Songs of the Baka and Other Discoveries

by Dennis James

  We visit Roberto Salas, whose father, Osvaldo, is renowned for his photographs of the Cuban Revolution. Osvaldo had daily access to Fidel, Che, Raúl, and other leaders both during and after the armed struggle and became known as the Revolution’s unofficial photographer. Roberto followed in his father’s footsteps and has published many photos in Life and other magazines. He shows us his remarkable black-and-white photographs—most of them portraits—and Barbara is ready to throw away her camera.

  The home and studio of Alicia Leal and Juan Moreira is located on a tree-shaded street in Havana’s Vedado district. Their art is highly symbolic, influenced by Hispanic and African cultures and incorporating Catholic, Santerian, and secular Cuban iconography. Leal’s paintings, with their aura of mysticism, are often brightly colored images of women as well as explorations of sexuality. Moreira’s work combines human figures with totems and idols.

  In her small apartment, twenty-six-year-old avant-garde artist Mabel Poblet works on a large scale. She constructs self-portraits from tiny photos that, when arranged on a board the size of a ping-pong table, form the likeness of her face, with full red lips and long, black eyelashes. The effect is somewhat like a mosaic, but with the photos painstakingly raised on pins to create an illusion of depth. Her work is, implicitly, very sexy.

  Some of the other pieces we saw were overtly sexual. On one occasion, I sat down on a chair to rest in the last gallery we visited at the end of a long day and smiled at Barbara as she snapped my picture. It was not until we looked at the photo a few hours later that we realized I was sitting in front of a large painting of female genitalia, with a big grin on my face.

  Another significant feature we observed is how involved the artists are in their community and how much the community respects the value of art. Even artists with international reputations maintain ties to their neighborhood and provide support in the form of education, employment, or resources.

  We find Sandra Dooley, who is Cuban of part-Scottish ancestry, in a sunlit seaside studio and home where she creates paintings and ceramics that are impressionistic and representational, many depicting Cuban folk tales and myths. Dooley hires local residents as assistants, encouraging the development of their artistic skills and displaying their artwork.

  The hyperactive ceramicist José Rodriguez Fuster lives and works in the Jaimanitas district. In addition to a multitude of other civic projects, Fuster has adorned entire blocks of his neighborhood with tiles and mosaics, transforming it into an enchanted kingdom. He has created Gaudi-like towers, murals, giant chess sets, and waves of color on every surface of his garden walls, garage doors, gates, balconies, and roofs, as well as of those of his neighbors. The government turned him loose in Havana’s Centro to perform his magic on various defunct buildings, and his murals enliven the walls of a local Vedado athletic complex.

  We squeeze in a side trip to the barbershop and salon of Havana’s premier hair stylist. Gilberto “Papito” Valladares is an artist of another sort, but no less an artist. His shop, on the third floor of a centuries-old building near the Malecón, is a dreamlike warren of rooms with eighteen-foot ceilings, walls covered with mirrors and paintings, and elaborate chandeliers. He shares his good fortune by teaching neighborhood residents hair-cutting and styling techniques—all for free. Papito also funds the art project Arte Corte for the benefit of the community. Outside his shop, a lively children’s street theater supported by the project performs slapstick routines to the delight of dozens of youngsters.

  Manuel Mendive, perhaps Cuba’s best-known post-Revolution visual artist, makes a contribution to his community on several levels. He lives “in the country,” a two-hour drive from Havana. When we arrive, we feel like we have been deposited in an artistic Shangri-La. His house is in a sprawling, thickly wooded compound with a view down a forested valley to the sea. Artwork fills two studios and decorates the grounds.

  Manuel Mendive

  Born in Cuba in 1944 to Afro-Cuban parents, Mendive received formal training at the Academy of San Alejandro in Havana. He departed from formalism to pursue themes and visions from African Yoruba culture and the Santeria religion. As a professional artist, he received a salary and free materials and supplies from a government arts agency. In turn, he gave some of the proceeds from the sale of his works to the agency. Now, his large-scale paintings and sculptures regularly bring in five-figure prices in US dollars. He employs many local residents as assistants and pays taxes.

  Though Mendive could live anywhere in the world, he is committed to Cuba. A work of art himself, he is of imposing size, with a dramatic ebony face, silver-gray beard, and dreadlocks. He wears a white muslin dashiki. Hollywood could cast him as a black Moses were it not for his cheerful good humor and ever-present smile.

  All this art did not appear spontaneously. Cuba has devoted considerable resources to formal art education. The Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana is the premier college for five career paths: Music, Visual Arts, Theatre Arts, Dance Arts, and Arts and Audiovisual Communication Media. Award-winning buildings on the main campus in Havana are round-domed, breast-like units, connected by loggia and interspersed with pools and sculpture in shapes suggestive of the female body. Tuition is free, and admission is highly competitive. The campus sits on the former golf course that belonged to a racially segregated pre-Revolution country club, which even dictator Fulgencio Batista could not join because his skin was a couple of shades too dark. The present student body is a healthy mix of gender and skin color, from café au lait to espresso.

  In Santiago, students from the Casa José María Heredia School for the Arts—an elementary and high school devoted to music and the performing arts—perform for us for two hours. We are treated to a Handel saxophone solo, a Brahms piano solo, and a quartet of ten-year-olds singing, of all things, “Give Me That Old Time Religion.” Traditional Cuban and jazz dances are also performed. At the end, the students drag us onto the floor to dance and make fools of ourselves. They take many pictures of our awkward display with their phones. What particularly struck us was not only the energy and high spirits of the students but also the camaraderie and mutual support between the faculty and their pupils.

  Instituto Superior de Arte, Havana

  Ballet students, Casa José María Heredia School for the Arts, Santiago

  Folk dancers, Casa José María Heredia School for the Arts, Santiago

  However, because of the blockade and embargo, musical instruments and accessories in Cuba are scarce. Students who play wind instruments have to share one reed among the whole class. Dance students have to make do with broken-in or worn-out shoes—or none at all.

  One of our most remarkable encounters was with a collective of artists who reject formal art education. These naive or self-taught painters live in the sugar mill town of Mella, near Santiago. The collective, Grupo Bayate, was founded in the 1990s by Luis Rodriguez Arias, also known as El Maestro. His son, Luis Rodriguez Ricardo, who calls himself El Estudiante, now leads the collective. It consists of eight or nine artists who dispense with techniques such as perspective and instead concentrate on depictions of their lives, culture, work, recreation, and surroundings. Their paintings emphasize the blazing colors of the fields, hills, and rivers, with special attention to the thousands of shades of green of the forest. Some works strongly resemble the jungle paintings of the French Impressionist Henri Rousseau, who was also referred to as a “primitive” or “naive” artist.

  The members of the group have varied backgrounds. El Maestro was a baker. El Estudiante earned a degree in highway construction. Others in the collective worked in the sugar mill or as policemen, lawyers, or doctors. Most continue in their regular jobs. Rousseau also had a day job. He was a customs officer.

  Santiago is a beautiful Spanish colonial city on the eastern end of the island. Because of its history as a crossroads port, the architecture in Santiago is a varied combination of Spanish Colonial, Moorish, French, Italian, and Chinese elements.


  On October 12, 2012, Hurricane Sandy passed directly over the city, causing nine deaths, destroying fifteen thousand homes, and tearing apart countless roofs and trees. Sandy was the worst hurricane to hit Santiago in one hundred years. Cubans were upset by the loss of life, which was unusually high. Santiago’s recovery, however, far outpaced that of New York City after Sandy.

  As of our visit in March 2013, power has been restored, businesses have reopened, and repairs are well under way. However, only stumps remain where most trees stood. The city looks as if it has just gotten a meteorological buzz cut.

  Street musicians, Santiago

  Santiago is also known for its significant revolutionary history. It is the location of the tomb of José Martí, the Moncado Barracks where the first shots of the Revolution were fired in 1953, and the City Hall balcony where Fidel announced the triumph of the Revolution in 1959.

  Politics is as omnipresent as art. The two are interrelated, not only in the work of individual artists, but also in the public space. The roads we travel are devoid of commercial billboards. Instead, colorful and eye-catching political messages urge Cubans to support the Revolution, build socialism, fight corruption, increase production, mourn Chávez, and demand the release and return of the “Cuban Five” political prisoners then held in Florida.

  Though virtually unknown in the US, the “Cuban Five” are considered heroes in Cuba. In 1976, Cubana Airlines Flight 455 was bombed, killing all seventy-three people on board. Authorities in the Castro government had reason to believe that organizations of right-wing Cubans living in Miami had planned and carried out the attack. Cuba made a formal request to the FBI to investigate, but the request was ignored. Five Cuban intelligence officers infiltrated the suspect organizations and obtained evidence that implicated Luis Posada, a Cuban exile and former CIA operative. When the Cuban Five presented a dossier of their findings to the Justice Department, the FBI arrested them on charges of Conspiracy to Engage in Espionage. They were convicted in 2001 in the extremely hostile venue of south Florida and sentenced to imprisonment of forty years to life. Luis Posada was never arrested or indicted.

  We have several frank political exchanges with Cubans, but one that stands out takes place in the living room of José “Pepe” Raúl Viera Linares, the first Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1981 to 1990.

  Pepe invites the thirteen of us into his modest home in Havana, where we discuss Cuban and US politics and economics. His wife, Maria Cecilia Bermudez, serves coffee and cookies and joins the group. Pepe worked for the Revolution in many leadership capacities, including serving as legal counsel to the Cuban Mission to the United Nations.

  During our conversation, he frequently refers to the “Economic and Social Policy Guidelines for the Party and the Revolution,” a nineteen-page, single-spaced document finalized in 2011 after two years of debate. Pepe explains that the Guidelines outline how Cuba should cautiously begin a transition to a mixed economy with a greater role for private enterprise, while the government retains control of the major means of production, financial institutions, and overall socialist planning.

  When members of our group raise questions about one-party rule and censorship, Pepe responds, “These measures were justified for a long time because of the imminent threat of forcible intervention by the United States. That danger is now greatly diminished.”

  “What next?” I ask. “Where does Cuba go?” “The role of government is to provide an economic system that is attractive to the people,” he replies. “In April, 1961, Cuba chose socialism. Now they want a mixed economy, and the Party is reluctant to move.”

  Pepe is concerned that the Guidelines are just that—guidelines, not laws. The mixed economy envisioned in the document will require laws governing labor relations, property transfer, and bankruptcy. He has confidence in Raúl Castro’s abilities, but there will be tough times ahead as the Government sheds as many as 250,000 jobs. Pepe looks tired and sad. He has spent his life struggling to attain a humane, socialist Cuba. I imagine that he is afraid that his dream may be replaced by a society of consumerism, inequality, and exploitation. And there is nothing he can do about it.

  Cutbacks may affect funding for the arts as well. I only hope that this will not result in fewer ISA’s and Casa José María Heredia schools and more tropicana floor shows.

  In Santiago, we also meet with members of a Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) in a neighborhood close to our hotel. The entire community—about one hundred adults and children—show up to welcome us. The gathering is held under a streetlight where they hold CDR meetings every other month. There is music, dancing, and food. Children recite poems and sing songs about José Martí.

  We are free to talk to anyone we want about any topic, and so our conversations center around the “Cuban Five,” the post-Sandy cleanup, and the new Guidelines.

  I find myself in a small group talking about the Guidelines. I ask whether they had a chance to consider a draft of the document before it was adopted and if they were opposed to its provisions. The locals reply that they reviewed it thoroughly and authorized their City Council representative to convey their approval. They did so even though they were aware that its implementation would result in job losses, perhaps including their own or their neighbors’. A woman says in English, “It has to be done. The country cannot go on as it is. We will survive it.”

  “How was your representative chosen?” I ask. She replies, “Candidates posted one-page résumés on a fence, and the CDR voted at the next meeting.” Membership in the Cuban Communist Party is not a requirement.

  We’re impressed by the solidarity of the community and their support for one another and their country.

  What we saw and heard in Cuba was a sampling of the explosion of Cuban art and culture since 1959. This development is all the more remarkable in an economy of scarcity. It is the result of the decision by the revolutionary government to prioritize artistic expression.

  Cuban Socialism is designed with the understanding that meeting basic human physical needs and providing an equitable system of wealth distribution is necessary, though not sufficient, for most people—at least, not indefinitely. The goal is the creation of optimum conditions for individual and collective human development and expression. Cuba has come a long way toward making life worth living through creative thought and activity, both for the artist and society.

  In the last fifty years, the Cuban people have made great strides in the critical areas of health, medical services, education, literacy, the arts, and other basic human needs. For example, there is CENESEX, a robust organization that advocates for gay rights in the machismo culture of Latin America. Founded shortly after the Revolution by The Federation of Cuban Women, it promotes sex education through dissemination of information, training of medical professionals, and social activism. Sex education is a matter of state policy, and the focus is on safe sex rather than abstinence. CENESEX also deals with the issues of access to abortion (which is legal within the first ten weeks of pregnancy), homophobia, HIV treatment, and LGBT rights.

  Cubans have successfully resisted the overt and covert attempts by the United States to effect “regime change.” They defend their island and their social achievements. They have already survived the ill-fated, US-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion and the years of shortages and hardship caused by the breakup of the Soviet Union.

  Now, having made these sacrifices, Cubans want more of the consumer goods and services that we in America take for granted—the kind that small neighborhood enterprises best provide, such as groceries, shoe repair, auto repair, plumbing, carpentry, art supplies, school supplies, and dry cleaning. They want more and better food. Many are already ahead of the government, offering products and services without the sanction of the state, creating an underground economy. Per the Guidelines, the government is moving to stimulate and encourage small businesses and private or cooperative agriculture. But this takes time. Which leads them to the more immediate pay
off of tourism.

  In 2012, largely because of educational people-to-people exchanges and the relaxation of travel restrictions for Cuban families, more than ninety-eight thousand US citizens visited Cuba according to Reuters, spending hard currency. If all restrictions are lifted, many more Americans could be expected to visit, providing Cuba with the capital needed to hold civil society together while transitioning to a mixed economy—but at a price.

  On our last night, we attend a farewell dinner at Parador La Guardia, a restaurant catering to tourists. We think about the ordinary Cubans who work there but can’t afford to eat there.

  During the long, dark walk back to the hotel through foggy, dimly lit streets, we see open transactions of prostitution and drug sales in cars and on foot. I wonder if the sellers would be there at all if not for the proximity of tourists with hard currency. Certainly, if we know what is happening, the police must, too. However, there is no police presence.

  We recall Fidel’s warning about tourism.

  Epilogue

  On July 20, 2015, fifty-four years after diplomatic ties were suspended, Cuba and the United States resumed diplomatic relations and have since reopened their respective embassies in Havana and Washington, DC. The United States has not lifted the trade embargo or relinquished control of Guantanamo Bay.

  Since we left Cuba, all of the “Cuban Five” have returned to the island. The final three were released in a prisoner exchange in 2014.

  Politically and economically, Cuba is at a critical juncture in its struggle to maintain a humane socialist economy and civil society—and we’re convinced the Cuban people will work it out.