, I only found out I hadn’t been born on the
thirty-first when I got married and saw my birth certificate. I went to my
parents and said, ‘Wasn’t I born on the thirty-first?’”2
Her older sister Aida said their mother had a little notebook, in which
she wrote: “Haydée was born on December 30, 1922 at 9 a.m.”3 And Aida’s
daughter Niurka also told me her aunt was born on the thirtieth.4 I believe
this to be the date.
Haydée continually invented and reinvented her life as her curiosity, need
to escape “a good but conservative family,”5 and relentless pursuit of justice
demanded. Secrets came easily to her. She pulled them on and took them
off like a comfortable pair of shoes. But they also held the allure of fantasy
and often became the kernel of an elaborate joke or bit of playacting that
delighted those around her. From childhood on, family and friends loved
her mischievous nature. Remembering her today, many recall that nature as
evidence that she grew up happy and her later experiences alone brought on
the bouts of depression.
Much later, her facility with secrets served her in another way. With the
demands of clandestine struggle, her capacity for changing her appearance,

32 | Chapter 3
Haydée at Encrucijada, 1940s. photo courtesy casa de las américas.

apparent age, social status, and culture helped her carry out dangerous mis-
sions and then disappear, often in plain sight of those hunting her down.
Joaquina Cuadrado and Benigno Santamaría had five children. For what-
ever reason, they wanted to give them all names beginning with A. They may
not have realized that Haydée commences with H, since that letter is silent
in Spanish. The local official who recorded the birth may also have had his
own ideas about the spelling. And so their firstborn was unique, even insofar
as her name is concerned.

Early Life | 33
 The story around Haydée’s name doesn’t end with the addition of the H.
It seems that her mother wanted to call her Aida, but her mother-in-law,
through thrombosis and all, favored Haydée (she had read The Count of
Monte Cristo, and Haydée was the name of one of its female characters). This
mother-in-law, not a woman to be trifled with, usually got her way. Joaquina
had to content herself with naming her second daughter Aida.
Joaquina and Benigno married in Cuba on April 5, 1922. Haydée was born
on the next-to-last day of that year. Her sister Aida Maximiliana came into
the world on April 27, 1925; Aldo Miguel on September 29, 1926; Abel Be-
nigno on October 20, 1927. And then, eleven years later, on February 24,
1938, when Joaquina was fifty, she gave birth to Ada.

Since first meeting Haydée in 1967 and learning that she was born and grew
up on a sugar plantation in the Cuban countryside, I’d had dreams of visiting
that bucolic place. Encrucijada was founded in 1850 and incorporated in
1910. I longed to see what her eyes saw, although I imagined it might look
different with so many revolutionary changes over the years. One of the most
interesting things about revolution is precisely what changes and how.
Then again, landscape always retains something of its original character. I
wanted to breathe in the sweet, molasses-impregnated atmosphere of the mill,
listen to the machinery that still deafens as it presses juice from the cane, and
watch the smoke rising from a tall brick chimney through layers of languid air.
I wanted to see the house at Encrucijada where Haydée and her brother Abel
were born and the other, closer to the mill, where they spent their early years,
learning about exploitation from the inequalities in their own community.

It would be decades before my dream became reality. In April 2014, while in

Cuba to do the fieldwork for this book, I had the opportunity of traveling to
Encrucijada and Constancia—the latter now renamed the Abel Santamaría
Sugar Refinery. Ada’s daughter Norma, one of the few remaining members
of the next generation, accompanied me; so too did Norma’s son Abel and
his girlfriend Claudia, members of the one that follows. Juanito Cabeza drove
the van Casa lent us, and the institution’s director of international relations,
Yolanda Alomá, came along as well.
For five hours we moved steadily eastward from Havana on the dilapi-
dated eight-lane central highway bordered by cane fields and other crops.

34 | Chapter 3
Che Guevara Memorial and Crypt, Santa Clara. photo by margaret randall.

Juanito drove slowly so as to avoid the many potholes. Occasional glimpses

of sea reminded me this is an island. Stands of royal palm brought back Hay-
dée’s frequently stated affirmation that if only for the beaches and palm trees,
it was worth opening her eyes each morning—until it no longer was.
We passed the city of Santa Clara, where Che Guevara and his men de-
railed an armored train at the end of the revolutionary war and where an
imposing monument to him stands upon a hill. This is where the remains
of Guevara and some of his comrades came to rest when they were finally
unearthed 30 years after their deaths in Bolivia.
A few visitors had climbed the marble steps and were walking along the
base of large bas-relief stone slabs upon which scenes of Che’s struggle are
embossed; some of his iconic texts catch the midday sun. The memorial’s ar-
chitecture projects a sense of decision, a well-founded confidence in a better,
more equitable future, set against intense blue sky. I thought of Haydée, who
shared so much with the man, and imagined her gazing up at this monument
she didn’t live to see.
Finally we were in Encrucijada, still a sleepy village although probably
quite a bit larger than the one Haydée knew. Today the surrounding area
claims 33,640 inhabitants. Like the rest of the country, with its aging popu-
lation, it is shrinking. In the village we were met by local pcc officials; the

Early Life | 35
Santamaría Cuadrado home, now Abel Santamaría Museum, Encrucijada.
Haydée’s niece, Norma Ruiz; head of international relations at Casa de las
Américas, Yolanda Alomá; and Juanito Calzada standing before the house.
photo by margaret randall.

party’s headquarters are next door to the Santamaría Cuadrado home, now
a museum. It was thrilling to observe how moved everyone was to welcome
Norma; someone from the family clearly provides a living link to the revo-
lutionary heroes whose memory they preserve so lovingly. No one we met
is old enough to remember Abel, and few knew Haydée. This small town is
absolutely ordinary in every way but one: two people were born here who
changed their country’s history.
The museum was closed both because part of the roof had fallen in and
due to a general termite infestation. But the on-site historians hastened to
open it for us. A large home by local standards, it is a simple wooden con-
struction on a corner, with only a few small rooms and a wraparound ve-
randa. A number of photographs were on the walls, along with a smattering
of historic objects. Still in boxes was the bulk of what will be exhibited here
when there are money and materials to restore the building. But one of the
historians, Amparo Vila, hastened to open some of those boxes.
From one she extracted the old radio around which the family gathered
to listen to the evening news. I thought of that July 26, 1953, when dramatic

36 | Chapter 3
Photograph of Haydée and her son, Abel Enrique. photo courtesy casa de
las américas.

dispatches and uncertain rumors began to circulate about a rebel attack in Santi-
ago de Cuba. The announcer said there were many dead. Perhaps Joaquina and
Benigno heard the still-confusing stories on this very radio. Joaquina is said to
have known immediately that her son was involved, perhaps also her daughter.
From another box Amparo carefully removed a simple but beautiful old
mantle clock encased in fine wood. As she lifted it from its cardboard protec-
tion, the pendulum began to swing and chimes sounded. We all gasped and
looked at one another, conscious of a vanishing span of years, family tableaux
silhouetted against the transparency of time, lives lived, presences among
us. Several objects, such as this clock, may have come from the old country.
Amparo pointed out a half-dozen pieces of furniture, including a small
desk on which Abel wrote some of his political texts. A couple of items had
been made by Haydée’s father, Benigno, master carpenter at the mill. Haydée
was present in photographs, one in which her infant son is biting her chin.
Norma remembered that after Haydee’s death she took some of these objects
from the Havana house and brought them to Encrucijada. She said she felt
they belonged here.
A few miles distant, it was an ordinary day at the sugar mill. Men and

Early Life | 37
women—old and young, black and white—were operating the machinery
that extracts the juice from the cane. An ancient locomotive engine sat on
narrow tracks, as if fossilized in time. Hot water and steam fed into a pool
outside the mill. Our hosts told us the harvest wouldn’t be good this year:
“There’s plenty of cane but climate change has affected its growth. Still,” they
said, “we hope to meet our production goal.”
The house where the family lived at Constancia is also a museum: the
same tired wood but painted pale blue instead of yellow. Despite their impor-
tance to revolutionary history, I don’t imagine these small country museums
attract more than a few visitors—maybe an occasional group of schoolchil-
dren or someone like myself.
I thought of Haydée and Abel as mischievous children, “borrowing” the
rusty gandy dancer car that now stands idle on the old track and heading for
the beach. I tried to imagine what life in this quiet village must have been
like for two brilliant, passionate, and decisive young people in the first half
of the twentieth century, infuriated by the crooked politicians of their day,
frustrated by the society into which they were born, and willing to give their
lives to change it—though as yet unsure how they would accomplish that.
Abel, being male, must have believed a different future was possible. I won-
dered if Haydée did as well and how her process of self-confidence unfolded.

Western women at mid-twentieth century straddled painful stereotypes,

burgeoning expectations, and challenges frequently beyond our reach. In
most moderately advanced countries we had won the vote but had much less
formal education than men and made up minuscule percentages of the paid
labor force—yet worked two or three shifts, most of them unpaid. We were
privy to few reproductive rights and subject to a broad number of limiting
social conditions. We were still more servant than agent of our lives. A hypo-
critical propriety not only defined us but made it possible for our male coun-
terparts to indulge in reckless “boys will be boys” behavior. World War II,
which took so many men into battle, required new initiatives of women. But
after that war, women who had occupied men’s places in industry and the
professions were forced back into domesticity.
Cuba is an island, with the insular qualities islands encompass, culturally
as well as geopolitically. For women, this often meant an exaggeration of
mainland prejudices and limitations. Alternatively, it sometimes permitted
a certain sort of exceptionalism. Despite a history that includes outstanding

38 | Chapter 3
Santamaría Cuadrado house at Constancia. photo by margaret randall.

female figures in all areas of human endeavor, Cuban women overall had
few real opportunities back then. Stereotypical images included the playgirls
working at the famous casinos, the prostitutes who were also endemic to that
exploitative scene, and the housewives and maids who—like servants every-
where—kept the unacknowledged underside of the economy going. “Good”
women, irrespective of their class and race, dressed and groomed themselves
unobtrusively, thereby separating themselves from the image of the sexually
provocative mulata who dominated prerevolutionary billboards and tourist
advertising. “Good” women also saved themselves for marriage.
One thing no Cuban woman, of any social class or culture, was supposed
to do in prerevolutionary Cuba was take part in armed political struggle.
The very few who had, such as Antonio Maceo’s mother Mariana Grajales,
were exceptions. And Grajales is remembered not for fighting on the front
lines but for managing the rebel camps. In my first interview with Haydée,
she told me: “My own mother was the kind of woman who thought that
men were the only ones who had the right to make revolutions.”6 It wasn’t
only what she was fleeing—the provincial life of a sugar plantation—that set
Haydée apart. It was also, perhaps especially, what she was moving toward.
From her earliest years, those closest to Haydée called her Yeyé; the
diminutive may have come from her younger brother Abel’s inability to

Early Life | 39
The former Constancia (now Abel Santamaría) Sugar Mill. photo by
margaret randall.

pronounce her name when he was learning to talk. Throughout her life, her
family, close friends, and a few of her colleagues at Casa de las Américas
continued to address her by that endearment. One of my interviewees, Chiki
Salsamendi, who worked closely with her for the last twenty years of her life,
told me: “Soon after I started working at Casa I began calling her Yeyé. I don’t
really know why.”7

Haydée’s father, Benigno Santamaría Fernández, was born in the munici-

pality of Melón, between Pontevedra and Lugo, in Galicia, Spain. He came
to Cuba as a child, acquired the scant education available to someone of his
immigrant status, and became foreman and master carpenter at Constancia.
His own father, who arrived as an adult and worked his way into this posi-
tion, bequeathed it to him. Benigno wasn’t one of the wealthy landowners
who profited from the sweat of cane cutters and laborers who are able to
count on a meager income only three months out of every year; but neither
was he one of those impoverished workers. Aida has said: “My father was
the one who managed the money in the house. I don’t think my mother ever
knew how much he earned. And he was very frugal.”8

40 | Chapter 3
 Later in life, Haydée spoke on several occasions about how hard it was for
her to pinpoint her class origins:
My family enjoyed a good economic situation, well, not that good, but
you know . . . my father had a car, he worked all year round. He was the
foreman at the mill, he earned a decent salary, at least enough to live
in a place where the vast majority only worked three months out of the
year . . . three months. So you could see the difference. Most families
like ours had Christmas gifts, clothing, shoes. My other little friends had
nothing. When you get to be seven, eight or nine years old, you begin to
ask: Why? Why do the Three Kings visit some but not others? You realize
the Three Kings don’t exist, because if they did they would visit everyone.9
Perhaps because theirs was a large family, perhaps because her mother was
frequently ill (with severe attacks of asthma) and needed expensive medica-
tion, perhaps because her father, in contrast with his more prosperous broth-
ers, was generous with those who needed help, or perhaps out of an immigrant
frugality brought from the old country, Haydée and her sisters remembered
certain differences that kept them from the lifestyle enjoyed by their peers.
They rarely had new clothes, each younger sister having to make do with
those handed down from the one a couple of years older. Shoes could be
purchased only once a year. Haydée couldn’t remember receiving many gifts
or having more than a few toys in her childhood. Money was always tight.
As was true for all middle-management families at the mill, the male San-
tamaría children could expect to work their way into positions of confidence.
In this context, when he was only nine years old Abel started sweeping the
company store after school—not because he had to but because that was
the traditional way male offspring began acquainting themselves with the
business. He was never bitter about this; rather, he prided himself on doing
a good job. Soon he was given more serious work. His father was a foreman.
If he proved himself, in time he could expect to earn a similar position. But
Abel always knew that wasn’t the life he wanted.
On the other hand, working at the company store informed Abel’s social
consciousness from a very early age. Haydée explained:
One of our uncles by marriage was the mill’s bookkeeper. Abel began to
understand how the bosses stole from the small peasant, the small cane
farmer. They refused to mill his cane, but carried his account. What I’m
saying is that they let him accumulate debt until he wouldn’t have been

Early Life | 41
 able to pay it off in fifty years. Then they would tell him: Okay, we’ll settle
your debt in exchange for that small piece of land. But that piece led to
another piece, and that piece to another . . . and that’s how two or three
people came to own all the land, and they only milled the cane on the
land they owned.
Abel began to discover how all that worked, the evil of it, the terrible
way they exploited the sharecroppers. And then when they took away
their land they also took away their shacks, made of palm boards and
thatch, and those families had to figure out how to get another parcel of
land so they could build another place to live. And they ended up having
to go back to land that had once belonged to them, but now they were
paying rent. Abel saw how all this worked, not because of his position or
because he read Marx, but because of his human sensibility.10
In rural Cuba, daughters were expected to marry and raise their own families
or, if they remained single, settle into the dull routine of household manage-
ment, charitable deeds, and caring for the children of others. Neither Aida
nor Haydée envisioned that life for herself, Haydée least of all. Ada, born
so much later, had a different set of options. Aida did marry and live at the
mill for a while, before making a life in the capital. We know how Haydée
escaped provincialism: Abel brought her to Havana. And then the revolu-
tionary war—initiated by Fidel, Abel, Haydée and others—cut through this
family like a knife, giving and taking away and then giving again, changing
its history as it changed the history of Cuba.
Haydée’s mother, Joaquina Cuadrado Alonso, was also from Galicia, from
the region of Salamanca, and like her husband came to Cuba as a child. She
was a strong woman: dominating, opinionated, willful. Her offspring de-
scribed her as someone of conservative values, although after the revolution
she became a fervent defender of the new society and a powerhouse in her
community. She even joined the Communist Party. Such women shaped this
family: from Haydée’s grandmother María to her mother, then to her and her
two sisters. I saw evidence of that same strength and determination in the
women of the next generation with whom I spoke.
Haydée and her mother had a particularly contentious relationship, prob-
ably because they were both so strong willed. Both were known for defend-
ing their positions, right or wrong. Both insisted on having their way. Aldo
said all the siblings had similar disagreements with their mother, but Haydée
was the only one who gave voice to them:

42 | Chapter 3
 The tensions were always greater between our mother and Haydée, be-
cause she answered back, she rebelled. She wouldn’t take anything lying
down, nor would she subordinate herself easily to anyone. She had such
a strong nature, although she was also very sweet, very maternal, very
sentimental and generally fair. She would confront any problem, even
if she knew that doing so would create another. Abel and I, on the other
hand, tended not to answer back. We didn’t argue, but we went ahead and
did what we wanted.11
Aida has said:
Because she always wanted to help people, Yeyé often got in trouble with
Quina—that’s what we called our mother. She wouldn’t ask for things
at home because she knew they wouldn’t give them to her. She just took
them on the sly. She didn’t give things away simply because she wanted
to, only to people who really needed them. But the thing is, we weren’t
a family that had a lot. Our father was a salaried worker, and although
we weren’t hungry we endured hard times. We each had a single school
uniform, for example: one change of clothes for the morning, another for
the afternoon, and one when we had to dress up . . . that’s why Mother
was often exasperated with Yeyé.12
The men in the Santamaría Cuadrado family have been described as kindly
but of few words. Aida has said that she cannot remember their father spank-
ing or even raising his voice with any of his children. Others have com-
mented on his gentle nature, his penchant for joking around, celebrating a
job well done, and encouraging his offspring—in his own quiet way. Aldo,
too, was said to have had a tranquil demeanor, although he was also active in
the struggle, became head of Cuba’s Navy after the revolution came to power,
and has given some very moving testimony about his sister. Abel, who would
become Fidel Castro’s second in command at Moncada and died tragically
in that action, was more verbal: from his earliest years he had something
important to say.

As a parenthesis, I can’t help but note that this family, like the Kennedys in
the United States, suffered an exceptional degree of loss. In terms of their eco-
nomic and social status, the families couldn’t have been more different. Po-
litically and culturally they were worlds apart. But the Santamaría Cuadrado

Early Life | 43
siblings also died much too young. Haydée took her own life in 1980, at the
age of 57. Ada died of cancer in 1991 at only 53. Her daughter Norma told me
that her decision, too, was a form of suicide: she had been depressed since
her older sister’s death and didn’t tell anyone about the cancer until she was
sure it was too late.13 Aldo died in 2004 during an operation that shouldn’t
have taken his life. And Aida, the oldest, died of dementia in 2005.
In a continuation of family tragedy, Haydée’s two biological children, Abel
Enrique and Celia María, were killed in an automobile accident in 2008. The
accelerator got stuck on the Volkswagen Beetle Celia María was driving, and
they hit a tree. Aida’s oldest daughter died of a brain tumor when she was
still a young woman. Other family members, too, have left before their time,
and several have suffered from mental illnesses, which at times can be a sort
of death in life. Do some families attract tragedy—perhaps because their
members are so numerous, perhaps because they are prone to taking risks,
or perhaps because of some characteristic more difficult to define?
María Pérez de Castro, the grandmother who decided upon her first
granddaughter’s birth date when she rose from her sickbed, came from the
village of Prexigueiro in Orencia, Galicia. She was dominating and not easy
to get along with. No one except Haydée cared much for her, and she also
favored Haydée. She would ply the child with special treats, which Haydée
then shared with her siblings when her grandmother wasn’t looking. But
she was a pillar, and many subsequent females in the family bore her name:
Haydée María, Celia María, and others. María was also the name Haydée
used in the underground and throughout the war.
Both sides of Haydée’s family were part of the great migration that fled a
stagnating Spanish economy in the early years of the twentieth century to
seek a better life on the American continent. This particular wave of Galician
immigration never reached the mainland but staked its claim on the island
of Cuba. Rugged, hardworking women and men brought with them their
customs and habits from a much colder climate and dissimilar culture: heavy
clothing and heavier food, both inappropriate to the tropical island heat, and
a strict hand when it came to child rearing.
They also brought strength of character, ingenuity, and determination.
Perhaps it was the predominant mix of hardy Spanish immigrants and Af-
ricans brought over in the Middle Passage that gives Cubans their unique
strength and resourcefulness. At the Cuban Revolution’s initial battle, the
attack on Moncada Barracks, 70 percent of those who took part were of Gali-
cian heritage.

44 | Chapter 3
Haydée’s grandmother, María Pérez de Castro, with her immediate family. Photo
taken in Spain before their immigration to Cuba. photo courtesy norma ruiz.

All the Santamaría Cuadrado siblings were close, the three women insep-
arable in their later years. People who interacted with the three of them told
me that each had a particular role to play: Aida was the one who brought
order and equanimity into any situation, prevailing upon her sisters to con-
sider the consequences of what they did. Ada was fun loving and rebellious.
Haydée, of course, was the heroine and also the sister who had suffered un-
speakable wounds. But from the beginning, Haydée and Abel shared a devel-
oping social consciousness and growing concern for the exploited that gave
them a special bond. All the sisters and brothers were revolutionaries, each
contributing to the struggle in her or his way. But Haydée and Abel didn’t
join an existing movement; they created one.
Early in Joaquina’s and Benigno’s marriage, while he was still trying to
get his family on a comfortable footing, they lived with his mother, María.
Both women were strong willed, and Joaquina wasn’t happy with the ar-
rangement. Aida said Joaquina and her mother-in-law detested one another,
a strong word given the respect that predominates in Cuban families.14
Benigno moved his family to Havana for a few years to see if he could do
better there. But the capital city proved difficult, and he was unable to get
ahead. So he decided to return to Encrucijada. Joaquina, however, refused to

Early Life | 45
Santamaría Cuadrado family. Left to right, standing: Benigno, Ada, and Joaquina;
seated: Abel, Aida, Haydée, and Aldo. photo courtesy casa de las américas.

go with him. She wasn’t going back to living with her mother-in-law, and so
she remained in Havana with two of their children. Only Aida accompanied
her father. Aldo was sent to Spain, where he lived for a few years with his
maternal grandmother. Ada had not yet been born. Joaquina told Benigno
she wasn’t coming back to Encrucijada until he was able to provide them
with a house of their own. About a year later he did, and she returned, no
longer subject to her mother-in-law’s domineering ways.
Aida’s daughter Niurka told me that although Haydée was still a small
child during that year she spent with her mother in Havana, the experience
was formative for her. She was extremely observant, noticed everything,
asked questions, and must have filed away for later use some of the things
she learned in the big city. She would return to Encrucijada all too quickly,
though.15

Growing up in rural Cuba during the 1920s and 1930s marked Haydée. The
village of Encrucijada and the nearby Constancia sugar mill were a world
apart from city life, with its more cosmopolitan culture, educational oppor-

46 | Chapter 3
tunities, and connection to the outside world. The mill owners enjoyed a
measure of provincial luxury. Everyone else, including middle-level manage-
ment and even many of the laborers, knew each other by name. You might
say they were friends. People shared food, helped each other out, and cared
for one another in times of need. But Haydée would come to think of her
place of origin as one in which questioning the status quo—thinking at all—
was frowned upon:
You know how the people at a sugar mill are . . . the first thing they ask
when they get up in the morning is: How did you sleep, what have you
had to eat, how are you? Because at a sugar mill everyone knows every-
one else. Even those who have a certain status—I’m not talking about
the owners, of course, just those who live a little better than the rest.
And there’s solidarity among the families. At a sugar mill, when you cook
someone will say: If you’re making something today, bring me a little.16
Haydée also often talked about the limitations of that life: the willingness to
accept a traditional mentality, the reluctance to question or challenge igno-
rance or conservative values.
Racial prejudice was a given. Children of European descent were not sup-
posed to speak to or play with black children, the sons and daughters of the
cane cutters and mill workers. Abel and Haydée ignored this unwritten law
and were often criticized for fraternizing with children of color—especially
Haydée, because her gender required greater decorum. There is a story in
which a black teacher at the rural schoolhouse tried to convince Abel that
his position as a teacher showed that blacks really could get ahead. Abel told
the man: “It’s true, you are black and you are a teacher, but because you are
black you will never go beyond this one-room schoolhouse.”17 Even today,
after more than five decades of revolution, there are few blacks in high gov-
ernment or party positions.
The great Cuban trade unionist Jesús Menéndez, also black, was born in
Encrucijada and organized throughout the area. He was a member of Cuba’s
old Socialist Party and active in the struggle against President Grau San
Martín’s administration. Menéndez secured some benefits for the disenfran-
chised cane cutters. Grau San Martín tried to give preferential sugar pricing
to the United States, something opposed by Menéndez and his movement.
Abel and Haydée knew this rebel leader, and he influenced their early po-
litical thinking. He was murdered in January 1948 and his death had a great
impact on Abel and his sister.

Early Life | 47
 In an interview in which she talked about growing up in Encrucijada,
Haydée said:
I didn’t know what communism was back then, but people called me a
communist . . . because with my social status, talking to a black person,
or just conversing in general with the field hands, befriending other little
girls who weren’t like me, made you a communist. They called me a com-
munist because I talked to black people. I was everyone’s friend. I didn’t
know what discrimination was. . . .18
The truth is, Haydée’s childhood and youth at Constancia helped form her
class consciousness. She said:
Cuban sugar mills, at least the one where I was born and grew up, are
places where class differences are blatantly obvious. These are small
places where the same families live for years . . . their children grow up
and have children, and those children have children and so forth. . . .
Everyone knows one another. All the children go to the same school, the
children who have nothing and those from the dozen or so families who
have more, who seem almost rich, although when you think about it they
aren’t. They are just a little better off, with a better house, a car, maybe
they dress a little better or eat all year long. . . .19
Cuban poet Roberto Fernández Retamar,20 who worked closely with Haydée,
spoke about her younger years in a heartfelt tribute:
As a child, when she played house she curled up inside the hen house like
one of the family hens and subjected herself to their angry pecking. Some
years later, after her teacher taught a lesson on Cuban history, although
she was the daughter of Spaniards she invented a Mambi grandfather (Cu-
ban freedom fighter) for herself . . . [still later] she joined the ranks of the
Orthodox youth with her brother Abel. . . .21
Everyone who knew Haydée as a child has testified to the ways in which
she broke through the confines of plantation life. She loved to read, and her
sister Aida said she often imagined herself the protagonists of the novels she
devoured. Her brother Abel gave her historical and political literature, which
she also read avidly. He introduced her to the writing of the great Cuban pa-
triot José Martí, later considered the intellectual architect of the revolution.
Fernández Retamar, who is also a noted Martí scholar, has written mov-
ingly of the country girl turned heroine’s early reading habits:

48 | Chapter 3
 Haydée at Casa de las Américas
with image of José Martí, taken
during the filming of Vamos
a caminar por Casa, by Víctor
Casaus, 1979. photo courtesy
casa de las américas.

I don’t know, among the many rural readings that consumed her (often
from clearing to clearing, like Don Quixote), whether she read Unamuno;
I know she would have found the tormented Basque’s agonized medita-
tion on death familiar. But [. . .] I have no doubt she would have found
more to her liking that other great woman of similar talent, known in her
century as Teresa de Ahumada, and today as Santa Teresa de Jesús, who
with her brother read of exploits of dreams and justice and tried to make
them real, undertaking in her time all that was revitalizing and brave.
Like her Cuban counterpart, even as she was exuberant in her love
of life, Santa Teresa desired death. It is known that Martí also read this
indulgent mother of Avila. In 1905, at only twenty-one years of age, Pedro
Henríquez Ureña, the father of twentieth-century Latin American criti-

Early Life | 49
 cism, said that at times Martí’s style “possesses the emotional intensity of
Teresa de Jesús.” And 25 years later, he added that Martí wrote “with the
candor of Santa Teresa, from whom he learned that one who feels as he
did, should not have to hold back.”22
As a young woman, Haydée also had an active social life. She loved to go
dancing and was passionate about horseback riding. This joyous nature,
though, could turn wistful without warning.
Today, when we know so much more about depression, it seems clear
that the condition affected more than a few members of Haydée’s family and
plagued her throughout her life. Historians point to her experience at Mon-
cada, certainly cruel and indelible enough to cause permanent trauma. What
psychiatrist or psychotherapist would have been capable of understanding
those wounds? But my research also made me wonder if her depression
didn’t have its origin many years before that brutal battle, in which she lost
her beloved brother and her fiancé simultaneously, and after which she was
shown their mangled body parts in an attempt to get her to talk.
At her trial she felt she couldn’t display the slightest sign of vulnerability.
Those experiences would have been enough to push anyone over the edge.
In Haydée’s case they may have been adding insult to an injury already pres-
ent. I am sure she struggled throughout the rest of her life between giving
full rein to her exuberant creativity and keeping those horrendous images
from overwhelming and destroying her. It is tragic to think of her having to
cope with the depression itself and also with the ignorance and dismissive
misconceptions that surrounded the condition back then.
Haydée finished sixth grade at that one-room country schoolhouse and
then, because she loved learning and had no possibility of going on to middle
or high school, repeated it three or maybe four more times. She was fortunate
to have an exceptional teacher who, despite their provincial surroundings,
made his students understand that they were not just from Constancia but
belonged to a nation with a great history of struggle. From him she learned
about Céspedes,23 Agramonte,24 and Maceo.25 And she was able to read Martí,
who wrote for children as well as adults.
I wondered if poverty, convention, or both prevented her from continuing
her education. Surely her parents must have recognized her unusual intel-
ligence. Couldn’t they have sent her to a nearby town or city where more
schooling was an option? From what I had been able to gather, in interviews
with the few who remain, both the family’s economic situation and Hay-

50 | Chapter 3
dée’s gender ultimately precluded her from further study. Sending her away
wouldn’t have meant tuition alone; she would have had to board somewhere,
and that was beyond the family’s means.
But Niurka told me that Haydée’s parents did recognize their oldest
daughter’s gifts and paid for a tutor who would help her get ready to enter
nursing school.26 Clearly, she was drawn to the helping professions. Haydée
herself said: “To study nursing you had to be well prepared. Especially for
someone who didn’t have political pull. . . . I had to take the train to Encruci-
jada at eleven in the morning and didn’t get home until seven in the evening.
At the time, my mother wasn’t against my trying to get into that school.”27
She tried to enter nursing school, but her unwillingness to butter up the
local political strongman finally got in the way. She decided to become a
teacher instead, until that dream, too, crumbled beneath the difficulties of
time and place. So Haydée, now a young woman, began to make a life for
herself at the mill in the only way available. She began attending to neigh-
bors when they were ill, becoming the person known for giving injections,
teaching hygiene, and the like. She was an expert seamstress, with a partic-
ular talent for embroidery.
People from Encrucijada in their eighties and nineties remember her
making the rounds of her community, giving advice, helping people with
their problems. Some say that from the age of fourteen she had been giving
injections to her neighbors. Her sister Aida, just a couple of years younger,
married and had a child. Abel joined the Orthodox Youth, excited by Edu-
ardo Chibás’s political ideas, and the sister who identified so closely with
him followed suit.28
Haydée felt she was suffocating in the provincial atmosphere of her youth.
Nevertheless, she kept on trying to make herself useful in the community.
Her good nature and creative impulses helped keep her going. There is an
anecdote that illustrates her unique sense of humor; it has to do with Don
Mamerto and his wife, Doña Juanita.
This couple had come over from Spain, as Haydée liked to say, “very
young, recently married, wearing rope sandals and totally illiterate. Some
years later, and not by luck or chance, Mamerto had five sugar mills.” He
was the patriarch of the Luzárraga family that owned Constancia. As Haydée
told the story:
Don Mamerto’s wife Juanita made sweets she sold on saints’ days. By the
time I was a young woman she had declared herself a marquesa. She actu-

Early Life | 51
 ally claimed she was a marquesa, with a title and everything. One day they
built a little church in the village. It seemed huge to us. And the Bishop of
Cienfuegos came to inaugurate that church in honor of Juanita’s title. This
might sound like a joke, but I swear it’s true. When we found out, I went
right over, I went to mass, and I asked: “But who died in Spain so Juanita
could start calling herself marquesa?”
The thing is, I had a pretty little German shepherd puppy I also called
Marquesa. And that dog was a well-known troublemaker in Constan-
cia. . . . At home no one knew why I had named my dog Marquesa, until
one day, when I called “Doña Juanita” and Marquesa didn’t come running.
My mother asked: “What do you mean, Doña Juanita?” And I said: “Well,
I’m calling Marquesa Doña Juanita now!” They thought it was subversive
of me to call my dog that. Poor dog.29
And so life dragged on for a brilliant and sensitive young woman who was
born and grew up in a place far removed from the centers of power but
whose inhabitants suffered from their trickle-down policies. She must have
felt more and more frustrated.
When Abel moved to Havana, determined not to follow in their father’s
footsteps at the mill, she lost her best friend and closest ally. She was deso-
late. When, a few months later, he sent for her to come and live with him in
the capital, it must have felt like salvation. He not only introduced her to a
world of struggle that would define her and change her country’s history; he
would save her from mental and emotional death.

52 | Chapter 3
4 MONCADA

I didn’t die at Moncada, but I left my life there.

—Haydée Santamaría

The small apartment on the sixth floor at 164 Twenty-fifth Street in Havana’s
Vedado neighborhood is known simply as 25 and O. I stand before the unas-
suming building, its light blue facade and symmetrical balconies giving no
clue to the discreetly momentous activity that took place here in the early
1950s. Abel had come to Havana in 1951 or 1952. Back then no one was
conscious of the importance of keeping a historical record, so the exact year
remains in question.
Abel got a job at the Pontiac dealership, studied at night, and rented a
room on Virtudes Street. As soon as he was able, he sent for his sister Hay-
dée. He, better than anyone, understood her desperate need to escape the
confines of their family home and stifling plantation atmosphere. It must
have been just before her arrival that he moved to 25 and O. He paid $50 a
month for the apartment, quite a bit at the time but worth it because of its
excellent location. It would quickly become one of the gathering places for a
growing number of young people intent upon liberating their country.
For as long as those young people knew—in historic memory as well as
in their own experience—Cuba had been humiliated by foreign powers.
First England, then Spain, and now the United States, in conjunction with a
Living room of apartment at 25 and O, Vedado, Havana. Now a museum.
photo by margaret randall.
corrupt local oligarchy. Each new day brought insults, large and small, that
riled all those with a sense of national dignity.
And things were about to get much worse. On March 10, 1952, a gen-
eral named Fulgencio Batista staged a coup d’état and wrenched the Cuban
government from President Carlos Prío Socarrás. The United States imme-
diately recognized the dictator, as it has so often in other countries before
and since. Abel Santamaría not only hated Batista for his dictatorial stance;
he despised the man for having ordered the murder of Antonio Guiteras, the
revolutionary student leader who had impressed him in the 1930s.1 Guiteras
had believed that liberation could be achieved through violent confrontation
with the established order but simultaneously held firm to an ideal of democ-
racy. Abel’s generation of revolutionaries admired him deeply.
Haydée was living with her brother by the time Batista’s coup imbued
them and other revolutionary youth with an intensified sense of urgency.
Havana was only one center of activity; Santiago de Cuba, Manzanillo,
Artemisa—all over the country young people were beginning to organize.
Fidel’s presence in the capital lent authority to what was going on there, but
dissatisfaction was widespread, and there were palpable links with earlier
struggles as well. One day Abel met Fidel Castro, a young lawyer with simi-
larly radical ideas about social change. He brought him to the apartment at
25 and O and introduced him to his sister.
Haydée is famously remembered as having complained about “the tall man
who flicked his cigar ashes on my clean floor.” But she too was profoundly
impressed with Fidel’s revolutionary ideals and focused brilliance. Brother
and sister agreed that this was the leader capable of changing Cuba’s destiny.
From then on, 25 and O became a meeting place for those who would initiate
what came to be known as the July 26 Movement. The teacher and poet Raúl
Gómez García and others, including Jesús Montané, Elda Pérez, and Ernesto
Tizol, frequented those two rooms. Some survived. Most did not.
Today the apartment is a museum, moving in its austerity. I could imagine
the small living room, tiny kitchen, single bedroom, and bath, overflowing
with the men and women who gathered there more than six decades earlier.
Haydée cooked for them all and was often quoted as saying that nothing later
ever tasted as good as those meager portions of Spanish omelet or congrí
(black beans and rice). The books they read are on display in a glass-fronted
bookcase, Martí prominent among them.
Dolores Pérez Resta (“Lolita”), a collaborator from those times whom

Moncada | 55
Melba Hernández and Haydée Santamaría in their cell at Guanajay
prison, 1953. photo courtesy casa de las américas.

I interviewed in 2014—she was eighty-seven, rail thin, and as sharp as if

the years had touched her only lightly—told me how after the attack on
Moncada she went to the apartment and removed everything that could
have been incriminating: books, the mimeograph machine on which the
revolutionaries produced their clandestine newspaper El acusador, even a
wall calendar featuring an image of Martí. She kept all of it safe until after
the war.
A word about the newspaper shows the sort of leadership brought by Fi-
del. Abel and his friends had at first called it Somos los mismos (We Are the
Same), implying continuity with earlier struggles and identification with or-

56 | Chapter 4
dinary Cubans. Fidel was the one who suggested they change its name to El
acusador (The Prosecutor), reflecting his legal training and denoting a more
combative stance.

When I stopped by, the apartment had recently been repainted. The couch
on which Abel slept had been refinished in a fabric as closely resembling
the original as possible. A framed swatch of that earlier upholstery hung on
the wall just above it—physical evidence of the reverence and attention to
detail with which Cuba remembers its heroes and martyrs. When I asked
the young historian who welcomed me if the museum gets many visitors, he
said mostly groups of school children. I thought about time and how easily
it can obliterate a consciousness of struggle unless that struggle is kept alive
in ways that spark the imagination of new generations, who naturally have
different reference points and rapidly changing interests.
I stood quietly for a few moments, taking in every detail of those historic
rooms. I could see Abel, Haydée, Melba Hernández,2 Elda Pérez Mujica, Bo-
ris Luis Santa Coloma, Fidel with his ever-present cigar, and others—dead
and alive, their spirits still inhabiting this space. I thought of them as they
must have been back then, young people who believed enough in what they
had to do that risking their lives was not an impediment. I thought of the
many who died, the few who lived to take part in the war, and the fewer still
who survived that war. Each one had been sure that whatever his or her per-
sonal fate, a free and independent Cuba was worth the sacrifice.
While certain epic events can remain ignored or vague, due to the prej-
udicial points of view of the writers of history, the attack on Moncada is
iconic and so has been thoroughly mythologized. It is best known as “the
military failure that nonetheless sounded the opening salvo of the Cuban
Revolution.”
Without Moncada, the people of Santiago de Cuba would not have wit-
nessed the rebels’ heroism or been aware of this group of determined rev-
olutionaries. Fidel Castro would not have been captured or sentenced and
would not have represented himself in the extraordinary defense speech
known as “History Will Absolve Me.” That speech, smuggled out of prison
in fragments, printed and distributed by Haydée and Melba, contained the
revolution’s goals and early program. It became the organizing tool for a
movement, a successful war, and—five and a half years later—a resounding
victory.

Moncada | 57
 The Cuban insurgency foreshadowed decades of Latin American revolu-
tionary efforts and for many years remained the only successful revolution
on the continent. More than half a century later—in a dramatically changed
world—its continued existence is stunning: tenacious proof that change is
possible.
Along with Moncada, a smaller group of revolutionaries set out to at-
tack another garrison, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, in the city of Bayamo.
But Moncada is revered as the event that started it all. Because the young
revolutionaries met such a brutal response—Batista vowed to kill ten reb-
els for each dead soldier, and his men carried out his orders with particu-
lar sadism—it is also remembered as a trial by fire. One-third of the reb-
els who attacked Moncada either died in battle or were murdered by the
regime.
One aspect of the action that has received less attention was its absolute
audacity. The group of men and two women who went to Moncada were
young and had few resources. Their average age is said to have been twenty-
six. Most of them were laborers or peasants who experienced exploitation
in the form of palpable daily privation. Fidel, from a bourgeois family and
already a lawyer, was in the extreme minority; most had minimal formal
educations. If we think of what they set out to do and the sense of absolute
confidence with which they carried out every part of the plan, it seems noth-
ing short of extraordinary.
Although audacious, the attack on Cuba’s second largest military garri-
son was carefully and discreetly planned. This discretion, along with the
compartmentalization of information—no one knew more than he or she
needed to know—and the fact that so many involved were killed, probably
accounts for so little having been written about the planning itself. Abel San-
tamaría, the young movement’s second in command, was murdered after the
attack, as were many of the others who took part. Fidel was captured, tried,
and imprisoned. Following Moncada, all attention necessarily focused on the
next stage of struggle.

Now I imagined Haydée, thirty years old, freshly arrived from the conserva-
tive ambience of her rural upbringing, fully involved in the feverish task of
revolution. Other young women came to their country’s capital city to study,
look for work or a husband, get ahead, raise a family in an atmosphere that
offered more advantages than rural life. It is true that Haydée was seeking

58 | Chapter 4
 Photo from
Haydée’s police
file, 1953. photo
courtesy casa de
las américas.

personal release from a suffocating family situation. But very soon her life
was consumed by the complex work of profound social change.
Over the year or two leading up to Moncada, the sister and brother re-
turned often to Encrucijada. They arrived by car, impressing family and
childhood friends. They showed up on holidays and the occasional weekend.
They understood the dangers inherent in what they were planning and didn’t
want to lose touch with those they loved. Haydée, especially, wondered if she
would live to see her older sister Aida’s little girl grow up, celebrate her fif-
teenth birthday, marry. Aida had come to Havana to give birth in a clinic, and
the child had lived her first weeks at 25 and O, sleeping in a bureau drawer.
All the comrades loved holding her.

Moncada | 59
 Just before the July 26 attack, Abel and Haydée stopped in at Constancia.
They got to hold that niece, Carín. It must have been difficult for them not
to let slip any mention of what they were about to do, kiss the baby girl,
and then go off and take part in an action that would separate forever many
of those brave young people from their own sons and daughters—even while
they were confident that what they were doing would usher in a society in
which every child would be happier, healthier, with greater possibilities for
growth and development. It takes enormous faith to hold onto an image of
something as yet intangible in the face of almost certain death.
Physical places hold the essence of every breath, sentiment, and action
that has inhabited them, layer upon layer. Back in 1967, after attending El
encuentro con Rubén Darío, I stayed on in Cuba an extra week and accepted
my hosts’ invitation to travel to Santiago de Cuba, where the revolution be-
gan. We were a small group of poets, maybe eight or ten. Our knowledge-
able guide was Ada Santamaría, Haydée’s youngest sister, who also worked at
Casa then. She was only fifteen when her sister and brother attacked Mon-
cada Barracks, but the event was deeply engraved in her memory.
From one moment to the next Abel had gone from big brother to martyr,
Haydée from caring older sister to someone forever changed by loss. Her par-
ents and remaining siblings had been thrust into unspeakable life changes.
And then came the war years—in which Ada, too, played a central role—and
finally victory. On the occasion of my first trip to Santiago, the revolution
wasn’t yet a decade old.
I retain vivid memories of that journey. We traced the Moncadistas’ route
from the small farmhouse at Siboney to the barracks and hospitals that had
been their targets and the scenes of such unequal conflict. Ada pointed out
to us where the various groups of revolutionaries entered the garrison, where
the major confrontations took place, where a doctor on duty that night re-
fused to attend to a dying soldier, and where another found the courage to
respond to pleas by Haydée and Melba, begging him to do right by his Hip-
pocratic oath.
Like all the dictatorship’s major military barracks, Moncada was now a
school. Turning sites of repression into those of joyful learning was symbolic
of the young revolution’s promise to remake society—with the motto always
in mind that “los niños son los mimados de la revolución” (children are the
spoiled ones of the revolution). Boys and girls in wine-colored jumpers or
pants and sharply pressed white shirts sat in classrooms or ran on the play-
ground, their bright red neckerchiefs denoting membership in the Pioneros

60 | Chapter 4
 Police file photo of
Haydée, 1953. photo
courtesy casa de las
américas.

(youngest contingent of Communist Youth). One small corner of the main

building had been designated a museum. Photos of those who fought and
died there, as well as a few articles of clothing and other relics, were on
display.
I remember leaving Moncada and driving back toward Siboney. Every so
often we passed a small monument to one or more of the revolutionaries
who had been hunted and gunned down as they retreated along that narrow
road. Silent, I gazed through the car’s window at the filmstrip unfolding be-
fore me. I can still feel the strange heat emanating from those markers; they
seemed alive. Each had the job of representing a man who had died in that
frustrated attack, offering himself selflessly to a cause that must have seemed
all but unobtainable.
The next few years, though, would show that it was obtainable: a flare
had gone up, and unspeakable sacrifice had provided the spark that drew
enormous popular support. First thousands, then tens of thousands. Those

Moncada | 61
who died—those who were tortured to death at Moncada—had done their
job. And those who lived continued to do theirs.

Although it always brought her visible pain, in the years to come Haydée
spoke often about Moncada. After the end of the war and as each July 26
approached, she and other survivors visited schools, workplaces, military
units, neighborhoods, and collective farms, telling their story again and
again. They wanted the younger generations to know what it had been like:
the cost of victory, the detailed human stories that go so much farther than
heroic proclamations in keeping history alive.
Haydée always started those gatherings slowly, appearing almost hesitant.
She would say that public speaking wasn’t her strong suit. She would say that
Melba was the one who remembered dates and other details; what she re-
membered were the feelings. Her style was conversational, often circuitous.
But once the first memories surfaced, it was as if a floodgate opened. She
was off and running: passionate, wistful, anguished, sure—and compelling
as she relived each unforgettable moment. For a while, at least, the distance
between those who initiated the revolution and those who were born long
after its victory narrowed appreciably.
As the years unfolded, though, one had the feeling that repeating this story
became more and more difficult for Haydée. In July 1980, a friend of mine
who worked at a Havana radio station had the privilege of listening to her talk.
In the restroom, after she’d finished her presentation, my friend overheard
the heroine confessing to someone how painful it was: “I just don’t know if
I can do this again,” she heard her say. She would kill herself two days later.
Haydée’s conversation at the University of Havana’s Political Sciences De-
partment on July 13, 1967, was particularly comprehensive and evocative.
This conversation, that included questions from some of the students, be-
came the book Haydée habla del Moncada (Haydée Speaks about Moncada),
published in Cuba and translated into dozens of languages throughout the
world. It still offers some of the richest memories of the experience:
Whenever we talk about anything, insignificant as it may be, we tend to
say: “that happened before,” or “that happened after.” And that before
and that after are before Moncada and after Moncada. After Moncada,
we underwent a total transformation. We might have been the same per-
son, the same person who went to Moncada filled with passion, and who

62 | Chapter 4
 continued to be a passionate person. But the transformation was huge, so
huge that if we hadn’t really understood what we were doing it would have
been difficult to keep on living, or at least to keep on acting like normal
human beings. [. . .]
On another occasion, she went even deeper into what that “before” and “af-
ter” meant to her:
That’s where my life began, after Moncada. I realized who I would never
see again, the ones who died and I could never bring back. [. . .] Those
minutes one doesn’t know how they will transpire: heroic or cowardly
[. . .] and it was after Moncada that one understood who had been lost,
and who remained. One realized then that Moncada couldn’t be allowed
to die. That’s where the “after” began. The struggle for life, the struggle for
the lives of all those comrades, for Abel, for Melba, for everyone, and for
one’s own life as well. And not knowing where Fidel was, if he was dead
or alive, the terrible agony of that. . . .3
In the talk at the Political Sciences Department, she continued:
We always remember when Abel told us: “After this it will be harder to
live than to die, and so you are going to have to be braver than us. Because
we are going to die and you, Melba and Haydée, must live. You’re going to
have to be stronger than us. Our role will be easier than yours.”4
Haydée and Melba had both been afraid that when the time came for the
movement to carry out that action they would be left behind. Neither they
nor the other subordinates had any idea exactly what the action would be, or
where. The women had followed every order without question. They had de-
veloped multiple skills and shown their capacity for absolute discretion. But
the era’s gender assumptions led them to question, privately, if they would
be allowed to participate.
Fidel and his second in command, Abel, made good on their promise and
took the two women into battle. But Abel was clearly conscious of the likeli-
hood that he would die while his sister and Melba might survive. Were these
simply the words he chose to instill courage, to convey the fact that, should
he and the others be killed, the women had an important job to do? Or was
he, too, counting on the gender differences of the time, believing that the
women, even if captured, might be treated less brutally?
The women were in fact treated differently. No sooner had the gunfire

Moncada | 63
stopped than Abel and Boris and a number of others were taken off and
tortured to death. Haydée and Melba were isolated, burned with lit ciga-
rettes, and shown the gruesome evidence of the tortures endured by those
they loved in an effort to get them to reveal Fidel’s whereabouts. They kept
silent counsel, hearts undoubtedly pounding out of their chests but heads
held high. Each played his or her part to perfection. Later, in prison, Haydée
and Melba were housed with more than a thousand common criminals. The
authorities assumed those hardened criminals would harass and abuse them.
Instead, they protected them from their real abusers: the prison guards.
Haydée spoke as well about the months and days and hours prior to the
attack. She remembered how she and Melba had waited patiently in Havana
for the instructions they would have to follow leading up to the trip. When
they were given the go-ahead to travel, they asked what clothing they should
pack and for how many days, hoping for some clue to their destination. In
both cases the response had been “just bring whatever you want.”
They traveled separately and, until the night before each departure, had
no idea of where they were going. Haydée rode the train to Santiago de Cuba
accompanied by a large trunk filled with weapons. It was carnival time in
Santiago, the most popular carnival in the country, and lots of people were
making the trip. The train was crowded. A soldier sat next to Haydée, and
she struck up a conversation with him, even making plans to meet and go
dancing when they reached their destination. When he asked what was in
the trunk, she said books. He offered to haul it off the train for her, and she
continued to flirt as she gratefully accepted. Abel was at the station to meet
her. When he caught sight of the soldier, he wondered if the weapons had
been detected. But Haydée gave him one of her confident looks as she intro-
duced her travel companion, assuring her brother the man’s company had
made her trip ever so much more enjoyable:
In order to buy a rifle, to buy ammunition, we had to limit the food we
could afford to buy. Our comrades had to go without cigarettes; they had
to go without the little cup of coffee that cost three cents. To be able to
purchase those meager weapons and what ammunition we could get, we
literally had to go hungry. But the thing is, we never felt hungry.5

Many years and so much history later, Haydée’s daughter Celia María added
her own lucid commentary to her mother’s passionate reminiscence. I’ve
found no better analysis of what Moncada and the Cuban Revolution as a
64 | Chapter 4
whole meant in Haydée’s life and what Haydée meant to the Cuban Revo-
lution than these words from Celia’s prologue to a 2005 edition of Haydée
habla del Moncada:
This Revolution, that came through the narrow door of that apartment at
25 and O, that apartment she kept so scrupulously clean, was the reason
for her existence. This same Revolution that now, fifty years later, has
become the world Revolution, changed its first wet diapers in the soul
of that woman who, as chance would have it, also happened to be my
mother.
She often told me that she believed in Fidel from the very beginning,
and that for her and for Abel, Fidel had to live for a long long time. None
of us doubt that now, but half a century ago only the special light that
shone in the eyes of those Santamarías reflected the importance of Fidel
Castro to the Cuban Revolution.
This is clear in the letter she sent to my grandparents from the wom-
en’s prison at Guanajay [. . .]. With an almost infantile innocence she in-
vites her mother to feel joy in Abel’s death, and she promises enormous
and profound changes for my grandparents, changes that did in fact take
place: my grandmother, a conservative Spanish woman, lived out her days
fighting with energetic fervor for her Constancia sugar mill, and joining
the ranks of the Communist Party.
Even with all of this, Moncada was only the tip of the iceberg. I don’t
believe that anyone who knew her well could conclude that “Haydée
wasn’t able to survive Moncada,” that she wasn’t able to survive Abel’s
dead eyes floating in a basin. After that, she was much richer internally,
and she did a great deal more. Abel’s death was the death of her first great
love, and it made her stronger, never weaker. She was aware that she lived
in the eye of the storm, like all the illuminated ones.
For this woman, Moncada, Boris and Abel were only the beginning.
I can’t imagine, for example, how Fidel ever thought he could have pre-
vented her from going to the civilian hospital, dangerous as that was.
From the moment her delicate woman’s hands ironed the combatants’
uniforms, she was part of that history. She had more than enough room
left in her life to know and weep for other loves.6

In the final hours before the attack, at the Siboney farmhouse the leaders of
the movement distributed the weapons they had been able to accumulate,
Moncada | 65
Photos from Haydée’s police file, showing length of sentence. photo
courtesy casa de las américas.

and Fidel spoke one last time to those about to go into battle. He told them
they could still back out for whatever reason and that no one would think less
of them. No one took that option. The cars left the farmhouse roughly in the
order decided upon by the leadership, although there was some discussion as
to which car Haydée and Melba should ride in and what their specific desti-
nation should be. Someone said they would be useful at the civilian hospital,
and that chance suggestion allowed Haydée and her brother to be together
as the attack unfolded.
So much has been written about this historic battle, so much testimony
exists from those who were present and survived: not only the rebels but
also several doctors and nurses who were caught up in the attack, as well
as a few townspeople who happened to be nearby and heard the gunfire.

66 | Chapter 4
When momentous events succeed one another in a relatively brief period
of time, as occurred in the history of the Cuban Revolution from Mon-
cada to the trial and imprisonment of Fidel, amnesty and exile to Mexico,
return on the poorly outfitted boat called Granma, war in the mountains
and city undergrounds, and exuberant victory of January 1, 1959, a lot can
get lost.
Fortunately, Cuba’s revolutionaries made a point of telling and retelling
the stories, and we have enough verifiable testimony from a range of par-
ticipants to be able to piece the history together. Although Armando Hart
had been active, along with others, in trying to build a viable opposition to
Batista, he was not part of Fidel’s group, nor did he take part in the Moncada
attack. He would join Fidel soon after that action, participate in the founding
of the July 26 Movement, and he and Haydée would marry and live together
until shortly before her death. His bystander’s description of the assault’s
intention and of how Fidel managed to escape torture and death is succinct
and useful:
On July 26, 1953, the country was shaken by news of the heroic events.
[. . .] These actions aimed to capture by surprise attack the Santiago and
Bayamo garrisons, as well as the Provincial Court and Civilian Hospital, in
order to then summon the entire country to a general strike. [. . .] If the
attack was defeated, the plan was to try and continue the struggle in the
mountains. And that was the alternative Fidel put in practice when [it]
failed. He was arrested, however, by a military patrol under the command
of Lieutenant Pedro Sarría,7 who acted with a dignity highly unusual in
that army and took Fidel to the municipal jail to face trial, rather than
handing him over to Chaviano, the commander of the Moncada garrison.
Fate worked this time in favor of the Revolution.8
Haydée’s voice, with its exquisite mix of breadth and depth, memory and
passion, is without a doubt among the most evocative. She has said:
My final moments with Abel are vague. I was able to talk to him at the Hos-
pital, then they took him away and after that I can only imagine. So I can’t
really be sure which were our last moments. Perhaps they were when he
was no longer alive. Because in that sort of situation everything happens
so fast. And we were combatants, trained to go into combat whenever that
became necessary. Later, so many things go through your mind that you
can’t be sure if you dreamed them or they really happened . . . the time

Moncada | 67
 comes when you want to think and believe that’s the way it was. That’s
why I’ve often been afraid to write about all this, because you just don’t
know. Images get confused with reality. Tremendously.
And so I will say that our last moments were probably when he in-
structed Melba and me, when he told us what was going to happen and
how the two of us should conduct ourselves. That was really our last en-
counter, because that was when we received Abel’s final instructions,
when he prepared us to go on living. Because Abel was always sure we
would survive and he wouldn’t. I don’t know why. For him that was abso-
lutely clear, and he prepared us much more to be able to keep on living
than to die. If he’d believed we were going to die, he would have prepared
us for that. So that was our last meeting . . . his last message . . . where
our gazes remained, our thoughts, those fragments that might have been
fragments or not, but who cares. That’s another story.9

While waiting for their trial, Haydée and Melba remained at Boniato prison.
Excerpts from a letter she wrote to her parents give some sense of her state
of mind, although it is clear she wrote in a way she felt might soften the
situation for them:
Dear Parents, I don’t know what to tell you, because I know nothing I say
will help, you’ve suffered too much, but life is like that, those who least
deserve it suffer most.
Don’t feel bad for me. I’m doing very well. Even though we are isolated
we are fine, and our health is good. I have enough clothing. [. . .] Melba
is fine, very well really, she doesn’t even have a cold. The doctor here is
good, and he’s prescribed two types of vitamin B for me, not because I am
ill but because he says I need to gain weight. [. . .]10
Haydée Santamaría’s file bore the number 148 / 953. She was charged with
“sedition against state power.” She was listed as being 1.61 meters tall (5'3¼"),
weighing 101 pounds, with a pale complexion, white skin, light brown hair,
a medium forehead, straight eyebrows, natural eyelids, hazel eyes, a straight
nose, small mouth, fine lips, medium-sized ears, and an oval face.11
When Haydée, Melba, and the other survivors—except for Fidel; he was
brought before the magistrate separately—were tried in Santiago de Cuba,
among the three dozen or so reporters permitted to be present at the proceed-
ings of Cause no. 37 was a sixteen-year-old journalist from Havana. Marta

68 | Chapter 4
Haydée and her mother, Joaquina Cuadrado, on Haydée’s release from
the prison at Guanajay, 1954. photo by constantino arias, courtesy
casa de las américas.
Rojas, an intern at Bohemia magazine, was acutely observant and deeply
touched by Haydée in particular:
I expected to see a subdued group of ruffians, half destroyed by what they
had been through: a sad and dramatic scene. I expected to find them dirty,
in shabby clothing, and also filled with hatred. [. . .] I was surprised to see
beautiful faces, the faces of perfectly normal young people, like those you
might see anywhere. They were clean, with neatly ironed clothes [. . .]
but their faces were what I noticed first. They moved me tremendously.
It was just a flash, a few seconds. They entered the courtroom in a
group, with a sort of rustling sound, nothing out of the ordinary but there
were a lot of them, and since they were handcuffed you could hear the
jangle of the cuffs. And the handcuffs were shiny too, which reinforced
the sense of some sort of splendid occasion.12
Marta Rojas, the young black reporter from Havana, noticed Haydée. And
Haydée, in the midst of her agony, noticed Marta:
She began writing everything down, everything about the trial, in a little
notebook. But what did she do then? She tore each page out and hid
it. She always wore a skirt with lots of pockets, and I noticed that what
she left in the notebook were notes that wouldn’t seem like anything out
of the ordinary if they were confiscated at the door: So and so gave his
testimony at 3 p.m., things like that. But she was always writing, writing
and tearing out pages and putting them in her pockets. And that’s how
so much of that trial has been preserved. I tried to retrieve my own testi-
mony and couldn’t. I think they made sure it got misplaced. And she had
copied it almost word for word. At the time she had only a journalist’s con-
sciousness, and probably thought no one would publish what she wrote
anyway. But it’s clear she had an intuition for history. . . .
I kept looking at her because her face didn’t seem to me to be the face
of someone who supported the dictatorship [. . .] after I got out of prison,
she told me that when I kept staring at her like that, she lowered her head;
she said she imagined I must think badly of her, and felt ashamed. That’s
why, when they were taking us out and she stepped forward to say hello,
she was afraid I would brush her off. [. . .]
They let us receive some clothing when we went to trial and my
mother had sent me a handkerchief—I have this habit, I don’t know if
it has to do with nerves, but I have this habit, when I speak, I have this

70 | Chapter 4
 habit of holding a handkerchief or something in my hand, and [. . .] she’d
noticed that handkerchief because I twisted it constantly. And when she
approached me, so as not to have to say hello—because she didn’t know
how I’d react—she said: “What a pretty handkerchief!” And I said: “Do
you like it? Here, take it.” And she did.13

In the July–August 1973 issue of Casa de las Américas magazine, the institu-
tion to which Haydée gave so much paid tribute to the twentieth anniver-
sary of the attack on Moncada by publishing a series of interviews with its
founder that had been conducted by Marta Rojas and other journalists. In
2013, on the sixtieth anniversary of Moncada, the magazine reprinted parts
of those interviews. Haydée herself had been gone for more than thirty years.
Her daughter, Celia María—such a wise interpreter of her mother’s life—
had been gone for six. The years pass, survivors die natural and unnatural
deaths, and memory is ever more threatened by silence.
Haydée’s testimony contains the intelligence, feeling, precise weight,
and extraordinary poetry that so palpably evoke that moment that changed
history—the history not only of Cuba but of all of Latin America. I offer
fragments of that testimony here, as the very best way of conveying an event
almost too large to be constrained by words:
When we went to Moncada in the last car, one of the cars in front of us
had taken a wrong turn. It wasn’t headed to the Civilian Hospital or to the
Military Hospital, or to the Court, or even to the barracks. We got con-
fused, and for a few minutes we were lost. And we began to wonder if we
could get to the hospital, because we had already begun to hear gunfire.
Lost as we were, it seemed crazy to try to reach the hospital.
I don’t remember exactly how the other comrades reacted. But I re-
member my reaction. I thought: Abel is there, and if we don’t make it to
the hospital I won’t be with him. That moment, in which one of the cars
got turned around, causing us to get briefly distracted, was so terrible that
it lived in me for years and years. So much so, that it was what made me
refuse, much later, to leave Cuba for Mexico.
When Fidel and the others were about to come back on the Granma,
on two or three occasions he wrote asking me when I was coming to Mex-
ico. I put him off, again and again. And it wasn’t even conscious. Those
moments in which I didn’t know if I would be able to get to the hospital

Moncada | 71
 had traumatized me to the point where each time he told me “come to
Mexico,” I thought: What if I can’t get on the boat? What if I get seasick?
If I can’t land? Or they imprison me in Mexico? How will I get back here
then? I knew that in Cuba, wherever Fidel managed to land I would find
him. This gives you an idea of how terrible those moments were for me. I
don’t know if it was ten minutes, five, four. I don’t know.
But I do know that in that car there was a discussion about whether
or not we should even go to the hospital. There was a moment when
someone said we should just stop anywhere within the garrison, what
difference would it make? But my goal was the hospital. [. . .]
I insisted and insisted that we find the hospital. If I’m being absolutely
honest I have to say that I wanted to find Abel. I remember a brief conver-
sation in the car about it being crazy to wait until we get to the hospital.
And it really was crazy, because there was gunfire all around us by then,
and we could get caught in the crossfire.
When I saw “Saturnino Lora,” I said: Here it is! And I jumped from the
car and began to run. I looked at Melba, as if to say: “Come on, let’s go!”
The others didn’t move, because it was clear there was a firefight going
on. But I told myself I had to reach Abel. Not because I was more revolu-
tionary than the others, or because I had a greater desire to fight than they
did—because we could have fought in any of the other locations. I wanted
to get to where Abel was. I wanted to die with Abel or live with Abel. [. . .]
At the hospital I remember we took two or three prisoners and stuck
them in a room. They had their hands up, pleading with us that they
weren’t going to do anything and that we should just let them hide there.
I think one of them was a woman. [. . .]
Later I went looking for Abel. I don’t remember what we said when
we found one another. I know he was happy, contented. He was pleased
with how everything was going. [. . .] The most important thing was not
to let the enemy take our position. If we weren’t going to be able to cap-
ture the garrison, what reason did we have for remaining there? The only
reason, I think now, was that for Abel it was very important that we keep
fighting so the enemy wouldn’t realize everything had ended, and Fidel
would have more time to get into the mountains as we had planned. [. . .]
Abel knew we hadn’t taken the garrison, but he went on firing to hold
their attention, so they wouldn’t think the battle had ended. This wasn’t
something we had planned. This was something that occurred to Abel at
that moment.

72 | Chapter 4
 In any case, those who fought at the garrison had to find an escape
route. They couldn’t stay where they were because it was as if they were in
the street, in plain view. We were inside the hospital. We had two options:
we could go out or stay where we were. I think we chose the worst of the
two options because we didn’t know our way around Santiago. That was
the first time we’d been to Santiago de Cuba, at least Melba and I. Abel
was the one with the experience, he’d been coming to Santiago for a while
by then. But he was so concerned that Fidel have as much time as possible
to make it into the Sierra, that he didn’t say anything. From the time the
shooting ended until the moment of our capture must have been an hour
and a half or two hours.
I’m still confused about exactly how the comrades who fought there
were captured. My memory is not very clear about that. They told us, and
all the data seems to confirm it, that the person we suspected was the
one who gave us away. But I didn’t really remember. In fact, [after the
war] when that person went on trial, they didn’t execute him because I
wasn’t absolutely sure I recognized his face. I only remembered one face,
and it was Abel’s. In 1959 I had to identify several nurses. The only one I
remembered was the one who bandaged Abel’s eye. She was engraved in
my mind because of her connection with Abel. [. . .]
Humans can be unpredictable! A doctor I called to help us save one of
the wounded, one of the wounded who wasn’t ours but one of the dicta-
torship’s soldiers—he was a sergeant or a lieutenant, I can’t remember—
that doctor told me flatly no. He wasn’t going out there. If we dragged
the man inside, he’d take a look. The man was lying in the patio and we
wanted that doctor to see if he could help him, or at least tell us if he was
dead or alive. And he said no, that if we brought him inside he’d see what
he could do. We told him we couldn’t lift the body. Gómez García and I
had already tried. [. . .] I had put my hand on his heart and everything,
but I couldn’t tell. And that’s when I went back to get that doctor, and he
refused to come with me. I tried arguing with him. I asked him what kind
of a doctor he was to let a man bleed to death. He said: “But he’s not even
one of yours.”
Then the other doctor said: “Okay, I’ll go.” And he crouched down
and accompanied me. For a second time I dragged myself to where the
wounded soldier lay. [. . .]. When we got there, that doctor looked at him,
then at me, and said: “There’s nothing to be done. He’s dead. He died
instantly. There’s nothing we can do.” [. . .]

Moncada | 73
Moncadistas and family members, upon Fidel’s release from the prison at Isle
of Pines, 1955. Left to right: Raúl Castro and his sisters; Melba’s mother, Elena;
Melba Hernández; Fidel; Haydée. photo courtesy casa de las américas.

Melba, Fidel, and Haydée. photo courtesy casa de las américas.

 Later, during the trial, they took opposite positions. Their roles were
reversed. The judge asked: “Is it true that you saw two women, and the
blonde one let one of the soldiers bleed to death?” That doctor responded
by pointing to me: “Yes, that one.” It was the doctor who had accompanied
me to look at the soldier.
And the doctor who had refused to go with me, who didn’t want to take
the risk, when the judge asked him: “Did you see a woman approach a
wounded soldier?” he responded: “There was a young woman who came
for me and asked if I would help her attend to a wounded soldier.” He tes-
tified to that, and it was a courageous thing to do. [. . .] For me it was very
important that the people of Santiago didn’t see me as a beast, as someone
without feelings, because that accusation had been terrible.
That doctor was very brave at the trial. So I don’t know which of the
two is worth more, because each had his moment. We’d have to find out
who they are today in order to be able to analyze which of them is worth
something and which isn’t. Because the one who is the bravest, the one
who is worth more, would be the one who is with the revolution. In any
case, I was tremendously relieved when that doctor said: “No, she came
looking for me and tried to make me go with her.” For me that was a gift.
Those they took down [a flight of stairs] were never seen again. Those
who went down those stairs . . . not even the soldiers witnessed what
they didn’t want them to see. When they brought us up, I remember one
of the soldiers saying: “You’re lucky, because not everyone makes it back
up here.” I’ll never forget that little staircase, because when he said that
I thought: So Abel’s not coming back up. When they brought us up those
stairs, the boys were in very bad shape, very bad shape. They were finish-
ing them off.

At trial I felt a tremendous euphoria. I thought I might see Abel. Then,

as soon as I said the words my brother, I suddenly thought to myself: But
Abel is dead! It was just a fraction of a second. The judge said: “If you want
to take a break, you can.” That’s when I recovered, and said: “No, he told
me I had to live to tell what happened.” That gave me a lot of strength.
“He told me I had to live to tell everything, and I’m here and I want to tell
everything.” That helped me get through it.
When I stopped talking I returned to my seat filled with pride. Not
pride in front of all those people, just to show them who I was, but pride
because I was able to recover my strength when I talked about Abel and

Moncada | 75
 Boris, about what they did to them. And then, right away, I felt like I was
being pulled apart inside. I felt like something was ripping me in two. My
declaration wasn’t very long. And I had planned what I was going to say,
but didn’t say any of what I had planned. I didn’t say anything I’d planned,
but I said everything. [. . .] That’s when I realized that what I had been
through could shut me down.
In the hospital I lived because Abel was there. Later, in the barracks,
when I realized they weren’t going to kill me I thought: I have to live until
I know that Fidel is alive, I can’t die until I know he isn’t dead. Then Fidel
appeared, and I told myself I have to live in order to help Fidel. Further-
more, Fidel doesn’t know if Abel is dead or alive, and I have to tell him
Abel is dead, but that’s okay. . . . I had to tell Fidel that Abel loved him,
what Abel felt for him. I had to tell Fidel that Abel didn’t care if he died
as long as Fidel lived.
Then I thought: I have to stay alive until the trial ends, because at
the trial I have to tell the world how Abel died. It has to be me. I have to
live for that. I got through the trial, I finished my declaration, and told
myself: Now I can die. [. . .] If I hadn’t been able to get to the hospital,
what would have become of my life? I don’t know. It would have been
unbearably sad. [. . .]
And I love life. Because I’m telling you, not a second, not a minute of
that last night at Siboney escapes me. I was conscious that it was a deci-
sive night for me, whether I lived or died. That’s why I remember it as the
most marvelous night of my life. [. . .] What’s not possible is to live know-
ing you’ve left something undone. This is what makes life worthwhile. It’s
the only thing that does.
For me, [all the important moments] have been like that night at Si-
boney. Then it was also nine o’clock, and Frank wasn’t there. Like July 25
of 1953, when it was nine o’clock and Abel hadn’t arrived. Like that No-
vember 29, when I looked at Armando and thought: What if we never
see him again? Like July 25, when I looked at Boris and thought: What if
we never see him again? This is so hard. It’s very difficult to live through
moments like those, if you don’t go through them with comrades, if you
don’t go into them in love with life, determined to give everything or
achieve everything.
Later we were in the mountains. I looked at Camilo, saw his beau-
tiful smile and thought: If we lose that smile, like we lost Abel’s. . . .
Even later, in normal times—I mean after 1959 when we were no longer

76 | Chapter 4
 underground—when I looked at Che, I still thought: If we never see that
smile again, what greatness will have been taken from us!
Moncada existed because there were dozens of young men who the
people of Santiago saw tortured to death, murdered. Because the people
of Santiago felt their pain, they came to understand people differently.
Because they knew that not everything had gone to ruin here. They knew
there were people willing to be tortured to death shouting Viva Cuba! All
of that took root in Santiago de Cuba. And the help the people of Santiago
gave those in the mountains was decisive, the help they gave the under-
ground was decisive. [. . .]
This happened in Santiago de Cuba. What gave birth to it? . . . Of
course, the nobility of the people of that city, no doubt about that. That
was what enabled them to understand Moncada. Because there was a
greatness, a nobility, in that city that made it possible for the people to
understand those who went to Moncada, for them to understand the cal-
iber of those who died and those who lived. [. . .]
And so, without the courage of those who died, and without the firm
resolve of those who survived, Moncada would have been an attack on a
military garrison, but it wouldn’t have been Moncada. [. . .]
The essence of Moncada lives on in those comrades who didn’t fail
to show up, in those who lay buried in Santa Ifigenia, or in any patch of
Santiago’s earth. Although we always say they’re in Santa Ifigenia, that’s
not really true. Some of them might be anywhere, wherever. That never
concerned or troubled us, because where any of those heroes is buried,
even in the most impoverished or nondescript grave, a beautiful mariposa
flower may bloom on that spot, and maybe without anyone even plant-
ing it. And so Moncada is everything. Even that mariposa—such a Cuban
flower—reminds us of Moncada. Moncada is those who died and those
who will live forever. It is everything that came later: Che, Camilo, the
people, the Revolution, Fidel. The one thing we cannot imagine is Mon-
cada without Fidel.
And this is the only thing we have to teach our young people: that life
is more beautiful than anything, and that life is beautiful when you live it
like that. You cannot really live it any other way.14

I want to say something else. It doesn’t describe or explain Moncada as much

as it demonstrates the honesty with which Haydée explored her own rela-

Moncada | 77
tionship to struggle. Sometime in the 1960s, preparing for yet another an-
niversary of the historic attack, she suggested that singer-songwriters Silvio
Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés, and Noël Nicola might be inspired to write a song
about Moncada and perform it at that year’s commemoration. They said they
were honored but hesitant. How could they hope to create a song that would
say anything new or do justice to such heroism?
Haydée told them not to be afraid. She would help by sharing some of her
own memories of courage, fear and cowardice: the range of sentiments and
attitudes manifest in the attack:
I told them I didn’t think it should be so hard, because they could sing
about anything, anything at all, and they would be singing to Moncada. I
said it wouldn’t be hard because if they sang about life, they would be sing-
ing to Moncada, if they sang about death they would be singing to Mon-
cada, if they spoke about joy, if they spoke about pain, if they spoke about
courage: Moncada was all of that. And maybe if they spoke about coward-
ice they would also be speaking about Moncada. Because how many of us
who were there may have been more cowardly even than those who didn’t
show up? Cowardice isn’t defined in a single moment any more than cour-
age is. I can tell you there was hardly a comrade who participated with
me, not just at Moncada but in other actions as well, who remembers me
acting in a cowardly way. And yet if I am sincere I must say there were
many times in which I experienced a terrible fear.15

As was customary, during the 1954 holidays visitors brought toys to the
prison, to the children who lived with their mothers incarcerated for non-
political crimes. Marta Rojas, the same reporter who had taken notes at Hay-
dée’s trial, took advantage of the occasion to snap a picture of the two Mon-
cadistas. Forty years later, in September 1996, she was working at Granma,
the Cuban Communist Party newspaper. On December 25 of that year she
published an article, accompanied by that picture. Not much later, she re-
ceived a letter, sent to her office by a young woman named Maritza. Some of
that letter’s most relevant paragraphs read:
I am one of the little girls who appear in the photo that accompanied your
article. I am the one on the right, seated by Haydée. I lived at Guanajay
with my mother, who had gone to prison for homicide, and I was there
from the age of a few months until I was five. I remember a lot from that

78 | Chapter 4
January 6, 1954; visitors to Melba and Haydée bring Christmas gifts for the
children living with the nonpolitical prisoners. photo by marta rojas, courtesy
casa de las américas.

Melba and Haydée leaving Guanajay Prison, 1954. photo by constantino arias,
courtesy casa de las américas.
 time, but my family never wanted to talk about that period in our lives. It
was shrouded in silence. [. . .]
Maritza’s letter goes on to describe how she suffered as a child at the prison,
how the guards used her as a toy and her mother had to carry her around
when she was forced to scrub the long halls. After the revolution mother
and daughter’s lives changed radically. For a long time she was ashamed to
talk about her past, but Marta’s story made her feel pride rather than shame.
When she wrote to the journalist she had been a teacher for many years.16
In an interview she gave in 2008, Rojas explains how she managed to get
that photograph:
On Three Kings Day, society women here were accustomed to giving gifts
to the common criminals’ children. Since journalists were allowed to
photograph the event, I talked to my boss, Enrique de la Osa, about the
possibility of getting a photo. I asked Melba’s mother where the women’s
cell was located, and told her to tell them to be sure to stand at the bars
until the end of the act. I went with Panchito Cano. [. . .] He had two
cameras. And we began to take notes as if we were writing up the story.
When a group of children had already received their toys, I told them:
“Go over there and see that blond lady.” I asked Panchito for a camera
(we’d planned it all beforehand), and followed the children. When they
got close to the bars I took one picture. When I was about two yards away,
I said: “Stand up,” and I raised the camera and took that one. It was pub-
lished for the first time in January 1959.17

80 | Chapter 4
5 WAR

She was an exceptional creature in her passage through life, possessed

of a volcano’s force and flower’s delicacy, hurricane’s beauty or mountain
dawn, the astonishing ability to fight as she loved and to love with the
ferocious intensity of combat.
—Editor’s note, Casa de las Américas, no. 273 (October–December 2013): 3

The July 26 Movement knew that armed struggle was the necessary, even
inevitable, way to depose Batista and to create a society based on justice.
Its leaders didn’t take that struggle lightly. They developed modalities that
avoided unnecessary danger. They were generous in victory.
War was painful and also strangely natural for Haydée. Painful because
she hated violence and because she lost so many people close to her, begin-
ning with her brother Abel and fiancé, Boris, and including in rapid succes-
sion all the others who died at Moncada, in the underground, in the Sierra,
and even after victory. Frank País. Camilo Cienfuegos. Che Guevara. Celia
Sánchez. Each name was a world, and these are only the most prominent
among them.
War was also uncannily natural to this woman, whose character was such
a mix of passion and calm. She knew all other routes had been exhausted and
never doubted her commitment or what she had to do to give birth to the
January 27, 1953. After depositing a floral wreath at the José Martí statue,
Havana’s Central Park. Left to right: Boris Luis Santa Coloma, Haydée,
Elda Pérez, Melba Hernández, and Jesús Montané.
photo courtesy casa de las américas.
In the Sierra on the occasion of the leadership meeting of the July 26 Movement,
1957. Left to right: Ciro Redondo, Vilma Espín, Fidel, Haydée, and Celia Sánchez.
photo courtesy casa de las américas.

Cuba of her dreams. And she possessed every skill necessary for that delivery.
She was fearless when in greatest danger.
Nancy Stout describes Haydée, Armando Hart, Vilma Espín, and Frank
País on their way to a clandestine meeting of the movement’s leadership in
February 1957.
In Havana, as soon as directors Armando Hart and Haydée Santamaría
found out that Fidel wanted the leadership to assemble, they simply went
to the airport and took the first plane to Santiago. [. . .] Vilma Espín drove
the big three—Frank, Haydée, and Armando—over the mountain high-
way from Santiago to Manzanillo. Stopped at all checkpoints, they were
completely conspicuous in the Red Threat [what they called Vilma’s car],
but to the soldiers they appeared to be two happy couples in a new red
Dodge.1
Haydée could also change her appearance instantly:
It’s always been easy for me to gain weight. When I wanted to, I could put
on 20 pounds without any trouble at all. And when I wanted to take them

War | 83
 off, I could do that just as quickly. That, and changing my hair, cutting it
or letting it grow, and I looked like another person.2
With these ruses or through other disguises or by pretending to be a peasant
woman, aged or pregnant, she carried out operations that were difficult if not
impossible for her comrades.
She could be serene in the midst of great drama. On April 15, 1957, US
journalists Robert Tabor and Wendell Hoffman came to Cuba seeking a tele-
vision interview with Fidel. Haydée picked them and all their equipment
up in Havana and delivered them to the Sierra. Armando Hart and Faustino
Pérez descended from the car they were all in and were arrested before her
eyes. But she managed to get away and continue to carry out her mission.
Although Armando was already her husband, she never looked back.3
Haydée insisted that she developed this sort of serenity in the face of
danger because she had to.
Moncada was behind us, and I was worried that the publicity had made
me too familiar a face, that they wouldn’t allow me to keep on acting. And
that participation was terribly important to me; it meant more than life
itself. I needed to keep doing things, move freely, work on every front.
Because if I couldn’t, why had I lived? Having survived imbued me with
a profound tranquility.4
Haydée told the following story, clearly one of many.
I remember one night when Vilma [Espín] and I were hiding at the Ruiz
Bravo’s house. We got wind that the police were in the neighborhood.
Vilma always had a bag [. . .] it was a brown paper bag in which she kept
Frank’s correspondence, and later Daniel’s [René Ramos Latour]. The po-
lice arrived and I said: “Vilma! Vilma, run, take the bag!” Vilma grabbed
the bag and lit out of there. She climbed over a rooftop and I could hear
her shouting, “Yeyé, Yeyé, come on!” I told her: “I’ll be right there!”
When I realized that Vilma had jumped—I don’t know how she man-
aged not to break a foot, because she jumped quite a long ways down—I
told the others in the house: “Let me go to the door.” I opened it and wel-
comed the cops: “What can I do for you, Officers?” “We’ve been told there
are people hiding here.” “Well, come on in. Would you like some coffee?
Anything else?” And I gave them something to drink.
The people who owned the house were all right there. The police be-
gan to search the premises, and I followed them from room to room: “Do

84 | Chapter 5
 what you have to do,” I told them, “so we don’t have to go through this
again tomorrow.” If they missed a room or a closet or even a bed, I’d say:
“Come on, don’t you want to look over here?” Of course there were some
places where I knew we had hidden things—documents, letters—but I
would open doors before they could get to them: “Look here, make sure
you look over there.”
I had some letters from Armando. I can’t remember if he was in prison
then or in the Sierra, but I know he wasn’t in Santiago. I had hidden those
letters in the folds of a drape, so of course I didn’t direct their attention
there. They finished searching, and asked for more coffee. I served it to
them, we shook hands, and my parting words were: “Okay now, you guys,
you know there’s no problem if you have to come back.”
When the police were gone, Esperanza, María, Ramona, the whole
family almost passed out—and I should say that the mother, father, and
all seven or eight children belonged to the movement. I felt calm as could
be. On the outside, of course. Because inside I was . . . well, you can imag-
ine. Only later did we realize that all of us had received the cops in our
nightclothes.
Vilma returned a while later, sure that I had escaped as well, and when
they told her I’d welcomed the cops, given them coffee, and everything
that had taken place, she was . . . ! I’m telling you, I was calm the whole
time, because I really never thought anything would happen to me. Noth-
ing happened to me at Moncada, nothing happened in so many other
situations, I don’t know: I just didn’t think I was vulnerable. And I felt
even less vulnerable after making it through that night.5
Haydée said that for years Batista’s police were unable to catch her at any-
thing or anywhere:
I operated all over Cuba, and they never caught me. I kept on transporting
arms to the Sierra, and they never caught me. I went up into the moun-
tains and came down again, and they never caught me. I can tell you, I had
a lot of experience, much more than all those people in Miami combined,
whose only experience was living well, the experience of not caring how
many people in Cuba were dying. They did what they did for status. And I,
who had status here, did what I did so my comrades would have the arms
they needed.6 [At the time of this talk, Haydée was particularly angry at
Miami’s exile community, which continued to launch damaging covert
actions aimed at destabilizing the revolution.]

War | 85
In 1958, Armando Hart was imprisoned at Boniato, the same place where
Haydée herself had served time not that many years before. The April strike
had just taken place, and she wanted to inform him about decisions taken by
the movement leadership regarding that strike, as well as to tell him she was
being sent abroad to carry out a mission for the revolution. She also knew
he was suffering the recent death of his brother, Enrique, who had been
killed when the mechanism on a bomb he was placing failed and exploded
too soon.
In order to visit him, she changed her appearance completely and reg-
istered with the prison authorities as his sister, Marta Hart. Armando was
stunned when he caught sight of her. None of the guards recognized her,
although she said she remembered a number of them all too well. She would
never forget those faces.

Between 1955 and the end of the war in December 1958, Haydée traveled
the island with impunity. Along with a few others in the leadership, she pre-
pared the complex November 30, 1956, uprising in Santiago de Cuba that
was planned to coincide with the Granma’s arrival. The idea was that gener-
alized fighting in the city’s streets would divert attention from the return of
Fidel and his men from Mexico (they were expected to land on the nearby
coast). Unfortunately, as high seas and other unforeseen problems brought
the boat in several days later than planned, the calculation failed.
But Haydée also proved key to saving lives that fateful day. Her experience
of having been trapped at Moncada had taught her that when a battle was
doomed, the most expedient measure was to effect an immediate retreat.
She had to argue with Frank País, then head of Action in Santiago, but was
able to convince him she was right. A small group of those who arrived on
the Granma managed to make it into the mountains. As Fidel later famously
said, with those few men, victory was assured.
Haydée played an essential role in both the Havana and Santiago under-
grounds. She recruited hundreds of people to the rebel cause, acquiring safe
houses and transporting and hiding those who needed refuge. She was a con-
tact for foreign journalists, picking them up in Havana and accompanying
them to their mountain interviews with Fidel. She traveled into the Sierra
and returned to the cities time and time again, never once getting caught.
Sometimes she was the only one in a group of comrades who didn’t. She trav-
eled outside the country, reluctantly but with extraordinary resourcefulness,

86 | Chapter 5
Haydée and Fidel in the Sierra, 1958. photo courtesy casa de las américas.
successfully carrying out every task she was assigned. Most important, she
was part of the movement’s leadership, fully involved in its analysis and de-
cision making.
Nancy Stout writes about Haydée, in her leadership position, being con-
sulted about an important movement decision.
Celia, learning of Fidel’s determination to come [back to Cuba] within
the year, made a quick trip to Havana to ask Armando Hart and Haydée
Santamaría for permission to fly to Mexico and return on the Granma,
accompanying Fidel and his soldiers in the landing. She pointed out that
she knew the coast better than any others who would be onboard, could
guide the crew into any of the harbors, and could then be there to coordi-
nate the truck drivers. Haydée was supportive; Armando talked the idea
over with Frank [País]. Fidel was consulted, and was ambivalent about
the dynamics of having a woman on the trip. It was Frank who made the
decision: Celia was in command of the landing, and should be there, on
the coast, directing the preparations for it, not on the vessel en route from
Mexico.7
Armando Hart was looking for the leader he believed could defeat the dicta-
torship. It was Haydée who recruited him to Fidel’s cause. Hart writes:
As soon as I got out of prison, I contacted Melba and Haydée. They talked
to me about what Moncada represented and told me of the work carried
out by Abel Santamaría and the group of compañeros who together with
Fidel had prepared the action. They also explained Fidel’s ideas and pro-
gram, as well as his fundamental opposition to the traditional parties. I
came to the conclusion that, if united, the supporters of García Barcena,8
the students, and the Moncadistas could provide a solid foundation for the
development of the Revolution we aspired to.9
The apparent ease with which Haydée moved from city to mountains and
from foreign countries back to her own was due, without doubt, to her con-
viction, discipline, and flexibility. She also had an inclination to trust her
intuition, something that saved her on more than one occasion. This highly
developed characteristic continued to serve her throughout her life. Nothing
was too difficult for her. But those skills were cultivated and undoubtedly
took their toll.
Little has been written about Haydée’s prison time following the attack
on Moncada Barracks. The fact that she and Melba were together proved

88 | Chapter 5
Haydée resting in the Sierra, 1957. photo courtesy casa de las américas.

extremely important and comforting to them both. They were close friends
and comrades but very different in background and temperament. Melba
was from an upper-middle-class family in Havana; her mother was also an
important movement collaborator. And she was a university graduate, with
a law degree. Haydée, with her primary school education, was from a con-
servative immigrant family in rural Cuba. Although a quick study, she was
largely self-taught. Both women were equally committed, but Melba must
have felt she had to take on a mothering role when Haydée seemed, at times,
to sink into the haze of mental exhaustion.
At first the women were isolated at Boniato Prison. After their trial, they
were sent to Guanajay. During those first days and weeks, Haydée suffered
long periods of sleep deprivation, not directly imposed by her jailors but due
to a kind of emotional paralysis. One morning, after she’d finally managed
to get a few hours’ sleep, Melba looked at her and began to sob. She couldn’t
stop crying. Haydée didn’t understand, now that she’d been able to sleep,
why Melba was so upset. “Because you look like you’re ninety years old,” her
comrade said.
Haydée described periods, during her time in prison and right after she

War | 89
Haydée and Celia Sánchez in the Sierra, 1958. photo courtesy casa de
las américas.

was released, when she felt almost catatonic. She would stare into space,
her mind blank. Or once out of prison, she would gaze at something in the
natural or material world and feel an intense sadness that Fidel and the oth-
ers who were still behind bars couldn’t see what she was seeing. Sometimes
she thought of her beloved dead, who could no longer see those things. She
suffered from a sort of mindlessness. And she had to will herself back to her
former energy level.
Were these states simply the logical residue of what Haydée experienced
at Moncada, her wrenching losses and the supreme effort she was forced to
make in order not to let the pain she was in destroy her? Or did they also
have something to do with her singular integrity, even in seemingly playful

90 | Chapter 5
situations? Even in much less dramatic circumstances she was supremely
principled. I always had the sense she wouldn’t let a racist, sexist, or ho-
mophobic joke go unchallenged.
Before and after Moncada, being one of such a small group of women
among so many men also demanded a rigorous calm. How do we cope with
such wounds, such challenges? Where and how do the fault lines open up
between mind and body? Where does the psychological landscape end and
political expediency begin? Throughout Haydée’s life it seems clear that her
internal borderlands remained profoundly contested.
Haydée also occasionally spoke about her other experiences in prison.
She remembered an old woman serving a thirty-year sentence for having
killed a man who seduced her daughter:
She was a good person, and sympathized with us. In that prison the
women could have their children with them. And in that dirty, often vi-
olent, atmosphere, those children, who went from newborns to adoles-
cents, were subjected to all sorts of obscenities and immoral acts. This
only reinforced my conviction that we needed a revolution to put an end
to all that.10

When they were released from Guanajay, one of the first tasks Haydée and
Melba were assigned was locating the comrades who had been with them
since 25 and O but were now dispersed. Some had managed to escape the
bloody battle and had disappeared. Some had made it into the nearby moun-
tains; others had been able to leave the country:
We had to find out where each of them was, and as far as possible bring
them together in one place; I can’t remember if it was Mexico or Guate-
mala. And we had to locate those who for one reason or another hadn’t
been able to participate in the attack—because they lacked a weapon, or
had family problems, whatever the reason. Those comrades, especially,
felt traumatized, profoundly affected by all that had happened.
As it turned out, we didn’t even have to look for those comrades. They
came looking for us. Some even risked visiting us in prison, although we
told them not to. What I’m saying is that Melba and I didn’t have to try
to find them. They came to us on their own, because they couldn’t stand
the thought that they hadn’t been able to participate on July 26 and they

War | 91
Haydée and Celia Sánchez in the Sierra, 1958. photo courtesy casa de
las américas.

wanted to act. This is how what we later called the movement began to
take shape.11
Still incarcerated, Fidel produced a document he called Mensaje a Cuba que
sufre (Message to a Suffering Cuba). He wrote with lemon juice between the
lines of ordinary letters, carefully numbering pages and using code names to
indicate the beginnings and ends of sections. He exposed the way so many
valuable lives had been cruelly massacred at Moncada. He described a coun-
try that had just lost its most promising young men, but also one that suffered
terrible poverty, class oppression, and increasing political repression from
the dictatorship. Haydée and Melba took on the job of copying and collating

92 | Chapter 5
those smuggled pages, raising the money to have them printed, and distrib-
uting them throughout the country and abroad.
Soon came the even more important task of doing the same with La his-
toria me absolverá (History Will Absolve Me), a reconstructed version of Fi-
del’s defense at trial. This latter, much more than just a powerful courtroom
speech, was a full-fledged political program—and a very detailed one. For
the first time, the people of Cuba and the world learned that the rebels who
had gone to Moncada weren’t simply lashing out against a dictatorship; they
had a serious platform that contemplated almost every area of political, eco-
nomic, and social change. For Haydée, printing and distributing the import-
ant document became the reason for her existence until the men—Fidel and
his brother Raúl Castro, Ramiro Valdés, Jesús Montané, and others—were
released from prison in the general amnesty of 1955.
Nor was Haydée absent from the intense struggle to achieve that amnesty.
This was another activity that contributed to broadening and reinforc-
ing our organization. Every time there was one of those campaign rallies
the bourgeoisie calls a “political” act, we had a group of comrades there
shouting “Amnesty! Revolution! Amnesty! Revolution!” Shouting “Revo-
lution!” while our comrades were in prison was risky, because it could af-
fect how they were treated. But Fidel never sent word for us to stop, even
though he and the others suffered the consequences. Fidel liked it better
when we shouted “Revolution!” than when we shouted “Amnesty!”12
When Fidel was released from Isle of Pines, Haydée was at the prison gates
to meet him. On the ferry that took them back to the mainland, they talked
through the night. This was a moment of serious discussion.
We began exchanging ideas, and Fidel said it was time for us to decide
on a name for our organization. He listened to each person’s opinion,
and I’m almost sure he was the one who suggested we call it the July 26
Movement.
I wanted to call it Moncada. I was used to people calling us Monca-
distas, and I felt proud when the cops referred to us as “those damned
Moncadistas!” Melba and I were detained on several occasions after we got
out of prison, and each time they would say “those damned Moncadistas!”
[. . .] So I really thought that should be our name. Fidel’s argument was
that using the name Moncada was too narrow, too much about the group
of us who had attacked the Barracks. [. . .] We finally agreed on July 26

War | 93
 Movement. Before that we had just talked about the kids or the comrades:
the kids from Artemisa or the kids from Santos Suárez. . . .13

Speaking about being a woman in that world of men, Haydée had some in-
teresting things to say.
Throughout the entire revolutionary struggle I had very advanced ideas.
But I was very careful. I was careful of what people might say about me
as a woman, because I felt I had to protect Abel, Boris, the movement in
general. Today a different way of dressing and acting is considered nor-
mal, even how things should be. But back then that appearance and those
attitudes were completely off limits for me. I was never just Haydée. I
was Abel’s sister, Boris’ girlfriend, someone linked to Fidel. Any pretext
for showing me in a bad light would have reflected on the movement as
a whole.
For example, we often met in those cheap hotels where couples go to
make love; they were called posadas back then and I think they’re still
called posadas. I was careful about being seen there, because I knew what
the police would say. How would they portray me? How would that reflect
on Cuban women in general?
On the other hand, when I had to go to the United States, I had to
frequent the worst sort of places. [. . .] I had to meet with the Mafia,
wherever they told me to go, and for the first time in my life I was forced
to escape from one of those meetings with a pistol in my hand. Here in
Cuba I never had to carry a pistol for self-defense. I’m telling you, when
I’d leave those meetings in the US, even if I took three or four showers I
felt dirty. I don’t want to give the false impression that any of those gang-
sters took advantage of me; they weren’t interested in a kid who barely
weighed 90 pounds. But I was always afraid they might try to kidnap me
in order to get money from Fidel.
Those gangsters robbed us of millions of pesos, millions of pesos in-
tended for Cuba. We didn’t even receive the weaponry we paid for, or
the planes. We ended up with little enough, and most of what came from
outside the country didn’t even come from the US. The ammunition we
got we were able to smuggle out due to the courage of Cuban women,
who traveled with it sewn into their skirts. In those days circle skirts
were popular, those skirts that looked like big plates, and we tried to

94 | Chapter 5
 make them as broad as possible with individual little hidden pockets so
the bullets wouldn’t clang against each other. And our women comrades
couldn’t even travel that often, because if they did they would have been
discovered.14
Although Haydée spoke often about her abilities, she was also forthcoming
in admitting her fears.
I was always afraid of leaving Cuba. So much so, that I refused to leave. I
always felt the need to be here, in my country, whatever the circumstance.
[In contrast with Celia Sánchez, who had wanted to go to Mexico and
return on the Granma—and her sister in arms had supported her in that
desire—Haydée left Cuba only reluctantly.]
Fidel knew how I felt. But there came a time when my refusal made
it difficult for the two of us to talk. I sensed that, and so I accepted. The
truth is, I wouldn’t have accepted it from anyone but him. He told me he
had to ask something very difficult, and that he’d chosen me because I
knew the conditions they were facing in the Sierra at that time. I told him:
“All right, Fidel, if there’s no other way.” He said: “Well, I really need you
to go, I have confidence in you. . . .”
And so I went to Miami. The only thing I asked was that he let me
decide how to make the trip. I told him not to worry, no one was going to
capture me. I wasn’t going to take refuge in an embassy or seek asylum.
I thought that would have made it even more difficult for me to return.
Details, because when you’re going to fulfill a mission, what’s the differ-
ence? I went to Camagüey, then Santiago, I talked to Daniel—who was in
charge of Action by then—and I traveled with Marcia, Léster Rodríguez’s
wife. She was a very young woman but with nerves of steel. We’d already
gone on a few missions together.
I got to the airport first. She followed. The plan was: if something
happened to me, she wouldn’t get on the plane. If everything went okay,
she’d board after I did and we’d continue on together. When I got to the
airport and handed over my passport—one with another name and an-
other photograph—the kid who took it looked at me, looked at the name
and the photo, looked at me again, and said: “Stay right here.”
I managed to get close to Marcia and I said: “Look, I think they’re on to
me. Go to the end of the line, so if something happens you can get away.”
I was wondering if I should stay there or not. But after the line moved

War | 95
 some, that young man returned. “Come this way,” he said. I started pro-
testing: “Hey, people are already getting on the plane. . . .” And he said:
“Yes, but there wasn’t any room, and I’ve found you a seat.” He grabbed
me, and took me through a back way. He took me right to the plane,
avoiding all the other immigration checks. Marcia, who saw what was
happening but couldn’t hear, ran behind us yelling at that guy: “Hey, they
just told me I couldn’t board, and now I see you’re boarding this woman
who was behind me in line!” She pretended to be upset: “So there are no
seats left, huh?” But the kid told her: “Okay, you come too, come on!” She
was still pretending to be mad.
When I was about to go up the steps to the door of the plane, he took
my hand. He seemed a bit flustered. Then he said: “Good luck!” Fifteen
years later, not long ago in fact, I ran into that man in Camagüey. He
greeted me, and said: “Haydée Santamaría, you don’t remember me do
you?” I stared at him, because I forget names but rarely forget a face:
“You remind of me someone, long ago. Are you from my village? Are you
from Encrucijada? You remind me of someone in my childhood. . . .” “I’m
the guy who shook your hand when you took that plane to Miami. Do
you think you had me fooled?” “No,” I said, “we said good-bye to each
other and everything!” Then he told me that at that airport the employ-
ees would take passengers to the front of the line in order to make some
money off them, and he had used the pretext that he was going to do that
with me, because it was a much safer way of getting out; you didn’t have
to go through all the checkpoints.15

The woman who never wanted to have to carry out a mission outside Cuba,
because she feared not being able to get back to her beloved homeland, found
herself in the United States on the night of December 31, 1958, when Batista
fled the country and the revolution triumphed. It was her birthday or at least
the day on which she had always chosen to celebrate it. She knew victory
was imminent but had many reasons for feeling nostalgic, among them the
absence of those closest to her and her own physical distance from home in
those final nerve-wracking moments.
The thirty-first is my birthday and it’s also New Year’s Eve. I was at Yuyo de
Valle’s house [in Miami]. Logically, I was very sad, but I don’t like showing
sadness in front of people. [. . .] There were a number of Cubans there

96 | Chapter 5
Haydée, Celia Sánchez, and Fidel in the Sierra, 1958. photo courtesy casa de
las américas.
 that night, those who were closest to us and wanted to ring in the New
Year together. My presence there was like a little bit of the Sierra, a little
bit of Fidel, a little bit of Moncada, of Cuba. . . . I knew I represented all
that for them [. . .] and so I tried not to appear sad because there were a
lot of kids there too. [. . .]
I knew I wasn’t going to be strong enough to put on a credible act. I was
thinking of Cuba, of those who were there and those who were no longer
there. [. . .] I knew they were planning on singing our national anthem—
naturally it wasn’t going to be the classic New Year’s Eve party. We were a
group of Cubans awaiting our freedom. And it was too much for me. But
I didn’t want to inflict my anguish on the others. So I said I was expecting
a call at a quarter to twelve. [. . .]
Yuyo knew I received certain calls, because there was a lot of commu-
nication by then. We had telephone connections with certain countries,
among them Venezuela. I would get encoded messages from the Sierra
via Venezuela. [. . .] I said I was expecting an important call from Cuba,
so at quarter to twelve I’d have to be alone in my room. [. . .] “So you go
on and celebrate.” [. . .] I remember I even said: “If you’re religious, pray.
If you believe in the babalawo,16 ask for his blessing.” And I didn’t leave
my room at twelve or twelve-thirty or even one. Everyone knew not to
disturb me. That was the only time I lied so I wouldn’t have to celebrate
with the others.
At 2 a.m. the phone rang (I heard the news before many Cubans did!).
And the person on the other end of the line said he was the Cuban consul
(the consul representing Batista’s government). I don’t know how they got
my telephone number. [. . .] He said: “Are you so and so?” “Yes, hello?”
“Do you know if something has happened in Cuba?” “Of course I know,” I
responded. “What should I do,” he asked, “what should I do?” “Stay calm,”
I said, “and wait for instructions.”
The truth is I had no idea what had happened. So I called Llanusa. I
told him about that call, and I called Oscarito as well. [. . .] I said: “Let’s
go over there, something’s happened. The consul asked what he should
do, and he also told me he’s been in that job for forty years and he’s not a
politician. I didn’t even ask him his name.17
Haydée wanted to go to the Cuban consulate, but her two Cuban comrades,
Oscarito and Llanusa, persuaded her to stay put. They’d go, they said, and call
her as soon as they knew something. It was Miró Cardona, who was also in

98 | Chapter 5
Miami at the time, who finally called her to say there was a rumor that “the
Man” had fled Cuba.
Haydée’s creative mind was now in overdrive. She immediately thought
of the commercial Cuban planes parked at Miami International Airport. She
knew all too well that the United States would waste no time in trying to
put obstacles in the way of the revolutionary government, confiscate what
it could, initiate all sorts of propaganda campaigns and destabilization pro-
grams. She sent comrades to the airport to occupy those planes and get them
back to the island.
It also occurred to her that Fidel might need some magistrates to formal-
ize the establishment of the new government. A number of Cuban lawyers,
members of the Supreme Court, and other judicial officials were also in Mi-
ami. She got them all together and told them Fidel needed them. They should
fly to Havana immediately. One of those Cuban planes would take them. She
wanted to tell them to go to the Sierra but knew that would frighten them.
So she got hold of a Cuban pilot, a member of the movement, and told him
to fly that group of aging men to Santiago de Cuba. “Tell them you’re taking
them to Havana,” she said, “or else they’ll die of fright.”

A book twice this size would not be big enough to describe all the differ-
ent decisions and actions in which Haydée participated—often assuming a
leadership role—between her release from Guanajay in 1954 and the revo-
lution’s victory in the final days of 1958. She wasn’t the only woman. Celia
Sánchez, Vilma Espín, Melba Hernández, Asela de los Santos, Elsa Castro,
Lidia Doce, Clodomira Acosta, Zoila Ibarra, María Antonia Figueroa, Aida
and Ada Santamaría, Rebeca Chávez, Isabel Rielo, Teté Puebla, Mirta Rodrí-
guez Calderón, Marcia Leseica, and Marta Rojas make up a very short list.
Hundreds of others were central to the war effort in the cities or did support
work. Thousands protected the revolutionaries in one way or another. Celia
Sánchez was one of the principal organizers of the July 26 Movement in east-
ern Cuba, the first woman to join the rebel army as a combatant, a member
of its general staff, and Fidel’s closest confidant and aide. Celia had a legion
of women as well as men working in the resistance.
In terms of gender, Cuba was no different from most of Latin America at
mid-twentieth century. In the 1950s it was one of the more economically de-
veloped countries on the continent, yet by 1953 only 13.5 percent of its adult
female population labored outside the home. Many of those women didn’t

War | 99
even earn a salary; 70,000, many of them black, were domestic servants.
Women were discriminated against in higher education, the workforce, and
professional life. Poor women and women of color were doubly or triply
oppressed. Almost no women held political positions, and the few who did
were meant to be more decorative than influential.
The Cuban Revolution took women’s equality seriously, insofar as its ide-
ology at the time permitted. Emphasis was placed on enabling women and
girls to study, and they soon filled classrooms at all levels and took predom-
inance in a number of fields previously dominated by men. Equal pay for
equal work provided new job opportunities, although for several decades
the revolutionary government had a list of jobs women were not allowed to
perform, in line with the idea (prevalent back then) that they would prove
injurious to female reproduction. Abortion was legal and free, as was all
health care.
The 1961 literacy campaign, special programs to provide sex workers with
new skills and retrain domestic servants, day care centers, workplace dining
rooms, and a great body of new law aimed at bettering women’s lives all
improved the situation for women—and for society overall. There was even
a certain amount of mass education around the “second shift” and the need
for men to do more at home as women entered the workforce in greater
numbers.
The 1974 Family Code famously stipulated that husbands shoulder 50 per-
cent of housework and child care. When my son and his partner married
in 1983, the judge who officiated read that part of the Family Code into the
ceremony. (I remember how thrilled I was to hear her words and then how
startled by the joke she made moments later when she pronounced them
man and wife: “You can take your merchandise now,” she told my son and
laughed.) By 1981, 44.5 percent of Cuban women were incorporated into the
salaried labor force, and by 2008 the figure was 59 percent.
The Cuban Communist Party’s early rejection of feminism and its conse-
quent failure to encourage a gender analysis of society that would enable it
to look at its power structure in greater depth unfortunately slowed the pro-
gress of women’s emancipation. Great strides had been made in education,
health care, and labor, but the issue of the complex power differential was
relegated or purposefully kept at bay. Later, during the 1991–1995 Special
Period caused by the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a precarious economy
also sent many working women back into the home.
In 1993, a small group that called itself Magín broke with traditional con-

100 | Chapter 5
straints and produced a gender analysis that revealed some startling gaps in
the revolution’s progress in this area. Most of the Magín women were jour-
nalists. They were troubled by the sexist images of women that still predom-
inated in the Cuban media. Magín did important work, but the Federation
of Cuban Women (fmc) never accepted its validity and opposed the group
until it could no longer function. Some members remained in the country;
others emigrated.18
All these equations have since shifted, most for the better. There is much
more openness and acceptance of a broad range of viewpoints. Raúl Castro’s
daughter Mariela runs cenisex, a sex education and outreach institute that
advocates equality for Cuba’s lgbtq community. As she has created import-
ant spaces for everyone in the gay community, she has been a strong voice
for implementing more inclusive law. Some gay Cubans feel that these initia-
tives still come too much from above and are trying to promote more organic
change. The country has not yet managed to legalize marriage equality, but
many old barriers are crumbling. There is no doubt in my mind that Haydée,
had she lived, would have supported all these efforts.
While she was alive, during the war that succeeded in bringing to power
the first enduring twentieth-century revolution in the Americas and through-
out the hard years that followed, she almost automatically assumed posi-
tions, with regard to gender and every other issue, that were advanced for her
time. During the war and against entrenched discrimination (more endemic
to Cuban society in general than to Fidel and most members of his high
command), Cuban women demanded their place in struggle. They sewed
uniforms, collected funds, distributed propaganda, nursed the wounded, ran
messages, attended to safe houses, served as drivers, gave orders, and trav-
eled outside the country to keep contact with supporters and collaborators.
They were active in the underground and in the Sierra. Many were armed,
but others were not (making them even more vulnerable). A few were in the
movement leadership.
Women in the Sierra, especially, felt they deserved to be allowed to fight.
In the last months of the war, a group headed by Isabel Rielo demanded
the opportunity to establish a women’s platoon. Fidel was enthusiastic about
the idea, always believing women fought as well if not better than men.
But he had to confront the doubts (misogyny) of several military officers
who didn’t think it was a good idea to allow women onto the battlefield.
He established a women’s fighting force in September 1958, calling it the
Mariana Grajales Platoon and placing one of its most vociferous detractors,

War | 101
Eddy Suñol, in charge.19 After only a few military encounters, in which the
women acquitted themselves bravely and with consummate skill, Suñol was
thoroughly convinced.
Following victory, the Mariana Grajales women gave themselves to the
hard work of building schools in the mountainous region of eastern Cuba.
A number of women were named to important postwar positions, most of
them political in nature. Women believed the revolution was making their
lives better and organized massively to participate in a variety of ways. More
women were educated. More women worked outside the home. Women had
better health care (including attention to reproductive health) and much
better conditions for raising children. For several decades this progress
seemed satisfying, even extraordinary. In time, in the context of both life
on the island and global change, Cuban women saw that they needed more.
Their struggle continues, aided by many of the tools they acquired through
their revolutionary experience.
Haydée, as I say, was always at the forefront of change. I believe that were
she alive, she would identify many of the remaining challenges and be fully
involved in what comes next.
It is worth pointing out that, during every phase of struggle—the prepa-
ration leading up to the attack on Moncada Barracks, the exile and return
of movement leadership, the careful construction of an underground move-
ment, the difficult unification of several progressive organizations, the war
in the Sierra and final military campaigns that swept the length of the coun-
try and forced Batista out—Haydée was the single female constant. She was
the thread that linked one moment to the next, the presence that provided
continuity. No other woman had been present in every one of those periods,
in every arena. Celia Sánchez was the other woman who was always there,
but she entered the struggle after Moncada. Moncada, in fact, was what
brought Fidel and his movement to her attention.

Although Armando Hart abandoned his marriage when Haydée was abroad
and without so much as a conversation, an act many have called cowardly
and some believe influenced her decision to take her life, their history—
intimately combining revolutionary struggle, romance, and joint parenthood
for so many years—cannot be denied. Together they raised two children
of their own and others adopted from throughout Latin America. They
shared memories only they could know. And after victory they worked in

102 | Chapter 5
Armando Hart and Haydée. Wedding photo, 1956. photo by celestino pérez,
courtesy casa de las américas.

the important fields of education and culture, fields where they both con-
tributed brilliantly.
I requested an interview with Armando Hart but was told he is too ill to
converse. He sent word that if I sent him a few questions, he would be happy
to respond. I formulated a brief questionnaire. What I received in return
were not specific answers to my questions but possibly something more mov-
ing: a few paragraphs about their life together and a copy of a letter she sent
him from Miami in October 1958, during the last months of the war. I have
come across almost identical versions of his text in several published books
but reproduce it here because I feel it opens a window on their relationship,
both political and personal, during the years they spent together:
During the second half of 1955, Haydée and I became close, and our rela-
tionship gained such depth that it is very difficult for me to describe the
exquisite and marvelous woman I knew. My personal memories of that
time, and of course of subsequent years, are permeated by that relation-
ship. It would take an immense talent to be able to put into words the
images I carry with me. Our lives were intertwined with, or formed an in-
tegral part of, the great revolutionary and historic task we both embraced.
I felt that nothing in me was apart from her. The intimate and historic

War | 103
 aspects of what I remember are so deeply linked that it is hard for me to
separate them. We were almost the same person, and worked together
without political or ideological differences. She was my other half, as I
was hers. This is a memory I will have with me always.
I have so many beautiful stories, that it would be hard to know which
ones to choose; I would need to be a poet to do them justice. But here is
one: When she came down from the mountains and was headed outside
the country on a mission Fidel had asked of her, I was imprisoned at Bo-
niato. When she passed through Santiago, she came to see me. It was the
same prison where she herself had spent several months not that many
years before. She was taking a serious chance of being arrested again.
Seeing her there frightened me. She was risking her own freedom in order
to give me some information regarding decisions taken in the Sierra fol-
lowing the April Strike. She also thought I might need consoling because
I had recently lost my brother Enrique.
She carried out her mission abroad magnificently, but that visit to the
prison, like other moments too numerous to enumerate, is permanently
engraved in my memory.
I also want to say something about her work after the victory of the
Revolution. Her innate love of justice led to her passion for these values:
Fidel, Cuba, Latin America, Fidel’s interpretation of Socialism, and cul-
ture. She had a very clear vision of the role culture plays in the quest for
justice. Now that culture has become a political priority, I often think
of Haydée and her immense dedication to Casa de las Américas. Even
without mentioning any of her other revolutionary merits, it alone would
assure her of a place of honor in our country’s history.20
And this is her letter:
Armando: I bought you this book seven months ago. I had hidden it be-
cause I wanted to surprise you, give it to you some morning as I woke you
with a kiss as always. That hasn’t been possible. Although it might seem
strange, I give it to you with even more love, and with two kisses, with in-
finite sentiment and delight, there on that island where Martí was impris-
oned and much later Fidel, and you, like them, are without sun, without
light, although the light of the Teacher and his student illuminate you.
Fidel was less alone than Martí. He had ideas, books, and the task that
Marti wasn’t able to bring to fruition. You have more than Fidel, because
you have the light both left us, and you have something else neither of

104 | Chapter 5
them had. You have your Yeyé. You have her and will always have her. You
will never have to go through the agony that befell our Martí, our Fidel,
that terrible pain, the loss of their Ismaelillos.21
You will always have me, and if one day we are able to have our own
Ismaelillo no one will be able to take him from us the way they took him
from Martí and so many years later Fidel.
If life gives us our Ismaelillo, when he is old enough we can give him
this book. We can give it to him with our heads held high, and tell him:
Son, we have you, we are alive, but we will never fail to do our duty, even
to save our own lives or yours: we were faithful to the Teacher, and to
Moncada which is to say Fidel.
Then perhaps we will have some time for ourselves, and even if we
don’t, if we are as close as we are today, as we have been up to now, I am
sure no one has had so many years of happiness. Your Yeyé22

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Haydée, 1964. photo courtesy casa de las américas.
6 WITNESSES

She had a hunger . . .

—Norma Ruiz

In my dream she appeared in a loose-fitting peasant shirt, bell sleeves cov-

ering her arms to the wrists, expressive hands moving every which way be-
neath them. The hair that so often pained her in life looked perfect to me:
free-flowing honey. Her expression was earnest yet kind. The fingers of one
hand grazed my shoulder as she told me she was glad I was finally writing
this book. Before us a grove of trees stood in a broad clearing, beams of
sun descending between new leaves. Two or three horses grazed close by,
raising their heads from time to time to look at us, their large brown eyes
compassionate.
I was younger by many years, and held the old Nikon confidently. “I
want to make some pictures,” I told her, “sit over there.” I indicated a spot
at the base of the largest tree, and she danced toward it, spread a piece
of richly embroidered cloth on the ground and settled herself. One of
the horses, a creamy mare, looked up, then made a soft throaty sound of
welcome.
I must have snapped the shutter a hundred times. She changed position
and when she did it was like a moving sculpture, filled with grace and power.
Then, very slowly, everything faded. When I awoke, I knew it was all right. I
had the approval of the only person who mattered.

In December 2013, Haydée would have been ninety years old. She’d been
gone more than three decades. Her father died in 1964, her mother in 1977.
She lost her brother Abel at Moncada, although his vision and heroism made
him one of those who live forever. She preceded her four siblings in death,
but they’re dead now as well. Her biological children, Abel Enrique and Celia
María, perished in an automobile accident in 2008. I’ve often thought it was
fortunate, within such a tragic paradigm, that she didn’t live to have to add
those losses to so many others.
New generations of grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and cousins once
and twice removed know about Haydée and the whole of their extraordinary
clan—not because they remember them; most were born decades later. They
didn’t grow up in the same houses, share meals at the same tables, take va-
cations together or go to one another in times of trouble. Their relationship
to family stories is more and more distant. But something of that rare spirit
lives in each.
As Aida’s grandson, Boris Javier Martín Santamaría, told me: “I knew my
family was special, but not because I heard that at home. It was at school
where I first learned something about my uncle and aunt’s lives. But I re-
member knowing about Moncada before I knew how to read.”1
Boris is a historian, which gives him an edge in terms of his interest in the
family: he is trained to think about it analytically, and he also experiences it
from the inside and is personally familiar with its dynamics. When I asked
him about the sort of conversations that take place when he and his cousins
get together, he said they often find themselves talking about the dead: “Not
in any macabre way, but simply because there are so many of them.”2

Niurka is Aida’s second child. Her older sister, Carín, was the little girl Hay-
dée thought so much about on the eve of going to Moncada. She died a few
years ago, after a debilitating illness. A brother is also gone. Niurka is the only
remaining member of the next generation in her mother’s line. She is a large
woman, whose expressive eyes are reminiscent of her aunt’s. Boris Javier
arranged our meeting, which took place at the home of Norberto Codina, a

108 | Chapter 6
Haydée with her son Abel Enrique, and daughter, Celia María, 1964.
photo courtesy casa de las américas.

friend from the 1970s. Norberto, his wife, Gisela, and daughter Jimena made
us comfortable in their ample living room, then retired to other rooms in the
apartment. Niurka settled herself, the familiar blue plastic asthma inhaler at
the ready. I turned on my little digital voice recorder.
Niurka began with her teenage memories of Haydée. She was always close
to her aunt, and they spent many hours together. She described Haydée’s
impetuous nature, how she would arrive at a family gathering or just show

Witnesses | 109
Niurka Martín Santamaría. photo by margaret randall.

up at your house with energetic ideas about what a fun evening might be.
If you were cooking black beans, Niurka told me, Haydée would say “No,
why don’t we make red!” If you’d arranged your living room furniture in a
particular way, she would begin shifting it around, sure you’d agree it looked
better the way she had in mind. And she could change plans on the spur of
the moment, with such infectious enthusiasm that it was more exciting than
frustrating.
Niurka said:
Once I was feeling down: romantic problems or something. I called my
aunt, and she said: “Stay where you are. I’ll be right over, and I’m going to
take you out.” She came by and took me to the funeral parlor at Calzada
and K! A filmmaker at icaic named Saúl Yellín had died, and my aunt
had to attend the wake. The place was filled with artists and intellectu-
als. Imagine, I was a young girl and I was fascinated. I listened for hours
to their conversations, my depression forgotten. When we left, my aunt
looked at me and said: “I must be crazy! I wanted to cheer you up and I’ve
had you all day long at a funeral!” But the thing is, she really had cheered
me up.
She read a lot, and she was always inventing stories. From the time she

110 | Chapter 6
 was a girl herself. And she was so ahead of her time. All the women in the
family were like that: Haydée, my own mother, and Adita. That strength
and verve come through the Cuadrados, because the Santamarías were
good people but much quieter, more staid.
Niurka told me she was twenty-two or twenty-three when her aunt commit-
ted suicide. And she was especially close to her at that point in her life. She
had been married, divorced, and recently remarried. Haydée always had a
hard time with divorce: “She reproached both my mother and Ada when
their marriages fell apart. And me as well,” Niurka said. But she was there
for her niece. For both her weddings, she was the one who stitched the dress,
made all the arrangements, threw the party. “She fixed up an apartment for
my new husband and me, right next door to her home. She made it comfort-
able. And we spent a lot of time together.”
These memories brought us to the months and days leading up to her
suicide.
I had been on an internationalist mission to Nicaragua. I was teaching
in the mountains there—I remember my aunt told me: “This is your
Moncada, you must go and do your best!” But when I returned, she had
changed. I could see that she was very agitated. I remember I sat my
mother and my aunt Ada down and told them: “You haven’t noticed, be-
cause you are with her everyday. But I can see how much she’s deterio-
rated. You’ve got to do something. . . .”
So many, in hindsight, wished they had been able to do something: the
haunting residual when someone you love takes her life. Niurka also had an
additional story. She said that she and her new husband often spent evenings
at Haydée’s, playing parlor games. Once, not long before her death, they
were playing a game called Guess What’s in the Box. Haydée’s box contained
a pistol. Everyone was shocked, because they knew that her security detail
had discreetly disarmed the pistol she usually carried; clearly by then they
were afraid of how she might use it. And now she had a new one. She said it
had been given to her by a friend. Was she announcing something? Asking
for help? Daring or challenging the other players? Or simply dropping a clue
to the inevitable?
By this time Celia Sánchez had died of cancer. Armando had left her. She
had struggled with a difficult recovery from the automobile accident that
had her in a great deal of physical pain. I asked Niurka if she thought that

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accident had really been accidental—some I spoke with believed it might
have been a previous suicide attempt—but she was sure it had not been
intentional.
She was coming home from a Central Committee meeting. It was late at
night and she always drove herself, a car with an automatic shift. They
had been doing some roadwork at one of the rotundas de La Playa (Playa
traffic circles), and she hit a pile of rubble. It was a terrible accident. They
had trouble getting her out of the car: one leg was hanging limp, her ster-
num was broken, her jaw was mangled, her face badly damaged. Ramiro
Valdés was coming along behind her and recognized her car. He was the
one who called Fidel.
In answer to my questions about the possible depressive effect of painkillers
or discouragement in the face of this new problem on top of so many others,
Niurka was adamant:
No, she faced rehabilitation like she faced everything else. I remember
how painful it was for her to chew, they had to liquefy everything for her,
but she told them to cook each food separately and then puree it because
she wanted to savor the tastes. After the accident she made an official
trip to Nicaragua. And like I said, I was there. She sent for me and I ac-
companied her everywhere on that visit. She was her old self, energetic,
animated.
Soon after Niurka returned from Nicaragua, her husband was transferred to
Cienfuegos. She wasn’t enthusiastic about leaving her whole family so soon
again, but her aunt counseled her to go. She remembers going to see her one
evening, looking for support around her desire to stay in Havana for a while.
And she remembers Haydée’s definitive argument: “Your place is with your
husband.” She went right home and packed her bags.
“This wasn’t that long before her death,” she said, her eyes beginning to fill.
In Cienfuegos my husband and I were living in a protocol house, because
our own place was still being painted. The phone rang and he answered.
His face went white. “We have to leave for Havana right away,” he said.
I remember our headlights were out and we drove the eight-lane in the
dark, very fast. We went right to the funeral home. And there were thou-
sands of people there. I found my mother and asked her what happened.
She told me: “Daughter, she was just so tired, so tired.”

112 | Chapter 6
 At first I didn’t want to see her. I wanted to remember her as she was
in life. But after a while, I don’t know, I decided to go into the small room
where the casket was. I wish I hadn’t. They had wrapped her head in a
red turban, one she used a lot. It covered her forehead. I wish I had never
seen her like that.
Niurka’s grief turned to rage as she spoke. She was sobbing now, and Boris—
who had come into the room moments earlier—handed her a handkerchief.
“I was angry at her for years,” she admitted.
And angry at the Revolution, at Fidel, at everyone who should have real-
ized what a state she was in, should have gotten her the help she needed.
At the end they couldn’t really see her, couldn’t take full measure of her
situation. And I was furious that they laid her out in that funeral home,
instead of in the Plaza de la revolución where she belonged. I was angry
at Armando; I’ll never forgive him! At the funeral home I wanted to throw
everyone out I felt didn’t belong there. I did tell some people to leave. For
years I was angry, angry. . . .

Norma Ruiz is Ada’s daughter. In many ways I think of her as my closest link
to Haydée. Not only because she has taken it upon herself to be the reposi-
tory of family papers and memorabilia, but also because she worked closely
with Celia María in the last two years before her death. They had plans to
make a film about Haydée. Celia’s greatest desire, according to Norma, was to
demystify her mother’s life, write something or create a film that would de-
pict her as she was—brilliant, energetic, joyful, but also with her depressions
and contradictions. Celia did write some exquisite tributes to her mother,
but her sudden death in 2008 left Norma with the task.
Another reason why talking with Norma gave me a sense of closeness to
the family as a whole and to Haydée in particular, was that she lived with
her aunt from the age of six until she turned fifteen. She was with her a
couple of hours before she killed herself. She could have been any one of the
many children Haydée and Armando took into their home. Norma’s mother,
Ada, divorced when Norma was a child and soon thereafter went on an in-
ternationalist mission. As naturally as Haydée did with all her children—
biological or adopted—she brought her youngest sister’s daughter to live
at “the house in Flores.”3 And Norma looks like her mother, Ada, whom I

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Norma Ruiz. photo by margaret randall.

remember from that long-ago visit to Santiago de Cuba; she has the same
ruddy complexion, piercing eyes, and playful expression around her mouth.
There were times when there were fourteen of us sitting around the din-
ner table: Abel Enrique and Celia María, of course, and then children
from Venezuela and Uruguay whose parents were involved in liberation
struggles in those countries. There might have been a child from Santiago
de Cuba who’d come to Havana to study: anyone who needed a home. We
all called her Mama. And she taught us to eat, walk, attended to us when
we were sick, answered all our questions. . . . I always felt like she had
a special relationship with me, though, because I was her baby sister’s

114 | Chapter 6
Haydée presiding at olas Conference, Havana, 1967. With Rodney Arismendi,
among others. photo courtesy casa de las américas.

daughter, and she had been like a mother to my own mother. Then, too,
I had eye problems, I had to have an operation, so maybe she coddled me
a bit because of that.
Norma and I talked at Casa de las Américas. We found an empty room, and
I recorded our conversation. We also talked on other occasions and went to-
gether to Encrucijada. So what she gave me in the way of memories, analysis,
and the answers to my many questions wasn’t limited to this single inter-
view. Norma is forty-nine, married, divorced, and remarried, with a son and
daughter. She is of the generation born shortly after the revolution came to
power—and born into a family like no other.
Mama taught me what it meant to be Cuban. She taught me solidarity,
what constitutes a good person. And about family. Family was so import-
ant to her! She read voraciously, anything from Readers’ Digest (yes, it’s
true!) to Marx. She read Martí’s complete works. And no one told her to;
she discovered him on her own. My mother, Ada, always said she thought
her sister had an extra cavity in her brain: she was so smart. It might have
been her limited formal education that made her so voracious to learn.
She had a hunger.

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I wanted to know how Norma thought Haydée had time to do all that she
did: running an institution like Casa de las Américas, keeping up literally
hundreds of relationships with artists and writers all over the world, her
party obligations, the duties of motherhood. Everyone I’ve spoken with has
told me the same thing: that she was an extraordinary mother. Norma didn’t
have to think before answering.
She did everything very fast. She did more in a few minutes than others
do in an hour or a day. And she honored special times, like meals. When
we were little she always told us to eat everything on our plates, because
children in Latin America and Africa were hungry. I remember once Abel
Enrique asked if he couldn’t just take all his food and put it in a bag and
send it to those hungry children. . . .
I wanted to know if Hart was also at the table for all those meals. Norma’s
response was immediate.
Yes. She made sure he was. And he was an excellent father, an excellent
uncle, although some may say differently. And he was a true visionary.
Of course I was mad at him for years, because of how he left her. He did
it in the wrong way. And marriage was so important to her . . . that loy-
alty. But Celia María was the one who made me see that every page has
two sides.
His leaving her might have been a trigger, a detonator. My aunt was
such a passionate woman. She was anti- church, anti-everything of the
old order, but she was old-fashioned about divorce. But there was also a
lot going on, so many things. There was that automobile accident. She
suffered so many different injuries. And she had such a painful period of
recuperation. I remember she was also frustrated, terribly frustrated. She
had a hard time sewing those tiny stitches of hers. And a hard time writ-
ing. And you know how many letters she wrote, to everyone.
Then, at the time we were all adolescents. That can be a complicated
time in any household. And there was Celia Sánchez’s death. Of course
before that there had been Abel’s death, and Boris’s, at Moncada. Boris
was the great love of her life. She once said: “To live is such a good thing,
one’s partner should be able to share its beauty. And it’s difficult to find
that kind of love, very difficult when you are involved in struggle. I did
find it, and nothing came between us. But the enemy destroyed it.”4
And then there was Che. But Haydée and Celia had a very special re-

116 | Chapter 6
 lationship. Celia was the only one who could handle her when things got
rough, when she got agitated. She would call and tell her: “Yeyé, look
here. . . .”
I was with her that last afternoon, maybe two hours before she killed
herself. And I remember she was very upset because she was trying to
thread a needle and couldn’t. Celia María had gone with her boyfriend to
Armando’s house. And she told me: “Come on, I’ll take you to see your
grandparents,” my grandparents on my father’s side. She always made
sure we kept up our relationships with all the relatives. You know, the
Santamarías have a saying: Conmigo o sinmigo [with me or against me].
But I remember she was preparing the clothes she was going to take to
the beach the next morning, because we were supposed to leave for our
yearly vacation at Varadero. I just don’t think she had planned on killing
herself. No.
Everyone felt guilty, for years. Celia María because she wasn’t there.
I because I wasn’t there. My mother because she hadn’t visited her that
Sunday. Everyone. And then we didn’t know how to deal with suicide back
then. So the way her death was handled was also hard, very hard. All the
Santamarías suffered. You know, the three sisters were so close. And each
had her role to play. Aida was the one who put order into everything. She
had to be at all the births; you couldn’t give birth until she got there. She
died of sadness, that’s the truth. And my mother, Ada, she committed
suicide like Haydée. It wasn’t that obvious, but she was diagnosed with
cancer and refused to get treatment until she knew it was too late. She
said she was “going to see Yeyé, Abel, Boris.”
And then, after Haydée died, we didn’t see the children for a while. You
know they sent Celia María to Germany, where she studied astrophysics.
Celia María began thinking about nothing but vindicating her mother.
Vindication isn’t really the word, because Haydée has always been revered
in spite of everything. What she wanted was to demystify her mother’s
life. For people to know her as she really was: passionate, joyous, loving
to play tricks on people and make them laugh. She always found ways to
give funny presents, even in the times of greatest scarcity. She loved serv-
ing you a rubber egg that looked just like a real hard-boiled one, and then
watching you bite into it and exploding in laughter.
I asked Norma if she remembered the time Haydée showed up at a Central
Committee meeting dressed as a man. She confirmed the truth of the story.

Witnesses | 117
And she said it wasn’t just once. Guayaberas were considered formal dress for
men in Cuba, and Haydée always wondered why women couldn’t wear them
too; they were so comfortable. She never missed an opportunity to make a
point about justice.
We talked about singer-songwriters Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés, and
Noël Nicola. I knew Haydée had made a space for them when they were
starting out and protected them from the narrow-minded hacks who couldn’t
see how truly groundbreaking and poetic their lyrics were. Norma described
a moment she witnessed at her own mother’s house. Her aunt asked Sil-
vio what he wanted for lunch and he said an omelet stuffed with plantains.
She made him the biggest, most delicious, omelet he’d ever had. When he
finished eating he sat down and wrote “Canción del elejido” (Song of the
Chosen One), his hymn to Abel. Nora said that she and her cousins referred
to it as the omelet song.
They often used to gather at Ada’s house because she was the one who
attracted cultura pegada al piso (a relaxed party atmosphere, in the home of
someone who was not so high in the revolutionary structure). “But,” she told
me, “all three sisters took care of Silvio, Pablito, and Noël. Aida mended their
clothes. Ada cut their hair. And Haydée shielded them from the repressive
forces of the day, so they were free to write their wonderful songs.”

Rebeca Chávez is someone I’d wanted to meet since attending the Cultural
Congress of Havana at the beginning of 1968. Che’s guerrilla force had been
defeated in Bolivia less than three months before, and the iconic leader him-
self summarily executed. More than a thousand intellectuals, writers, artists,
philosophers, community organizers, scientists, religious and political per-
sonalities, indigenous leaders, musicians—in short, a broad range of creative
minds from sixty-six countries on four continents—met in Havana to share
our diverse visions of struggle. We knew that Cuba had planned the event as
a way of rallying support for Che’s efforts in Bolivia; now, unexpectedly, it
became a dramatic commentary on that effort. I remember strolling through
Del tercer mundo, the impressive exhibit at Pabillón Cuba. Chávez, a young
filmmaker at the time, had helped conceive the script.
Fast forward to April 2014. Several people had suggested I interview
Chávez about Haydée. They agreed I would hear opinions well out of the
mainstream or at least unlike those I was likely to hear from others. Rebeca

118 | Chapter 6
Haydée and Silvio Rodríguez, playing his guitar and singing, 1969. Also present are
Pablo Milanés, Noël Nicola, and Sergio Vitier, among others. photo by astudillo,
courtesy casa de las américas.

was punctual (not always a Cuban attribute). We borrowed an empty office,

made ourselves comfortable, and began to talk as if we had known one an-
other for a while. I felt an immediate identification: the same people and
books excited us, and we discovered we felt similarly repelled by certain
hypocrisies and other pretenses. Quickly, we fell into a sort of shorthand
communication. Rebeca is a small woman, vivacious, with intelligent eyes
and infectious energy. She dove right in:
I was born in Bayamo, but my family moved to Santiago de Cuba when I
was very young. I owe everything to that city: my values, everything. What
might have been a typical adolescent rebellion became a political one. It
happened that I lived on the same street as the País brothers, in fact just
a few houses away.5 I remember once catching sight of them out in the
middle of the street; the police had them there in their boxers. Other
neighbors were being routinely assassinated. The struggle was heating
up. Much to my parents’ consternation, at the age of twelve I became
involved. I was known in my family as Segobierna, that’s what they called
me: she who rules herself. At thirteen I spent some time in prison.

Witnesses | 119
 That’s how my participation in the July 26 Movement began, there in
Santiago. I knew about Luis Bravo’s house, and I knew the whole family
was involved. We called them las muchísimas because there were so many
of them. And I’d seen Vilma.6 I never actually saw Haydée, although I
heard that she spent a lot of time at that house. I heard the name María,
but only found out much later that María was Haydée.
And, well, I was always interested in photography and film, from the
time I was very young. I wanted to be a filmmaker. After the war, it turned
out that one of the first films made at icaic,7 Cuba 58, was taken from a
short story called “Los novios.” I was told that story was loosely based on
my own. It portrays a young girl who spends a whole day going around
the city with a revolutionary to provide him cover. Saúl Yellín came to
Santiago to research the film. Sergio Corrieri8 had the leading role. And
so I met some of those people. I told them I wanted to work in film,
but they said I needed to finish my education first, go to university if
possible.
I wanted to go to university, and I did. But I also wanted to work, to
have that experience, to be able to contribute money to my family, to be
independent. So I came to Havana, where film production was happen-
ing. I met Lisandro Otero9 and others. Here I got involved in all sorts of
projects, including a cultural magazine we started in 1967. That was im-
portant because around that time we were beginning to prepare for the
Cultural Congress of Havana that took place in January of the following
year. I ended up working on the script for the big exhibit called Del tercer
mundo (From the Third World) at the Pabellón Cuba. Maybe you remem-
ber. That script was based on texts by Che Guevara.
Around this time I met Haydée, and the same thing happened to me
that happened to you: she swept me off my feet. One of the first things I
noticed was how she looked at you, without taking her eyes from yours—
that gaze! Aida was really the sister I knew best, my great friend. Some
of us used to hang out at her office in the afternoons. She would give us
lunch and we’d talk about fixing the world (though of course we couldn’t
really fix it). Haydée would sometimes come around, and that’s when I
first began spending time with her.
You know, she radiated a kind of magnetism. I never heard her give
an academic talk. She just spoke from the heart, and it was magical. The
Cultural Congress highlighted so many different tendencies. And Alfredo

120 | Chapter 6
 Guevara, at icaic, and Haydée at Casa de las Américas: both of them pro-
moted that diversity. Alfredo always believed that culture was the highest
form of politics—not cheap political maneuvering, but profound political
thought. He imbued icaic with that view, and Haydée did the same at
Casa. The moment you came through the door, you breathed that respect
for art, that diversity, that beauty. It’s no coincidence that during the times
of most abysmal narrowness and repression, both icaic and Casa were
places where important creative spirits found a home, a space in which
to work freely.
I remember Haydée at Aida’s house. And Ada was there as well. People
called the three sisters las sancua, short for Santamaría Cuadrado. Hay-
dée was always fooling around, playing elaborate tricks on people. She
delighted in that. She dressed up a lot, wore disguises. There was the time
she cut a hole in the wall at Aida’s house, stuffed it with jewelry and pre-
tended she’d found a treasure. And I remember we were all eating once,
a meal she had prepared, and she casually mentioned we’d just eaten cat.
It was really rabbit, but she loved playing that sort of trick on people. She
would laugh until she cried.
I have a particular memory of accompanying Santiago Alvarez10 to
Casa. We were making La guerra de Nicaragua and wanted to interview
Haydée for the film. But she was more concerned about Santiago himself.
His wife had just been killed in a terrorist attack on an airplane, and she
was worried about how he was dealing with his loss. I found myself in the
middle of that.
Rebeca had many other stories about Haydée, always emphasizing the mag-
ical aura that surrounded her. She shared her memories of events at Casa,
especially those revolving around the yearly literary contests. One year she
had been a judge. She remembered Roque Dalton,11 Chico Buarque,12 María
Esther Gilio,13 Carlos María Gutiérrez,14 Ernesto Cardenal,15 and many oth-
ers: engaged in profound discussions and then partying with abandon. “I
remember Benedetti16 staging table tennis tournaments, and people dancing
the milonga,”17 she said. “Haydée’s energy was always contagious. Casa is full
of ghosts, beautiful ghosts.”
I remember coming to a meeting here, and casually sitting down on the
edge of a table. Some functionary came up to me—I forget his name—
and pointedly asked if there weren’t enough chairs. “No,” I told him,

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Raúl Castro pinning Armed Forces xxth anniversary medal on Haydée. photo
courtesy casa de las américas.

“there are plenty of chairs.” Of course I knew what he was getting at.
Then he launched into a little speech about a series of behaviors that
supposedly were unacceptable at the institution. The director had these
rules, he said. Women couldn’t come to work with their hair in curlers. I
said that seemed logical to me. Why would anyone want to wear curlers to
work? Then he said women couldn’t come to work in pants. “And why is
that?” I asked. “Well,” he said, “if they’re fat they don’t look good in pants.”
“Well, maybe fat women don’t look good in pants, but I do,” I said. In fact,
I doubted that Haydée had made any of those rules. It wasn’t her style.
Rebeca and I talked about Armando Hart and the shocking way he left Hay-
dée. “It was ugly,” she said, repeating the word two or three times. She talked
about having begun to work with Hart on a project of his. He was writing a
book about his own pathway to revolution and had called to get her advice.
But when she read a first draft and realized that Haydée figured in his narra-
tive only politically—he had made no mention of their personal relationship,

122 | Chapter 6
their children, the life they shared—she withdrew. “I couldn’t be part of
that,” she said. But when I asked how important she thought their estrange-
ment had been in terms of pushing her to the edge, she didn’t think it played
as great a role as others did:
I remember Marta Rojas and I talked about it at the time. She told me
Haydée was in a bad way for other reasons. Celia Sánchez’s death, for
instance, was a huge loss. Celia took emotional care of Haydée. She was
there for her in a way few others were able to be.
As was true of everyone who lived through that terrible moment in 1980, for
Rebeca, Haydée’s suicide was a shock.
And the way it was handled was unconscionable. Holding the wake at
a funeral home, as if she were just anyone! But I don’t think her suicide
was an act of madness. No. For me, it was an act of freedom. Haydée
always practiced liberty. She always sought genuine freedom, for herself
and for others. From the time she was a child. The provincial woman
from the sugar plantation, the woman without a formal education, who
founded and ran the most important cultural institution on the conti-
nent: she always sought freedom. For me, her suicide was her last great
act of freedom.
She was a complex person, and fortunately she wasn’t perfect. Fortu-
nately she wasn’t perfect.
Rebeca repeated the statement, then fell silent for a few moments, clearly
pondering the value in human imperfection. Then she spoke again.
She was passionate and, above all, just. Imagine, she could have had all
the power in the world, but she never wanted that. She and Alfredo were
different from the rest. I believe Fidel understood that Casa and icaic
were alternative spaces and always respected that about them. And they
functioned as such. In that sense they balanced whatever narrowness or
ignorance threatened to affect the revolution’s cultural development from
time to time. Think about it. He never suggested either Alfredo or Haydée
for the role of Minister of Culture, because he knew they represented
alternatives, important beachheads rather than hierarchy.
“No, Haydée wasn’t mad when she killed herself,” Rebeca insisted. “She may
momentarily have lost her center, but she wasn’t mad. She simply rejected

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Haydée on the Cuban tv program Comentarios económicos, channel 4, June 1960.
photo courtesy casa de las américas.

the painful state of depression that had accompanied her for so long. She
didn’t want to go on living, so she chose freedom. Haydée’s conduct was
always exemplary, and so very much of her own making. In a way I think it
was good for Che that he just disappeared. Camilo too. Like her, they were
unique beings, who didn’t fit the conventional mold.”
The sad thing is that the younger generation, Cuban kids in their teens
and twenties, don’t know her legacy. Her story hasn’t been told as it
should. And she wasn’t a painter or a writer, so she didn’t leave works that
could speak for her. Her art was her extraordinary conduct, her brilliance
and creativity, the way she developed Casa, the respect, the diversity, the
working collective. But we’re afraid, here, to talk about our great figures
in their human dimensions, the small details that make up their lives.
It’s true with all of them. What do we know, for example, about Celia’s
personal life? Those stories are off-limits.
Maybe it’s because I’m a filmmaker, but for me life moves from di-
lemma to dilemma, history moves from one conflict to another. If we

124 | Chapter 6
want to preserve and pass on the real history, we can’t be afraid of the
contradictions. Haydée was part of a deeply dysfunctional family. And she
was a genius at life, a great creative spirit. It’s no coincidence that Pablo
Milanés, Arturo Arango, and so many others of our generation named
their daughters Haydée.

Witnesses | 125
Casa de las Américas, Havana. photo by margaret randall.
7 CASA DE LAS AMÉRICAS

Always remember, the strongest weapon with which you can help your
people is your voice in song. . . . Create beauty from all that pain. . . .
How many times have I wanted to sing to life, to the struggle, to the pain,
to those who are no longer here? And when I opened my mouth, all that
came out was a moan.
—Haydée Santamaría to Isabel Parra

There is no place quite like it. Brushed by decades of moist sea air, it sits
at the bottom of G—also called Avenida de los Presidentes—its pale gray
facade familiar to artists and intellectuals throughout Cuba and the world.
Above the main entrance is a map of the Americas. A line of flagpoles adorns
the roof ridge, ready to fly the emblems of the continent’s diversity of nations.
But the physical properties of Casa are not what have made the institution
unique, a reference for such a broad range of cultural activities. It is what
happens within its walls: a yearly literary contest; several excellent maga-
zines that reintroduce forgotten pages while presenting and analyzing the
new; a publishing program with hundreds of books to its credit; a specialized
library; Rayuela, the welcoming little bookstore bearing the name of Julio
Cortázar’s1 greatest novel; galleries filled with paintings, posters, sculpture,
and photography; lecture and performance halls; departments of literary
criticism, the study of women in literature, and indigenous cultures; ground-
breaking exhibitions and festivals; and an almost daily series of events, all
free and open to the public, in which men and women of international artis-
tic stature and the Cuban people interact and feed one another.
The year begins in January, with the famous literary contest; winners in
each category have their book published under the prestigious Premio im-
print and receive US$3,000. The importance of the prize can be judged by
the fact that even well-known authors submit their manuscripts, eager to be
able to publish in Cuba and list the coveted award on their résumé.
In February, Casa hosts a yearly Colloquium on Women’s Studies and al-
ways has a booth at the Havana Book Fair. March brings the musicology prize
one year, alternating with a music composition prize in April of the next.
Live music from throughout the Americas can be heard in the building’s
concert venues.
May is Theater Month, with the attendance of theatrical groups from
many parts of the world. In July and August Verano va (Summer in Full
Swing) enlivens the premises. In November one week is devoted to the work
of a particular author. As of a few years ago, a young people’s gathering, Casa
tomada (Occupied Casa), takes place during the second semester but without
a fixed date. There have also been photography and print contests. Each year
unfolds in this way.
No less important is what goes on behind the scenes, where a master
designer may be producing an innovative poster to advertise a Casa event,
someone from the publicity department is interviewing one of the institu-
tions many prestigious visitors, or a specialist in a great poet’s work is com-
piling the definitive volume on the subject. Compelling art hangs on every
floor. The last time I was there, a rich exhibition of Latin American pho-
tography could be seen throughout the building, and Silvia Baraldini2 ad-
dressed a riveted audience one afternoon. One of Casa’s singular attractions,
permanently installed on the third floor, is an enormous Tree of Life, gifted
to the institution by the Mexican artist Alfonso Soteno Fernández. Original
art from throughout the Americas, contemporary as well as traditional, is
everywhere in the building.
All this was Haydée Santamaría’s creation and remains her legacy. In April
1959 she accepted the revolution’s challenge to found and run an institution
capable of breaking through the cultural blockade. As soon as the revolu-
tionary war ended, the United States began a relentless campaign of eco-
nomic, diplomatic, cultural, and military attacks—covert as well as overt.
More than half a century later, through a long succession of Democratic and

128 | Chapter 7
Haydée in her office at Casa de las Américas, 1966. photo courtesy casa de
las américas.

Republican administrations, policies have shifted slightly in one direction

or another, but the cruel barrage essentially remains in place. For simply
choosing a future of which the United States disapproves, Cuba is blockaded,
vilified, attacked, lied about, and isolated in more ways than the average US
citizen can imagine.
Fidel Castro believed that Haydée, a woman born and raised on a sugar
plantation in central Cuba, whose formal education went only as far as sixth
grade but whose life experience had given her an insatiable curiosity and
special sensibility, was the ideal person to head the effort. It was a stroke of
genius.
To those who didn’t know her, Haydée might have seemed a strange
choice. Cuba has always had a much larger number of prestigious artists
and intellectuals than a similar-sized population might have been expected
to produce. And as most of these men and women supported the revolution,
most stayed. There were luminaries of the worldwide stature of Alejo Car-
pentier,3 Fernándo Ortíz,4 Alicia Alonso,5 Nicolás Guillén,6 Mirta Aguire,7
and Wilfredo Lam.8 All supported the revolution but none of them was
tapped for the job.
Haydée wasn’t an artist or critic. But she loved art. She understood people
of all cultures. She approached them through their humanity as well as
through their work. She had long been a voracious reader, and now her read-

Casa de las Américas | 129

ing went in new directions. She was curious about absolutely everything.
She also loved people, especially those whose vision and talents led them
to create something meaningful. She rejected, as impoverished and spent,
the socialist realism that was being promoted in the Soviet Union. She un-
derstood that the arts are necessary for social change and that culture is the
highest form of politics.
All this would have been enough for her to have been able to create an
institution of exceptional richness in all genres. But she constantly pushed
the limits of time, place, fashion: the “isms” of the day. She surrounded her-
self with specialists, many of whom were artists themselves, capable of ask-
ing the right questions and eliciting multiple answers. Casa de las Américas
never limited itself to particular schools of art, styles of literature, tendencies
in theater or any other art form. It sought many different representations and
got them talking to each other.
Haydée, creatively quirky in her own right, appreciated artistic idiosyn-
crasy. Nothing escaped her inquisitive eye, and she played as passionately
as she engaged. At the same time, she was highly disciplined. One by one,
then in larger and larger numbers, she drew artists from the Americas and
around the world to Casa, where their art was respected and they had the
opportunity of experiencing firsthand this new nation in the making. Haydée
talked endlessly with them. And she listened. Nothing was extraneous to her
passion to connect.
In 1970 I was invited for the first time to be a judge in the poetry category
of the Casa de las Américas Prize. Each of several genres—poetry, novel,
short story, theater, and essay—had five judges, one Cuban and four from
abroad. Rigorous anonymity surrounded each submission back then.
We received 198 books of poetry. All the judges were taken to a hotel on
the Isle of Youth, given our manuscripts, and for a week did nothing but read
and meet periodically to share criteria. Haydée spent a few days with us. She
would appear at meals, interested in getting to know each of us individually
and inquisitive about our lives. We all knew who she was, of course, and
something about her extraordinary life. She was modest but forthcoming
when anyone asked a direct question. She deflected attention and shied away
from anything resembling a cult of personality. When she spoke about heroic
events it was always “we,” never “I.” A magical quality seemed to envelop her.
I remember her breaking into raucous song with the Brazilian poet
Thiago de Mello,9 in earnest conversation with the French-Mexican anthro-
pologist Laurette Séjourné,10 commiserating with Haitian René Depestre,11

130 | Chapter 7
Casa’s inauguration recital, July 4, 1959. Left to right: Armando Hart, Haydée, and
US musicians William Warfield (bass-baritone) and David Garvey (pianist). photo
courtesy casa de las américas.

and laughing with Roque Dalton from El Salvador. I also saw her in animated
conversation with members of the dining room staff or with a hotel maid. No
one was beneath her, no one unworthy of her complete attention. She would
devise elaborate tricks, unexpectedly targeting anyone and everyone. When
one of those tricks hit its mark, she screamed in delight.
In subsequent years, we met on a number of occasions. A prodigious
memory, sparked by genuine interest, prompted her to ask about my chil-
dren, inquire about my current writing project, ask for my analysis of some
event that had taken place in the country of my birth. She easily picked up
where we’d left off the last time we’d spoken. She wanted to understand
every culture, every historic coincidence or anomaly. She was Casa’s soul.
Haydée was so far ahead of her time that it became evident only long after
her death how much she’d risked in pursuing justice in every situation. I’ve
already talked about the role she played in protecting and promoting the
members of La nueva trova and other marginalized artists. When it came to
gender, race, or difference of any kind, her attitudes and actions were those

Casa de las Américas | 131

 Haydée participating
in painting a
mural, Casa de las
Américas. photo
courtesy casa de
las américas.

of someone born decades into the future. That conduct didn’t come from
reading a book or considering advances in the ways revolutionary move-
ments were beginning to look at issues of inequality. In fact, at the time most
such movements believed that dealing with class difference would eventually
mitigate all other differences. Haydée chose justice every time because that’s
who she was.
In 2011 I was invited back to judge another Casa literary contest, this
time in the more recent category of testimonial literature. One of the prize’s
organizers laughed and said they had decided to issue me an invitation every
forty-one years. By now, Haydée had been gone more than three decades, but
her legacy remained firmly in place. New contest categories had been added:
Brazilian literature, English literature of the Antilles, writing by Latinos

132 | Chapter 7
Gathering of musicians at Casa, 1972. Chilean singer-songwriter Víctor Jara, at
left, would be tortured to death a year later. Puerto Rican musician Aponte Ledeé
is at right. photo courtesy casa de las américas.

inside the United States, among others. Plans were in progress to establish
a department devoted to las culturas originarias—the native cultures of the
American continent. Now, instead of Haydée greeting the judges and telling
us our only concern should be for literary excellence, it was Roberto Fernán-
dez Retamar 12 who issued those instructions. Not having been in Cuba or
Casa for many years, when I walked through the main door Haydée’s pres-
ence shook me to my core.
Her presence was palpable in memory but also in the attention to detail,
democratic working relations, and horizontal leadership I felt in every part
of the institution. The old guard, mostly retired now, comes in a day or two
a week to lend experience and continuity. Each department is headed by a
young person—lots of women, lesbians and gay men, people of color and
from many different cultures, all experts in their fields—who work together
to carry on a tradition of excellence. All major events draw on the coopera-
tion of specialists from every area.
Many of the older people worked closely with Haydée; her spirit lives
in them. The youngest have seen her only in pictures or read about her at

Casa de las Américas | 133

school, but they have a consciousness of what she meant to the institution,
the revolution, and beyond.

Haydée’s correspondence with hundreds of the world’s most cherished art-

ists and writers was passionate and intimate, timely and aware. Those letters,
many of them handwritten in her round, almost childish hand, are archived
at Casa. They provide a map not only of her numerous friends and colleagues
but also of her rapidly evolving sophistication. The earliest letters contained
common errors of spelling and punctuation. Quickly, these disappeared.
Someone with whom I spoke remembered how Haydée loved using new
words. When she discovered one, she would use it again and again. An ex-
ample was syntax. But her daughter, Celia María, said she used that word
with dismay, claiming she lacked proper syntax when she spoke or wrote.
Celia María assured her that her syntax was marvelous, that she wrote as she
spoke, with an energy and magic that were uniquely her own.
In 2009, in tribute to its fiftieth anniversary, the institution published
Destino: Haydée Santamaría, edited by Silvia Gil, Ana Cecilia Ruiz Lim, and
Chiki Salsamendi.13 This is a compendium of letters from artists and writers
throughout the world to Casa’s extraordinary founder over a span of two de-
cades. Nobel Prize winners and incipient poets are represented, the famous
and the unknown. They express delight at having met her and gratitude for
her generosity of spirit. They equate Casa with the Cuban Revolution and
speak of how the former gave them access to the latter. They talk to her
easily, about their children, their creative plans, their problems. They tell
stories. There are telegrams, notes, and lengthy missives. They speak freely
of contradictions and disappointments, losses and gains. Some are typed,
while others are handwritten or accompanied by spontaneous sketches.
Many address the recipient as one would a mother or longtime friend. And
this in spite of the fact that none but a very few had spent more than hours
or days in her presence. All correspondence in those days traveled via the
regular postal service, with the additional problems incurred with mail to
and from Cuba.
Moving as this collection is, it is only half the picture. Missing are the
letters written by Haydée. As I say, she wrote hundreds, more accurately
thousands, between 1959 and her death in 1980. People from all walks of life
corresponded with her, about anything and everything. Some were distant
relatives or friends of friends. She didn’t receive correspondence only from

134 | Chapter 7
artists and intellectuals; a Cuban from the countryside, still moved by her
enormous dignity at the trial that followed Moncada, might write to thank
her for being who she was or to confide in her about a sick child.
People were as likely to ask for a piano as to beg her to intercede in a ju-
dicial problem, help them find a job, or get medical attention. She was prin-
cipled in her refusal to use her position to grant favors. She would answer
each request by first sincerely commiserating with the letter writer, then
explain why influence or nepotism had no place in revolution, and then—
and only when she felt it was appropriate—direct the person to try for a
solution through proper channels. Only very occasionally, only when a child
was involved, did I find evidence that she tried to help and never in a way
that circumvented revolutionary law.
One letter that shows who she was, in terms of her gender consciousness
as well as her overall sense of justice, impressed me profoundly. It has no year
but was almost certainly received—in light of the references it contains—
early in 1968. It is addressed to a woman named Berta, probably a member
of a family connected in some way to Haydée’s, perhaps someone related to
Boris Luis Santa Coloma. Haydée’s letter begins:
Dear Berta: I received your letter of December 28, a few days after the
Congress and just months after [losing] Che. For these reasons I couldn’t
answer right away, as would have been my impulse perhaps more than
my desire. I say this because of what you wrote in your letter: “It seems
as if you have forgotten the friendship that linked us when you weren’t so
important.” At first this hurt me, then it angered me, and I am angry as I
write to you now.
In response to that paragraph, I will tell you that when you knew me
I was important, so important that I had just gone through a monumen-
tal episode in our nation’s history, in spite of the horror and without my
courage deserting me for a second. I think you are confused about what it
means to be important. You met me shortly after one of the most import-
ant events, not for me alone, but for our country. That’s what I call import-
ant. But you call having a position and great responsibilities important,
position and responsibilities that come precisely from having taken part
in actions such as the one on July 26, 1953 [. . .]
Haydée continues to berate Berta for asking her to use her influence to help
solve a series of personal problems. She refuses, saying that she believes in
revolutionary justice, that the family member in prison is there for a reason

Casa de las Américas | 135

and has an opportunity to rehabilitate himself, and that she is confident that
this rehabilitation will be effective. She says she understands why Berta has
written to her in this way but assures her that she rejects such requests “from
wherever they may come.”14
This was Haydée, attentive but evenhanded with family, friends, and
strangers.
With artists and writers she operated under identical principles but devel-
oped a style more attuned to their characteristics. She was careful to separate
her appreciation of their work from her concern for their well-being, espe-
cially when that well-being was threatened by the dictatorial forces of the
era. She never flaunted her own role or the Cuban revolution’s extraordinary
exploits, making each person she wrote to understand that she saw him or
her as an individual within a unique set of circumstances. In May 1977, as
the Sandinistas’ final offensive was beginning in Nicaragua, the poet Ernesto
Cardenal was contemplating returning to his country. She wrote him:
Right now it seems as if going home might endanger your life. You will
have to decide what to do, in accordance with your conscience. But re-
member, there are times when being cautious is not a sign of cowardice
but of strength, the strength each of us finds at a given moment and in a
particular circumstance. And if you feel you shouldn’t return right now,
don’t forget that you, like every Latin American revolutionary, has an-
other homeland: Cuba. And that we will always welcome you here, with
open arms and hearts, in your Casa de las Américas.
In July 1969 she wrote to Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti and his wife Luz:
Dear Mario and Luz too: Although there wasn’t even a note for me, I’m
writing to you (yet one more confirmation of my thesis) [that] all we
humans get our feelings hurt, but I also believe that those who get hurt
the most are those who are the best at caring and being cared for. This is
a joke (sort of).
I’ve read your letters: the one for everyone, and those to Beba and
Roberto. I’m answering the collective letter. We are delighted to know
about your lives and especially to know that you cannot live fully without
us. Here in this Casa we feel the same. At our first directors meeting we
weren’t sitting around a table; rather it seemed we were bidding farewell
to a corpse. This tells you that we can’t keep on bidding farewell to that
corpse. We need to continue at our round table, in conversation with the

136 | Chapter 7
 living. I hope Beba, Mariano or Roberto has written to you about the
changes we’ve made. What a shame you weren’t here, because you would
have enjoyed these changes, or reorganizations as I call them, but the
professors on our board of directors, such as Galich15 and Retamar, don’t
accept that, they say it’s not reorganize but organize. This is our argument
these days, we need your vote to see who wins [. . .]
The letter continues, talking about different writers they hope to invite to
be part of the various contest juries and emphasizing the need for a broad
representation from as many countries as possible, not concentrated in only
one or two. In 1970, the literary contest, traditionally held in January of each
year, would be delayed until July, because 1969 and part of 1970 would be
designated an 18-month “year.” The young revolution felt that it could ad-
just anything, even time. All efforts were aimed at achieving a major sugar
harvest in which Cuba hoped to cut ten million tons of cane. That lofty goal
proved impossible, and the inordinate effort ended up adversely affecting
many other areas of the national economy in 1969 / 70.
In November 1965, Arnaldo Orfila Reynal, an Argentinian living in Mex-
ico, was given hours to vacate his position as director of El Fondo de Cultura
Económica, the prestigious publishing house he founded and led for many
years. The Mexican government disapproved of the publication of a book
that exposed the poverty of a city ghetto in the country’s capital and another
that urged the United States to leave the Cuban revolution alone.16 Haydée
immediately wrote to Orfila:
It shocked us to learn that you’ve been forced to abandon the very import-
ant work you were doing at El Fondo de Cultura Económica. I believe,
and I speak as well for our government and Party, that the prestige El
Fondo attained in recent years was due in great measure to your skill, and
above all to a spirit that refused to be swayed by ideological limitations or
conventionalisms of a political or economic nature. That generous spirit,
open to all the currents of universal thought and to all aesthetic positions,
guided only by the quality of the work, bears the mark of your personality.
We believe your ouster was due precisely to that attitude, which made the
publishing house what it was and gave it such a good name.
Haydée’s letter continued, inviting Orfila to come to Cuba and use his tal-
ents to start a publishing house there. She ended by saying: “In short, Cuba’s
doors are open to you and you would be valuable and necessary to Cuba.”

Casa de las Américas | 137

Awarding 1969 Casa literary prizes. Left to right: Manuel Galich, Roque Dalton,
Onelio Jorge Cardoso, Efraín Huerta, José Agustín Goytisolo, and Haydée. photo
by astudillo, courtesy casa de las américas.

Arnaldo Orfila didn’t move to Cuba, although he visited often. And Siglo
XXI, the new publishing house he founded with the support of a large num-
ber of Mexican intellectuals and writers, would work closely with Cuba’s
publishing programs. In 1968, when Che Guevara’s campaign diary from
Bolivia was found and reproduced simultaneously in a number of different
languages, its Mexican publisher was Siglo XXI.
In March 1969, Haydée wrote to Antonio Saura.17
I would like to have been able to talk to you more about the Galeria del
Siglo XX (Twentieth- Century Gallery) idea, but as you know I had some
health problems when you were here. In any case we’ve discussed it with
Mariano,18 and agree that you are the ideal person to help us with this. I
know it’s not an easy job, but it’s worth giving it our all. We could write to
Picasso, Tapies, Miró, Max Ernst, Appel, Calder, etc. If they understand
what we have in mind, I think they’ll be enthusiastic [. . .]

138 | Chapter 7
Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government, which held such promise in
Chile beginning in 1970, was brutally put down when Augusto Pinochet
staged his military coup in 1973. Haydée felt a deep attachment to the art of
Chilean singer-songwriter and fabric artist Violeta Parra, a beautiful spirit
who wrote “Gracias a la vida” (Thanks to Life) and then took her own life in
1967. She was also close to Violeta’s daughter, Isabel. On September 17, 1975,
she wrote to the younger Parra:
Dear Isabel: I received your September 7th letter today. We’ve all been
following you, me in particular, precisely because I felt bad that I never
said good-bye. I was the one who avoided saying good-bye, and that made
me feel even worse. I always try to be brave, but I wouldn’t have felt good
about the kind of good-bye we would have had. What could I have told
you? I knew the pilgrimage that awaited you, hard times, and even family
problems; and I know from my own experience that when faced with such
times the best thing is simply to approach them head on. Still, letting you
go without telling you that wasn’t something I felt good about either.
Your letter made me very happy, not only because it brought me ev-
eryone’s news, but because in deciding to write you took your time, and
that’s also good. You can be sure I never saw you as ungrateful. Perhaps at
another time I would have noted the artist’s lack of gratitude, but in your
case I was only concerned with the human’s pain. I understand the great
responsibility you have with all those close to you: your daughters, Angel,
El Pato. You are, and must be, the strong one. Life has given you some
difficult challenges, not only as a revolutionary but also as a woman, and
if you make an effort and are able to deal with both sides of that equation,
you will have your reward. The day will come when you will understand
that all this has made you stronger, better, more understanding, much
more human, a more effective communist. [. . .]
Be patient, especially with Angel. Because of their education over
thousands of years, men are proud and there are times when they are
unable to find their way. And, although they may not realize it, they need
a mother, a sister, a woman. I don’t know Angel well, but I think he must
always have suffered his quota of loneliness. It’s hard for a young boy to
grow emotionally without a father at his side, and with a mother who is
ahead of her time. And after all that, when he matured, having to live far
from his country: the only real mother, his homeland. Well, Isabel, I al-
ways say that in matters such as these, advice is superfluous. But if I didn’t

Casa de las Américas | 139

Haydée with Betita Martínez and Stokely Carmichael of the United States, 1970s.
photo courtesy casa de las américas.

offer my advice it would be like when I didn’t want to say good-bye, and
there wouldn’t be a letter. I want there to be a letter.
I’ll tell you that I’m feeling okay about all this. I can see that you are
doing your best: finding the necessary energy in your work. But always
remember the strongest weapon with which you can help your people
is your voice in song. Try to devote some time to studying music. Cre-
ate beauty from all that pain. You have talent and legacy. This is a priv-
ilege that life has given you. How many times have I wanted to sing to
life, to the struggle, to the pain, to those who are no longer here? And
when I opened my mouth, all that came out was a moan. You must give
“thanks to life” every minute for that privilege. You are living in a better
time than the woman who gave us that other “thanks to life.” Conditions
and comprehension today are totally favorable to women. Today, if we
learn to understand the role we have to play, we can and must do more
than men. [. . .]
Isabel, I want you to understand this letter, what I’m telling you and
also what I’ve left unsaid. With all my love, Haydée Santamaría.

140 | Chapter 7
On November 29, 1967, less than two months after losing Che, Haydée wrote
to the Chilean painter Roberto Matta.19
Dear Matta: when we received your letter and you told us all about your
trip to Chile, we thought about writing you. Since you know us so well, I
won’t make excuses.
We gave your letter to Fidel. Do you want to know what he said? (Don’t
tell anyone, not even the people at Casa de las Américas.) He said: “Matta
understands and loves us like he does because he’s as mad as we are.” I
know he’s right, because to understand and love us you have to mount the
train of this great Cuban madness. We typed a copy of your letter, and of
course we gave Fidel the original, that’s the one he read. He understood
it perfectly, because you also have to decipher what he writes. He found
every bit of it interesting. [. . .]
Think about it, Matta, everything here is big and beautiful. Now we
must live in this terrible and beautiful insanity of having and not having
Che. If you could have seen our people, out of their minds, shouting at
the wake that was supposed to have been a solemn night of silence, before
that impressive multitude, maybe the only thing you could feel was Che’s
breathing problem, the rasp of his anti-asthma inhaler every now and
then, before that multitude, everyone remembering his difficulty breath-
ing and knowing he wouldn’t need his inhaler now, his little aparatico as
he called it, beneath our stars and looking at our palm trees, that sad and
grandiose night when Fidel bestowed Che’s final rank on him: Artist, artist
fallen on the battlefield, at the moment of his greatest creation.
Do you know what I mean, Matta? All this, it is all pain, great joy,
infinite, the pain of no longer having him here with his eyes open, the
joy of having him more than ever showing us the way, waking so many,
encouraging those who have begun so they will keep on going, and those
who haven’t so they will begin. To believe more than ever that the revo-
lution is truth and to die for truth is to live. And not to betray what he
told us: “The duty of every revolutionary is to make the revolution.” What
greatness, what pain, infinite love to the artist who gives his life in order
to produce his enduring work of art, art that we all want to make because
it is beautiful, and true.
This was Haydée’s style, when she wrote and when she spoke: passionate,
alive, wandering and then returning to the essence of what she had to say,
sentences running together, sometimes stumbling over each other, phrases

Casa de las Américas | 141

Exposition by Feliza Bustyn, 1980. Left to right: Mariano Rodríguez, Feliza Bustyn,
Haydée, and Gabriel García Márquez. photo courtesy casa de las américas.

separated by commas and then again lacking even those brief stops. This was
the Haydée of Encrucijada, of Moncada, of the war years, and finally Casa
de las Américas.
Again in April 1980 Haydée wrote Matta:
Dear Mad One: Here I am, here you have me. Saint Peter doesn’t want
me, and all those who love me say I’m pretty. I feel stronger than ever and
close to Casa with its homebodies, women and men, we are doing well
and keep on loving you and expecting you as always. More and more love
from Haydée Santamaría.
She would end her life three months later.

Haydée’s correspondence with multiple writers and artists wasn’t limited

to problems they might be having in their countries of origin, projects they
would embark upon together, or personal issues their friendship gave her
permission to discuss. With Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa there is a
particular exchange of letters that is worth quoting extensively. It shows her
fierce defense of the revolution and also her principled stance when attitudes
or actions clashed with what she knew the revolution meant.

142 | Chapter 7
 The Padilla affair was sadly typical of a repressive period in Cuban revolu-
tionary history, one that has since been revisited. It was a bad turn, not the
revolution itself. Such an incident couldn’t happen today. I cannot help but
wonder if Haydée approved of the way it was handled; it certainly wasn’t her
style. But she was a disciplined party member, and didn’t always get to make
the decisions.
In 1971 the poet Heberto Padilla was picked up, held incommunicado for
a month or so, and then released. He delivered a long mea culpa, criticizing
himself for having lied about the Cuban process to a series of foreign jour-
nalists. It was an embarrassing speech and did not sit well with a number of
intellectuals who had previously supported the revolution. Some of these
intellectuals would remain wary. Some would break with Cuba. Some who
had voiced their concern felt they had acted hastily and reconsidered.
Inside Cuba, many writers and artists were also uncomfortable not only
with the revolution’s treatment of Padilla but with its attitude toward artistic
expression itself. It would take several years before an ambience of respect
overcame those remnants of Stalinism and longer still before this sad chap-
ter was discussed openly. Those willing to wait eventually got the necessary
debates and reassurances. Outside Cuba, though, a number of artists took
incidents out of context and were quick to disavow the revolution.
Vargas Llosa was among the most vociferous attackers, and the Padilla af-
fair marked his definitive break with the Cuban revolution. From ostensibly
leftist politics, he moved farther and farther to the right, until he became a
vocal enemy of liberation movements, especially those in Latin America. He
began to embrace neoliberal politics, praising such as Margaret Thatcher
for “her audacious and worthy efforts to carry out a great liberal revolution
in Great Britain,” and even ran for president of Peru, losing to the extreme
right-winger Alberto Fujimori in 1990. In 2010 Vargas Llosa received the
Nobel Prize for Literature.
But I’m getting ahead of my story. Back when Vargas Llosa initially
launched his attack against the Cuban revolution, he made a dramatic show
of breaking with Casa de las Américas and its literary magazine, a publication
on the editorial board of which he had served. At that time, Haydée wrote
to him:
Mr. Vargas Llosa: You know that the editorial committee of Casa maga-
zine, from which you supposedly resigned, no longer exists [. . .]. In Jan-
uary of this year, in a declaration you yourself signed, we decided to re-

Casa de las Américas | 143

 place it with a broad list of contributors. We made this decision in view of
the growing discrepancies among some of the writers involved. The vast
majority sustained revolutionary positions, but some did not. You were
among the latter. Out of human decency, we thought it best to handle the
situation in this way [. . .] rather than simply dispensing with those such
as yourself who had shown an increasing commitment to imperialist ma-
nipulation. We still believed a young man like you, who has written such
beautiful novels, might change his mind and use his talents in defense of
the peoples of Latin America. [. . .]
You, better than most, know that it has never been our custom to crit-
icize people gratuitously. In April 1967, you wrote asking what we would
think if you accepted the Venezuelan Rómulo Gallegos award from the
Leoni administration, a government that has distinguished itself by assas-
sinating, repressing and betraying our peoples. We proposed a brave act,
one without precedent in Latin American cultural history: that you accept
the prize and give the money to Che Guevara’s guerrillas. You didn’t take
us up on our suggestion. You kept the prize money for yourself, thereby
passing up the extraordinary honor of aiding Che Guevara, if only sym-
bolically. [. . .]
Haydée’s letter goes on. She refers to the Padilla affair, saying she hadn’t
criticized Vargas Llosa publicly for the position he took at the time, although
she felt that neither he nor the other intellectuals who voiced concern had
understood the issue and, far from where things were happening, had been
hasty in their condemnation. She reminded him that she hadn’t criticized
him in 1968, when he’d published an article, in Caretas, attacking Fidel Cas-
tro’s position on Czechoslovakia. She mentioned his having committed to
being a judge at Casa’s 1969 prize and then simply failing to show up because
he’d accepted an invitation to a US university.
Needless to say, because of all these incidents, we didn’t really think you
would come to teach the course about which we’d spoken informally.
If you came in 1971 it was above all to obtain support from Casa de las
Américas—which we didn’t give—for Libre magazine, which you planned
on launching with money obtained from Patiño.20 And if several writers
associated with this Casa de las Américas discussed these matters with
you privately or publicly, it was never in the form of an insult.
The insult, Vargas Llosa, is your own shameful letter: it shows you for

144 | Chapter 7
 who you are, the living image of a colonized writer, who disrespects his
people, who is vain and convinced that as long as you’re a good writer
you will be forgiven for acting as you have. That you will be permitted to
judge a grand process such as the Cuban Revolution which, in spite of its
human errors, is the greatest effort to date to install a process of justice in
our countries. Men like you, who put your own miserable interests ahead
of the desperate interests of what Marti called our “pained republics,” are
really superfluous to this process. [. . .]21
Haydée’s letter ends after a few more lines in the same vein. Mario Vargas
Llosa dropped his supposed concern for the needs of Latin America. His
neoliberal positions were now well known. But these were not to be the last
words between Casa de las Américas and Vargas Llosa. In 1986, the Peru-
vian writer spoke publicly of the exchange with Haydée about the Romulo
Gallegos prize and accused her of having been dishonest in her proposal. As
she could no longer defend herself, Roberto Fernández Retamar responded
in her name.
In an interview given to his son Alvaro, which appeared at the end of
May in the daily Expreso of Lima, [Mario Vargas Llosa] includes a sur-
prising attack on Haydée Santamaría, dead now six years. The following
is taken verbatim from that interview: “The Rómulo Gallegos incident
was one of the things that led to [my break with Cuba]. When I learned
that The Green House was one of the finalists for that prize, I asked Hay-
dée Santamaría, then director of Casa de las Américas where I formed
part of the editorial board, for the Cuban revolution’s opinion of it. Alejo
Carpentier delivered her answer to me personally in London. Haydée pro-
posed that I go to Caracas to accept the award, and then to Cuba where,
in a public act, I donate the $25,000 dollars to Che Guevara who was
then in Bolivia. [. . .] To that point her response made sense. But Haydée
said she would then return the money to me discreetly. In other words I
would have enjoyed the glory of the revolutionary gesture and the money
too. This suggestion offended me. I would have had to be a real cynic to
accept.
Retamar writes that Vargas Llosa’s interpretation of the exchange is all the
more suspect since, had it been true, there were a number of occasions
on which he would have mentioned it: among them, when he received
the prize itself or later, when he publicly broke with the revolution. He

Casa de las Américas | 145

Casa de las Américas Prize, 1978. Left to right: Haydée, Mariano Rodríguez,
Roberto Fernández Retamar. photo courtesy casa de las américas.

reaffirms the Peruvian novelist’s right to the award, for the high quality of his
work, but not his right to lie about a woman who could no longer speak for
herself.
By this time Haydée and Alejo Carpentier (her messenger) were both
safely gone; they died in 1980 within three months of one another. Retamar
goes on to say that Vargas Llosa could have questioned Haydée’s suggestion
at the time, taken her up on half or all of it, or in whatever way made public
his disapproval. Instead, he waited until he thought his version would go
unchallenged to allege a conclusion as arbitrary as it is incorrect.22

For those of us who knew Haydée or have visited Casa de las Américas, these
letters and articles sound against a familiar backdrop. For those who have
not had that direct contact, it may be useful to read the words of one of
Cuba’s great cultural critics, Ambrosio Fornet,23 with regard to the pattern of
agency-repression-resistance-renovation that has characterized the revolu-
tion’s half century, in hard times and in those less difficult.
Two things have never been in short supply here, even during the worst
moments of the current [economic] crisis: imagination and ideas. The

146 | Chapter 7
 lack of material and financial resources has affected our cultural produc-
tion only in quantitative terms (fewer books, exhibitions, concerts, films),
but our creative impulse and intellectual drive have persisted and even
intensified in certain areas despite the exodus of numerous writers and
artists. [. . .] If resistance was the watchword in political discourse, it was
equally clear that writers and artists were also resisting in their own way,
that is, practicing politics by other means. [. . .] The art and literature
of the Revolution, equally fostered by audacity and caution, in a climate
of trust or tension, has maintained an equilibrium that is not typically
expressed in declarations or manifestos but in daily practice. [. . .] It is
clear that a cultural movement such as ours—one that has thus far proved
immune to market forces and has been supported, regardless of the form
it takes, by a substantial and enthusiastic public—can develop for the
most part in accordance with its own dynamic and in a climate of enviable
freedom.24
Haydée Santamaría was an architect of this climate of enviable freedom.

I wanted to talk to the old-timers at Casa, those who began their professional
careers working with Haydée and couldn’t have imagined the association
would end so abruptly. Roberto Fernández Retamar told me he and Haydée
met right after the war, when he was working at the Ministry of Education
with Armando Hart. But he didn’t really get to know her until a year or so
later, when he went to work at Casa: “It was a very intimate relationship,” he
told me. I knew he meant engaged, intense, profound.
You know, Haydée didn’t have an extensive formal education; she’d only
been able to study through sixth grade. Her brilliance came from her life,
her experience, her generosity. Yet she was able to develop the most pro-
found relationships with the world’s greatest intellects. Many of them
related to her as a mother, and I think a lot of people who knew her felt
that way. I don’t know if you’ve read the poem by Fina García Marrúz,
written about a month after Haydée’s death.25 It has that line: “Those who
loved her have been orphaned.”
I’ve always believed it was Haydée’s nature that brought her to the
revolution. It wasn’t the revolution that made her who she was. And for
her there was a difference between politics and Revolution. The Revolu-
tion wasn’t only political to her, but deeply human. After Moncada, she

Casa de las Américas | 147

 focused her love on Fidel. She was able to transfer the great love she had
felt for Abel and Boris, to Fidel. And that kept her going.
Roberto and I talked about a number of moments of dramatic conflict in
the revolution’s cultural history, among them the Padilla affair. I wanted to
know if Roberto could remember Haydée having taken a stand with regard
to Padilla himself.
Haydée was never close to Padilla. But he was a friend of mine. The Padilla
affair led, as you know, to a backlash in the cultural world here, what we
now refer to as el quinquenio gris (five gray years). That was a hard time.
I’m absolutely sure there were those in the revolution’s leadership who
put pressure on Haydée to leave Casa then, maybe abandon the whole cul-
tural milieu, which seemed so suspect to some. She did just the opposite:
she dug in her heels and became all the more protective.
Looking back, I can say that both Mariano and I might have fared
little better than Padilla had we not had Haydée’s solid endorsement. She
didn’t hesitate to defend anyone she felt was genuine. Perhaps, if Padilla
and Haydée had been close, he would have evolved differently, and there
wouldn’t have been a Padilla affair. The revolution made some mistakes
with all that. Looking back, we call it La hora de los chacales (the time of
the jackals).
It seems absolutely clear to me that what Haydée knew, beyond the issue of
a single disaffected poet or the revolution’s unfortunate handling of his case,
was that much more was at stake than artistic freedom, important as that
undoubtedly was. The quinquenio gris proved as detrimental to the social
sciences—philosophy, sociology—as to the arts. The University of Havana’s
philosophy department was shut down. The most important magazine of po-
litical thought, Pensamiento crítico, was forced to close. If not reversed, such
repression is dangerous to a country’s future. Cuba, with that sad chapter
now behind it, more than most countries uses the social sciences to solve its
myriad problems. Visionaries like Haydée made this possible.
Inevitably, Roberto and I talked about Haydée’s suicide:
I believe she was mad. I remember when Che died, she told me “I can’t
live anymore, I can’t.” In so many ways, she was the last victim of Mon-
cada. She needed psychiatric help but wouldn’t hear of it. A psychiatrist
friend of mine said all those who commit suicide are mad in their final

148 | Chapter 7
 moment. Haydée’s daughter, Celia María, didn’t accept that analysis, but
it’s the only conclusion I can come to.
And then that scene at the funeral home! We should have been able
to say good-bye to her at the Plaza de la revolución, not at an ordinary
funeral parlor. But the next morning, when they took her body to the
cemetery, the cortège wasn’t made up of cars. Everyone just started walk-
ing. And people joined that procession, hundreds at first, then thousands.
Whatever one thought of suicide—and we weren’t as forgiving about it
back then as we are now—the people themselves had already forgiven
her. They were wiser than the revolution.
I wanted to know what it had been like, at Casa, to go on living and working
after Haydée’s death. Roberto said it was terribly painful.
But she herself left us the necessary tools. No one could take her place,
but she left a work style that continues to this day. And it wasn’t only her
deep intelligence. She had a unique sense of justice. She treated the em-
ployee who swept the floor with the same kindness and concern as she
did her closest collaborators and all the artists and writers who came to
the revolution through Casa’s broad door.
Many with whom I spoke mentioned Haydée’s tolerance for people’s defi-
ciencies, as long as they were not ill intentioned. Many also emphasized the
fact that she rarely spoke badly of anyone. When Roberto remarked on the
kindness with which she treated every person with whom she came in con-
tact, irrespective of that person’s class or culture, I was reminded of a story I
heard from someone else at Casa. It seemed a janitor once worked there who
managed to irritate just about everyone. Nobody liked him, and complaints
were frequent. When Haydée heard someone criticizing the man, she said:
“Don’t be so hard on him. If he did his job the way you think he should, he
would be the director!”

Silvia Gil is another of the old guard. She started working at Casa in 1964.
She was at the National Library when Haydée called to ask if she would like
to come to help reorganize the library at the institution; they needed people
familiar with Latin American literature. “As of this past March [2014],” Silvia
said, with a sigh that contained both pride and wistfulness, “I’ve been here
fifty years.”

Casa de las Américas | 149

Haydée and Celia Sánchez with Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Valentina
Tereshkova, 1961. photo courtesy casa de las américas.

Silvia talked about how extraordinary it was for a provincial woman, at

mid-twentieth century, to do the things Haydée did:
I grew up in Bayamo, not far from Santiago de Cuba. I was a young girl
when the attack on Moncada took place, and I remember hearing that
two women had been involved. My first thought was that they must be
prostitutes who happened to be hanging out with the men! It didn’t occur
to us then that decent women could do such things. But it didn’t take long
for us to learn the truth. Understand: I am talking about our mentality
back then.
Silvia shared some illuminating stories about Haydée’s leadership style. Like
others, she reiterated the heroine’s refusal to limit the idea of revolution to
party membership:
“Being a revolutionary,” she used to say, “is more than having a party
card.” I’ll tell you a story about when the first party cells were being es-
tablished in workplaces here. Haydée resisted and resisted. She was afraid
that the beautiful collective we’d developed would be adversely affected

150 | Chapter 7
 when some attained party membership and others, inevitably, were left
out. Finally she had no choice but to initiate the process.
I wrote her a letter, in which I told her I didn’t want to put myself up
for membership. My parents had left the country, they were living in New
Jersey, and you know how it was back then: party militants were expected
to cut all ties with family on the outside. Even though I wasn’t that close
to my parents, I wasn’t prepared to stop communicating with them. So I
wrote that letter explaining this to Haydée and telling her that if it meant
I had to resign from the board of directors, I would.
She never answered my letter. But when the party nucleus was estab-
lished she made a passionate speech. I knew she was talking to me, and to
two others who had decided to pass. I wish we had a copy of that speech;
we recorded it, but somehow it got lost. Haydée was vehement as she
expressed her conviction that to be a revolutionary you didn’t need to be
a party member.
Silvia’s voice broke, as she sat for a moment or two with the memory.
I think of some people back then telling me they’d cut ties with their fam-
ily members in exile—as if it was something to be proud of. Those same
people began traveling the moment the revolution eased its restrictions.
Many of them live in Miami now themselves! Yet back then we thought
the world would collapse!
Silvia and I talked about the repressive period that cost so many such hardship:
We called it el quinquenio gris, because it started in 1971 and the thaw
didn’t begin until 1975, when Armando Hart was named minister of cul-
ture. But that was only the beginning of the thaw. Some people prefer
to call it el decenio negro (ten black years). The problem was, the power
struggle between the old Partido Socialista Popular [psp, People’s Social-
ist Party; a Moscow-oriented Communist party] and the July 26 Move-
ment was still going on at the time. The psp had some very old-fashioned
ideas about culture and the people who make it.
I remember that during those difficult years Haydée spent a lot of time
at Casa. Before that she might only show up a couple of times a month.
She took care of business mostly over the phone. But when things got
rough, she began coming to work almost every day. She defended the
institution fiercely, with her great prestige. One day she sat down with a

Casa de las Américas | 151

Participants in 1972 gathering of visual artists. Haydée converses with Julio Le
Parc, Tilsa Tsuchiya, Alfredo Rostgaard, and Miguel Rojas Mix, among others.
photo courtesy casa de las américas.

few of us. I remember her saying: “We have to be very careful for a while,
so the tornado moves on by without doing us permanent harm.”

We came to the moment of Haydée’s suicide. Silvia echoed the shock and
pain I’d heard from others. She said she was so upset at the funeral par-
lor that she went up to someone in charge and questioned the decision to
hold the wake there rather than at the base of the grand statue of José Martí
in the Plaza of the Revolution. “I remember Lilia Carpentier saying: ‘They
mourned Alejo in the Plaza; why not Haydée?’26 But the Cuban people had
the last word. Thousands of them accompanied her to Colón Cemetery; they
filled every street.”

I was glad to be able to sit down with Marcia Leseica, not only because she
worked at Casa from its inception, but because as a teenager Haydée re-
cruited her to the July 26 Movement and she remained a close confidante

152 | Chapter 7
until her death. From a wealthy family, as a young girl Marcia took guitar
classes at a private school in Havana. One day she noticed a young woman
with a white handkerchief in her hand, sitting in the corner during class.
Someone said her name was María. Later she learned that María had brought
some students around to stay at that house. Marcia remembers being struck
by her eyes:
She looked at you, but it was as if she inhabited another dimension. There
was such sadness in those eyes.
That was 1957. And my life changed completely. Before that, I was your
typical bourgeois student, fun loving, frivolous. There have been a num-
ber of times like that for me, when everything changed from one moment
to the next. And this was one of them. I carried out some actions for her.
And I continued to participate. My entire family left the country; I was
the only one who stayed. I didn’t see my mother again until 1993, when
she fell ill in the United States.
Marcia told me she called Haydée María until she came to work at Casa,
in 1959:
Casa opened its doors in April of that year, and she contacted me in July.
I came to work in September and remained until 1967, when I decided
I needed to be in the countryside and went to work at a forestry project
in Pinar del Río. I came back in 1990. But I always kept in touch with
Haydée. I visited her often, and was with her in all her crises. She talked
and talked: monologues really. I remember telephone conversations in
which one of my ears turned red from having the receiver stuck to it so
long. Just one ear!
Like so many others who knew her well, Marcia emphasized Haydée’s sin-
gular sense of justice:
You didn’t see it only in the great heroic acts, but in the smallest details.
She was never rancorous. Justice was the leitmotif of her life. And that
gave her great moral authority, and an ability to bring people together.
Which was why they sent her to Havana during the war, to deal with the
different organizations. And why they sent her abroad, to deal with the
factions in the exile community; you know, there were people there from
all the different tendencies, even a couple of ex-presidents, and she was
able to get them to act in concert—at least for the moment.

Casa de las Américas | 153

 And Haydée was obsessive. She had to be, to get so much done. She
was an avid reader, particularly of novels. She read biographies and liked
poetry, but I don’t remember her reading much in the area of the social
sciences. She loved artistic expression in general, especially the visual
arts. Although I spent many hours with her in her room, I don’t remem-
ber her listening to music there. And she wasn’t particularly interested in
classical music. She entered the world of music through the guitar. But
she got interested in those of La nueva trova because she could tell they
were revolutionaries who were being unjustly persecuted, who had talent
and needed help, not so much because of their music.
Marcia, too, pointed out that Haydée was the only woman who participated
in every phase of the struggle against Batista: the attack on Moncada, the
preparation for the revolutionaries’ return from Mexico, the war in the Si-
erra, the underground work in the cities, and the important task of orga-
nizing the exile community in the United States—every single arena. She
stressed her enormous sensibility and intuition: “Aside from her concept of
justice, she was sensitive to the smallest details.”
When our conversation got to the inevitable questions about Haydée’s
suicide, Marcia had no doubts:
Moncada’s wounds simply never healed in her. Never. I know, because
we were very close, and I accompanied her through her crises. Right after
the revolution came to power, she took to her bed. And she took to her
bed periodically throughout the rest of her life. She always needed help
to shake off those depressions. She was able to do all she did because of
her deep commitment and extraordinary strength. But it took everything
she had, everything. From time to time she would just collapse. She would
spend long periods in bed, reading, reading.
Many people tried to get her to see a psychiatrist. But what psychia-
trist could have understood what she’d endured at Moncada? She was too
smart for them, but her suffering also came from having lived through
experiences they couldn’t understand. She took medication, and it helped
from time to time, but it never really got to the root of her problem. And
even if we had known how close to the edge she was, I don’t think any
of us would have been able to have done anything about it anyway. She
always lived her life exactly the way she wanted to.
I’m absolutely convinced that at the end she was out of her mind. Had
she been in control, with her concept of motherhood, the way she adored

154 | Chapter 7
Haydée with Angela Davis and unnamed translator, 1972. photo courtesy casa
de las américas.

her children, she never would have killed herself with them in the house.
No matter what anyone says, it was a moment of madness. But the ques-
tion really isn’t why or how she killed herself. It is how she managed to
live as long and generously as she did.

Immediately following Haydée’s death, her colleagues at Casa memorialized

her in the pages of Revista Casa. And there were other memorials on the
fifth anniversary, the twentieth, and on what would have been her ninetieth
birthday. Intellectuals and service workers gave their testimonies. Poets and
artists and others around the world sent messages and poems. Here is a very
brief selection, from among the many who loved her:
Trinidad Pérez 27 said:
The first time I saw her I was caught off guard. I’d imagined her the way
you might a mythic figure: distant, serious. And I discovered that she was
anything but. Haydée would arrive, stop and talk to everyone, and then
make her way upstairs. Someone was painting a mural, and she’d pause
and observe the artist at work. [. . .]

Casa de las Américas | 155

 For me, the most important thing about Haydée was the connection
she had with artists and service workers alike. She was so human. She
always said she didn’t know anything about art, but that wasn’t true at all:
she had a tremendous capacity for appreciating every artistic manifesta-
tion. I can’t forget how she responded to poets reading their poems: Roque
Dalton, Retamar, Benedetti. Or when she looked at one of Violeta Parra’s
tapestries. When she listened to popular or so-called classical music. She
said she didn’t know anything about art, but I think she knew a great deal.
The sensibility with which she approached a given work allowed her to
express herself with great depth. I was always impressed by how she re-
lated to the artists; I don’t see that in many others. If there was a concert,
for example, she was always right there, in the front row. If she went to the
theater and there wasn’t much of an audience, she’d go out in front and in-
vite people in: “Hey, come on in and hear Viglietti,28 or Mercedes Sosa!”29
When Haydée appeared at Casa, everything changed. The atmosphere
became more animated. She imposed respect, not fear. We all admired
her, but none of us felt pressured. She respected anyone who was knowl-
edgeable about anything: the artist or the technician. She let everyone
do his or her job. She could spot an error you might have made, but she
supported you and that was a great stimulus. She gave people strength,
made them strong. She might call you in later to discuss something. But
she never abandoned anyone. [. . .]”
Alicia Aguiar 30 responded to a request that she speak about Haydée with
these words:
One of the things I liked about Haydée was that she always considered the
worker. She talked with everyone, and never demonstrated those painful
differences. She was such a good person, so good. No one here forgets her.
I’m telling you no one forgets her, and I remember her with love. Once
she brought me a beautiful length of cloth so I could get a new uniform
made. And I’ve never, ever, worn that dress. I can’t wear it knowing she
isn’t going to be able to see it on me. It’s green gingham, really beautiful. I
had it made up just the way I wanted. But oh my no, I just can’t. I wanted
her to see me in it.
María Regla Averoff 31 had this to say:
Look, Haydée would arrive in the morning and come to my house, the
little place where I live behind Casa. She’d just drop by to see how I was

156 | Chapter 7
 doing. She’d come around lunchtime, lift the lid from one of the pots on
my stove, and breathe in the scent of whatever I was cooking. “Oh, that’s
good!” She’d ask me if it was gizzard, or what it was. And she’d ask if she
could taste a little. She was a boss and a comrade. A friend of all the work-
ers. You’d tell her: “Ay, Haydée, what a pretty dress you’re wearing,” and
wham! Right away she’d want to give it to you. No, no, no, no, I’m telling
you, Haydée was a wonderful person. One thing I’ll always remember:
around eleven in the morning, if she had a moment, she’d come and sit
over there in the doorway, and it could get to be two in the morning and
she’d still be talking to us! And she’d say: ‘Well, I can see from your faces
that you’re tired!” And she’d go. That’s why I feel her here in my house, day
and night, just like you can feel her in Casa de las Américas.
Lesbia Vent Dumois32 said:
It’s as if you asked me to talk about my mother. What can one say about a
mother? That’s what Haydée was to all of us, because it’s no coincidence
that we speak of Casa as if it were our home. It’s no coincidence that we
have become a family. . . . She could as easily sit at the top of the stairs
as take your arm and start talking to you about an idea she had. That was
Haydée: human, simple, and also fire. A whirlwind of action and joy.
Like intellectuals and artists all over the world, when he heard about Hay-
dée’s death Pedro Orgambide33 sent a heartfelt message:
I woke up this morning thinking about Cuba and about Haydée Santa-
maría. Life, death, and survival suddenly came together, maybe because
on days like this one tends to think about what one has done or failed to
do, one takes stock as a way of understanding oneself better. What hap-
pened, Roberto? What happened to us all with the loss of Haydée? She
was (is) one of the most beautiful figures of the Revolution, which is to
say of life.
Chiki Salsamendi34 had this to say:
Haydée was like a mother to me, like a combination mother and older
sister. She was always so concerned about my problems, what was hap-
pening in my life, in my personal as well as my work life. What she meant
to me is beyond my power to describe.
I began to work here at Casa de las Américas on October 2, 1962. And
could she talk! She was a great conversationalist, a great conversationalist.

Casa de las Américas | 157

 She could talk about anything. It was so easy to communicate with her.
She was always kidding around, always making jokes. But when she had to
be serious, she could do that too. She had all that in her. She was extraor-
dinary, capable of seeing things one couldn’t even imagine. I wouldn’t see
her for a while, and we just picked up where we’d left off. There was no
sense of time having passed. She was always right there.
Like these testimonies there are thousands, in archives, publications, and in
the memories of those who may not have spoken publicly but hold Haydée in
a special place in their hearts. Those who knew her well, say the relationship
was one of the great privileges of their lives. Those who knew her slightly still
burn with the spark of that contact. Casa de las Américas, without doubt one
of her greatest accomplishments, continues to radiate her brilliance, creativ-
ity, respect for diversity, and pursuit of justice.

158 | Chapter 7
8 TWO, THREE, MANY VIETNAMS
Haydée and Che

At the vortex of the political and the spiritual lies a renewed sense of
function, even a mission, for art. [. . .] It can mean a new way of looking
at shared experience.
—Lucy R. Lippard, Mixed Blessings, 14

One might ask the same question about Haydée that she asked about Ho
Chi Minh: was he who he was because he was Vietnamese, or were the Viet-
namese who they were because they had him as a leader? Haydée embodied
certain very Cuban qualities—the worldview of an islander, small-nation
pride, and the inventiveness and creativity of those forced to compete on the
world stage with citizens of larger, more powerful countries—but she had
these qualities to an inordinate degree. Something of her uniqueness rubbed
off on everyone she touched.
By 1959, when Fidel Castro and his rebels took power in Cuba, the US
Central Intelligence Agency (cia) had a long and criminal history of invad-
ing its southern neighbors or provoking the overthrow of democratically
elected governments throughout the region. During the first half of the cen-
tury, US troops invaded Caribbean countries at least thirty-four times, briefly
occupying Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, and Costa Rica and remaining for
longer periods in Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama, and the Dominican Re-
public. It had designs on other Latin American countries as well. In fact, its
Hasta la victoria siempre! Commission of Revolutionary Orientation (ori),
Antonio Pérez González (Niko), serigraph, 1967. used by permission.
interference throughout the world was legion. But most calamitously, it was
waging a war in Vietnam that had divided that Southeast Asian nation, had
no end in sight, was rapidly becoming a worldwide symbol of US imperialist
reach, and would define an era.
In 1973, US money and covert military maneuvering brought down Salva-
dor Allende’s government in Chile, the first socialist project on the American
continent to have been elected by popular vote. In 1980, the year of Haydée’s
death, the Reagan administration initiated its Contra war in Nicaragua and
ten years later succeeded in defeating the Sandinistas. In the eyes of people
throughout the world, the United States was the great bully: destabilizing
by covert and overt means and establishing trade agreements that always
favored its own interests at a devastating cost to those it claimed to be help-
ing. It invaded, occupied, murdered or attempted to murder foreign leaders,
spread animal and crop diseases, and pillaged for its gain. All of which makes
Cuba’s resistance all the more impressive.
Cuba’s solidarity with Vietnam was especially profound. I remember the
thousands of young Vietnamese studying in the country when I lived there in
the 1970s. The girls all had long braids; they vowed not to cut their hair until
the invaders were routed from their precious land. The Cuban revolution
supported liberation movements across the globe, including some within
the United States. This support was reflected in material aid and training, as
well as through conferences, invitations to visit the island, shortwave radio
broadcasts, and exciting art.
The Cuban revolution, thumbing its nose at arrogant power and like a
slap in the face so close to US shores, represented the first successful op-
position to US dominance and control. A small group of ragged but auda-
cious revolutionaries had ousted a dictator backed by a succession of US
administrations. As outlined in the first chapter of this book, the revolution
had wasted no time in reclaiming its banks, sugarcane, and most important,
its dignity. Cuba had become an example that standing up to the bully was
possible. The guerrilla methodology that had proven successful in the Sierra
Maestra, the idea that a small group could take up arms, earn popular sup-
port, and eventually take power, was known as the foco theory. It never really
worked again as it had in the Sierra Maestra.
Régis Debray, a young French political theoretician, wrote revolution
in the revolution?, which became the foco theory’s central text. Casa de las
Américas published the treatise and also a critique of the Right’s response.
A Mexican publisher brought out a panel discussion, Diez años de revolución,

Two, Three, Many Vietnams | 161

George Jackson poster, Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia,
and Latin America (ospaaal), Rafael Morante, 1971. used by permission.

in which several important Latin American revolutionary writers debated

Debray’s proposal.1
Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Argentine doctor who joined Fidel in Mexico,
fought in Cuba, and envisioned similar liberation struggles throughout all of
Latin America and the subjugated world, was the most visible proponent of
the foco theory. He wrote about it, lived it, and was murdered in his attempt
to carry it out. His cry of “Two, three, many Vietnams!” urged people every-
where to rise up against imperialist domination, thus weakening that control
by spreading it thin as it tried to defeat increasing worldwide opposition to
imperialism.
This cry was the theme of Guevara’s message to the first Tricontinental
Conference of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America
(ospaaal), held in Havana at the beginning of 1966, and became a rally-
ing call in many parts of the world. In Che’s absence the following year,
Haydée presided over the continuation of Tricontinental: the 1967 Latin
American Solidarity Conference (olas), where the Cuban leadership reaf-
firmed armed struggle as the “fundamental path forward” for the continent’s
revolutionaries.
Haydée and Che met in the Sierra during the Cuban war. They were
friends and comrades and shared an intensity of revolutionary identifica-
tion unique even in such situations. Many men and women made the Cuban

162 | Chapter 8
revolution. Many were consumed by its demands. But few possessed the
clarity, even purity, of these two. They shared ideals illusive to others. Hay-
dée’s daughter Celia remembered that “from the moment she saw him, my
mother understood [his] enigma, the unique myth his hopeful image has
become for generation after generation. She got it long before he became
the Heroic Guerrilla.”2 And on hearing the news of his tragic death, Celia
said, her mother was inconsolable. Inconsolable and angry: “What a ma-
chista, what an outrageous machista. He promised he would take me with
him to make the revolution in the rest of America. He promised but he went
without me.”3
Haydée was as passionate about Che’s dream of a liberated continent as
she had been when she followed her brother Abel and Fidel into battle at
Moncada, when she resisted the horror of being shown her brother’s eye
and fiancé’s testicle by refusing to give her torturers the information they
wanted, when she called on every bit of will and composed herself in order
to speak truth to power at the trial following that epic action, and through-
out the rest of the war: in prison, in the underground, in the Sierra, in every
other arena of Cuban struggle.
She was passionate, as well, in her belief that art is the highest expres-
sion of revolutionary social change. At Casa de las Américas she created the
perfect venue in which to demonstrate the role that art and culture can play
in creating a new society. Her vision, as we have seen, was always inclusive,
never narrow or limited to the safe and stereotypical socialist realism recipe
being pushed at the time by Soviet communism. At Casa she wooed the best
artists and writers from many different schools and tendencies. She valued
creative integrity and urged the judges at each year’s literary contest to con-
sider quality over political content. She frequently defended writers, artists,
and musicians misunderstood or victimized by rigid party functionaries.
In the United States, throughout the 1950s McCarthyism cast a deep
chill on artists and intellectuals. Left-leaning writers, filmmakers, and oth-
ers were blacklisted. Many lost jobs or entire careers. Among those who
were called before the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee
(huac), some refused to testify while others turned state’s evidence. The
country’s cultural institutions—universities, Broadway, Hollywood studios,
publishers, funding agencies, radio, and incipient television—proclaimed
that “political” art was not art; meaning social concerns were off-limits as
subjects of creative work. While artists in other parts of the world felt free

Two, Three, Many Vietnams | 163

 Poster for protest
song event, Casa
de las Américas,
Alfredo Rostgaard,
serigraph, 1967. used
by permission.

to take a multiplicity of journeys, US artists were encouraged to stay within

a safe zone of provincialism.
The 1960s brought a thaw in the United States, and creative rage reas-
serted itself. With it came a new cultural rebellion. Important movements
in the worlds of poetry, music, the visual arts, and theater (including street
theater) came to the fore. The American war in Vietnam gave birth to Artists
and Writers Protest and Angry Arts (both based in New York), the Artists
Protest Committee (Los Angeles), and many similar groups.
Abstract artists continued to make work without discernible social con-
tent, but many of them were also unwilling to be told by government what
subject matter to embrace. In 1968 fourteen of them donated works to ben-

164 | Chapter 8
efit the Student Mobilization Against the War. They raised $30,000. Art his-
torian Lucy R. Lippard explains:
the organizer’s statement offered the abstract artists’ rationale:
These 14 non-objective artists are against the war in Vietnam. They
are supporting this commitment in the strongest manner open to them
by contributing major examples of their current work. The artists and the
individual pieces were selected to present a particular esthetic attitude, in
the conviction that a cohesive group of important works makes the most
forceful statement for peace.4
The US civil rights / black freedom movement produced powerful art, par-
ticularly in the genres of photography and song. Hundreds of “little” maga-
zines (meaning independent of institutional support), underground news-
papers, graphic comics, and wallpapers began publishing. And the personal
was becoming political. The Art Workers Coalition (awc) formed in 1969,
essentially to protest injustice within the art world itself. The second wave
of feminism burst on the scene, and women artists began to get together to
protest their exclusion from museums and galleries; Heresies was an excit-
ing collective that functioned from 1977 to 1992. But residual discomfort
remained, and there was confusion about what constituted “real art.”
Again, as Lippard has written:
The older New York artists harbored taboos against social content inher-
ited from the days of Stalinism and McCarthyism, and the younger artists
were unaware that art could be politically effective. They had been trained
to understand that all political art was corny and old-fashioned—barely
art in the highest sense—and few had the political sophistication to com-
bat these dominant views.5
Thus, every creative space was contested, particularly from the grassroots.
Social insurgencies always produce new art, and in the United States,
throughout the 1970s and 1980s, these included farmworkers, Native Amer-
icans, autoworkers, women, and members of the lgbtq community, among
others.
It may be relevant today to point out that neoliberalism objectifies and
commodifies the most popular artistic manifestations, understanding all too
well that authentic cultural expression expands social horizons and allows
people to visualize a different world. After the implosion of the socialist bloc,
in 1989, when neoliberalism became hegemonic, capitalism authored new

Two, Three, Many Vietnams | 165

and more sophisticated cultural strategies and introduced them into the de-
veloping world by every means possible.
The Cuban Revolution understood the importance of culture from its in-
ception. It was alive with what we called “Marxism in Spanish”: an innova-
tive, sometimes raucous expression that drew on the country’s Spanish and
Afro-Cuban traditions, as well as respecting the new and producing an ex-
citing amalgam of artistic output that was communist and utopian, tropical
and astute. If the Russian and Chinese revolutions had painted themselves in
steel gray, the Cuban Revolution exploded onto the scene in brilliant color.
Soon after its victory, news about the island stopped appearing or was
grossly distorted in the mainstream US press. The United States attempted to
erect a cultural blockade in tandem with its economic and diplomatic coun-
terparts. It was largely due to Haydée that the first was never as successful as
the other two. Her brilliant work at Casa broke through all sorts of barriers.
Although the US news blackout of Cuba has been ongoing, hundreds and
then thousands of young people defied government restrictions and traveled
to the island—so near and yet so distant. The Venceremos Brigade, an inde-
pendent organization begun in 1969 by Students for a Democratic Society
(sds), took 9,000 mostly young people on yearly trips. They had to travel
through Czechoslovakia, Mexico City, or Montreal and spent up to a month
working (cutting sugarcane or building schools), getting to know the revo-
lution’s achievements, and meeting with representatives of people’s move-
ments from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. These brigades continue today
in conjunction with Pastors for Peace.
Many of those who visited Cuba, either with the Venceremos Brigade or
on other delegations, were journalists, artists, and writers. Some had alter-
native publications and galleries or belonged to collectives that promoted
socially conscious art. They became the conduit through which some of
Cuba’s posters, books, and music arrived in the United States. And Cuban
music had a tremendous impact on the world music scene. The posters, in
particular, proved important. Many of them were in solidarity with US po-
litical movements.
In this perfect storm produced by the challenges of having to remake soci-
ety in a context of scarce resources but with a burst of revolutionary energy,
posters in Cuba took off—in directions as varied as the styles of the artists
who designed them. Soviet and Polish poster art were inspirations. Their
destinations and impact “went viral,” as a later generation would say.
The US government was quick to castigate US citizens who disseminated

166 | Chapter 8
information about Cuba or shared the human stories of how the revolution
had or hadn’t changed people’s lives. New York poet Susan Sherman, who ed-
ited Ikon magazine, an important cultural political forum for social change,
lost her university teaching job upon her return from the island in 1968. The
distributor that had handled the magazine dropped it at the same time. Her
fbi file—which she managed to obtain many years later—was filled with lies
that some paid informant had told about what she was supposedly doing on
the revolution’s behalf. Many of these informants simply made things up in
order to justify their shameful pay.
First published in Casa de las Américas magazine, Roberto Fernández Re-
tamar’s 1971 essay “Caliban: Notes toward a Discussion of Culture in Our
America” had an impact on progressive writers in the United States and
throughout the world.6 It was one of the first Latin American texts that of-
fered a view of cultural priorities from the perspective of the global South.
Testimonial literature, or oral history, also got a boost from the revolution. It
was called testimonio back then. Casa’s yearly literary contest began includ-
ing a category devoted to the genre. The revolution raised the conscious-
ness that ordinary people, not only the “experts,” could and should tell their
stories.
In the 1960s, before my own move to Cuba, Mexican poet Sergio Mon-
dragón and I edited El Corno Emplumado / The Plumed Horn, a bilingual liter-
ary journal out of Mexico City. We attended a gathering of poets in Cuba in
January 1967 7 and brought back some of the new Cuban poetry and artwork.
Our issue 23, appearing in July 1967, was completely devoted to Cuba. Much
to the surprise of some US readers, most young Cuban poets weren’t writing
specifically about political issues. “We don’t need to write about the revolu-
tion,” one of them said, “we are the revolution.”
The Pan American Union, cultural arm of the then US-dominated Orga-
nization of American States (oas) warned us against publishing a letter that
referenced that anthology. We defied the threat, and the institution canceled
its five hundred subscriptions. In 1968 Mexico’s student movement emerged
with significant power, and the government (about to host the Olympic
games) repressed it violently.8 Our magazine defended the students, and I
was also active in the movement. The following year I suffered a political
repression, was forced underground, and had to leave Mexico. It was then
that I moved my family to Cuba.
It wasn’t long before Cuba’s cultural ideas began to have an impact on
young artists in the United States and in other parts of the world. Politically

Two, Three, Many Vietnams | 167

conscious painters, photographers, writers, musicians, singer-songwriters,
dancers, and theater people began calling themselves cultural workers. This
came out of an ideological identification with the working class and was an
attempt to avoid the rarefied status bestowed upon artists by a commodity-
oriented society.
From the mid-1960s through the early 1980s, Cuba produced some of
the most powerful revolutionary art anywhere in the world. We’ve already
seen the influence wrought by Casa’s yearly literary prize, but the country’s
publishing program was much broader. The 1961 literacy campaign had all
but eradicated illiteracy in the country and left a population hungry to read.
Books were heavily subsidized, and title followed title, in editions for a coun-
try of 11 million that would have seemed impossibly large in one with a pop-
ulation twenty times its size. And these editions sold out quickly; news of
a new title had people lining up for hours to obtain a copy. I remember my
oldest daughter standing in line all night for the next in her favorite mystery
series. A few books that were classics of world literature merited especially
large editions; a million copies were printed of Cervantes’s Don Quijote, and
Malcolm X’s Autobiography was an early bestseller.
Like most poor countries, prerevolutionary Cuba didn’t have much of a
film industry. Under the direction of Alfredo Guevara, the Cuban Institute of
Cinematographic Arts and Industry (icaic) began its wild run of extraordi-
nary films—classics such as Lucía, Memories of Underdevelopment, and Straw-
berry and Chocolate.9 Eventually a school for filmmakers opened on the is-
land, and Havana’s yearly international film festival began making headlines.
Visual artists, too, flourished with the revolution; many were subsidized so
they could commit to their own work, and the state provided materials when
scarcity became a problem.
Cuba has always had rich traditions of music and dance. With the revo-
lution, young singer-songwriters such as Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés,
Sara González, and Noël Nicola—many of them discovered and supported
by Haydée—joined the old-timers, aging troubadours whose talents the new
society also recognized and brought to renewed prominence. The great Cu-
ban ballerina Alicia Alonso, famous before the revolution came to power,
stayed on, created a new school of ballet that took into account particular
Cuban body types, and in a still macho society encouraged young boys who
were interested to study the discipline.
In addition to the dozen or so theater companies that existed in Havana

168 | Chapter 8
 Poster for Lucia,
Cuban Institute
of Film Art and
Industry (icaic), Raúl
Martínez González,
serigraph, 1968.

and other Cuban cities, a new type of theater developed out of the revolu-
tionary struggle itself. The Escambray Mountains harbored a counterrevolu-
tionary movement long after the war was won. A theater group called Teatro
Escambray sent its members out to live among the poor farmers in the area,
learn their problems, and together write plays that would showcase those
problems followed by discussion aimed at resolving them.
A National Arts School drew talent from the most remote regions of the
country. Scouts traveled to rural areas, issuing calls to young people inter-
ested in studying a variety of artistic genres, and brought them to Havana
for professional training. Eventually, each of the country’s provinces would
have its own art school. And art was also an important component of the

Two, Three, Many Vietnams | 169

revolutionary curriculum being developed throughout the system of public
education. But Cuban posters, like no other expressive form, conveyed a re-
jection of the old order and invitation to the new.
In the context of the Cuban revolution, posters acquired a life and vitality
of their own. From the early 1960s through the mid 1980s, Cuban poster art
may have had as great an influence on rebel movements in the United States
and throughout the world as any other artistic genre. A number of institu-
tions produced their own: among them Casa de las Américas, icaic, and the
Organization of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America (ospaaal).
Great Cuban artists, such as René Mederos (whose silk screen images of Viet-
nam remain iconic), Alfredo Rostgaard (whose haunting protest song poster
of a stylized rose, a drop of blood dripping from its single thorn, has been
reproduced worldwide), Nelson Ponce, Lilia Díaz, Asela Pérez, and Umberto
Peña (who designed Casa’s posters and publications for years), are among the
artists who created those unforgettable images.
Because of its commitment to global social change and its strong inter-
nationalist bent, Cuban posters addressed the struggle for black power in
the United States, Puerto Rican independence, freedom for Angela Davis,
defiance after the murder of George Jackson,10 and the liberation struggles
being waged throughout the Third World, among others. They honored fig-
ures such as Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh, Puerto Rican nationalist Pedro Albizu
Campos,11 Colombian priest and guerrilla fighter Camilo Torres,12 and of
course Che Guevara in every possible iteration.
The great Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier has written:
With the Cuban revolution a new mechanism was established for pro-
duction, distribution and consumption, eliminating the legitimacy of the
traditional advertising poster that, particularly for cosmetics, drinks or
the cinema, would often arrive ready-made, printed in the United States.
It was then that our design artists, engravers, decorators and typographers
were called into action. Those who previously (with rare exceptions) had
been shunted to the sidelines in the advertising industry [. . .] were given
the opportunity of working on posters conceived for historical and cul-
tural purposes. And because of its high quality, the poster was converted
into an intrinsic vehicle for the spread of culture and a permanent expres-
sion of a new reality, continually reinventing itself and accessible to all.
At the same time, we must emphasize the importance these posters
acquired in our people’s political consciousness. Every commemoration,

170 | Chapter 8
 every event, every aspect of our collective lives were reflected in posters
that, in a certain sense, through the images they projected, make up a
living and contemporary chronicle of the revolutionary process.13
A sad commentary on how our world has changed between that era and the
present is how these posters were regarded in the 1960s–1980s period and
how they are regarded now. Back then, they applauded courage, showed sol-
idarity, educated for social change, and encouraged liberation in many differ-
ent cultures and situations. Cuban posters have now become valuable items
displayed in special collections and sold on eBay. Capitalism’s consumer-
oriented society has reduced them, like so much else, to objects of market
worth.
The counterrevolution understood all too well the power of that art. I
remember when the cia removed every copy of a poster honoring the Black
Panthers14 from between the pages of Cuba’s Revista Tricontinental, replaced
it with a significantly altered knockoff that carried a message designed to
divide, and then resealed the envelope and sent magazine and poster on
their way.
From December 1972 through January 1973, US painter and muralist Jane
Norling spent two months in Havana working half days at ospaaal’s design
studio. I was living in Cuba at the time. Jane was a member of the People’s
Press collective in San Francisco. Because the collective produced a quarterly
digest of ospaaal’s Tricontinental magazine in English, the Cuban organiza-
tion invited one of its members down to have this experience. Studio director
Alfredo Rostgaard asked Jane to design a poster for the Day of World Solidar-
ity with the Struggle of the Puerto Rican people.
Jane remembers:
The poster had international distribution. It was a tremendous honor for
me. I was 25 and extremely naïve politically and internationally, but I
did speak Spanish. Frankly, I don’t remember much about working at the
all-male design department other than Rostgaard’s gentle wit, encour-
agement, conversations about political art making in the US, and general
wisecracking and practical joking.
I do recall a discussion about signing the poster. As a member of a
collective, I adamantly believed that if the name of the artist appeared on
the work, the names of all the producers of the piece should also appear,
from copy camera operator to stripper and printer. I asked why in socialist

Two, Three, Many Vietnams | 171

Jane Norling’s poster in solidarity with the struggle of the
Puerto Rican people, designed for ospaaal, 1973. used by
permission.

Cuba only an artist’s signature would appear with the image. Rostgaard
said: “People want to know who did it. However collectively produced a
published piece, the hand of the artist, the eye of the designer, belongs to
that one person. Its use is collective.”
Cuban poster art informed the civil–rights-fueled social justice orga-
nizations of the 1970s, consciously or just because we absorbed it. The vi-
suals that exemplified the young Revolution educated US artists eager to
use our hands and eyes to build a just society. Cuba turned the successful
blend of word and image to sell capitalism against capitalism, and did it

172 | Chapter 8
with wit and a “fuck you” that thrilled us 50 years ago and roars forward
today in the Occupy posters.

Haydée Santamaría and Che Guevara promoted “Two, three, many Viet-
nams” in different ways: she by facilitating revolutionary art, and he by
making of his life the highest expression of that art. When Che was killed
in Bolivia in October 1967, Haydée lost a soul mate, someone with whom
she identified completely. Her anguish can be felt in her letter to Chilean
painter Roberto Matta and in her own posthumous letter to the guerilla
leader:
Che:
Where can I write you now? You would tell me anywhere, to the Boliv-
ian miner, Peruvian mother, guerrilla fighter who is or isn’t but will be. I
know all that, Che. You yourself taught me, and anyway this letter isn’t re-
ally for you. How can I tell you that I never cried so much since the night
I heard they killed Frank [País]—even though when it was announced I
didn’t believe you were really dead. We were all sure you were still alive,
and I said: “It’s not possible, a bullet can’t bring down that which is im-
mortal. Fidel and you must live. If you don’t, how can we?” Fourteen years
ago I saw those die whom I loved most in the world—I think I’ve already
lived too long. The sun isn’t any longer so beautiful, the palm trees don’t
give me pleasure anymore. Sometimes, like now, although I love life so
much, knowing it’s worth opening one’s eyes each morning if only for
those two things, I want to close them forever, like you.
This continent doesn’t deserve this, that’s the truth. With your eyes
open, Latin America would have found its way forward. Che, the only
thing that might have consoled me would have been to have gone with
you. But I didn’t go. I’m here with Fidel. I have always done what he
wanted.
Do you remember? In the Sierra you promised. You said: “You won’t
miss the coffee, we’ll drink mate.” You were an internationalist, borders
didn’t exist for you, but you promised you would send for me when you
were finally in your Argentina. I never doubted you would keep that
promise. Now it cannot happen, you couldn’t, I couldn’t.
Fidel said it, so I know it’s true. How sad. He couldn’t say “Che.” He
drew on all his strength and said “Ernesto Guevara.” That’s how he broke
the news to the people, your people. What tremendous sadness. I cried for
the people, for Fidel, for you, because I can’t take it anymore. And later,

Two, Three, Many Vietnams | 173

 at your wake, when our great people wondered what rank Fidel would
confer upon you, he said “artist.” I felt that any rank would have been too
low, inadequate, and Fidel as always found the right one.
Everything you created was perfect, but you created something unique:
yourself. You showed us that a new human being is possible. Everyone
could see that this new being is real, because he exists, he is you.
What more can I say, Che? If only I knew how to speak like you did.
Once you wrote me:
I see that you have become a writer with a talent for synthesis, but I
confess I liked you best that New Year’s day, with guns blaring all around
and all your ammunition spent. That image, and our time together in the
Sierra—even our fights back then are precious memories—are what I
will carry with me for my personal use.
That’s why I can’t write about you, and you will always have that
memory.
Until victory always, dear Che,
Haydée.
Artist. That’s what Fidel called Che at his wake, and as Haydée reiterated in
this letter and on many other occasions, it was the highest accolade in her
vocabulary, the most honorable rank or condition to which she believed a
person could aspire. In life, Che too was known for his love of art and respect
for the creative process. In “Man and Socialism in Cuba” (1965), he devotes
significant space to the revolutionary nature of abstract art.15 In his guerrilla
campaigns he often carried books of poetry in his backpack, even when it
meant less room for ammunition or medicine.
The Cuban revolution showcased a series of convictions that, although
present in earlier cultures, periods, and struggles, were strongly emphasized
in its narrative, especially during its first two decades. These included confi-
dence in the feasibility of a small group of rebels being capable of routing an
entrenched regime fully supported by a powerful neighbor, a belief that so-
cial change is primarily human rather than simply political, an appreciation
of culture and art as driving forces in the new society, and internationalism
at a level never before seen.
Haydée and Che embodied these beliefs in a way few others did. Haydée
gave all her energies to struggle before it was even visible on Cuba’s mid-
twentieth century horizon. She committed herself to that struggle when she
was one of a handful of revolutionaries and of an even smaller number of

174 | Chapter 8
women. She broke international barriers with her work at Casa. She em-
braced all that was authentic in the arts—and the artists who created that
authenticity. She defended creative Cubans engaged in similar activity. And
she linked her work to internationalist concerns at every level.
Che developed his internationalism after leaving his native Argentina,
honing it as a very young man traveling Latin America on a beat-up motor-
cycle. He brought this consciousness with him when he met Fidel in Mexico.
In a matter of hours the two men joined forces. Che was one of the few survi-
vors of the ill-fated voyage on the Granma and proved himself during the war
in the mountains, becoming a leader long before the 1959 victory. Although
he stayed on in Cuba for almost a decade, lending his brilliant and innovative
mind to projects such as the National Bank and Ministry of Industry, the idea
of work as a constructive force, and culture as an imperative to change, he
never intended to remain in Cuba.
Fidel was destined to become the statesman, charged with leading a coun-
try, carrying on diplomatic relations with other nations, and resolving the
problems inherent in bringing Cuba out of underdevelopment in a bipolar
world. Che was destined to take his dream of national liberation across bor-
ders, to die in the service of that dream, and to become an enduring symbol
of resistance—even for generations too young to know his history. Haydée
was like a bridge between the two, embodying some qualities of each and
adding her own.
Meaningful social change, free education from kindergarten through
postgraduate work, universal health care, internationalism, culture, arts, and
sports made accessible to all: these are the rights and responsibilities the Cu-
ban revolution has prioritized from the beginning. Che and Haydée wanted
these achievements to come better, faster, more creatively and permanently.
Each gave his or her life in that effort.

Two, Three, Many Vietnams | 175

Haydée at a Communist Party assembly in 1977.
photo courtesy casa de las américas.
9 THE WOMAN BENEATH THE MYTH

She was not

an instrument
for you to play,
already radiant as she was
with death’s empty light,
the way death is its own
effortless not doing.
—V. B. Price, “Orpheus the Healer”

Haydée Santamaría came from the obscurity of provincial life on a Cuban

sugar plantation and grew up during the most oppressive half of the last cen-
tury to take her place among her nation’s heroes. She was known by her first
name in households all over the island, and anyone old enough still refers
to her as Haydée.
To revolutionaries she became a legend in her lifetime. But even those
who were less than enthusiastic about the political change wrought by her
and her comrades were drawn to her warmth and authenticity. Just as some
in this latter category might pinpoint Fidel and others as targets of their
resentment, they would speak about Haydée as an exception, citing a kind-
ness she had bestowed upon them or a story they had heard. Revolutionaries
troubled by the rigidity of certain officials or the repressive excesses in peri-
ods during which difference was disdained looked to her for understanding
and protection. They were not disappointed. And for anyone beyond Cuba’s
borders, anywhere in the world, if we had the privilege of knowing her it
was a gift.
Like all girl children in a world controlled by men, Haydée achieved
her survival at great personal cost. She learned where she could, detecting
teachers and turning them into mentors. She apprenticed in all directions
and with an energy that set her apart: from the teacher in the provincial
schoolhouse of her youth, from her country’s greatest rebels (dead and alive),
from field hand or Nobel laureate, innovative musician or neighbor child.
Her brother Abel, with whom she developed a deep bond in their common
pursuit of justice, led her to Fidel, Celia, and Che, figures who remained the
essential points on her compass.
Her gender consciousness was raw and deep. She came up long before
feminism’s Second Wave swept the Western world, pointing to a new anal-
ysis of power and designing a more equitable dynamic that would challenge
institutions as well as individuals. She wasn’t someone who studied theory;
she simply had a highly developed sense of right and wrong. Attitudes oth-
ers may have espoused out of an ideological stance, she expressed naturally.
And she came to many feminist ideas before theoreticians or activists wrote
about them.
Her consuming involvement with changing society as a whole left little
time for thinking about a particular sector: women, people of color, lesbians
and gay men, the differently abled, or others. Her pursuit of justice for every-
one caused her to demand equality for all groups. She saw the challenge as a
single task and positioned herself on the front lines of all these struggles si-
multaneously. When she felt an injustice had been committed, she undoubt-
edly railed against it in high-level party meetings. She also took what mea-
sures were possible on her own. Singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez attests
to the fact that she went to the reeducation camps set up to “make men out
of homosexuals” in 1965 and personally removed a number of artists whom
she then continued to encourage and protect.1
Haydée’s ideas about womanhood were not without contradiction. On the
one hand, she looked to uniquely courageous women as models and had an
unusually developed sense of her own female self. In response to the long-
time acquaintance who’d accused her of being too important now to re-
member old friends, she wrote that the woman was mistaken and, outraged,

178 | Chapter 9
declared she’d been important years before when she’d risked her life at
Moncada, not later when having done the right thing gave her status and re-
sponsibilities. As I read that letter, I expected her to express the self-effacing
modesty so typical of women at the time and insist that she wasn’t as import-
ant as the woman thought. Instead, she owned her true importance with a
confidence rare in women then—and even now.
On the other hand, she held marriage as sacred and divorce unacceptable.
The sanctity of marriage, for her, didn’t come from state or religious author-
ity; she was not a believer and her attitude toward organized religion ran
from disinterest to rejection. Rather, it was her understanding of loyalty—
the commitment one human being makes to another—that made it so diffi-
cult for her to contemplate dissolving such a union.
Several of my interviewees made it clear that Haydée believed that a wife’s
place was with her husband. She clearly felt that men need women, not as
servants or for pleasure, but because women are more emotionally devel-
oped and could be helpful when men might flounder. And she said her era
favored female strength and sensibility. At the same time, she couldn’t bear a
man standing in the way of a woman’s (or anyone’s) creativity, work, or goals.
Life’s great projects came first: the revolution, internationalism, children,
culture, and art. In her view, art was as important as the more practical forms
of nourishment, and I think her belief that culture is the highest form of
politics informed everything she did, as well as all her relationships.
Haydée had strong family ties and cherished motherhood. Despite her
vast professional and political responsibilities, she always found time for her
children and the children of others. And this time was far from perfunctory.
Everyone with whom I spoke, very particularly those who had been moth-
ered by her, talked about the time she spent with her children, on all their
important occasions and in the everyday.
She lived at a time when men and women together attempted to change
the world and when men almost always led in that endeavor. It was a mon-
umental goal, requiring full commitment. And she was of a generation in
which many of us, myself included, found it difficult to mother our own
children well while working to make life better for all the world’s children.
Yet she managed that balance admirably.
Haydée’s concept of family was large and inclusive. Along with her two
biological children, she added the children of family members to her house-
hold whenever necessary. She hosted children from the Cuban countryside

The Woman beneath the Myth | 179

Haydée enjoying Casa de las América’s twentieth anniversary celebration. photo
courtesy casa de las américas.

who came to study in the capital. And she and Armando took in a number of
Latin American children whose parents were on the front lines of struggle or
in prison or had died in the various efforts to liberate the continent.
Norma Ruiz told me that at mealtimes there could be as many as fourteen
sitting around her dining room table. And Haydée’s daughter Celia María
wrote about how the number of her brothers and sisters varied year by year.
Haydée was also deeply interested in the family situations of everyone with
whom she worked and many she met along the way, keeping up with their
children, aware of particular problems, and always ready to help.
Dolores Pérez (“Lolita”), a childhood friend of Haydée’s who was a great
support during the underground struggle in Havana, remembers how she
adored plants and animals, to say nothing of humans whom she loved
above all else. She imbued everything with life, making the simplest gath-
erings into something more, so that the smallest act seemed like a great
event. One of her notable characteristics was her ability to embellish a
project with a series of little details that turned it into something special.
Her solid leadership characteristics never separated her from others, or
made her seem one-dimensional.2
Fashion? Haydée disparaged consumerism and industry fads, even as her po-
sition at the head of Casa de las Américas and as an official representative of

180 | Chapter 9
the Cuban revolution abroad required she use an appropriate style of dress.
She knew that in this respect more was expected of her as a woman than if
she were a man; and she raged against gender discrimination as expressed
in the dress code of the day. Her appreciation of art and craft drew her to
indigenous weavings. She was vain about her hair, which she thought of as
thin and inelegant, and innovated wigs and other head coverings to deal with
the problem. She also delighted in dressing up and masquerading to play
elaborate tricks on others.
But her most profound statement about dress and its implications came,
as we have seen, when she appeared at a pcc Central Committee meeting
dressed as a man. As one of very few women in an upper-echelon world that
was predominately male, she was sick of the lack of respect she suffered
when she received engraved invitations addressed to “Comrade so and so
and wife” or when the instructions for correct attire listed “bring wife” below
“medals” or “tie.”
Haydée was very much a woman of her time, shaped by the history and
culture of Cuba as it filtered through class, race, and gender at mid-twentieth
century. She was also a woman who defied her era. She sought justice in
ways that served as an example to many and proof of her locura (craziness) to
some, depending upon the person’s own broad-mindedness and moral com-
pass. People from all walks of life were drawn to her, especially those who
favored authenticity over social pretense. Those who loved her tended to be
the great creative spirits and others who shunned pretense or unnecessary
formalities. Timid apologists for social hypocrisy, those who defended impe-
rialist politics, opportunists, and social climbers were uncomfortable in her
presence, fearing the implacability of her truth.
There are numerous stories that show her defending a person or idea,
even if hers was the lone dissenting voice against a high-level chorus of oppo-
sition. A concrete example of the way in which Haydée defied pressures to go
along with conformist cultural strategies can be found in the following piece
of history. In the late 1950s and immediately following the victory of the rev-
olution, several newsreels made by different companies were documenting
recent Cuban events. One of these was José Guerra Alemán’s Cineperiódico.
When Alfredo Guevara founded icaic and began producing Noticiero latino-
americano, he made sure the latter replaced the former.
Cineperiódico had its own anti-Batista history. It had gained a reputation
for independence and professionalism from its 1951 reportage on Eduardo
Chibas’s suicide and had produced Cuba 1959 and El gran recuento (The Great

The Woman beneath the Myth | 181

Gabriel García Márquez and Haydée, Colombian Exhibition, Casa de las Américas,
1979. photo courtesy casa de las américas.

Story)—both excellent portrayals of the revolutionary saga. Noticiero latino-

americano was rooted in more traditional Communist ideology; Cineperiódico
was denied space and disappeared from Cuban theaters. Guevara clearly
wanted absolute control of the new Cuban film.
Alemán supported the revolution and had contact with members of its
leadership. Haydée appreciated his honesty, political commitment, and pro-
fessionalism. In an interview with Emmanuel Vincenot, Alemán remembers
that “Haydée was a godmother to us.” Vincenot writes that Haydée’s support
of Alemán was decisive and that she defended him publicly, not only in op-
position to Guevara but against the opinion of her own husband, who was
minister of education at the time.
Eventually, many of those who worked in Cineperiódico emigrated, indic-
ative of many such losses in periods in which the revolution seemed to have
room for only one cultural manifestation at a time. There is no doubt that
both Alfredo Guevara and Haydée Santamaría thought outside the restrictive
box, but I believe Haydée was by far the more adventurous and greater risk
taker. I do not know of an instance in which she put a particular line before
her multifaceted and comprehensive respect for a variety of voices.3
Haydée rarely spoke ill of anyone. She was immensely understanding of
the many levels of human capacity, and although quick to criticize a bad

182 | Chapter 9
 Haydée with
Alejo Carpentier.
photo courtesy
casa de las
américas.

decision or a job poorly done, she attacked the act rather than the person.
Silvio Rodríguez has written:
Haydée would not permit bad-mouthing of any sort. When you heard her
insisting on someone’s virtues, you knew that person was in the funeral
chapel, so to speak. She was a great teacher of humanity in a small body
and with the voice of a flute. But no one was fooled as to the character that
resided in that body. [. . .] For me, Yeyé was the mortar that bound those
random bits and pieces still floating within me.4
When she died, Marcia Leseica, who was one of her closest friends and col-
leagues, remarked that for the first time they wouldn’t be able to count on

The Woman beneath the Myth | 183

her exquisite sensibility when collectively preparing a document issued by
Casa: “We will miss her tact in choosing just the right word, or eliminating
a phrase that might have been hurtful to someone.”5

According to Louis Pérez Jr., Cuba’s suicide rate has always been high, proba-
bly among the highest in the world and certainly the highest in Latin Amer-
ica. For whatever reasons of geography, climate, temperament, socialization,
or an intensely tragic sense of life and death, just as in several of the Nordic
nations, women as well as men on the tropical isle have historically opted
to end their lives. Although in Cuba the numbers of suicides rose during the
Special Period in the early 1990s, this has not been a phenomenon of the rev-
olution. It has been true from the late colonial period into the early republic,
under capitalism as well as socialism.6
All those who knew or worked with Haydée describe her as joyous, loving
a good time, and delighting in arranging encounters that would be entertain-
ing to others. At the same time, no one failed to note the deep sadness in her
eyes, the horrendous memories she carried with her from Moncada on, and
the great losses that continued to assault her for as long as she lived. Some
used the word “depression” or “depressive state.” One of my interviewees
confided that she periodically took to her bed and always needed help to get
up again.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) was not widely understood when
she was alive, but with what we now know it doesn’t seem an exaggeration to
say that she suffered from the condition, at least beginning after Moncada. I
sensed a depressive personality dating much farther back, perhaps inherited
from gender configurations in her family of origin, where strong women had
to fight their way from restriction to agency. It may have been written into
their genetic makeup.
Escape from her parental home wasn’t easy for Haydée. And it wasn’t ob-
tainable without cost. She never envisioned for herself an escape that would
simply allow her the freedom to study, work, choose a husband, or follow the
life-sized dreams most women of her time nurtured. Her dream was always
much larger than life: nothing short of changing the power relations in the
country she loved so deeply—and the world.
The fact that Haydée was known for her joyous enthusiasm, for dressing
up and playing tricks on people, or for throwing a party at a moment’s notice,
doesn’t belie her darker side. Both elements lived and struggled within her,

184 | Chapter 9
Haydée with Cuban writer Dora Alonso, 1980 Literary Prize. photo
courtesy casa de las américas.

each constantly vying for the upper hand. It is painful to consider how hard
she must have had to work to keep her demons under control.
Haydée led by transgression, by which I mean she led by following her
own exquisitely developed sense of justice, irrespective of the people she
had to challenge, the rules she had to break or the ways in which she had to
veer from the official line. But hers was never a rebellion for rebellion’s sake.
She was as adept at knowing when staying beneath the radar was the more
propitious course as she was at taking a visible stand when that was called
for. She knew how to choose her battles.
Understanding power is essential to understanding society. Few move-

The Woman beneath the Myth | 185

ments for social change have considered power itself as a political category.
Almost invariably, those who sacrifice everything to take power will do any-
thing to hold onto it, even when that means relinquishing some of the ideals
on which they base their struggle.
Long after Haydée’s death, we finally have an example in the Zapatistas
of southern Mexico, who claim their goal is not to take state power and have
given us lessons in indigenous forms of consensus and decision making. In
May 2014 Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos announced he would
step aside to make room for younger leadership. This was not the tradition
Haydée inherited. She was part of the communist paradigm with its Leninist
principles of party organization and democratic centralism. Yet her ultimate
decision, in some strange way, may also have been a passing of the baton—as
well as a definitive rejection of rigid party morality.
Haydée had a very different view of power than most of Cuba’s other
revolutionary figures. To some extent this was gender-based. Celia Sánchez
was another woman in the Cuban leadership who adamantly rejected self-
glorification; even to the extent of refusing to appear in public or call atten-
tion to herself in any way. Over a period of fifty-five years, I know of no woman
entangled in any of the power plays that occasionally destroyed their male
comrades. But in Haydée’s case I don’t believe gender alone was involved. It
was part of the picture, but she simply had no use for self-aggrandizement.
In Haydée’s worldview, it wasn’t the person who was important, but
what that person gave of herself, what she did. And she saw people in all
their complex dimensions. If someone she considered limited was able to
overcome those limitations and shine, she never failed to encourage and
applaud. All she asked of those around her was honesty and dedication. The
work itself was important, not the honors or medals. In her contact with
the world’s great personalities, she had to learn to consider position and
rank. But in the collective she established at Casa de las Américas she pro-
moted a uniquely collaborative model, shunning competition and drawing
on people’s strengths. She was as good at listening as at giving orders. Many
of those who worked with her emphasized how they had felt empowered.
It was impossible for the revolution, even for those in her most intimate
circles, to understand someone of Haydée’s vitality and creative energy
choosing suicide. The communism of her time considered it betrayal. The
psychiatric community deemed it pathological. Those who loved and needed
her naturally experienced overwhelming loss. Dying on the front lines of

186 | Chapter 9
Haydée with President Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, 1968. photo courtesy casa de
las américas.

revolutionary struggle would have been the ultimate sacrifice—as it was

when Che Guevara met his death in Bolivia or any Cuban internationalist
gives his or her life on a foreign battlefield. To succumb to illness, as in Celia
Sánchez’s case, couldn’t be blamed on the individual. Taking one’s own life
was not on the list of heroic acts in 1980. It still isn’t.
Haydée Santamaría and Celia Sánchez, among many outstanding women
of the Cuban Revolution, were unique and uniquely similar. The revolution
treated them differently in death, but in life they represented a rare duo, sen-

The Woman beneath the Myth | 187

sitive and wise beyond their time. Alfredo Guevara has said: “Losing Haydée
and Celia, both in 1980, changed everything. After they died the revolution
continued to be the revolution, but it was the revolution without them.”7
And yet the discomfort around Haydée’s suicide was complicated. Nine
years earlier, in June 1971, Comandante Eddy Suñol took his life at age forty-
six. He left a note saying the chronic pain from wounds incurred during the
war made it impossible for him to continue to carry out his revolutionary
duties. In 1983, Oswaldo Dorticós, the country’s president, also shot him-
self; he suffered from a chronic spinal affliction and his wife of many years
had just died. Suñol was eulogized by Raúl Castro, and buried in his native
Holguín with full military honors. Several people with whom I spoke pointed
out that at least back then it was easier for the revolutionary leadership to
accept physical rather than psychological pain as a valid reason for ending
one’s life. It wasn’t only the leadership that failed Haydée in this respect.
Extreme emotional anguish was not considered a legitimate illness by almost
anyone at the time.
Only Haydée’s daughter eventually wrote of the respect we must have for
those who decide they would rather be dead than alive. And only a very few
among the family members, colleagues, and friends with whom I spoke saw
Haydée’s suicide as an act of freedom. Yet in the context of who she was and
what she did, I am inclined toward this interpretation.
Mourning a revolutionary heroine at an ordinary funeral establishment
was linked to this lack of understanding but also raised other issues. It was
palpably uncomfortable for those of us crowded into the commercial viewing
space that night. Yet it did not and would not diminish her stature.
“In any case,” Haydée’s niece Norma told me, “the fact that my aunt wasn’t
laid out in the Plaza isn’t worthy of the discussion surrounding it all these
years. She wouldn’t have wanted all that fanfare, and her family didn’t care
either. The pain of losing her was too great, and if there was ever a death
felt in every social sphere it was hers. Intellectuals, as you know, are fond of
speculating; they love polemics.”8
A woman’s sacrifice invariably means sacrificing for others, giving up her
time or energy to make the lives of others better. I believe Haydée sacrificed
the sun and palms she loved, the revolution and even her motherhood, be-
cause it finally hurt too much to wage that daily battle against overwhelming
anguish. She was surrounded by ghosts. Perhaps their call had become too
insistent. She also trusted the revolution and must have known that she had
bequeathed the tools of social change to her colleagues, family, and friends.

188 | Chapter 9
Tribute to the New Song Movement. Haydée greets Silvio Rodríguez; Noël Nicola
can be seen just behind Silvio to the right and Pablo Menéndez to the far right in
the photograph. Casa de las Américas, 1979. photo by pirole, courtesy casa de
las américas.

Haydée herself left all the clues we need to understand why she took her
life. On more than one public occasion she explained that, after Moncada,
she remained alive because she needed to find out if Fidel had survived. She
was convinced that if he lived, the unspeakable losses of her brother and fi-
ancé and so many others would not have been in vain. Then she had to live to
be able to tell Fidel that his second-in-command was dead but that it was all
right because he had loved him—and that he, too, had believed that if Fidel
survived, their revolution would succeed. Then she had to live to be able to
give her testimony at trial.
Still in prison, Fidel had important tasks for Haydée and Melba: first to
round up the comrades who had escaped Moncada or been unable to make it
to the garrison, and gather them together in a single place. Then they had to
receive and assemble the encoded pages of “History Will Absolve Me,” deci-
pher the text, raise the money, and arrange to have it printed and distributed
throughout Cuba and the world: no small effort. A movement for amnesty
had to be promoted. And once the July 26 leadership, now in Mexico, was
ready to return to Cuba, the uprising in Santiago and support for the struggle
in the Sierra had to be organized.
As the war progressed, other important tasks claimed Haydée’s atten-

The Woman beneath the Myth | 189

tion: in the cities, in the mountains, and even outside the country. I can
imagine her, waking each morning and rededicating herself to each new
effort. The feats demanded of her were challenging. They must have given
her ample reason to stay alive. And she became an expert at doing so, often
being the only one capable of escaping a police roundup or slipping through
enemy lines.
Once the war was won, the real work began. Che Guevara and many oth-
ers have emphasized that armed struggle is the easiest phase of revolution.
Peacetime brings the much more complex job of creating a new society, with
all that implies in terms of changing values and achieving equal opportu-
nity. Basic rights such as dignity, work, equitable food distribution, housing,
health care, education, and culture must be developed and made accessible
across the board. In a revolution, there is no shortage of reasons to live.
When the revolution becomes institutionalized, there may be fewer.
Haydée’s main arena, Casa de las Américas, gave her ample opportunity
to contemplate the fruits of her labor. In an extraordinarily short time, she
was able to create a structure in which the world’s great intellects and art-
ists were introduced to what the Cuban Revolution was doing, and Cubans
came in contact with the world’s great art. Perhaps just as important, she
put in place a working collective that showcased revolutionary values and
relationships. For Haydée, desired ends never justified dubious means. She
understood that the new society’s values must be built into the process itself.
Casa remains a brilliant example of her spirit and intelligence at work, when
it comes to how power should be exercised, how democracy can function.

Historic necessity and her own highly developed commitment combined

to give Haydée a succession of reasons to open her eyes each morning, fol-
lowing an event so traumatic that death surely must have seemed the easier
choice. In their last minutes together, Abel himself had impressed upon her
that his death would be the easier of their destinies; by far the more difficult
would be hers to live. And that was what she must prepare herself to do. In
a fragment from one of her talks, quoted in this book, she wonders if Abel
was even still alive in her memory of their last conversation. Her uncertainty
speaks to the intensity of the moment.
Having to find reason after reason to go on living, though, requires an
energy few can sustain. Eventually exhaustion takes over.
And if we feel compelled to die, there is no space in which we can talk

190 | Chapter 9
about the option—not in the society in which Haydée lived nor in most
places now. Perhaps in some saner future we will come to a greater rational-
ity with regard to the right to determine how long each of us wants to live
and when and why life may no longer feel acceptable.
A very few countries and a couple of US states practice death with dignity
when experts agree it is warranted in specific cases. Up to now, this has al-
ways been linked to terminal physical illness. In the more advanced societies,
we have achieved a woman’s right to make such a decision with regard to an
unborn child. And almost all nations have protocols for putting an animal
out of its misery when its life is no longer viable.
The mere whisper of suicide, however, by an adult who is loved and per-
ceived as vital elicits immediate efforts to prevent that person from killing
herself. Life is simply believed to be the only moral choice. Despite all evi-
dence to the contrary, it is always presumed the person can be made to feel
better and should be enticed to keep on living. There are thousands of cases
each year of those who, unable to complete the act themselves, force law
enforcement to do it for them.
Haydée was always absolutely sure of what she needed and wanted. Once
her mind was made up, there was no deterring or seducing her to an alter-
native decision. This aspect of her character could be observed in the largest
acts of choice and follow-through and in decisions as seemingly insignificant
as where a piece of furniture should go, how a painting should be hung, or
what to cook for dinner. She let others do their jobs, but she was meticulous
in doing hers.
We cannot know the emotional pain she endured day in and day out,
from Moncada to the moment of her death. What we do know, much more
fully than thirty years ago, is how intimately mind and body are linked and
how emotional and physical pain move and metastasize between apparently
separate poles.
We talk about suicide from the outside. Most of those who pronounce
themselves against it have never experienced the overwhelming need to
choose death. In the vast majority of humans and animals, the life force
is stronger than any other. But we must remember we are outside, not in.
When we say: “If she had been in her right mind, loving her children as she
did she would never have done such a thing,” we fail to understand how
extreme pain can rearrange or even erase priorities. No one would think of
accusing a woman dying of cancer of leaving her children because she didn’t
take them into consideration or love them enough.

The Woman beneath the Myth | 191

Haydée’s funeral cortege making its way from the funeral home to Colón
Cemetery. Juan Almeida is two removed from Fidel on his right, and Nicaraguan
Sandinista Comandante Dora María Téllez is to Almeida’s right. Behind them are
thousands of Cubans. photo courtesy granma and casa de las américas.

Having defended Haydée’s right—more accurately need—to end her life,

I must also defend the anguish and even anger of those she left behind. Her
children, first of all. Finding his mother in her death agony surely affected
Abel Enrique for the rest of his life. Celia María, despite eventually coming
to such a mature appreciation of her mother’s decision, also suffered hor-
ribly. Haydée’s sisters were profoundly unbalanced by her suicide, Ada to
the point of going a similar route twenty-three years later. Haydée’s niece
Niurka, more than three decades farther on, still wept with rage and grief
when speaking of her loss.
At Casa de las Américas the women and men who worked with Haydée
every day, who were in the midst of projects and looked forward to upcom-
ing plans, were shaken to the core. Very suddenly, they found themselves
without their guiding force, the person they had gone to with every problem,
personal as well as professional, and upon whom they had depended in the
complexity of their work.
For all these family members, friends, and colleagues, the tragedy of loss
was compounded by the terrible dilemma of how to mourn someone their
revolution told them had committed an unacceptable act. It was disconcert-
ing to have to grieve her at a funeral parlor, rather than at the foot of the

192 | Chapter 9
great Martí statue in the Plaza of the Revolution. Breathing was difficult,
comprehension impossible.
Going forward, how to honor Haydée’s memory also comes into question.
Casa de las Américas has organized periodic tributes, but none with the un-
fettered homage that would have permitted the nation to take part. For Hay-
dée there was no great public act as there had been for Che. Schoolchildren
do not toss flowers into the sea each year, as they do for Camilo.9 Yet there
is no question she was of their stature. Perhaps the absence of a large public
demonstration also has to do with gender, for Celia doesn’t receive this sort
of nationwide anniversary tribute either.
Although attitudes toward suicide have changed in the years since Hay-
dée’s death, few public buildings bear her name, and her magnificent life has
yet to be memorialized as it should. Contested opinions have kept film pro-
duction, theater, and books from proliferating as one might have expected.
There is the sense that all these hesitations and doubts are fading with time.
What cannot be undone is the unnecessary pain still burdening those who
knew and loved her best.
The woman for whom the revolution meant creativity and diversity, the
woman who never judged a person by a single act but saw each in his or her
full dimension and appreciated and honored lives in their totality, was pun-
ished at the hour of her death because of a single decision. The revolution, to
which she gave her all, could not take into account her pain or overwhelming
need. I understand how slowly cultural values change, but at key moments I
believe it’s always better to err on the side of inclusivity than condemnation.
The poet Walter Lowenfels once said: “It is not a choice between madness
and suicide—that’s only the way it appears. The real choice, historically, is to
be heard or not to be heard. To accept the vast silence that surrounds us or
to scream intelligibly.”10 For Haydée it was never a choice. Or she chose it all.
There are those who say she was mad but her madness, if that’s what it should
be called, was illumination. No one can deny that she screamed intelligibly,
that she was heard. What she left behind more than testifies to that.
A life such as Haydée’s speaks for itself. Gradually (too gradually for some,
myself included), the Cuban revolution has focused more on who Haydée
was for fifty-seven years than on her final seconds. Hopefully, the monu-
ments and films, books, and songs will come. And I hope they will honor her
in all her complexity.
The question shouldn’t be “Why did she kill herself?” but “How did she
manage to live so fully and for so long and give so much?”

The Woman beneath the Myth | 193

10 IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBILITY
Elegy for Haydée Santamaría

. . . was there a place

that could hold you as you opened yourself
to it as you went where no one else
could follow where no one else could see . . .
—susan sherman, “definitions,” part 4

Under or above the words she exchanged with us,

she was always speaking with the dead
she carried within her, speaking with death itself.
—roberto fernández retamar

1
Where is the door I can open
to go to you?
Where do your luminous molecules
assemble, shatter and reassemble?
Where can I forgive you that instant
when turning back was no longer an option,
forgive you although unable to forgive myself?

You don’t look back at me from T-shirts

or bravely-painted walls:
myth defacing reality on every map.
Your image remains a reflection on water,
your features shimmering
through breaking waves of memory.

Yeyé to your familiars,

Haydée to the rest of us
as Fidel has always been Fidel,
you freed yourself from the storyline
that blinks or winks:
not quite the last laugh.

I go back to your first thunderous death,

not the bullet to the head
by your tired hand
when release was the only escape
unhinging a broken scale,
but to those earlier deaths
visiting in the dark of night.

The deaths that stalked you at Moncada

27 years before,
messengers urging you not run from
but toward those enemy soldiers
as you tried to protect the ones
you knew must live.

The deaths that left raw wounds and fragile scars,

followed you into the Sierra,
entered your secret places
from a beach where Royal Palms
bend beneath grief
against a storm-streaked sky.

2
I don’t believe in a soul or afterlife
and I’m sure you didn’t either,

196 | Chapter 10
but your presence was so intimately tender,
so stoic and steel strong
we cannot imagine not finding comfort
in your piercing eyes,
creative passion
where your absence leaves us naked and bereft.

Your body forever stooped beneath such murderous blow

yet your embrace renewed unstoppable energy
pushed you to cliff’s edge,
a territory you understood.
Embodying such fear
you were never afraid,
a contradiction few deciphered.

Thirty-three years since that Havana night,

July 28, 1980,
when hundreds crowded your wake
in the funeral home at Calzada and K,
too many flowers
overwhelming the scent of such a loss,
too much for the small body
arranged in your casket,
lids drawn over fierce eyes,
hands clasped across spent lungs.

Two minutes suspended in that inner chamber

standing guard at your casket
I could not take myself
from your recomposed features,
questions snagging bruised underside of skin.

3
Numb to time’s displacement,
memory’s history
spun me beyond myself:
your visionary life unspooled

Impossible Possibility | 197

from your birth at La Constancia sugar mill,
Encrucijada, Las Villas, 1922,
introduced to Cuban poverty
through the prism of small privilege
and a brother’s indignation.

Constancia: the word evokes decision

as encrucijada spells dilemma
or doubt:
the first your leitmotif
while you never allowed the second
anywhere close.

A grade school diploma,

though even that uncertain
in the one-room schoolhouse
where learning crumpled
like a bird too hurt to fly.
How you put yourself
where you knew you had to be.

One of five siblings:

fairytale names
from fairytale operas,
until you and younger brother Abel
went to Havana to change the world,
rented the tiny apartment at 25 and O
where Fidel was the tall man
who flicked his cigar ashes
on your clean floor.

4
When you kept your date with Moncada,
July 26, 1953,
you and Melba the only women
among that determined crew of men:
sisters and lovers,

198 | Chapter 10
natural mothers,
more than muses
never quite leaders.

They say when the battle was lost

they brought your brother’s eye
and lover’s mangled testicle
to break your spirit,
a useless exercise.
If you did that to them and they didn’t talk,
your proud response.
Legend or fact,
does it matter at all?

Prison and underground,

clandestine struggle
where ordinary looks and perfect composure
kept you and your comrades safe.
You traveled to the hated North,
recruited soldiers for an invisible army,
collected more than a million dollars,
bought Mafia arms
and sewed bullets for home
into the folds of 1950s poodle skirts.

In the city you ordered only those

you knew despised the task
to place the necessary bombs:
I never wanted them to get used to it,
you said,
and throughout your life
repeated how much you hated killing
or violence of any kind.

You believed if Fidel lived

Cuba would live
and become that country of sun and palms

Impossible Possibility | 199

you dreamed again each painful dawn.
And when the new nation rose
in distressing risk
and David and Goliath fragility,
you were among the handful who knew
love is the only tool to change the world.

5
I still hold the curve of sweaty plastic in my palm,
see the pale blue sheen of that tiny inhaler
and taste the sugary mist you handed me,
explaining its use
before a breathing crisis took the reins.
We’d only just met
when lifetime sufferer took newcomer’s hand,
asthma our filial connection.

I hear the early echo of your words:

Of course it’s absurd to say HIM
when we mean HIM AND HER
or HIS for THEIRS,
years before women’s rage
caught up with a revolution
where barren rhetoric
dubbed gender consciousness
a weapon to divide the working class.

You needed no imported theory,

knew justice
because you paid attention,
listened to all the stories,
embraced all those within the radius
of your lightning field.

When you sent me to judge Miss Carnival Queen 1970,

embarrassed, head pounding, revulsion-choked,
I sputtered why me

200 | Chapter 10
when any man would have reveled at the chance
to pick the prettiest face,
most sensual body.
Until years later when I asked
and you said because I knew you would help put an end
to those awful contests,
and I did.

6
Imagine Simone de Beauvoir’s independence
sewn with Joan of Arc’s pure sinew
but vulnerable to tropical storms
and any disloyalty,
a passion uniquely yours
in a time when women were only supposed
to want to clean and serve.

Imagine careful and daring in a single human,

immensely caring,
savory like yucca en mojo de ajo
or cyclone against the helpless coast,
founding and heading a place
worthy of the greatest artists,
breaking a blockade meant to isolate, destroy.

The woman who looked into those artists’ eyes,

held their hands
and cherished their creativity
modeled possibility across any border,
cast solidarity
in a rainbow of 42 countries,
knew any defeat could be turned to victory.

You who never studied art or literature,

never attended university,
whose history hid in reconfigured skirts,
underground sleight-of-hand,

Impossible Possibility | 201

mountain command post
and indelible loss,

made Casa de las Américas

home to poetry and painting,
theater and song,
understood how art moves peoples
into a future of change,
no small-minded prejudice
or Socialist Realism
would jettison authenticity.

Your brilliant gaze embraced each artist

on their terms,
defied authority,
brought every work alive
in the space it filled,
made a family for troubadours
who threatened the status quo,
queer talent and misunderstood genius
in danger from bureaucratic hands
too power-crazed to see beyond crass ignorance.

7
By your visionary presence
you gathered us in,
created a place where we learned
and learn
what revolution means,
where each generation grows the next,
the end never justifies the means,
and no one is left behind.

That early lover gone,

you married a comrade wise as you,
gave birth to a son and daughter
and took orphans from every battlefield
into a family that always had room for more.

202 | Chapter 10
Your daughter remembered:
The number of my siblings changed
year by year.

In your farewell letter to Che,

brother among brothers,
you wrote:
Sexist, unforgivable sexist!
You swore you would take me with you
to make America’s revolution
but left me here,
alone,
an ocean of tears eroding your shore.

Then the father of your children opted out

as men sometimes do
and you were left holding memories
no one should have to juggle—
island within an island.
I knew your choice was never that
of a woman jilted
or some midlife crisis
dragging you off to a decision
you might regret.

An accident had almost taken your life,

physical pain overlaying the deeper kind.
A terrible exodus drew vitriol,
hateful expressions you couldn’t bear.
Some of those you trusted
drifted away,
and a sister in attitude succumbed.

8
It was exhaustion and too many deaths:
each beckoning from its ghost dance
—Abel and Boris, Che and Celia—
transparency and accompaniment spread thin,

Impossible Possibility | 203

disappointment in those you believed
inhabited the revolution with you,
so many of them
leaving you finally in the cold.

It was what a friend overheard you say

after one more public dialogue
about those early years,
sharing with the young ones what it was like,
giving voice to a history
fading among more recent histories:
I can’t do this again, you said,
and wouldn’t.

You were a small woman

at a time women relished
or were resigned to small,
plain mid-twentieth-century woman
whose skin could not contain
your passion for justice
or how you birthed the energy
that welcomes justice home.

What happens when an idea withers

along the fault line
rocked by those you trusted with your life
and the lives of others,
route to a new planet
where the music in your ears
excited such strange dissonance?

You were a woman plain and simple,

slim-boned,
great-hearted,
who thought a bus ride should cost 5 cents,
public pay phones be free,
health, education, shelter, food,
culture and art:

204 | Chapter 10
all that we need free,
bountifully free!

9
So long before,
in that apartment at 25 and O
you’d made pots of cassoulet,
enough for every mouth,
and then, with the same careful planning,
took your place at the constricted heart of struggle
and secret recesses of change.

You refused to go into exile

and return on the Granma,
afraid if you left you might not
find your way back.
Cuba ran in your veins
viscous with martyred blood.

No one could deny your courage then

or when victory came
and Fidel assigned you the job
of bringing every poet, writer, painter
musician and actor
to your triumphant revolution.

You opened its doors

wider than anyone could,
ignored the official institutions
groveling at power’s feet,
sought poets in prisons and factories,
painters from indigenous tribes
along with those
who’d won the most prestigious prizes,
or would.

You looked into each one’s eyes

and he or she looked back,

Impossible Possibility | 205

seen and understood,
wanting to give our best
to an experience shaped
by gravitational pull transformed.

10
You offered Cuba’s impossible possibility
to those whose children were disappeared,
minds drugged by torture,
hands severed by generals,
diminished by the loneliness
of daring to dream beyond the ugliest schemes.

Moncada’s deaths continued to claim your spirit,

endow you with strength,
never weakness:
explosive yet slow-burning fire,
suicide your last brave act.

At the precise moment

we were in danger
of losing sight and hearing
to smug opportunism or insidious drones,
when reduced to rote applause
for those who would rob us of memory,
condemn us to repeat lives
with neither past nor future,
you came along
and made us whole.

Haydée, in the magic of your hands,

twin wings of a tropical bird,
in your unexpected lessons
and perfect listening,
you took that death we fear
and laid it gently at our feet
where we may find it
when our time arrives.

206 | Chapter 10
NOTES

chapter 1. before we begin

1. Cuba’s socialist constitution, approved February 24, 1976, by a vote of 97.7% of Cu-
bans sixteen years and older, after a nationwide consultation of workers, military
personnel, students, and others who modified 60 of its 141 articles.
2. This is the way the tiny mountain nation of Bhutan describes itself. In today’s
world, how countries describe their political systems bears little resemblance to
what those descriptions once meant. China, e.g., still calls itself communist but has
implemented numerous aspects of a market economy.
3. Susan Sontag (1933–2004) wrote memorably about Vietnam, Sarajevo, and other
places where extreme conflict shaped culture, as well as on photography, illness,
and identity.
4. Sontag, “Some Thoughts.”
5. For an excellent overview, I recommend García Luis, Cuban Revolution Reader.

chapter 2. why haydée?

1. Rubén Darío (1867–1916) was a great Nicaraguan modernist poet; 1967 marked
what would have been his hundredth birthday. The gathering of poets and literary
critics in Cuba that was hosted by Casa de las Américas was one of several held
throughout the world that year.
2. In Che On My Mind there is a chapter called “Che and Haydée.” In More Than Things
there is an essay, “Shaping My Words,” that focuses on her.
3. Randall, To Change the World.
4. Fidel Castro Ruz (b. 1926), born into an upper-class family in Biran, Cuba, became
 a lawyer and eventually founded the July 26 Movement with the aim of overthrow-
ing the Batista dictatorship that had grabbed power in 1952. After six years, his
movement was victorious. He served as prime minister and then president of his
country until his retirement from public life in 2008.
5. Ernesto “Che” Guevara (1928–1967) was an Argentine doctor who fought in the
Cuban Revolution, went on to take several important peacetime positions in that
country, and then left to wage guerrilla warfare in other parts of the world. He was
murdered in Bolivia.
6. Celia Sánchez (1920–1980), Cuban revolutionary hero and Fidel Castro’s closest
associate until her death from cancer.
7. José Martí (1853–1895), Cuban revolutionary, prolific thinker and writer, consid-
ered the intellectual father of Cuban liberation. He is claimed by the revolution’s
detractors as well as its supporters.
8. The Cuban Orthodox Party was founded in 1947 by Eduardo Chibás in response to
government corruption and lack of reform. It was nationalist in nature and pushed
for economic independence. Fidel Castro was a member early on.
9. Fulgencio Batista (1901–1973) was the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to
1943 and grabbed power again in 1952. In 1959 he was overthrown by the Cuban
revolution.
10. Jesús Menéndez (1911–1948).
11. Fidel Castro and his group attacked Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba on
July 26, 1953. They hoped to spark a popular resistance to the Batista dictatorship.
The action was a military failure but political success; it initiated the revolutionary
struggle that was victorious five and a half years later.
12. Randall, Cuban Women Now, 312.
13. Conversation with author, 1970s. My translation.
14. Young Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés, Noël Nicola, Sara González, and others
were at first considered problematic. Their brilliant lyrics asked too many ques-
tions and were too critical for the revolution’s hardliners. Haydée provided them a
home at Casa, where they flourished and would soon become some of the country’s
greatest cultural assets.
15. Aida’s daughter Niurka Martín Santamaría, interviewed later in this book.
16. Gloria Rolando (b. 1953) is a Cuban documentary filmmaker whose films include
Eyes of the Rainbow (1998), about US revolutionary Assata Shakur; Raíces de mi
corazón (2000), about the destruction of the Independents of Color political party;
and many others on Afro- Cuban cultural traditions. Rolando made these remarks
at a panel on her work at the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women,
Toronto University, May 24, 2014.
17. Raúl Roa García (1907–1982) was a Cuban intellectual, politician, and diplomat.
He served as the country’s foreign minister from 1959 to 1976.
18. Carlos Rafael Rodríguez (1913–1997) was a member of the psp who served in both
Batista’s and Fidel’s cabinets.

208 | Notes to Chapter 2

19. Santamaría, Haydée habla, 37. My translation.
20. Santamaría, Haydée habla, 14. My translation.
21. Armando Hart Dávalos (b. 1930), follower of Fidel Castro, married Haydée during
the war. They had two children and parented many more. Hart was the revolution’s
first minister of education, headed the 1961 literacy campaign, and later became
minister of culture.
22. “Stalin,” Hart’s article, may be found online in several places, among them www
.rebelion.org / noticia.php?id=10776. My translation.
23. Filmed by Esther Barroso Sosa. My translation.
24. Santamaría, Haydée habla, 8. My translation. Ernest and Thérèse Defarge are
fictional characters in Charles Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities. Celia Hart refers to the
“Lafarges” rather than “Defarges,” but in the context I believe it to be a misprint.
25. Santamaría, Haydée habla. My translation.
26. Santamaría, Haydée habla. My translation.

chapter 3. early life

1. Epigraph: Haydée Santamaría, Revista Casa de las Américas, no. 138, May–June
1983, on the third anniversary of Haydée’s death.
2. Interview with Jaime Sarusky, February 2, 1977, Casa archives. My translation.
3. Portuondo López, La pasión, 19.
4. Interview with the author, April 2014.
5. This is how Haydée herself described her family on a number of occasions.
6. Randall, Cuban Women Now, 317.
7. Interview with author, April 2014.
8. Portuondo López, La pasión, 21.
9. Portuondo López, La pasión, 20.
10. Interview with Rebeca Chávez for an unfinished film, 1978. Published in La gaceta
de Cuba, no. 4, 2013. My translation.
11. Portuondo López, La pasión, 33.
12. Portuondo López, La pasión, 40.
13. Interview with author, April 2014.
14. Portuondo López, La pasión, 18.
15. Interview with author, April 2014.
16. Haydée Santamaría in a talk with outstanding cane cutters from Camagüey Prov-
ince, July 19, 1969. Casa archives. My translation.
17. Interview with Rodolfo Alcaraz, May 21, 1968, Casa archives. My translation.
18. Rodolfo Alcaraz interview.
19. “The Permanence of Haydée,” by Roberto Fernández Retamar, in Maclean, Haydée
Santamaría, 76. My translation.
20. Roberto Fernández Retamar (b. 1930), poet, essayist, and literary critic; Casa de las
América’s current president and, as such, a member of Cuba’s Council of State. He
founded Casa’s important literary magazine.

Notes to Chapter 3 | 209

21. Fernández Retamar, “Permanence,” 76. My translation.
22. Fernández Retamar, “Permanence,” 74. My translation.
23. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (1819–1874), Cuban revolutionary in the fight against
Spain.
24. Ignacio Agramonte (1841–1873), Cuban revolutionary who played an important
part in the Ten Years’ War (1868–1878).
25. General Antonio Maceo (1845–1896), second in command of the Cuban Army of
Independence in the war against Spain; called the Bronze Titan because he was
black.
26. Interview with author, 2014.
27. Sarusky interview.
28. Eduardo Chibás (1907–1951) founded the Orthodox Party in 1947. He was active
against the governments of Grau San Martín and Carlos Prío, predecessors to the
Batista regime. Chibás’s main issue was corruption. Although anticommunist, he
influenced Fidel and Abel. Chibás had a popular radio program, and on August 5,
1951, during his regular broadcast, he shot himself in protest against the country’s
political situation. He died 11 days later.
29. Taken from a talk about the attack on Moncada Barracks given by Haydée Santam-
aría to the workers at Casa de las Américas on July 24, 1969.

chapter 4. moncada
1. Antonio Guiteras (1906–1935) was a proponent of revolutionary socialism who
participated in the radical government installed after the overthrow of right-wing
President Gerardo Machado in 1933.
2. Melba Hernández Rodríguez del Rey (1921–2014), the only woman besides Haydée
who fought at Moncada. She was active in the revolution and served as Cuba’s
ambassador to Vietnam and Cambodia.
3. Rodolfo Alcaraz interview.
4. Santamaría, Haydée habla, 15. My translation.
5. Santamaría, Haydée habla, 20. My translation.
6. Santamaría, Haydée habla, 2–3. My translation.
7. Lieutenant Pedro Sarría (1900–1972), the officer in Batista’s army who captured
Fidel Castro as he tried to escape from Moncada and refused to turn him over to
the general of the garrison, who would have murdered him. After the 1959 victory,
Sarría remained with the revolution. His bust is on display at Moncada.
8. Hart, Aldabonazo, 77–78.
9. Transcript of an interview with Rebeca Chávez, 1978. My translation.
10. Letter courtesy of Norma Ruiz.
11. Portuondo López, La pasíon, 313.
12. Marta Rojas, “Testimonio: De entrevistadora a entrevistada” (From interviewer to
interviewee), Santiago, no. 11, June 1973, 123–148. My translation.

210 | Notes to Chapter 4

13. Haydée Santamaría, transcript of a conversation with outstanding cane cutters in
Camagüey, July 19, 1969. Casa de las Américas archives. My translation.
14. Haydée Santamaría, “Que la vida es hermosa cuando se vive así” (Life is beautiful
when you live it like this), Casa de las Américas, no. 273, October–December 2013,
5–19. My translation.
15. Haydée Santamaría, talk about Moncada given to workers at Casa de las Américas,
July 24, 1969. From a transcript in the Casa archive. My translation.
16. “Una de las niñas de la foto en la cárcel de Guanajay” (One of the little girls in the
photo at Guanajay Prison), by Marta Rojas, Granma, September 10, 1996.
17. “Si no puedo escribir algún día empiezo a coser,” Isla del Sur online, August 8,
2008. My translation.

chapter 5. war
1. Stout, One Day, 140.
2. “Todo es una sola cosa,” interview with Nils Castro in Santiago magazine, nos.
18–19 (June–September 1975): 15–56. My translation.
3. Stout, One Day, 173.
4. Nils Castro interview. My translation.
5. Nils Castro interview. My translation.
6. Rebeca Chávez transcript. My translation.
7. Stout, One Day, 81.
8. Rafael García Barcena (1907–1961) was a philosophy professor. He founded the Na-
tional Revolutionary Movement (mnr), consisting largely of middle-class members,
contrasting with the July 26 Movement’s predominantly working-class support. Hart
was a member of the mnr, but Haydée recruited him to the July 26 Movement.
9. Hart, Aldabonazo, 92–93.
10. Special to the Soviet news agency Novosti, reproduced in El Mundo, July 24, 1964.
My translation.
11. Nils Castro interview. My translation.
12. Nils Castro interview. My translation.
13. Nils Castro interview. My translation.
14. Rebeca Chávez interview. My translation.
15. Nils Castro interview. My translation.
16. Babalawo (the word means the father or master of mysticism in the Yoruba lan-
guage) is a Yoruba chieftaincy title that denotes a priest of Ifá. In Cuba’s African
religion it is a high priest’s title.
17. Transcript of an interview with Haydée made by Rebeca Chávez for a film that has
not yet been made. My translation.
18. More information on Magín can be found in Randall, To Change, 111–112.
19. Mariana Grajales (1808–1893) was Antonio Maceo’s mother and a leader in her
own right in the late 19th-century war against Spain.

Notes to Chapter 5 | 211

20. Dated April 15, 2014. My translation.
21. Ismaelillo (b. 1878) was José Martí’s son. Father and son were separated by Martí’s
revolutionary responsibilities. He felt a deep need for the boy and wrote a moving
book of poems to him.
22. Cubans refer to José Martí as el maestro, which I have translated as “the Teacher.”
My translation.

chapter 6. witnesses
1. Interview with author, April 2014. My translation.
2. Interview with author. My translation.
3. Flores is the neighborhood where Haydée lived the last years of her life. Her home
overlooked the ocean.
4. Franqui, Libro, 92.
5. Frank (1934–1957) and Josué (1937–1957) País were movement leaders in Santiago
de Cuba. Frank worked closely with Fidel, organizing the November 30 uprising
and funneling aid to the Sierra. The two brothers were gunned down by the police,
first Josué and, soon after, Frank.
6. Vilma Espín (1930–2007), revolutionary leader in Santiago de Cuba, later headed
the Federation of Cuban Women (fmc). She was married to Raúl Castro.
7. El instituto cubano de arte e industria cinematigráfica (Cuban Institute of Cine-
matographic Art and Industry, icaic), established in March 1959 and headed by
Alfredo Guevara. It soon put Cuba on the map with its production of excellent
documentaries and feature films. It now sponsors a yearly Havana Film Festival.
8. Sergio Corrieri (1939–2008), Cuban film star.
9. Lisandro Otero (1932–2008), Cuban novelist and journalist.
10. Santiago Álvarez Román (1919–1998) was a Cuban filmmaker who wrote and di-
rected an oeuvre of important documentaries. His “nervous montage” technique of
using found materials, such as Hollywood movie clips, cartoons, and photographs,
is considered a precursor to the modern video clip.
11. Roque Dalton (1935–1975), Salvadoran revolutionary, poet, novelist, and political
thinker; a victim of jealousies, he was murdered by members of his own political
organization.
12. Francisco “Chico” Buarque de Hollanda (b. 1944) is a singer-songwriter and poet.
13. María Esther Gilio (1928–2011) was an important Uruguayan journalist, biogra-
pher, and lawyer.
14. Carlos María Gutiérrez (1926–1991), Uruguayan poet and journalist and winner
of Casa de las Américas’ 1970 poetry prize for his book Diario del cuartel (Prison
Diary). He suffered prison and exile during his country’s military dictatorships in
the 1970s and 1980s.
15. Ernesto Cardenal (b. 1925), Nicaraguan priest, liberation theologian, and one of
the most important living Latin American poets. He was Nicaragua’s minister of
culture during the years of the Sandinista Revolution.

212 | Notes to Chapter 6

16. Mario Benedetti (1928–2009), Uruguayan poet and novelist, who suffered years
of exile during the military dictatorships that ruled his country in the 1970s and
1980s.
17. A more relaxed form of the Argentinian tango.

chapter 7. casa de las américas

1. Julio Cortázar (1914–1984), Argentine novelist and short story writer, one of the
bright lights of the Latin American boom. Rayuela was titled Hopscotch in English.
2. Silvia Baraldini (1947) was born in Italy but came to the USA as a child. In the
1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s she was active in the black power and Puerto Rican
independence movements. She went to prison in 1982, sentenced to forty-three
years for conspiring to commit two armed robberies. She spent time at the infa-
mous Lexington Control Unit, a sensory-deprivation prison wing that eventually
was closed. She won extradition to Italy in 1999 and was released in 2006 thanks to
a pardon law passed by the Italian parliament.
3. Alejo Carpentier (1904–1980), Cuban novelist and musicologist.
4. Fernando Ortíz (1881–1969), Cuban anthropologist and scholar of Afro-Cuban
culture.
5. Alicia Alonso (b. 1921), prima ballerina assoluta, choreographer, and director of
Cuba’s National Ballet Company.
6. Nicolás Guillén (1902–1989), Cuban poet and journalist.
7. Mirta Aguirre (1912–1980), Cuban poet and critic.
8. Wilfredo Lam (1902–1982), Cuban painter and sculptor.
9. Thiago de Mello (b. 1926), Brazilian poet.
10. Laurette Séjourné (1911–2003), French-born Mexican anthropologist, whose
visionary analysis of the thought and culture of ancient Mexico did not always sit
well with the academy.
11. René Depestre (b. 1926), Haitian poet who lived in Cuba for many years in exile
from his country’s Duvalier regime.
12. Roberto Fernández Retamar (b. 1930), poet, essayist, and literary critic. Casa de las
América’s current president and, as such, a member of Cuba’s Council of State. He
founded Casa’s important literary magazine.
13. Gil, Ruiz Lim, and Salsamendi, Destino.
14. All these letters, unless otherwise noted, are courtesy of the Casa de las Américas
archive.
15. Manuel Galich (1913–1984), Guatemalan playwright and revolutionary who took
part in the October Revolution of 1944, which put an end to a series of authoritar-
ian governments. He was exiled in Havana, was one of the founders of Casa, and
was active with the institution until his death.
16. Spanish-language editions of The Children of Sánchez, by Oscar Lewis, and Listen,
Yankee!, by Waldo Frank.
17. Antonio Saura (1930–1998), Spanish artist and writer.

Notes to Chapter 7 | 213

18. Mariano Rodríguez (1912–1990) was an important Cuban painter who took over
the presidency of Casa de las Américas when Haydée Santamaría died. At Mariano’s
death, Roberto Fernández Retamar became president and remains in that position.
19. Roberto Matta (1911–2002), Chilean surrealist and abstract expressionist painter.
20. Antenor Patiño (1896–1982), Bolivian tin tycoon. He rid his country of organized
labor after the 1952 revolution nationalized the tin mines.
21. Rocinante, Caracas, Venezuela, 1971.
22. Revista Cuba Internacional, September 1986.
23. Ambrosio Fornet (b. 1932) is one of Cuba’s foremost literary and cultural critics.
Recipient of his country’s National Prize for Literature in 2009.
24. Fornet, Bridging Enigma, 10–12.
25. In Spanish the poem is called “En la muerte de una heroina de la patria” (On the
Death of a Heroine of the Nation), and the line is “Los que la amaron, se han
quedado huérfanos.” Fina García Marrúz (b. 1923), a devout Catholic, is an accom-
plished Cuban poet with many books and awards to her credit.
26. Lilia Estéban de Carpentier was Alejo Carpentier’s wife and an intellectual in her
own right. She died in 2008 at the age of ninety-five. Alejo Carpentier died in
Havana in April 1980, just three months before Haydée.
27. Trinidad Pérez, longtime colleague at Casa, who began working at the institution
from the time she was practically a child.
28. Daniel Viglietti (b. 1939), Uruguayan singer-songwriter and political activist.
29. Mercedes Sosa (1935–2009), Argentinian folk singer and activist.
30. Alicia Aguiar cleaned Casa’s physical plant and served coffee.
31. María Regla Averoff was one of the people in charge of cleaning the building.
32. Lesbia Vent Dumois (b. 1932) is a Cuban visual artist who worked at Casa for many
years.
33. Pedro Orgambide (1929–2003), Argentinian writer.
34. Chiki Salsamendi (b. 1933), Cuban intellectual and longtime Casa worker who
continues to collaborate with the institution.

chapter 8. two, three, many vietnams

1. Régis Debray (b. 1940) laid out his foco theory in Revolution (Revolución en la revo-
lución) in 1967. Gutiérrez, Diez años, was the transcript of a 1969 roundtable com-
posed of Carlos María Gutiérrez, Ambrosio Fornet, Roberto Fernández Retamar,
René Depestre, Edmundo Desnoes, and Roque Dalton. In 1970 Dalton penned
Revolución y la crítica.
2. Hart, Haydée, 22. My translation.
3. Hart, Haydée, 23–24. My translation.
4. Lippard, Different War, 18–20.
5. Lippard, Different War, 17.
6. Fernández Retamar, Calibán.

214 | Notes to Chapter 8

 7. Encuentro con Rubén Darío, an event honoring the hundredth anniversary of the
great Nicaraguan modernist poet. Hosted by Casa de las Américas.
8. The year 1968 saw student-led uprisings in Paris, New York, and Mexico. In the
last country workers and small farmers joined the struggle. The government put it
down ruthlessly on the evening of October 2, when up to 1,000 unarmed protes-
tors were gunned down in Tlatelolco Square, often referred to as the Plaza of Three
Cultures.
9. Lucía (1968) was directed by Humberto Solas and written by Julio García Espinosa
and Nelson Rodríguez. It tells the stories of three Cuban women in three different
eras. Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) was directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea
and was based on a novel by Edmundo Desnoes. In 2012 Sight & Sound called it
the 144th best movie of all time. Strawberry and Chocolate (1993) was directed by
Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío. It addresses the themes of homosexuality,
Afro-Cuban religion, and emigration.
10. George Jackson (1941–1971) was an African American Marxist, left-wing activist,
author, and member of the Black Panther Party. He was incarcerated at San Quen-
tin prison for a teenage robbery and was shot to death by guards during an alleged
escape attempt.
11. Pedro Albizu Campos (1891–1965) was a Puerto Rican attorney and politician
and a leading figure in the Puerto Rican independence movement. He was the
president and spokesperson of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party from 1930 until
his death. He spent 26 years in prison for attempting to free his island from US
control.
12. Camilo Torres (1929–1966) was a Colombian socialist and Roman Catholic priest.
An early exponent of liberation theology, he joined the National Liberation Army
(eln) and died in battle fighting with that organization.
13. Valdéz, Cuba en la gráfica, 6.
14. The Black Panther Party (originally Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a
black revolutionary socialist organization active in the United States from 1966
until 1982. It developed free breakfast programs and schools and defended black
neighborhoods. Eventually it was destroyed by US government repression, includ-
ing the planting of informants and the murdering of key leaders.
15. Three years before his death, Guevara penned this document, considered one of his
most important theoretical legacies. In the form of a letter, he sent it to Carlos Qui-
jano, editor of the Uruguayan progressive magazine Marcha. It has been reproduced
in many publications and languages.

chapter 9. the woman beneath the myth

1. The terrible umap camps (Unidades militares de ayuda a la producción, military units
in aid of production) existed for a short time in 1965. Homosexuals and others
were sent to them for “reeducation.” Rodríguez spoke of Haydée’s role in rescuing

Notes to Chapter 9 | 215

 gay artists from umap in Raysa White’s film Yeyé among Us, as well as in other inter-
views and talks.
2. Conversation with author, April 2014. My translation.
3. The complete story of this complex history can be found in “Cineperiódico, la otra
memoria filmada de la revolución cubana,” by Emmanuel Vincenot, a paper deliv-
ered at the Latin American Studies Association (lasa) meeting, 2014.
4. Maclean, Haydée Santamaría, 123. My translation.
5. Collective tribute, fifth anniversary of Haydée’s death. My translation.
6. Pérez, To Die in Cuba, 5.
7. Alfredo Guevara in Yeyé Among Us. My translation.
8. Letter to author from Norma Ruiz, June 19, 2014. My translation.
9. Camilo Cienfuegos (1932–1959) was a beloved Cuban revolutionary who died in a
plane crash shortly after the war. As his plane was lost at sea on October 28, chil-
dren honor him on that date by offering flowers to his memory.
10. Conversation with author, 1960s.

216 | Notes to Chapter 9

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archives, interviews, and articles

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Full-length interviews (18) and conversations, Havana, April 2014.
Magazine and newspaper articles (several hundred), Casa de las Américas Library,
Havana.

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Fornet, Ambrosio, ed. “Bridging Enigma: Cubans on Cuba.” Special issue, South Atlantic
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Franqui, Carlos. El libro de los doce. Havana: Instituto del Libro, Ediciónes Huracán, 1968.
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INDEX

Note: Italicized numbers indicate a figure; n indicates an endnote

Africa, 7, 15, 20, 162, 166, 170 96, 98, 208n9; police and military activity
Afro-Cubans, 20, 47–48, 99–100, 166, to apprehend revolutionaries, 84–86, 119,
208n16, 211n16, 213n4, 215n9 190, 212n5; rebel efforts to overthrow, 5,
Aguiar, Alicia, 156, 214n30 55, 58, 67, 81, 207–8n4, 208n11; rumors
Alemán, José Guerra, 181–82 of Castro’s death, 4; torture and murder of
amnesty, 17, 19, 67, 93, 189 July 26 rebels, 58, 77
Argentina, 213n1, 214n29, 214n33 Bayamo, 58, 67, 119, 150
art: as a form of revolution and social change, Benedetti, Mario, 121, 136, 156, 213n16
23, 26, 147, 163, 168; as a political state- Black Panther Party, 171, 215n10, 215n15
ment, 159, 165–66, 170–74, 179; Cuban Bolivia, 35, 118, 173, 187, 208n5, 214n20
poster, 170–73 Boniato Prison, 68, 86, 89, 104
Asia, 7, 161, 162, 166, 170 Bravo, Ruiz: family of known as las muchí-
awc (Art Workers Coalition), 165 simas, 85, 120; police search at home of,
84–85
Baraldini, Silvia, 128, 213n2 Brazilian literature, 23, 130, 132, 213n9
Barcena, Rafael García, 88, 211n8 Buarque, Chico, 121, 212n12
Batista, Fulgencio: assassinations ordered
by, 17, 47, 55, 119, 212n5; dictatorship of, Campos, Pedro Albizu, 170, 215n11
28, 55, 58; general amnesty of 1955 to Cardenal, Ernesto, 12, 121, 136, 212n15
rebels, 17, 19, 67, 93, 189; Haydée’s work to Carlos Manuel de Céspedes garrison, 58
overthrow, 17, 102, 154; 1952 coup to take Carpentier, Alejo, 129, 145, 152, 170–71, 183,
power, 3, 17, 55, 208n9; overthrow of, 5, 213n3, 214n26
Carpentier, Lilia Estéban de, 152, 214n26 to create and lead Casa, 123, 129–30;
Casa de las Américas: as a haven for art, collaboration of with Abel, 43, 55, 189;
education, and thinking, 18, 121, 127–30, collaboration of with “Che” Guevara, 4,
136–37, 186, 190; archives of, 134, 213n14; 141, 162, 173–75; as Cuba’s Prime Minister,
and Cuban public, 23, 127–28, 190; 5; Haydée’s collaborations with, 21, 71–72,
Destino: Haydée Santamaría, 134; events at, 93–95, 99, 104, 173; “History Will Absolve
23, 128, 130, 207n1, 212n14, 215n7; events Me,” 21, 57, 93, 189; importance of to
photos, 119, 131, 133, 138, 142, 152, 189; in- the Cuban revolution, 65, 67, 88, 92–93;
ternationalism of, 18–20, 22–23, 120–21, imprisonment of by Batista, 17, 56–58,
127–30; international visitors photos, 140, 67, 74, 92–93, 189; internationalism of,
150, 155, 187; magazine published by, 71, 7; leadership of attack on Moncada by, 3,
143, 167, 209n1, 211n14; miscellaneous 57–58, 65–67, 77, 105, 208n11; leadership
photos taken at, 126, 146, 180, 182, 183, 185; of Cuban Communist Party by, 19; leader-
presidents of, 128, 132, 209n20, 213n12, ship of the July 26 Movement by, 3, 93–94;
21418; prizes and contests sponsored by, Message to a Suffering Cuba (Mensaje a Cuba
23, 128, 130, 132, 168, 212n14; promotion que sufre), 92–93; photos from the sojourn
of artistic innovation and nonconformity in Sierra Maestra mountains, 87, 97;
by, 18, 22, 130–32, 146–47, 163, 175, 190; protection of at Moncada, 67, 210n7; rebel
promotion of dance by, 23; promotion of sojourn in Sierra Maestra mountains, 4,
diversity by, 121, 130, 158; promotion of 83–84, 86, 101; relationship of with Abel
musical creativity by, 154, 156, 163, 178; and Haydée, 17, 26, 42, 55, 65, 76, 148, 178;
promotion of photography by, 22–23, 127, relationship of with Celia Sanchez, 29, 88,
128; promotion of theater by, 22–23, 128, 99, 102, 208n6; retreat of to Mexico City,
130, 156, 168–69; publications by, 71, 127, 3–4, 67, 71; return by to Cuba from Mex-
128, 134, 143, 161; support of intellectuals ico, 4, 86, 88, 175, 212n5; sociopolitical
by, 12, 20, 23, 127, 129, 214n34; support of background of, 3, 55, 58, 207–8n4, 208n8,
singers and songwriters by, 118, 139, 168, 210n28; survival of as a priority for rebels,
178; support of writers and poets by, 22, 63–64, 65, 72–73, 76, 189
55, 121, 127–28, 130–31, 142, 213n1 Castro Ruz, Raúl, 4, 9, 24, 74, 93, 122, 188
Casa de las Américas visitors, 114, 136, cenisex, 101
212nn13–14, 214n28; from Argentina, Chávez, Rebeca, 99, 118–25, 209n10, 211n17
213n1, 214n29, 214n33; from Brazil, 23, Chibás, Eduardo, 210n28
130, 132, 213n9; from Haiti, 130, 213n11; children: in Castro’s Cuba, 102; participation
intellectuals, 12, 55, 127, 157, 207n1; inter- of in the Cuban revolution, 85; Pioneros,
national nature of the, 12–13, 128, 130–31, 60–61; and racism in pre- Castro Cuba, 47;
213nn1–12; from Mexico, 128, 130, 213n10; as residents of Cuban prisons, 78–80, 91;
painters and sculptors, 213n8, 214n19; and social hierarchy in pre-Castro Cuba, 48
from Peru, 143–46; singers and songwrit- Chile: Augusto Pinochet in, 139; Chilean
ers, 133, 139, 168, 212n12, 214nn28–29; cultural figures, 133, 139, 141, 173, 214n19;
from Uruguay, 114, 136, 212nn13–14, Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity
214n28; writers and poets, 130–31, 156, government in, 20, 139, 161
212–13nn11–16, 213n9, 213nn6–7 China, 166, 207n2
Castro Ruz, President Fidel: Batista’s false Cienfuegos, Camilo, 76, 77, 81, 124, 193, 216n9
declaration of Castro’s death, 4; capture of Cienfuegos Province, 32, 52, 112
at Moncada, 3–4, 57; choice by of Haydée Cineperiódico, 181–82, 216n3

222 | Index
Cold War, 6, 8, 19 Batista’s, 16, 34; internationalism in Cas-
communism: anticommunism in Cuba, 2, tro’s, 7, 19, 20, 23, 111, 113, 170; labor and
210n28; Castro’s Cuban Communist Party employment in, 8, 38, 40, 47, 58, 99–101;
(pcc), 19, 21, 208n18; Haydée’s definition leadership of in revolution, 7, 20, 58, 136,
of, 21, 25, 48, 166, 186; the influence of 162; literacy campaign in, 5, 28, 100, 168,
Trotsky’s writing on Cuban, 26; the July 26 209n21; nationalism as an ingredient
followers formation of Cuba’s pcc, 12, 19, of the revolution, 19; nationalization of
21; “Marxism in Spanish”, 6, 166; Moscow- business and industry in, 5, 6; people of
oriented followers of in Cuba, 5; opposi- color in, 20, 47, 100, 133, 178, 208n16;
tion of to suicide, 25, 186; People’s Socialist Playa Girón attack by the US, 6; poverty in,
Party (psp) of Cuba, 151, 163, 182; power 7, 8, 100, 168, 169; President Carlos Prío
struggle between the psp and the pcc, 5, Socarrás, 55; President Gerardo Machado,
151; rejection of feminism by the, 21, 100 210n1; President Grau San Martín, 47;
Communist Party of Cuba (pcc), 12, 22, 25, provinces, 32, 209n16; racism in pre-
35, 78, 181 Castro, 47; reestablishment of diplomatic
Constancia: Santamaría family at, 50, 51–52, relations with the US, 9; relationship of
60, 65; sugar refinery at, 24, 32, 34, 38–40, with Vietnam, 18, 161, 170, 187; religion
46, 48 in, 2, 25, 52, 211n16, 215n9; repression of
counterrevolutionaries, 2, 8, 22, 169, 171 creativity in, 20, 121, 143, 146–48, 151–52,
Cuadrado Alonso, Joaquina (mother), 33, 42, 193; strikes in, 67, 86, 104; suicide in,
65, 69 181–82, 184, 188, 191–93; uprisings in, 4,
Cuba: 1974 Family Code, 100; Afro-Cubans, 17, 86, 189, 212n5
166, 208n16, 213n4, 215n9; artistic Cuban revolution: as a continuation of earlier
expression in, 143, 146–48, 168–73; Bay of struggles, 55, 56; free education as a prior-
Pigs attack by the US, 6; corruption in, 9, ity of, 8, 175; Haydée’s actions on the day
54–55, 208n8, 210n28; counterrevolution- of triumph (December 31, 1958), 96–99;
ary activities against, 2, 5, 8, 22, 85, 169, internationalism as a value of, 20, 173, 174,
171; Cuban cultural and literary critics, 175; leaders of, 15; participants in Cuba’s
146, 209n20, 213n7, 213n12, 214n23; dance war against Spain, 210nn23–25, 211n19;
in, 23, 168, 213n5; economic plight of participants in the revolution against
individuals and families before the Cuban the Batista dictatorship, 174, 212n6; and
revolution, 39, 41, 50–51; economy of be- revolutions elsewhere, 7–8, 58, 136, 166;
fore Cuban revolution, 3, 16, 99; economy role of culture in, 166; smuggling by rebels
of under Castro, 5, 93, 100, 137, 146; educa- during Batista’s regime, 17, 57, 85, 93, 94;
tion in Castro’s, 5–6, 26, 28, 100–103, 120, social equality as a value of, 6, 8, 100,
168–70, 190; education in pre-Castro, 3, 101; Time of the Jackals (La hora de los
40, 46–47, 99–100; emigration from, 9, chacales), 148; torture of rebels by Batista’s
22, 101, 182; exile community in the US, forces, 17, 62, 64, 77, 133, 163; underground
17, 22, 85, 151, 153, 154; filmmaking in, activities of rebels in Havana and Santiago,
20, 121n7, 147, 168, 181–82, 193, 208n16, 4, 17, 86, 180; underground activities of
212n10; food rationing in, 5–6, 64; foreign rebels throughout Batista’s Cuba, 4, 17–18,
students in, 20; gender equality in Cas- 67, 76–77, 81, 101, 154; universal health
tro’s, 8; health care in Castro’s, 5, 9, 100, care as a priority of the, 6, 8, 60; women’s
102, 175, 190; health care in pre-Castro, benefits from, 91, 102. See also revolution-
3; inequality as a major social problem in aries; underground activities

Index | 223
Cultural Congress of Havana, 118, 120–21 Chávez, 118, 120; Santiago Álvarez Román,
culture: access of the public to, 6, 175, 190; 212n10
as a tool for revolutionary change, 26, 104, five gray years (el quinquenio gris), 148, 151
121, 129–30, 163, 167, 175; critics, 146, fmc (Federation of Cuban Women), 21, 101,
209n20, 213n7, 213n12, 214n23; cultural 212n6
diversity and tolerance at Casa de las foco theory, 161–62, 214n1
Américas, 19–20, 22–23, 127, 129–31, Fornet, Ambrosio, 146, 214n1, 214n23
133, 146–48; impact of on individual
revolutionaries, 7, 15, 32–33, 165–66, 179, Galich, Manuel, 137, 138, 213n15
181, 207n3; promotion of as a priority of Galicia, 32, 40, 42, 44
the Cuban revolution, 8, 123, 166, 171, 174; Gallegos, Rómulo [Award], 144, 145
provincial thinking in Cuba, 16, 38–39, García Márquez, Gabriel, 12, 31, 142, 182
46–47, 123, 151, 181, 208n16 gay: the plight of in Cuba, 178, 215–16n1,
215n9; sociocultural participation of
Dalton, Roque, 121, 131, 138, 156, 212n11, gay individuals in Cuba, 23, 101, 133,
214n1 178, 215–16n1. See also homosexuals;
dance, 23, 168, 213n5 lesbians
Debray, Régis, 161–62, 214n1 gender: Haydée’s response to discrimina-
Destino: Haydée Santamaría, 134 tion based on, 20, 101, 131–32, 178, 181;
inequality in Castro’s Cuba, 8, 20–21,
El acusador, 56–57 100–101; inequality in pre- Castro Cuba,
El Corno Emplumado (The Plumed Horn), 167 47, 51, 63–64, 99
el decenio negro (ten black years), 148, 151 Gil, Silvia, 134, 149–52
el quinquenio gris (five gray years), 148, 151 Grajales, Mariana, 4, 39, 101–2
Encrucijada municipality, 32–37, 45–48, Granma (newspaper), 12, 22, 78
51, 59, 96, 115, 142 Granma yacht, 4, 67, 71, 86, 88, 95, 175
equality: as a motivating value of Haydée, 20, Guanajay Prison: Haydée’s and Melba’s stay
178; impact of Cuban revolution on, 8, 16, at, 65, 78–79, 89, 91, 99, 211n16; photos of
20, 100–101, 132 Haydée and Melba at, 56, 69, 79
Espín, Vilma, 83–85, 99, 120, 212n6 guerrilla activities: in Cuba, 4, 161; under
Che Guevara in Bolivia, 118, 163, 174,
feminism, 21, 100–101, 165, 178 208n5
Fernández Retamar, Roberto: cultural and Guevara, Alfredo, 181–82
leadership roles of in Cuba, 48, 209n20, Guevara, Ernesto “Che”: collaboration of
213n12, 214n1, 214n18; on Haydée, 48–49, with Fidel Castro, 4, 24, 118, 141, 162,
145, 147–48, 209nn19–20; role of in 173–75; the death of in Bolivia, 35, 118,
Castro’s government, 133, 137, 145, 167, 162, 173, 187, 208n5; Haydée’s friendship
213n12, 214n1, 214n18; on Vargas Llosa with, 135, 141, 144–45, 148, 162, 173, 178;
controversy, 145–46 Haydée’s posthumous homage to, 173–74;
film and filmmakers: Alfredo Guevara’s internationalism of, 7, 175; the life of as
influence on Cuban, 168, 181–82, 212n7; art, 141, 173, 174; love of for art and creativ-
difficulties faced by Cuban, 20, 147, 168, ity, 174; on revolution, 7, 12, 26, 162–63,
193; Gloria Rolando, 20, 208n16; icaic 173, 174–75, 190; revolutionary activities
(Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and influence of, 4, 15, 35, 76–77, 120,
and Industry), 121n7, 168, 181–82; Rebeca 162, 170

224 | Index
Guiteras, Antonio, 55, 210n1 in the July 26 attack, 17, 57, 60, 62–64, 66,
Gutiérrez, Carlos María, 121, 212n14, 214n1 68, 72–73
“History Will Absolve Me,” 21, 57, 93, 189
Haiti, 4, 130, 159 Ho Chi Minh, President, 15, 18, 159, 170, 187
Hart Dávalos, Abel Enrique (son): life and Hoffman, Wendell, 84
death of, 26, 44, 108; relationship of with homosexuals, 101, 133, 178, 215–16n1, 215n9.
Haydée, 26–27, 37, 109, 114, 116, 192 See also gay
Hart Dávalos, Armando (husband): criticisms
of Stalin by, 26, 209n22; Haydée’s surrep- icaic (Cuban Institute of Cinematographic
titious visit to at Boniato Prison, 86; mar- Arts and Industry): Alfredo Guevara’s
riage of to Haydée, 12–13, 28, 102–3, 116, work at, 120–21, 123, 181; film production
122–23, 209n21; participation of in the by the, 110, 123, 168, 212n7; poster art
Cuban revolution, 83–84, 86, 88, 211n8; produced by, 169, 170
role of in Castro’s government, 131, 147, internationalism: Cuban, 7, 19, 20, 111, 113,
151, 209n21; on significance of the July 170, 174–75; foreign student study in Cuba,
26 attack, 67; statement of regarding his 20; of Che Guevara, 173, 175; of Fidel Cas-
relationship to Haydée, 103–5; Trotskyite tro, 7; of Haydée, 20, 22–23, 121, 175, 179
ideology of, 26 interviews: with Celia María Hart, 27; with
Hart Dávalos, Celia María (daughter): on Chiki Salsamendi, 40; with Dolores Pérez
Haydée and the Cuban revolution, 29, Resta, 55–56; with Haydée Santamaría
64–65, 113, 162–63; interpretation of Cuadrado, 39, 41, 48; with Marcia Leseica,
Haydée’s suicide by, 27–28, 113, 117, 188, 152–55; of Mario Vargas Llosa by his son,
192; life and death of, 26, 44, 108, 117; re- 145; with Marta Rojas, 80; with Niurka
lationship of with Haydée, 26–27, 29, 109, Martín Santamaría, 108–13; with Norma
114, 116–17, 123, 134, 180; the Trotskyite Ruiz, 113–18; with Rebeca Chávez,
ideology of, 26 118–25, 209n10, 211n17; with Roberto
Havana: Abel’s settlement in, 52, 53; apart- Fernández Retamar, 48, 147–49
ment at 25 and O, 16–17, 42, 52, 53–55, Isle of Pines, 20, 74, 93
59, 65, 91; brief family sojourn in, 45–46; Isle of Youth, 20, 130
cultural and educational activities in,
128, 168–69, 171, 212n7; function of as a journalists: Cuban, 68–71, 80, 101, 212n9,
hub for revolutionary activity, 64, 83–84, 212nn13–14, 213n6; foreign, 84, 86, 143,
86, 99, 153; function of as original point 166
of departure for the Moncadistas, 64; July 26 Movement: commemorations of
Haydée’s later public lectures in, 62; rebel the, 62; and the Cuban Communist Party
underground at, 17, 21, 88, 180; Susan (pcc), 12, 151; and the Cuban revolution,
Sontag on, 7 3, 5, 17, 91, 99, 189; Fidel Castro’s naming
Haydée Speaks about Moncada (Haydée habla of the, 93–94, 207–8n4; goals of, 3, 67,
del Moncada), 62–65 81, 93, 208n11; and the Moncadistas, 21,
Hernández, Melba: friendship of with 60; participants in, 55, 67, 86, 91, 119–20,
Haydée, 82, 88–89, 198; imprisonment of 152, 211n8
with Haydée following Moncada, 17, 57,
64–65, 68–70, 78–80, 88–91; photos of, La historiame absolverá, 21, 57, 93, 189
56, 74, 79, 82; role of in Cuban revolution, La nueva trova (New Song Movement), 18,
57, 88–89, 91–93, 99, 189, 210n2; role of 131, 154

Index | 225
Latin America: invasions by the United States dée’s refusal to follow Castro to, 19, 71–72;
in, 159–60; revolutions in, 7, 12–13, 29, Mexico City, 13, 23, 166, 167; student
58, 161–62 movement in, 167, 215n8; the Zapatistas
Lenin and Leninism, 16, 26, 186 in, 186
lesbians, 133, 178. See also gay Miami: Cuban exile community in, 22,
Leseica, Marcia, 95–96, 99, 152–55, 182–84 85, 151; Haydée’s smuggling trips to, 85,
Lippard, Lucy, 159, 165 95–96, 99, 103
literature: availability of to the Cuban Milanés, Pablo, 78, 118, 119, 125, 168, 208n14
public, 5, 23, 28, 100, 168, 209n21; Moncada: Abel Santamaría’s role as Castro’s
Haydée’s love of, 48–49, 110–11, 115, 129, second in command at, 43; aftermath of
154; literary contests sponsored by Casa the attack at, 58, 67; commemorations of,
de las Américas, 23, 121, 127–28, 132, 25, 28, 50, 53, 62, 71, 78; court testimony
137, 163; of revolution, 147; support of regarding events at, 66, 75–76; court trial
literary production by Casa de las Améri- of rebels of, 68–76; goal in attacking, 11,
cas, 23, 127–28, 130, 143, 167–68, 207n1, 25, 58, 65, 67, 92–93; Haydee Speaks about
209n20 Moncada, 62–65; Haydée’s role in plan-
Lucía, 215n9 ning and organizing the attack on, 11, 102,
154; Haydée’s speeches about as a reliving
McCarthy and McCarthyism, 163, 165 of the attack, 28, 50, 62, 81; Haydée’s
Mafia, 11, 17, 94 testimony concerning, 71–77; as incentive
Magín, 100–101, 211n18 for revolution in Cuba, 3, 17, 57, 61–62, 77;
Mariana Grajales Platoon, 101–2 later conversion of to a school, 60; Mon-
market economy, 1, 6, 9, 147, 171, 207n2 cada Barracks, 3, 44, 102, 208n11, 210n29;
Martí, José: the political thought of, 23, 48, participation of Haydée in assault on
49–50, 115, 145, 208n7, 212n22; revolu- Moncada, 17, 65, 71–76, 102, 154; planning
tionary activities of, 104–5, 212n21; statue for, 58–59, 64–68; rebel deaths at, 12, 28,
of in Havana, 3, 82, 152, 192–93; writings 58, 61–62, 65, 77, 81; rebel participants
of as an influence on Haydeé, 48, 49, 50, at, 17, 44, 58; rebel route to, 60–61; the
55–56, 115 simultaneous attack at Bayamo, 58; songs
Martín Santamaría, Boris Javier (Aida’s commemorating, 78; trial of the rebels,
grandson), 108 68–71, 75–76
Martín Santamaría, Niurka (Aida’s daughter), Moncadistas, 21, 60, 74, 78, 88, 93
32, 46, 51, 108–13, 192, 208n15 museums: apartment at 25 and O, 54, 55, 57;
Marx and Marxism, 16, 42, 115, 166, 215n10 at old Moncada barracks, 60–61; Santa-
Matta, Roberto, 141–42, 173, 214n19 maría Cuadrado house, 36, 38–39
Memories of Underdevelopment, 168, 215n9 music: Casa programming in support of
Menéndez, Jesús, 47 music production and innovation, 119, 128;
Message to a Suffering Cuba (Mensaje a Cuba Cuba’s internationalist orientation toward,
que sufre), 92–93 20, 22–23, 131, 133, 139–40, 212n12,
Mexico: alliance of Castro with Guevara 214n28; Haydée on musical creativity, 140;
while in, 175; Castro’s retreat to, 4, 67, Haydée’s support of music and of inno-
86, 88, 95, 154, 189; diplomatic ties of to vative musicians, 154, 156, 163, 178; New
Castro’s Cuba, 8; government censorship Song Movement (La nueva trova), 18, 78,
of Arnaldo Orfila Reynal, 137; government 118, 131, 154, 189; political activism among
repression of The Plumed Horn, 167; Hay- musicians, 118, 133, 164

226 | Index
nationalism: as a motivating factor of the Cu- centers of activity of Cuba’s, 55; defining
ban revolution, 19, 48, 208n8; problematic traits of pure, 15; educational backgrounds
nature of, 19, 22 of the Cuban, 3, 4, 58, 89; the exile of Latin
Nicaragua: Cuba’s internationalist ties to, 111, American, 212n14, 213n11, 213n15, 213n16;
207n1, 215n7; military activities of the US the exile of the Moncada to Mexico, 67;
in, 2, 159, 161; Niurka Martín Santamaría’s Haydée on being a revolutionary, 12, 25,
work in, 111–12; Sandinistas, 20, 136, 161, 91, 141, 150–51, 163, 190; imprisonment of
192, 212n15 non-Cuban, 212n14, 213n2, 215nn10–11;
Nicola, Noël, 78, 118, 119, 168, 189, 208n14 imprisonment of the Moncada, 4, 17, 56,
58, 64, 93, 104; movements before the
Obama, President Barack, 9 Cuban revolution, 208n8, 210n28, 211n8;
olas (Latin American Organization for movements by throughout the world, 7,
Solidarity), 21, 115, 162 12–13, 23, 161–62, 166–67, 180; nine-
Orfila Reynal, Arnaldo, 137–38 teenth century leaders, 208n7, 210nn23–
Orgambide, Pedro, 157, 214n33 24; revolutionary art, 166–71, 173, 174;
Orthodox Party, 3, 17, 48, 51, 208n8, 210n28 student groups, 5, 166, 167; support and
ospaaal (Organization of the Peoples of protection of by Cuban public, 5; thinkers,
Asia, Africa and Latin America), 162, 170, 26, 48, 208n7, 212n11; transformation
171, 172 of the Cuban, 4–5; twentieth-century
Our America, 23, 167 leaders, 55, 99, 170, 208n6, 210n1, 212n6,
213n15, 216n9; in the twentieth-century
Padilla affair, 143–44, 148 United States, 208n16, 215n10, 215n14.
País, Frank, 81, 83, 86, 88, 119, 173, 212n5 See also Cuban revolution; underground
Parra, Isabel, 139–40 activities
Parra, Violeta, 12, 139, 156 Rodríguez, Silvio: on Haydée, 27, 78, 118,
Pastors for Peace, 166 178, 183; musical work of, 119, 168, 189,
Pérez, Dolores (“Lolita”), 55–56, 180 208n14
Pérez Mujica, Elda, 57 Rojas, Marta, 68–71, 78–80, 99, 123, 211n16
Pérez, Trinidad, 155–56, 214n27 Rolando, Gloria, 20, 208n16
Plumed Horn, The (El Corno Emplumado), 167 Ruiz, Norma (Ada’s daughter), 34, 36, 113–19,
posters: as a merging of art and commen- 180, 188
tary, 160, 162, 164, 169, 172; as political
statements, 166, 170–74; popularity of in Salsamendi, Chiki, 40, 134, 157–58, 214n34
revolutionary Cuba, 128, 166, 170 Sánchez, Celia: friendship of with Haydée,
psp (People’s Socialist Party), 5, 151, 208n18 12, 28–29, 111, 116, 123, 178; role of in Cas-
Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican independence, tro’s government, 150, 186, 187–88, 193,
133, 172, 213n2, 215n11 208n6; role of in Cuban revolution, 15,
88, 95, 99, 102, 208n6; in Sierra Maestre
racial inequality, 8, 16, 19, 20, 47, 91 guerrilla camp, 83, 90, 92, 97
reeducation camps, 178, 215–16n1 Sandinista Revolution, 20, 136, 161, 212n15
Regla Averoff, María, 156–57, 214n31 Santa Coloma, Boris Luis (fiancé): revolu-
Revista Tricontinental, 171 tionary activities of, 64–65, 75–76, 81, 82,
revolutionaries: Batista’s imprisonment of 94, 116; torture and death of at Moncada
Cuban, 17, 21, 28, 119, 180; Batista’s torture as a permanent trauma for Haydée, 12, 17,
and murder of, 17, 58, 61–62, 64, 77, 163; 27–28

Index | 227
Santamaría Cuadrado, Abel (brother): ani- 209n21; corruption of mill bosses as an in-
mosity of toward Batista, 47, 55; apartment fluence on, 41–42; courage of, 64, 81–86,
at 25 and O, 47, 53, 55; bond of to Haydée 94–96, 99; court testimonies regarding
as a fellow revolutionary, 17, 21, 42, 45, the events at Moncada, 75–76; depres-
48, 51, 60; close bond of with Haydée, 16, sion, 12–13, 32, 50, 113, 123–24, 154, 184;
38, 42, 47, 48, 52, 178; Constancia sugar Destino: Haydée Santamaría, 134; education
refinery renamed to honor, 24, 34, 40; of, 16, 18, 23–24, 48, 50–51, 115, 129, 147;
corruption and inequality as factors that egalitarianism as a motivating value of, 20,
shaped, 17, 34, 41–42, 45, 47; death of 149, 178, 181; elegy references to the early
following the attack on Moncada, 12, 17, life of, 198, 201; elegy references to the ex-
43, 58, 81; early life of, 30, 34, 38, 43, 46; perience of at Moncada, 196, 198–99, 206;
family home established as a museum to elegy references to friendships of with
honor, 36–37, 39; and Fidel Castro, 55–57, fellow revolutionaries, 203–4, 206; elegy
63–65, 73, 76; at Moncada, 60, 63–65, references to the marriage and family
67–68, 71–73, 75–76, 163, 190; political of, 202–3; elegy references to the public
thinkers and activists who influenced, 47, mourning of, 197; elegy references to the
55, 210n28; torture and death of at Mon- sociocultural ideas of, 200–201, 204–5,
cada as a permanent trauma for Haydée, 206; elegy references to the suicide of,
12, 27–28, 63 196; elegy references to the work of for the
Santamaría Cuadrado, Ada (sister): birth and Cuban revolution, 199–200, 201–2, 205;
death of, 34, 44, 60, 117, 192; relationship elegy reference to the work of at Casa,
of with her sisters, 45, 111, 115, 121; revolu- 201–2, 205–6; eulogies and testimonies
tionary activities of, 60, 118 regarding, 15–16, 43, 155–58; evasion of
Santamaría Cuadrado, Aida (sister): early life capture by, 12, 32–33, 64, 84–86, 94–95,
of, 30, 34, 42, 46, 51; relationship of with 104, 190; family as a motivating concern
her sisters, 43, 45, 48, 59, 117, 121 of, 26–27; fears of about leaving Cuba,
Santamaría Cuadrado, Aldo (brother), 30, 34, 19, 71–72, 95, 96; and feminism, 13, 21,
42, 43, 44, 46 178, 179; friendship of with Marta Rojas,
Santamaría Cuadrado family, 33–34, 35–38, 68–71, 78–80; funerary rites for, 25,
40–46, 111, 121 112–13, 123, 149, 152, 188, 192; and gender
Santamaría Cuadrado, Haydée: actions of on discrimination, 20, 101, 131–32, 178–79,
the day when the revolution triumphed, 181; humanitarianism of, 18, 131, 134–36;
96–99; apartment at 25 and O, 53–55, imprisonment of following Moncada,
59, 65, 91; artistic sensibilities of, 18, 23, 17, 56, 64–65, 68–70, 78–80, 88–91;
129–30, 154–56; asthmatic condition of, inclusivity of, 15, 18, 101, 131, 163, 179;
13–14, 200; attitudes of toward religion, international correspondence of, 116, 134,
116, 179; automobile accident, 112; on be- 136–43; internationalism of, 20, 22–23,
ing a revolutionary, 12, 25, 91, 141, 150–51, 121, 175, 179; interpretation of the suicide
163, 190; on being important, 135–36; of by daughter Celia María, 27, 117; inter-
Casa years photos, 10, 49, 106, 119, 126, 129, pretation of the suicide of by Marcia Le-
132; childhood and family photos, 30, 33, seica, 154–55; interpretation of the suicide
36, 39, 40, 45–46; the childhood of, 32, 41, of by niece Niurka Martín Santamaría,
45–48; communism of, 25, 48, 163, 186; 111–12; interpretation of the suicide of by
concerns of with the welfare of children, niece Norma Ruiz, 117; interpretation of
13, 25–27, 102, 113–14, 116, 179–80, the suicide of by Rebeca Chávez, 123–24;

228 | Index
interpretation of the suicide of by Roberto 193; suicide of as a political discomfort
Fernández Retamar, 148–49; interpre- for the pcc, 20–21, 25, 186–87, 193;
tation of the suicide of by Silvia Gil, 152; surreptitious visit of to see her husband in
justice as a motivating value of, 12, 32, 104, Boniato Prison, 86; torture and deaths of
118, 131–32, 153–54; as the last victim of Abel and Boris as permanent scars for, 12,
the Moncada attack, 12, 148; leadership in 17, 27–28, 63; torture of at Moncada, 154,
olas, 21, 115, 162; leadership in the Cuban 163; transgression as a motivating value
Communist Party (pcc), 12, 21–22, 176; of, 12; travel by on behalf of the Cuban
leadership in the Cuban revolution, 88, Revolution and the pcc, 17, 153; urban
193; leadership of Casa de las Américas underground activities of, 17–18, 21, 44,
by, 12–13, 18–19, 22–23, 128–32, 146–47, 86, 102, 163; use of disguise by to facilitate
151–52, 190; letter exchange of with her activities as a rebel, 64, 85–86; on
Mario Vargas Llosa, 142–46; letter to Che, violence, 17–18, 22, 81; willingness of to
173–74; letter to Isabel Parra, 139–40; challenge injustice, 19, 165, 185; writings
“Life is beautiful when you live like this” of José Martí as an influence on, 48, 49,
(“Que la vida es Hermosa cuando se vive 50, 55–56, 115; as Yeyé, 39–40, 43, 84, 105,
así”), 71–77, 211n14; loyalty as a motivating 117, 183, 215–16n1
value of, 12, 19, 22, 116, 179; on marriage Santamaría Fernández, Benigno (father),
and divorce, 13, 111, 113, 115, 116, 179; 33–34, 37, 40, 45–46
marriage and family photos, 37, 103, 109; Santiago de Cuba: attack on the Moncada
memorializations to by colleagues, 155–58; Barracks at, 3, 11, 17, 37, 208n11; Castro’s
Moncada as a life-changing hallmark return to Cuba via, 86, 99, 189; Haydée’s
for, 62–63, 77, 85–86, 147–48; Moncada smuggling of arms for the attack at, 64;
commemorations as a reliving of the attack as the place where the Cuban Revolution
for, 25, 28, 50, 53, 62; participation of on began, 57, 60; residents of as witnesses to
the assault of Moncada, 17, 65, 71–74, revolutionary event, 77; the revolution-
102, 154; pcc photos, 115, 122, 124, 176; aries’ plan for the attack at, 67, 73; revolu-
photos taken with fellow revolutionaries, tionary underground of, 4, 21, 55, 86, 95,
74, 82; police file photos, 59, 61, 66; prison 120, 212nn5–6; trial at, 68–69, 75
photos, 56, 69, 79; protection of artists by, Sarría, Lieutenant Pedro, 67, 210n7
12, 118, 131–32, 148, 163, 178; provincial Siboney, 60, 61, 65, 76
origins of, 11, 47, 50, 51, 123, 150, 177; read- Sierra Maestra mountains: Haydée’s revo-
ing habits of, 48–49, 110–11, 115, 129, 154; lutionary training in, 87, 89, 90, 92, 97;
rebellious character of, 19, 42–43, 185; Haydée’s trips to and from, 83–88, 189;
recruiting functions of, 86, 88, 152–53, revolutionary encampment in, 4, 95, 98,
211n8; rejection of the provincial life by, 101–2, 161–63
39, 42, 51; role of in establishing the Cuban Siglo XXI, 138
Communist Party, 21; role of in planning smuggling, 17, 57, 85, 93, 94
and organizing the attack on Moncada, social change: as a driving force for revolu-
11, 102, 154; Sierra Maestra photos, 83, tion, 55, 59, 93, 185–86; as a primary goal
87, 89, 90, 92, 97; on social hierarchy in of Cuban revolution, 5–6, 8, 170, 171, 174,
Batista’s Cuba, 48; sugar plantation life as 175; exploitation as a motivating force for,
an influence on, 41–42, 46–47, 51; sugar 3, 16, 34, 39, 42, 45, 58; Haydée’s desire for,
plantation origins of, 16, 39, 48, 53, 123, 12, 16, 23, 26, 130, 163, 188; inequality as a
129, 177; suicide of, 12, 27–29, 123, 149, motivating force for, 16, 20, 34, 132

Index | 229
socialism: in Allende’s Chile, 161; Che umap military camps (Unidades militares de
Guevara’s “Man and Socialism in Cuba”, 7, ayuda a la producción), 178, 215–16n1
174; in Cuba, 1, 5–7, 9, 104, 207n1, 210n1; underground activities: at Havana, 17, 21, 86,
Cuba’s ties to the Soviet bloc, 8, 165–66; 88, 180; Haydée’s involvement in, 17–18,
differing interpretations of among Cuba’s 21, 44, 86, 102, 163; at Santiago, 4, 86, 95;
political parties, 151; in pre-Castro Cuba, throughout Batista’s Cuba, 4, 17–18, 67,
47; realist or Soviet version of, 18, 130, 163 76–77, 81, 101, 154. See also Cuban Revolu-
songs and songwriters. See music; Casa de las tion; revolutionaries
Américas United States: 1960s cultural rebellion in,
Soviet Union, 6, 8, 18, 26, 100, 130 164–65; cia activities against Cuba, 2, 159,
Spain: Cuba’s wars for independence from, 171; Cuban counterrevolutionaries in, 2;
210nn23–25, 211n19; Galicians who cultural blockade against Cuba by, 12, 18,
migrated to Cuba from, 32, 40, 42, 44; 22–23, 128, 166–67; cultural rebellion in,
Haydée’s familial connections to, 32, 40, 163–65, 167–68, 170, 172–73; diplomatic
42, 45, 46, 65; Marxism in Spanish, 6, 166; blockade against Cuba by, 9, 18, 129;
migration from, 44 economic blockade against Cuba by, 7–8,
Special Period (1991–1995), 100, 184 18; invasions of Latin American countries
Stalin and Stalinism, 26, 143, 165, 209n22 by, 159–60; McCarthyism in, 163–64,
Stout, Nancy, 83, 88 165; news reporting on Cuba, 4, 84, 166;
Strawberry and Chocolate, 215n9 reestablishment of diplomatic relations
students: activities of Venceremos Brigade with Cuba, 9; restrictions of against travel
of sds, 166; international hosted in Cuba, to Cuba, 8
20; opposition of to United States involve- Uruguay, 114, 136, 212nn13–14, 214n28,
ment in Vietnam, 165; Orthodox Youth, 215n15
48, 51; participation of in formulating
Cuba’s socialist constitution, 207n1; revo- Vargas Llosa, Mario, 142–46
lutionaries, 55, 88, 167, 215n8; Students for Venezuela, 98, 114, 144–45
a Democratic Society (sds), 166 Vent Dumois, Lesbia, 157, 214n32
sugar: communal life of workers, 46–47, 51; Vietnam: Cuba’s links to North Vietnam,
corrupt practices in the industry, 41–42; 161, 170, 210n2; Haydée’s visit to North
mill at Constancia, 24, 34, 37–38, 40, Vietnam, 18; Ho Chi Minh, 15, 18, 159,
41–42, 46–47, 65; plantation life for the 170, 187; Susan Sontag’s writings about, 15,
Santamaría Cuadrado family, 16, 39, 48, 53, 207n3; “Two, three, many Vietnams” slo-
123, 129, 177 gan, 7, 162, 173; US military interference
suicide: in Cuba, 181–82, 184, 188, 193; the in, 161, 164–5
impact of on surviving family and friends, Vincenot, Emmanuel, 172, 216n3
191–92 Vinceremos Brigade, 166
Suñol, Comandante Eddy, 101–2, 188 violence: in Cuba, 22, 55, 91, 167; Haydée’s
attitudes toward, 17–18, 22, 81
Tabor, Robert, 84 visual artists, 152, 154, 164, 168, 214n32
ten black years (el decenio negro), 148, 151
theater, 22–23, 128, 130, 156, 168–69, 193 women: access of to education, 38; access
Torres, Camilo, 170, 215n12 of to health care, 102; artists, 165; in
Trotsky and Trotskyism, 26 Castro’s Cuba, 5, 21, 24, 102; dress codes
“Two, three, many Vietnams”, 7, 162, 173 and behavior protocols for Cuban girls

230 | Index
and, 39, 42, 47, 94, 118, 122, 150, 178; the 99–100, 102; pcc attitudes toward, 21, 29;
Federation of Cuban Women (fmc), 21, plight of in mid-twentieth century Cuba,
101, 212n6; and gender inequality in Cuba, 16–17, 38–39, 58, 80, 91, 99–101, 184; in
20–21, 100–101; Haydée’s encourage- Sierra Maestra encampment, 101–2
ment of literary production by, 23, 127, workers: at Casa de las Américas, 155–57,
128; Lucía, 215n9; Magín, 100–101; the 210n29, 211n15, 214n34; Cuba as a country
Mariana Grajales Platoon, 4, 39, 101–2; of, 1, 207n1; the plight of in pre- Castro
participation of in attack on Moncada Bar- Cuba, 5, 17, 40, 43, 47; retraining of in
racks, 3, 17, 58, 63, 91; participation of in Castro’s Cuba, 5, 100
the Cuban revolution, 11, 94–95, 99–102;
participation of in the labor force, 37–38, Yeyé. See Santamaría Cuadrado, Haydée

Index | 231