100 Places in Cuba Every Woman Should Go. Conner Gorry
One of the masterminds of the attack was Haydeé’s brother, Abel Santamaría, who was captured, tortured (they cut out his eyes), and killed by thugs in the employ of dictator Fulgencio Batista. Meanwhile, Haydeé and other survivors went to prison on the Isle of Pines (now the Isla de la Juventud; a visit to the Presidio Modelo where they were jailed makes for a spooky, solitary experience—see Chapter 100). In another turn of luck for the nascent movement, the prisoners were granted amnesty and released, prompting Fidel Castro to deliver his monumental History Will Absolve Me speech; Melba and Haydeé edited, printed and distributed the tract clandestinely. After their release, the motley crew regrouped, went to Mexico, and formalized the Movimiento 26 de Julio (M-26-7), the revolutionary body responsible for all that ensued following the Moncada attack (you’ll see black and red M-26-7 flags flying on historical dates). Haydeé followed the directorate to Mexico where plans were laid to topple Batista and fought in the Sierra Maestra alongside Fidel, Raúl, Che, and their crew.
History Will Absolve Me, the speech that launched a revolution, is widely available in reprint.
Not long after revolutionary troops entered Havana, hailing triumph, Haydeé established the Casa de las Américas to disseminate and promote Latin American and Caribbean art and literature. One of the hemisphere’s most respected cultural centers, the Casa de las Américas is housed in a beautiful art deco building on Calle G near the Malecón. “Casa,” as its fondly called, hosts free concerts, book launches, and poetry readings, publishes books and magazines, has an art gallery and library, and each year bestows the coveted Casa de las Américas prize for literature. Haydeé headed the Casa de las Américas for two decades during a time when the intellectual and artistic environment in Cuba was turbulent, reactionary, and random. In the early years, censors worked overtime, prohibiting films, closing magazines, and firing intellectuals. The proverbial shit hit the fan when Cuban poet Heberto Padilla won the Casa prize for a collection of poems in 1968; though the book was published in Cuba by the state-run press, not long thereafter, Fidel Castro pronounced “dentro de la Revolución, todo; contra la Revolución, nada” (inside the Revolution, everything; outside the Revolution, nothing) in a meeting with artists and intellectuals. Padilla’s poems were subsequently deemed “outside the Revolution.” This signaled the death knell for his career and he was sent to jail, released only after issuing a humiliating public apology.
A dark chapter in the history of the Cuban revolution, the “Padilla affair” kicked off what is known as the “quinquenio gris”—the five-year “gray period” when writers and artists were shackled by rules regulating content. Many left Cuba and today folks still reference the quinquenio gris, sometimes opining that it lasted more like ten years. This episode overlapped with the creation of the infamous UMAPs (Unidades Militares de Apoyo a la Producción), hard labor camps where anyone coloring outside the lines—homosexuals, pastors, musicians, hippies—was sent to instill revolutionary values. It was a short-lived, disastrous initiative for which Fidel Castro apologized publicly in 2010, stating “if someone is responsible it’s me.” Haydeé didn’t witness the evolution of the revolution: she committed suicide in 1980.
Pablo Milanés (2016) by Cuban filmmaker Juan Pin Vilar, won Best Documentary at the 2017 Festival Internacional de Cine Pobre in Gibara and explores the famous musician’s views on his experience in UMAP.
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