Havana, an Autobiography

The cover of Havana, Autobiography of a CityI’m reading Havana: Autobiography of a City by Alfredo José Estrada. The book covers the history of Havana from the colonial days to the present, although in my reading I just gotten up to the life of José Martí, the leader of the Cuban Revolutionary Party which organized the first national movement for Cuban independence from Spain.
The book is beautifully written, and it portrays Havana as a city equally entrenched with “pleasure as well as politics” (Estrada 1). Estrada was born in Havana but left as a child, only to return several years later, eager to experience the mysterious country his parents left behind. His descriptions of Havana are vivid, and reading the book I can envision myself walking down Obispo Street with the smell of cigars and coffee invading my senses.
Although Estrada realizes that Havana “is a living, breathing organism, one that [he] could hardly contain within these pages, ” (18) the book is packed with information. Havana: Autobiography of a City is very much a history book, but it is different than any dry text I read in highschool. Before starting this book I had very limited knowledge of Havana; I now feel as if I’d taken a class on Havana’s landscape, culture and people. In the beginning of his book Estrada chronicles Havana’s transformation from a rough and rural island to a busy commercial center peddling sugar and tobacco, two crops that very much define life in Havana.
Estrada claims that Havana is a country of immigrants. When the Spaniards arrived in 1492, they massacred the majority of native Cubans, called the Tainos. Since then, the country has housed immigrants from all over the world, including Spaniards, Africans (brought to the island as slaves), thousands of French people (who fled to Cuba during the French Revolution) and even Chinese people (most of whom were brought over as a source of cheap labor, and then later left Cuba). All of these people have left an impact on Cuba. The French introduced coffee to Cuba, while the Chinese left behind the Chino de la Charada, which is an image of a Chinese man with a series of figures and numbers around his body. This image was used as a “key to the bolita, a lucrative lottery that is still played illegally in Miami today” (93). Facts such as these are common in Estrada’s book, and I feel that these details complement the rich history of Havana. Estrada also speaks of Santeria, which is a type of religion that venerates the santos (saints); its followers “strive to attain ashé, described as a state of order and balance in the universe” (95). Many Cubans practice Santeria along with Christianity, and the government has an unfavorable view of the practice. Government control is something that Cuba is familiar with, and in Estrada’s version of Cuban history it is easy to see the “dual between power and spirit in Cuba” (107). The book is choc full of oppressors and revolutionaries, and it portrays Cuba as an island constantly in flux, pulled between the reality of what is and the possibility of what could be. Cuba is portrayed as a place of beauty and horror, a battleground that has reached its tipping point politically and socially.
The Cuban Revolution is certainly the period of Cuba’s history that is most frequently discussed, but Estrada reveals that much happened in Cuba before the Revolution that is worth remembering. He writes of the nooks and crannies of Cuban history that (for me) might have passed un-noticed had I not read his book. He writes of Isabel de Bobadilla, the wife of Hernando de Soto, who governed Cuba after he disappeared into the ocean. He writes of the origins of Havana’s street names, as well as the history of the torcedores (cigar rollers) who “sit at desks with the cinnamon-colored tobacco leaves spread out before them like school books” (71). I look forward to finishing Havana: Autobiography of a City in the week to come, and plan to bring it along with me to re-read on the beaches of Havana.