Palmas de HERENCIA

Message from Mr. Luis Mejer Sarra, President of the Board of Editors of Cuban Cultural Heritage.

The Intrinsic Success of Cubans

Hugh Thomas, in the prologue to his book “Cuba, The Fight for Freedom,” quotes a letter sent by Christopher Columbus to the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, who had financed his voyage to the New World, upon discovering the greater of the Antilles in 1492:

“The multitude of palm trees of various forms, the highest and the most beautiful I have ever met with, and an infinity of other great and green trees; the birds in rich plumage and the verdure of the fields; render this country, most serene princes, of such marvelous beauty that it surpasses all others in charms and graces as the day doth the night in luster.  I have been overwhelmed at the sight of so much beauty that I have not known how to relate it.”

This is the island we Cubans inherited.

Throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries the cattle, coffee, tobacco and sugar industries were developed which, along with its forests of precious woods that covered half its area, an abundance of rivers and bays, mountain ranges (Sierra Maestra, Escambray and Los Órganos), valleys of fertile land and its ideal climate, would make the island of Cuba the most prosperous of all the Spanish colonies.  Abbott Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, 18th century French writer and thinker, would venture to say that the island of Cuba alone could be worth a kingdom for Spain.

In 1902 the Republic of Cuba was established, soon becoming a leader in wealth and progress in the American continent.

A dark night took over our country in 1959, followed by a mass exodus of its citizens.  Between 1959 and 1967, over 300,000 Cubans arrived in the United States.  We worked as cooks, mechanics and field hands.  We worked in stores, gas stations, hospitals, supermarkets and in every which place we could make a living.  Today, we constitute 5% of the Hispanic population of the US but are responsible for 35% of total sales in this Hispanic world.  And, we have become one of the most politically influential groups in the US.

To what do we owe this unheard of success of Cubans in our republican island and, in such a short period, in exile?  We could argue that most exiles came from the better educated and wealthier classes of republican Cuba.  However, the more humble and less educated classes were part of this massive movement, too.  They also found prosperity as exiles.

According to Malcolm Gladwell, a Canadian writer and sociologist of Anglo-Jamaican background, the secret of individual success lies more in the influence of culture, community, family and generation than in the individual himself.  We Cubans descend from an immigrant community that changed its life radically to obtain prosperity in a different place and they achieved it in that island of privileged conditions, the island that “overwhelmed” Columbus.  This vigorous spirit was instilled (albeit unconsciously) in subsequent generations.  Cubans, who are intrinsically hard-working, also know when to make the best use of opportunities, as their ancestors did.  The world of the ‘60’s was enjoying prosperity and it was into this world that exiled Cubans arrived, needing to remake their lives.  Cubans took advantage of these circumstances and, working hard, did well.

Herencia Cultural Cubana, which mission is to preserve the culture of republican Cuba for its new generations, highlights in this issue the public figure of General Máximo Gómez.  A master tactician in guerrilla warfare and former commander of the Spanish Army in Santo Domingo, he soon turned in 1890, together with Antonio Maceo (warrior) and José Martí (philosopher, writer and visionary), into the very soul of Cuban independence.