Julian Bond Is Dead: "Civil Rights for Me, But Not for You"

"I first visited Cuba in the spring of 1959. I drove from Atlanta (where I was in school) to Key West with three college friends and we took a ferry from there to Havana. We stayed in the Roosevelt Hotel and visited the Tropicana – and a casino. We went to Havana High School. One of my colleagues was a pianist and there was a piano in the vestibule and he sat down and began to play. Students began pouring in, flooding us with questions about who we were, where we were from, why we had come. The truth was we were enchanted by the revolution. Our newspapers had carried stories about President Castro’s triumphant entry into Havana. He and his colleagues were all young, as were we – I was 19 – and we found something appealing in their story and their victory. This last trip (in November 2006) simply reinforced my admiration for the Cuban people and the society they are building." — Julian Bond, quoted in http://keywiki.org/Julian_Bond, which documents every Communist Front organization to which the domestic civil rights leader belonged

Julian Bond was also a poet. His most famous verse, according to The Miami Herald, was this deathless couplet:

Look at that girl shake that thing, 
We can’t all be Martin Luther King. 


Civil Rights Icon Julian Bond Dead at 75

Barack Obama: The Wizard of Oz

"It's a funny feeling for someone who's been a grey bureaucrat for 29 years. Suddenly it feels like everything's in Technicolor, like when Dorothy enters the Land of Oz and the world becomes colorful."  — Roberta Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and the senior State Department official who led negotiations on restoring diplomatic ties.

If Roberta Jacobson is "Dorothy" does that make Barack Obama the "Wizard of Oz?" In fact the president has much in common with Frank Baum's character, who was a genial fraud and consummate prevaricator, too.

Jacobson may see herself as "Dorothy," but nobody else will. There is another role which is a better fit for her: the "Wicked Witch of the West."

US and Cuba Feel Weight of History as Embassy Reopens

Richard Blanco, Obama's Homer, Celebrates Capitulation to Castro

President Obama's inaugural laureate, the gay American-Cuban (let's put the stress where it belongs) Richard Blanco has composed another commemorative poem for a state occasion, which is traditionally what poets laureate do. In England, its poet laureate gets a hogshead of wine or its cash equivalent for his services. We will not inquire what Blanco gets much less say what he deserves for his efforts. We do know that for this particular commission he received an all-expenses paid trip to Cuba courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. Not since Harper's paid Longfellow $1000 for "Keramos" has any American poet been compensated so handsomely for a single poem. Too bad (?) that Blanco's poem is not available to those who paid for it. Blanco embargoed the text of his normalization poem both before he read it at the re-opening of the U.S. embassy in Havana (which is understandable) as well as after he recited it there (which is not). Regardless, it is Blanco's right to embargo his poem, just as it is the right of the U.S. to implement a trade embargo against Communist Cuba. The U.S. does not have a legal obligation to trade with Cuba or any other country, nor does it profit by the embargo (it merely cuts its losses). Blanco does intend to profit by embargoing his poem, which is only available in full to those willing to buy it. It is risible for a poet — even one who has the presidential seal of approval — to expect to turn his musings into gold. If poets are generally known as fools it is because they entertain such fond conceits. Soon enough he'll be selling autographed copies on eBay for barely more than the cost of postage. I, in any case, will not be a bidder.

For my purposes, the title of the poem ["Matters of the Sea"] and its first line (which is all that Blanco deigned to release) suffice: "The sea doesn't matter. What matters is this — that we all belong to the sea between us." Yes, wretched. We may all belong to the sea, but some Cubans belong more to the sea than others: the tens of thousands who were killed trying to breach that 90-mile stretch between tyranny and freedom, clinging to inner tubes, doors and all manner of unseaworthy craft, with only their own skins as life-jackets and prayers their only means of communication, the prey of both the Cuban and U.S. Coast Guard, both working in tandem to return them to their island hell. The Castro regime and the U.S. government have always collaborated (embassy or not) in matters of mutual interest, such as maintaining "stability" (i.e. the status quo) on the island even at the price of slavery. The resumption of diplomatic relations will certainly enhance that collaboration if no other, and it is that collaboration and no other which is being celebrated as Obama's legacy by stooges like Richard Blanco and mourned by those who do not believe that Cubans need the Castros to keep them in their place. By excluding actual Cubans as opposed to Castro's henchmen from the grounds of the U.S. embassy during the flag-raising ceremony and reception, the U.S. adopted the Castro's regime's apartheid policy towards its own citizens and muzzled free speech on American soil (which is what the embassy grounds are under international law). All the "Cuba for the Cubans" jargon spoken by Secretary of State Kerry must be viewed and dismissed in light of U.S. conduct on that day. It is Cuba for the Castros (and their abetters, which now includes the U.S.) which Kerry was actually there to sanction by the administration's formal capitulation to them.

And why was Richard Blanco there? Whom was he representing? Certainly not Cuban exiles, who have never elected a single public official in Florida, New Jersey or any other state, whether Cuban-American or non-Cuban, Democrat or Republican, who supported the resumption of diplomatic relations with the Castro regime or the dismantling of the trade embargo. Is he really in the vanguard of the second or third generation of Cuban-Americans, who although they are now in the majority in this country, continue to vote exactly as their parents and grandparents did? Does he even represent Cuban-American gays? Fidel Castro's persecution of homosexuals has made him especially hated among expatriate gays (who produced the most effective anti-Castro documentary in history, Improper Conduct). But Blanco, in an interview with NPR, denied that gays were persecuted in Cuba more than was the case in other Latin American countries, and blamed machismo, not Castro, for the concentration camps where gays (such as Cardinal Jaime Ortega) were "re-educated" in the Sixties and the prison-hospitals where HIV-positive patients have been quarantined since the Nineties. He even claimed that on his many trips to the island he had never interacted with Cuba's gay community and in fact wasn't even aware that such a community existed. By refusing to recognize let alone censure the treatment of his fellow gays in Cuba, Blanco is endorsing the status quo and the status quo ante, and setting the stage, literally, for Mariela Castro to honor him as did Obama with some dubious distinction (actually, he'll get no medal from Mariela; he referred to her as "Raúl's sister" in a CNN interview which is worse than calling her a faghag or cursing her late mother).

No, Mr. Blanco doesn't represent anyone but himself. He belongs to a subspecies, not at all uncommon, known as Cubans by main chance, that is, Cubans as long as there is something to be gained by it. In his mind, however, he is the Cuban-American everyman (or should that be Übermensch?) and the very linchpin of normalization. In an interview with the Voice of America, Blanco claimed that he personally straddles Cuba and the U.S.: "Here I am, this bridge between the Cuban side and the American side." With such a shaky bridge, we can at least hope that this confluence between the worst men in Cuba and the worst men in this country will not long stand.

As for Richard Blanco, he is probably right to try to limit as much as possible the number of people who are exposed to his poetry. That is the best way to assure that the commissions will be pouring in: for Carlos Saladrigas' 70th birthday; Wayne Smith's 80th birthday; Janet Reno's 90th; and, of course, the "Jimmy Carter Dirge" (Carter, too, is a poet and has published more books of verse than Blanco). Blanco's real celebrity is not and will never be as a "poet," however.He is simply the left's favorite Cuban lackey: his qualifications being that he is gay (always a mark of purity among liberals) and that his surname is "Blanco" (white), which is a joke that they all enjoy.

POSTSCRIPT: 

I posted this on Richard Blanco's Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/RichardBlancoPoetry
Let's see how long it stays up there.

POSTSCRIPT 2:

Richard Blanco: Many have asked about getting a copy of the US Embassy poem. I've not posted it because I plan to issue an e-book with all proceeds to benefit Friends of Caritas Cubana. The e-book should be out soon and then a commemorative chapbook to follow. So stay tuned and help support this wonderful organization. 
http://www.friendsofcaritascubana.org/

Manuel Tellechea: Mr. Blanco's reply confirms that he has indeed embargoed the poem, as I was the first to point out. He claims that profits from the sale of the "US Embassy poem" will be donated at some future date to Friends of Caritas Cubanas, which supports an island charity run by Cardinal Jaime Ortega: the same prelate who recently asserted that there are no political prisoners in Cuba and that dissidents are agents of the "gusanera" (worms) in Miami.

POSTSCRIPT 3:

Richard Blanco: REALLY? In 1999, Friends of Caritas Cubana began as a committee of Boston's Catholic Charities to assist Caritas Cubana's humanitarian and social service programs. In 2005, Friends of Caritas Cubana spun off and separately incorporated as a Massachusetts-based 501(c)(3). For over ten years, Friends of Caritas Cubana has provided needed services to the Cuban people – all with transparency to both the U.S. and Cuban Governments. We go to Cuba – at our own expense – at least twice a year to visit programs funded, conduct resource audits, provide technical assistance, and assess needs on the ground. Caritas Cubana, itself, is a nationwide non-governmental provider of humanitarian, social and emergency services. It is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church and is active in every province of Cuba. While Caritas Cubana serves thousands of needy individuals, its funding is vastly smaller than the needs of the population that Caritas serves. Services are available to anyone in need, regardless of religion, political beliefs or sexual orientation. Caritas' focus in Cuba is to provide humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable citizens: the elderly, children, single mothers, people with disabilities and people living with HIV/AIDS. In addition to conducting programs for these populations, Caritas distributes medicines and provides emergency relief as needed. It has few paid staff as it relies mostly on its volunteer force.

Manuel Tellechea: I do not doubt that the execrable Cardinal Ortega is very "charitable." Charity is one way to maintain silence and there is much that he needs to keep quiet. I am sure that he is grateful to you for your assistance.

POSTSCRIPT 4:

Toni Hart: WOW ! What a HATEFUL RACIST PENDEJO you are Manuel Tellechea - and you SHOULD be afraid to show your face. ALL artists (writers, poets, musicians, painters, dancers, whatever) have rights to their own works. It's called a COPYRIGHT. Refraining from giving away one's livelihood on international social media is SANE. It's why so many people do NOT use social media at all, but keep their art on private websites or places like Etsy where they are ONLY for sale. I don't even possess enough wrath to respond to your self-centered diatribe. You do not deserve to share my oxygen let alone an artist like Richard Blanco's. Just remember - Karma is a bitch.

Manuel Tellechea: You sound like a lovely human being. Any relation to Armando Hart?

POSTSCRIPT 5:

Bits of Mr. Blanco's self-described "Embassy Poem" are being "pirated" everywhere despite his official embargo on the text. The Miami Herald gives us the last line, which is even more vapid and disingenuous than I had imagined:

“Yet, yet we all hold seashells up to our ears. Listen again to the anthem. Today the sea is still telling us that the end to our doubts and fears is to gaze into the lucid blue of our shared horizon to breathe together, to heal together.”

Castro's victims need to heal (in the literal sense), and listening to seashells isn't going to do it. As for Castro's henchmen and his American allies, they have no wounds that require healing and they can do with seashells as they please.

Another quoted line from the "historic poem," as The Herald described it:

“No one is the other to the other to the sea whether on hemmed island or vast continent.”

The phrase “No one is the other to the other to the sea" makes absolutely no sense. Parse it as you will, it obstinately refuses to yield a cogent meaning. To be unintelligible is not the same thing as to be profound. Blanco's description of Cuba as a "hemmed island" is also absurd. By its very definition an island is not hemmed, that is, it is unconnected to the "vast continent," neither a seam nor an appendage of it. Blanco probably meant to imply that Cuba is hemmed in by the U.S. as in "hemmed in by its enemies." This would also be a fallacy, since it is not the U.S. that has hemmed in Cuba, but Castro who for 56 years has hemmed in the Cuban people, separating them from one another and from the outside world.

Note to Obama & Company: Being gay doesn't make anyone a great or even good poet, though undoubtedly many great poets have been gay.

POSTSCRIPT 6:

Mr. Blanco has deleted Toni Hart's offensive comment in Postscript 4, I suppose, as a special consideration to me. I did not seek its removal, which now leaves my own response an orphan. Outside its context, what will the reader make of  "You sound like a lovely human being. Any relation to Armando Hart?" Whatever.

He has also added to his previous comment in Postscript 3:

Richard Blanco: FYI: The poem will be published as an e-book and chapbook with all proceeds to benefit the humanitarian efforts of Caritas Cubana, not for my benefit. Nor was I was not compensated for the Embassy poem or the inaugural poem.. I will leave your comments up for ALL to see. I am not put off by them; in fact, I welcome the opportunity to meet with you face-to-face so that you may understand that I am coming at all this from a place of love (not hate), but certainly not with disregard for historical realities . My four books of poetry and two memoirs all focus largely on honoring the lives, sorrows, and longings of my family and the larger exile community that I embrace. If you haven't read my work, please do. Abrazos

I am glad of his assurance that he will not delete my comment. Since that is both so easy and so tempting to do, I thank him for resisting the urge to turn his homage page on Facebook into an echo chamber. He is obviously sincere in his wrongheaded belief that personal dialogue will solve all differences not only between governments but individuals as well. I believe, moreover, that he knows the truth about Cuba — how could he not after 7 trips to the island? — but is afraid to speak that truth because he fears retaliation not from Castro but from his liberal patrons. It was painful to watch his verbal and facial contortions when asked by CNN why his family had fled Cuba in 1968. It was as if he had been impaled on that word "fled" because it implied that there was something there to run away from. He ended up saying that his family were economic migrants who came to this country seeking the "American Dream." That may be true, but like all exiles they were motivated by the Cuban Nightmare. I will read the memoirs of his Cuban-American childhood in Miami [The Prince of the Cocuyos] because I frankly can't imagine how he could write it without reference to the real motives that brought his family here. He says that he embraces the "sorrows and longings of [his] family and the larger exile community," but for him that feeling is one that dares not speak its name. What sorrows? What longings? Surely the sorrows caused by the Castro tyranny and longings for a free Cuba. When he can actually bring himself to say and not merely hint at what he means, then we can speak about "historical realities." Perhaps his Embassy poem was such a dismal failure because he never allowed himself the freedom to speak for those in Cuba who cannot speak for themselves. He is doubly-muzzled because he has imposed this restraint on himself.

POSTSCRIPT 7: There is another hommage website dedicated to Richard Blanco:

http://richard-blanco.com/

As an exercise in self-hyperbole, it cannot be beat. Would that we all thought as well of ourselves as Richard Blanco does of Richard Blanco:

"Richard Blanco is one of the most beloved and influential poets and storytellers writing today. As a historic inaugural poet, public speaker, teacher and memoirist, he continues to travel the world, inviting audiences to reconnect to the heart of the human experience and all of its beautiful diversity. Through the power of his words and presence, Blanco taps into our unspoken dreams, hopes and frustrations. He captures the human spirit and condition, in all of its complexities, opening up our minds and encouraging us to see beyond our differences to share in the universal experience of our humanity. Just as Carl Sagan brought cosmology into our living rooms, Blanco is appealing to audiences everywhere and inspiring a new way to think and feel about the poetry of our day, making it an accessible, inclusive and transformative part of our everyday lives." — Richard Blanco

What Dr. Sanjay Gupta is to medicine, Richard Blanco is to poetry. And let us not forget that had Obama gotten his way, Dr. Gutpa would have been Surgeon General.

POSTSCRIPT 8:

Of course, I could have transcribed Mr. Blanco's embargoed Embassy from his original reading, but his quirky delivery would have made that a difficult and highly unpleasant task: having to listen over and over again to it would only have made me dislike it even more. Thankfully, that wasn't necessary. After much searching I found the complete text posted on his friend Johnny Díaz's blog, Beantown Cubanito. I will not reproduce it here because I am not Mr. Blanco's friend and do not presume to take any liberties with his work (in Mr. Díaz's case, born of his pride in and empathy for him). But those interested in reading (as opposed to listening) to Mr. Blanco's embargoed poem will find it in the "Comments" section at:

http://beantowncubanito.blogspot.com/2015/08/matters-of-sea-by-richard-blanco.html

The lack of punctuation, btw, explains Blanco's quirky delivery which Díaz describes on his blog as "Zen-like."

 POSTSCRIPT 9: 

Mr. Blanco has replied to my previous comments in the same conciliatory manner as previously. He has even quoted to me my translation of "Cultivo una rosa blanca," whether unconsciously or to flatter me:

Hola friends, I’ve been reading all your comments on my participation in the re-opening of the US embassy, both positive and negative. First, I want to thank all of you who understood that I am in nobody’s political pocket; that I am a poet, not a politician. And as a poet my aim is to evoke new emotional dimensions for everyone to feel and to think about things in ways we may not have had the opportunity to before. Thanks for understanding the poem’s messages—that to “heal” doesn’t necessarily mean to forgive and forget (“stones in our hand that we just can’t toss”)—even when we heal, there are scars; that “together” means the people of Cuba and the Cuban diaspora, not the Cuban regime. But also, thanks for forgiving me for those stories I may have left out, unintentionally. Thanks for understanding that I can't speak to everyone and every experience in every instance. I regarded that moment not as a time for political declarations, but a time to offer the hope of change to the people of Cuba and our diaspora. In many articles and essays, I’ve taken a stronger stance, speaking about the harsh realities of Cuba and the emotional struggles of exile. What’s more, I’ve dedicated my writing life to honoring and documenting the lives of my parents and grandparents and the exile community of Miami that raised me: their sorrows, triumphs, and losses. I’ve written poems about “los balseros” (the rafters) as I scanned the lists of detainees posted at radio stations in Miami, wondering if my cousin Jorge had made it alive; about my mother’s anguish, never again able to see her own mother, who remained in Cuba; and, in my memoir, written about many people from the Cuban exile community I grew up in, like Rosario, who lost her husband and son to the revolution. I do indeed remember many painful stories—the reason I’ve chosen to be involved in this new approach with Cuba is to make sure that these stories are not forgotten by the changes that seem inevitable. To the few who have not understood this, who have called me a political pawn, a traitor, and a fool—I thank you also, for your candor, for feeling what you feel, and expressing your pain that is also part of our collective story. I honor you and thank you for inciting conversations that may be long overdue within the Cuban diaspora. In the words of José Martí, a far better man and poet than I will ever be: “Cultivo una rosa blanca en junio como enero para el amigo sincero que me da su mano franca. Y para el cruel que me arranca el corazón con que vivo, cardo ni ortiga cultivo; cultivo la rosa blanca.” (“I have a white rose to tend in July as in January; I give it to the true friend who offers his frank hand to me. And for the cruel one whose blows break the heart by which I live, thistle nor thorn do I give: for him, too, I have a white rose.”) Though we may have different approaches, in my heart I believe all of us share the same hope: a prosperous Cuban pueblo living in a free and democratic Cuba of the future, which is what this photo symbolizes for me. It was the most emotional moment of my time in Cuba, surrounded by Cubans outside the embassy gates, wrapped in the flags of two countries, two peoples I love. Yes, “to heal, together.”

My criticisms have made Mr. Blanco defensive and perhaps even remorseful about a missed opportunity to stand with the Cuban people rather than be a self-described "bridge" between the worst men in Cuba and the worst men in this country. I, of course, did not call him a "political pawn [or] a traitor," nor has anybody else here. I did say that he was a fool, and meant it, most kindly, as an extenuation of his conduct, the only one I could think of.  I am glad that he has a proper appreciation of José Martí and I hope that appreciation will better guide his conduct in the future.

Mr. Blanco could have been the herald of that "free and democratic Cuba of the future" of which Martí dreamt. It would have cost him nothing. Now other men will have to pay with their blood and even their lives to say what Mr. Blanco declined to say because it would have offended Castro's henchmen and his new American patrons. He missed an opportunity to be a hero to both Cubans on the island and in exile. But no man is obliged to be a hero even when it would have cost him nothing but the ineffectual wrath of evil men.

POSTSCRIPT 10:

Mr. Blanco has broken his word, as I knew he would, and deleted all my comments on his Facebook page. I have, however, saved them here in expectation of this action. A coward cannot be expected to act contrary to his nature. This "champion of the written word" shares the censor's vocation with the island's henchmen, and if he had their power would exercise it as despotically as they do.

There are hundreds of comments on Richard Blanco's Facebook page extolling his insipid Embassy poem because it asserts that Cubans and Americans share a common humanity, as if that had ever been in dispute. It passes over, however, the inhumanity that Cubans alone endure at the hands of their slave masters. whose depredations are now to be underwritten by U.S. tourists and ultimately by U.S. taxpayers.

One would think that so much unmerited praise would be enough to massage Blanco's hyperactive ego. But it is not enough and never will be because he knows that he is a fraud even if his admirers don't. For that reason he despises their proffered flattery and becomes fixated instead on the few comments that confront him with uncomfortable truths which he can neither overlook nor answer, leaving him with no choice but to erase them. Yes, such conduct is an avowal of his own insufficiency and tantamount to overturning the chess board when one is losing. Such infantilism is deeply bred and beyond correction at his stage in life. There is nothing left for an opponent to do but to rise from the table and leave him sulking.

POSTSCRIPT 11:

Mr. Blanco visited the José Martí Blog this morning at (9:02:50 am on 8/23/2015). I am sure that if he had known of the existence of these "Postscripts" he would have had second thoughts about erasing my comments from his Facebook page. They are up again thanks to the good offices of another commenter who retrieved them from this blog and re-posted them. So far Mr. Blanco has not deleted them again. He has, however, banned me personally from commenting on his hommage page (shades of "Everything within the Revolution, nothing outside of it," an historical allusion wasted on the "Embassy poet").

As is his habit, Richard Blanco has addressed his latest comments to me through a third party, one Sergio López Miró. We note that he is rectifying his conduct without having to endure the tender mercies of a Castroite re-education camp (though he apparently considers this respectful exchange to be something even worse). He promises now to "make it a point" to include a mention of "those who lost their lives" in the preface to that future chapbook whose profits will be donated to Cardinal Jaime Ortega's charity. I am somewhat wary, however. What victims does he mean? Castro's victims? I really don't believe that he is able even to put those two words together ("Castro's victims").

Richard Blanco: Hola Sergio. I hope you see/read this reply. Your comment is well taken and I appreciate your balanced/reasonable view. Unlike many others who are simply spewing and don't want to have a conversation, but a fight. Anyway, FYI, though those who lost their lives are not directly referenced in the poem, they were (and have been) in my heart and mind. I'm making it a point to reference them in the preface to the chapbook of the poem that will be out soon. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! 

POSTSCRIPT 12:

For the second time in as many weeks, Richard Blanco has deleted my comments from his Facebook page, which had been re-posted by a third party after the initial deletion and banning. In the fortnight that it took him to delete the comments again, his hommage page had been liked 3 times, which alerts us (and should alert him) that his 15 minutes may be up. That's why democracies are not as good for poets laureate as monarchies. If Obama were king, Mr. Blanco could sing his praises until his dying day and then devote his panegyrics to his eldest daughter and heir Malia.

Still, having established a reputation as a reliable toady, and been (no doubt) fully "vetted" by the regime after 7 visits to the island, Mr. Blanco may be asked to become the poet laureate cum court jester for the Castro dynasty. He already preens himself on being a "bridge" between Obama and Raúl Castro. From bridge to carpet may be a step down, but still it must be better to be trodden afoot by one instead of two masters (though the little guy has the firmer step). Mr. Blanco is no stranger to self-degradation and may actually enjoy his short stint as Raúl's bard (hopefully not -in-residence). After that, there will be other Castros to serve, and, of course, the entire Cuban nation to screw.

A Retraction from Babalú

Retractions

By Editorial Board, on July 14, 2015, at 6:03 am

On June 5, a post was published on Babalú regarding Purdue university professor Alfredo Lopez and an accusation of alleged plagiarism made against him by Dr. Tony de la Cova concerning images contained in Mr. Lopez's book Jose Marti: A revolutionary life. However, since the publishing of the post, Mr. Lopez has contacted Babalú and vehemently denied the accusation. In addition, Mr. Lopez  has provided information that disputes the allegation that he committed plagiarism.

While the Editoral Board of Babalú Blog strongly and confidently feels its post simply reported information received from a reliable source, which at best constituted pure opinion protected by the 1st Amendment, at no time did we intend to cause harm to anyone. Nevertheless, in light of the information received after the post in question's publication, we have decided it is in everyone's best interest to retract that post and any allegations of plagiarism against Mr. Alfredo Lopez that may be construed by its publication on our part. Based on the information we have received, we have found there is not sufficient evidence to substantiate the accusation of plagiarism against Mr. Lopez and therefore, the post has been removed from the blog and is no longer available.

Since 2003, Babalú has been dedicated to fighting for the freedom of the Cuban people and the truth about Cuba. Everyone who works on the blog and contributes postings to it does so on a volunteer basis. This is not a business, but a labor of love in which we all chip in from our own pockets to keep open and running on a daily basis. Our focus is solely on Cuba, its people, and achieving their freedom from the chains of tyranny and slavery. Babalú neither has the time nor the desire to involve itself in disputes between individuals, and even less so to offend the innocent. We have no interest in causing anyone harm, but only to expose the injustices and misery suffered by the Cuban people at the hands of their oppressors.

Professor Alfred López Responds to Babalú's Charges of "Plagiarism"

June 6, 2015

Mr. Alberto de la Cruz

Managing Editor

Babalú Blog

Mr. de la Cruz:

I am writing in response to your libelous article of June 5 entitled “Publisher of Purdue University professor’s book on José Martí cuts check for plagiarized images.” The text of the article includes scans of a check issued by the University of Texas at Austin, publishers of my most recent book, to one Antonio de la Cova, instructor at the University of South Carolina. In the email from Dr. de la Cova that you include in your article, he cites said check as proof of my “theft”, of having “plagiarized” his work. Dr. de la Cova further crows about his (no doubt for him substantial) payday as a commenter to your article.

I will contact Dr. de la Cova separately. This letter is for you, both in your capacity as Managing Editor of Babalú Blog and as author of the above-referenced article. Had you titled said article slightly differently—had you, say, included the qualifier “alleged” or “accused,” rather than describing the images in question outright as “plagiarized”—you would of course not be liable in this matter, since the rest of your article consists of a one-sentence introduction to Dr. de la Cova’s scanned check and email. Had you done that, you would be guilty only of bad judgment in allowing someone else to post libelous statements on your blog without knowing the full story.

But you did not include any such qualifier in your title. And so you too are now compromised by Mr. de la Cova’s reckless defamation of my professional reputation as a writer and scholar.

Because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, I am writing under the assumption that Dr. de la Cova has misled you about the true nature of his interaction with University of Texas Press. I think that may be the case, given that Dr. de la Cova did not also post the letter from the Press that accompanied the check. In that letter, the Press states in no uncertain terms that they do not agree with Dr. de la Cova’s charge of “violation of intellectual property rights,” and that their payment does not constitute any such admission.

I think that Dr. de la Cova must have withheld this information from you, because I believe—I would hope—that had you also seen the letter to Dr. de la Cova from the Press you would not have published your article. In other words, I want to believe that you would not deliberately publish a defamatory article that you suspect may be false. I cannot believe that any responsible Managing Editor would knowingly place himself and his organization in legal jeopardy by doing so.

And so, on the assumption that you have acted without full knowledge regarding this matter, my purpose in writing you is twofold. In what remains of this letter I will: (1) explain to you why my use of the documents in question does not, and could never, constitute plagiarism; and (2) offer a way to reasonably resolve this matter in order to avoid further action on my part, as well as by the University of Texas Press and Purdue University, whom you also libel by including them in the title of your article.

Every college and university publishes a statement defining plagiarism, which they universally consider a serious act of academic misconduct. At Purdue it is the individual colleges (and some departments) that issue their own discipline-specific guidelines, which the Office of the Dean of Students neatly summarizes in the following statement:

Plagiarism is a special kind of academic dishonesty in which one person steals another person’s ideas or words and falsely presents them as the plagiarist’s own product. This is most likely to occur in the following ways: 

(1) using the exact language of someone else without the use of quotation marks and without giving proper credit to the author 

(2) presenting the sequence of ideas or arranging the material of someone else even though such is expressed in one’s own words, without giving appropriate acknowledgment

(3) submitting a document written by someone else but representing it as one’s own

Purdue’s University Copyright Office further clarifies:

Copyright infringement and plagiarism are two different issues.  Copyright is a federal law that protects original works from being copied and distributed without the author’s permission unless one of the exceptions applies.  Plagiarism is passing off someone else’s work as one’s own or lack of attribution.  There is no federal or state plagiarism law but there can certainly be severe repercussions for plagiarizing.

Copyright infringement example: Incorporating an entire poem by Maya Angelou into a published work without her permission.  The poem is property attributed to Ms. Angelou.

Plagiarism example: Using a line or even an entire poem by Maya Angelou in a paper and not attributing the poem to the author or citing the source.  It would appear that the poem is the creation of the person writing the paper and not Maya Angelou.

We might neatly summarize these texts this way: Plagiarism is the theft of another’s intellectual work as one’s own, while copyright infringement is the copying or distribution of works owned by someone else.

Dr. de la Cova cannot plausibly claim that I have committed either plagiarism or copyright infringement, since he is neither the author nor owner of the documents in question. I have not used his written work, published or unpublished, in my own book without attribution. In fact, the only work of his that I have ever read is his 2003 article “Fernandina Filibuster Fiasco,” which—as he is fond of pointing out—I made extensive use of in my book and cited accordingly. You will find Dr. de la Cova’s name and the title of his article in my Works Cited, on p. 387.

Dr. de la Cova’s claim of plagiarism stems from my use of two documents: Manuel Mantilla’s 1885 death certificate (p. 199 of my book) and Maria Mantilla’s 1880 birth certificate (p. 200). I found these two documents at www.latinamericanstudies.org, a website created in 1997 and still apparently operated by him. In the book I attribute each of those documents to their respective sources: the City of New York and the City of Brooklyn. Both are public documents, available to anyone who wishes to ask for them. Dr. de la Cova does not, could not possibly, own those documents, any more than I could own your birth certificate by acquiring a copy from your place of birth, or on Ancestry.com. Let me make this as plain as I can for you: Neither Manuel Mantilla’s death certificate nor Maria Mantilla’s birth certificate belong to Dr. de la Cova.

Thus, according to the definitions of plagiarism and copyright infringement I have cited in this letter—really, by any definition of these—I am guilty of nothing more than a bit of expedience, because using the scans from Dr. de la Cova’s website saved me an additional trip to New York City. I want you to understand this with complete clarity: By any reasonable definition of the terms, I am not guilty of either plagiarism or copyright infringement. And again, this is for one simple reason: Dr. de la Cova can make no legal claim to ownership of documents in the public domain simply by posting them on a website. Even if he was the first to publish them.

But for at least one of those documents Dr. de la Cova cannot make that claim either. You see, a far more accomplished scholar than either myself or Dr. de la Cova, the late and eminent Dr. Carlos Ripoll, first published Manuel Mantilla's Certificate of Death in "Martí: La esposa y la amante," published in Diario las Américas on Sunday, May 15, 1988. That particular article, as well as the reproduction of the Certificate of Death, also appeared in Ripoll's book La vida íntima y secreta de José Martí (1995), which you will find at:

http://web.archive.org/web/20020819094826/http://www.eddosrios.org/marti/Vida_Intima/Intima_esposa.htm

But you don’t have to take my word for it. On p. 12, footnote 3 of the Anuario del Centro de Estudios Martianos 12 (1989), we find this (emphasis mine):

Carlos Ripoll, de quien se ha dicho, con razón, que su habilidad para encontrar datos significativos de la vida de Martí es superada por su tenaz vocación de traicionar el legado del héroe de nuestra América, publicó el 15 de mayo de 1988 — y en periódico afín a su condición de contrarevolucionario: Diario de las Américas, editado en Miami — el facsímil del certificado de defunción de Manuel Mantilla."

So you see, even Dr. Ripoll's enemies in Cuba agree that he was the first to reproduce Mantilla's death certificate. Dr. de la Cova either does not know this, or he found them in Ripoll’s writings himself and scanned them to his own website.

I have not yet been able to locate Maria Mantilla’s birth certificate among Ripoll’s publications, but I am nearly certain that he published that document first as well. But of course that is a side issue, since publishing the documents first would give Dr. Ripoll no more claim to ownership than it does Dr. de la Cova.

I could continue, but I trust that by now you take my point: No plagiarism, no infringement, no “theft” of any kind has occurred, because I have stolen neither Dr. de la Cova’s words or ideas—or anything else to which he can honestly claim ownership.

I have no reason to doubt that you published your libelous June 5 article in the full belief that Dr. de la Cova’s claims were true. I also genuinely believe, now that you have read my lengthy and detailed reply to his accusations, that you will realize it is you who have wronged me.

I am not an attorney, but in my professional opinion as a scholar, in your June 5 article you committed libel against me and, without grounds or provocation, defamed my character and threatened my professional reputation. Although having to deal with your libel has caused me a great deal of mental and emotional anguish, and wasted much time that I could have spent more productively, I bear you no ill will. Now that I have shown you that Dr. de la Cova’s claims are in fact false, I will extend to you in good faith the opportunity to withdraw this libelous article and publish a clear and unambiguous retraction. Do that, and I will consider the matter between myself and you, and Babalu Blog, closed.

You need to understand, however, that I cannot permit your defamatory article to remain, its presence every day spreading its false claims about my professionalism, my honesty, and my character to more and more people. If you choose to stand by your June 5 article after receipt of this letter, and allow it to remain on your website, I am prepared to take any and all actions available to me to protect myself, my character, my reputation, and my career from this defamatory assault.

You have my permission to publish this letter on your blog if you so desire, but only in its entirety.

Sincerely yours,

Alfred J. López

Professor of English and Comparative Literature

Department of English

Purdue University

Alfred J. López is the author of José Martí: A Revolutionary Life

Did José Martí Live and Die in Vain?

Was José Martí's life lived in vain and was its sacrifice to no purpose? There are questions which one would prefer not to answer because it is better not to answer them: better in the sense that more harm would be done by answering them than by leaving them unanswered. This is not such a question.

Martí's life and death matters to our country as no other event in our history does. Without Martí, Cubans might be anything, but they wouldn't be Cubans. Our national character is an extension of his idealized conception of us. We see ourselves through his eyes and he only saw the best in us. The confidence that he instilled in us has remained unshaken even as everything that once supported it has collapsed in a heap around us. But for Martí we could not bear to look one another in the face. Thanks to him, we have reason enough  to believe that we are not defined by our current circumstances, that our destiny will transcend the void of our existence and deliver us safe to a new life. That we have persisted in that belief in the face of unrelieved disappointment  proves that Martí did not live in vain.

But even if Martí had lived and died in vain, it would not mean, however, that he was a failure; for he is no way responsible for the acts of those who betrayed our country and his legacy. Our enemies credit him with their crimes and failures, calling him the "intellectual author" of their anti-Cuban Revolution. They claim his inspiration in order to disparage him by laying the blame for their misdeeds at his feet, as if by this putrid offering they could acquit themselves of the blame and transfer it to him. Castro has reinvented Martí as our national scapegoat in opposition to his rightful place as our national savior.

We who are true to his legacy want for our country exactly what he wanted. We know that the only way to honor Martí is to believe, as he always did, that our people aspire to liberty and require only the means and the opportunity to assert their rights. The indifference, or, rather, the complicity of the world in their enslavement — which is even more the case today than in Martí's day —  is the greatest obstacle facing our people and the only bulwark left to our enemies.

Only the greatest disdain for the Cuban people would maintain that an inhuman existence is what they desire or deserve, or that their unrelenting degradation is preferable to questioning the actions and motives of those who have enslaved them.

Martí's life and death is a negation of that position, and as long as the Cuban people remain stateless within their own country, Martí shall be as relevant and indispensable in forging our future as any living man.

Martí did not die in vain, nor does he live in vain. "A man must be useful even after he is dead; therefore, I write." And his writings, which do not require any historical context because his words are as timely now as when he wrote them, speak to us across the decades of the same hunger for liberty and thirst for justice which is not lessened because it remains unsatisfied, nor can ever disappear till it is assuaged.

Barack Obama and Raúl Castro: Perfect Together

Some may have experienced a "Woe is Me!" moment when the putative leader of the Free World shook hands with the world's oldest tyrant and pledged him his troth, but not me. Barack Obama and Raúl Castro do not meet on different moral planes; neither do they represent the polarities of good and evil. Barack Obama, who was the only U.S. senator to vote on three distinct occasions for partial birth abortion — the murder of babies that have completely exited the birth canal, since banned by the U.S. Supreme Court — and Raúl Castro, who has always been his brother's enforcer and relished that role since his days as a teenage serial killer in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, are not on opposite sides of humanity's struggle for freedom and human rights. Obama aspires to the "glory" of Neville Chamberlain and will sacrifice the honor of his country and the lives of 11 million Cubans to obtain this worse than empty prize.

The Castros have waited 50 years for a sucker of Obama's magnitude to be elected president, and then six years more for him to be in a position to surrender unconditionally to them, as they have always demanded. Barack Obama is truly their messiah: the dim light that signaled to them their hour of redemption. Raúl Castro has said it: it was in Obama's book that he first took the measure of the man. And the first thing that Raúl learned was to massage Obama's ego: praise him to the skies and cheat him while he's not looking at his cards but tracking his own trajectory in the heavens, otherwise known as his "legacy."

It should be pointed out, however, that what Obama has done is to codify a longstanding U.S. policy towards Cuba which no U.S. president before had dared to articulate but which could not be more evident: the Americans prefer a stable Cuba that is not free to a Cuba that is free but not stable. As the guarantors of stability on the island (and nothing is more stable than a cemetery), the Castros long ago became "our sons of bitches" in the eyes of U.S. policymakers.

Castro and Obama: Practicing Genocide as Statecraft

"Fidel Castro Sent to Siberia"

According to the Siberian Times, it's a typical news day in Siberia. Former Ukraine president's son Viktor Yanukovych's "mysteriously" drowned when his vehicle fell through the ice on Lake Baikal which "he should have known was too dangerous to drive on." There's a story about a father who threw his infant son out the window of his apartment while under the influence of a new synthetic drug which caused the man to hallucinate that his home was filled with gas (a passerby broke the child's fall and he survived). And Shilka, the first polar bear born in Siberia in 40 years, is headed for a zoo in Osaka, Japan because the local zoo in Navosibirsk didn't have the 110 million rubles ($1.6 million dollars) to construct a suitable habitat for her (would't Lake Baikal have been suitable enough or is it too filled with humans?).

None of these stories, however, was the leader in today's Siberian Times. The top story was: "Fidel Castro Sent to Siberia." Oh, consummation devoutly to be wished! In permafrost, I thought for a moment, waiting to be resurrected with other mastodons? No, alas, it is his son, namesake and spitting image, Cuba's premier niño bitongo, now 66 years old. (Coincidentally, that is also Prince Charles' age. Well, at least Charles is still the heir apparent; Fidelito is not even the heir presumptive).

Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart, scientific adviser to the Council of State and former head of Cuba's (failed) nuclear program, was supposedly sent to Siberia to strengthen "economic and academic" ties between Cuba and Siberia. The story noted Fidel père's special interest in this project.

The story did not, however, mention Cuba's historical ties to Siberia, which actually do exist thanks to that amazing artificer of ties between unrelated countries which nonetheless share totalitarian affinities, the real basis of all "solidarity" and "internationalism" in the Communist underworld. During the 1980s, Cuba sent 30,000 Cuban lumberjacks to Siberia to replace the aging denizens of the Gulag and complete the great work of deforestation begun by Stalin and replicated by Castro in Cuba. That, at least, was the official version of the story. How apt Cubans were for such work in subzero temperatures has yet to be explained, or whether Cuba's prevailing interest in this fraternal enterprise was disposing of yews or disposing of "Jews" (i.e. Cubans).

"Fidel Castro Sent to Siberia" from Siberian Times

"José Martí: A Revolutionary Life" by Alfred J. López

Let not this be mistaken as my review of Alfred J. López's José Martí: A Revolutionary Life (University of Texas Press, 2014). This work which became, immediately upon publication, the first and only professional biography of Martí, deserves better of me than this cursory note. To have reached that preeminence before López's biography required little more than to include an index, footnotes and bibliography. All these are missing without exception from previous attempts in Spanish and understandably so, since most of Martí's so-called biographies are prose poems that chronicle the author's particular devotion to him and do not require that fact to be documented. In English, there have been biographies which contained the requisite academic apparatus but whose text made it abundantly clear that these resources, if consulted at all, had been misunderstood or subordinated to a grand plan to distort Martí's life and thought and drive him into a political rut which he had always consciously avoided. López's effort is notable, and, indeed, singular, because it is neither hagiographic nor tendentious; it gathers the facts, from the widest range of sources, and presents them objectively and in concert. No aspect of Martí's life is slighted in favor of another. No subject is avoided because it does not rise to the gravitas which is usually imposed on Martí. The facts are enough to give Martí his proper stature and they do. It is not López's driving concern to instill in you love and admiration for Martí; but love and admiration you will feel, after reading this book, even if you had never heard of Martí before.

It is remarkable that no friend or close acquaintance of Martí's — not even Gonzalo de Quesada, who was nearest to being his Boswell — ever attempted to write his biography. We owe to his disciples only reminiscences of Martí short on facts and long on praise, which assure us of the reverence which he inspired in life but do not bring us closer to the man himself. This is indeed most unfortunate but perhaps inevitable: those who viewed him at the closest proximity were most aware of how truly daunting was the task of capturing for posterity the full extent of his genius and his humanity. To have attempted and failed to do him justice was simply a risk that none of them wished to take out of regard for him and fear of damaging their own reputations.

It is also to be lamented — and López laments it, too — that Carlos Ripoll, who wrote more than 20 books on Martí and hundreds of articles and pamphlets on every imaginable aspect of his life, never attempted a comprehensive one-volume biography. It was not from want of encouragement. All his friends, including me, suggested it to him. Indeed, I tried to convince him that he had already written such a biography and published it serially, if not sequentially, over 40 years. All he had to do was to put all his articles in chronological order, eliminate any repetitions and create transitions when necessary, and the biography would be a fait accompli. Of course, such a task of condensation would have baffled if not defeated even the editors of Reader's Digest. But time was precious to him and he wanted to use what little remained to continue exploring other facets of Martí's life and searching for the new and unknown, which was his life's passion. Ripoll was always too occupied making new discoveries about Martí — that is, changing and augmenting the facts of his biography — to actually write his biography, or, rather, to take a cache image of something that was always in flux thanks to him. But now that his pen is stilled, it is possible, indeed essential, for someone to synthesize his discoveries and give us a biography of Martí that incorporates them, which, by virtue of that fact, will be the definitive biography.

I will not say that this is the biography that Ripoll would have written if he had had the time and inclination. I will say, however, that it is the closest approach that we will ever have to a one-volume biography by Ripoll. Moreover, López's admiration for Ripoll is the surest guarantee of his intellectual honesty and his impeccable lineage as a martiano. We quote from the Acknowledgments page of his book: "Astute readers will note one particular name that figures prominently in this book's bibliography. Carlos Ripoll (1922-2011) was the preeminent Martí scholar of his time, a tirelessly prolific researcher whose work on Martí remains unmatched for quality and range of vision. Although I have not always agreed with Ripoll's conclusions regarding certain aspects of Martí's life, I owe him a great debt for the substantial contribution his lifetime of work has made to this book."

No one who knows how vilified Carlos Ripoll was and still is among the official falsifiers of Martí's legacy in Cuba could imagine that praising him in such terms would ingratiate López to Ripoll's enemies and allow him free access to Cuban archives, which cannot be consulted without prior authorization from the Council of State. In fact, López, who was born in the United States, has never set foot in Cuba. And it is just as well, because the regime has decimated those archives, selling their choicest items to collectors abroad and not even bothering to preserve Xerox copies which would be proof of their sordid business. Ashes and sackcloth is all that awaits future historians in Cuba. To write about Cuba's past they will have to search the world for documentary evidence because nothing of value will remain in Cuba (fortunately, much of our history is in foreign archives).

Castro, quite literally, has robbed us of our present and our past; and those who have reconstructed that past, like Ripoll and López, have performed a service for our country. Of course, there have also been opportunists, like Louis Pérez and Laura Lomas, who, without compunction of any kind, have placed themselves at the service of the Castro regime and been rewarded for their obeisance (Pérez with a medal and Lomas by having her error-filled book mercifully ignored in Cuba). López should not be classed with them. Certainly his detractors should not announce before judging him that they have not and will not read his book, nor should they condemn him by association because they dislike some of his old college professors. They should read the book so that they can realize that a pernicious influence is harmless to a superior mind, and that the truth remains the truth even if mishandled by others before finally reaching unsullied hands. We are condemning ourselves to irrelevance if we dismiss by intuition what merits cognition, and what's more, recognition.

Before the publication of his book, López confided to me that he feared that it would become a target for hardliners on either side of the Florida Straits. I assured him that no reaction would be the most likely reaction. The official historians on the island, whose greatest shame is that in 56 years they have not been able to produce even one original biography of Martí, will likely remain silent if only not to call attention to that fact. As for the exile community, we have no official body to regulate the dissemination of Martí's works, as in Communist Cuba. I told López that he was free to write whatever he wanted without fear of retribution or even of criticism, since our veneration of Martí is too ingrained to take seriously anybody else's affirmation or denial. He was surprised that his book has indeed received a most cordial reception among Cuban exiles in Miami, not the death threats and firebombs which he expected (his old college professors, who lived in fear of assassination for reasons which they alone know, had no doubt warned him not to put himself in the crosshairs of their erstwhile bogeymen). So all had indeed gone exactly as I predicted to him, and López was convinced that toleration was now the order of the day among Cuban exiles, contrary to all he had heard from our critics, when, like a bad dream, the old specters from the past came out for one last bow.

It was my old nemesis Babalú which chose to dump on López's biography, after making it clear as a point of honor that the author of the blog post as well as the commenters had not read the book under review (except for perusing the illustrations). It is at times like this that I feel I did not waste two years of my life documenting in a thousand essays the shortcomings of that blog (which, incidentally, are much less today because I shamed all its principal writers into retirement). But I, like Ripoll, must move on, now only stopping to right the injustices that literally roll at my feet, as this one did.

Please note the crazy spelling of the URL below:

http://babalublog.com/2015/03/06/jose-marrti-a-revolutiofnary-life/

El Grito de Baire (1895-2015)

"120 years removed from that February 24th, which was as redolent with hope for our country as the present is bereft of it, Cuba finds herself in a more deplorable state than she did in 1895: then Cuba was a colony of Spain, now she is the fiefdom of one transplanted Spanish family whose patriarch fought with Weyler's forces against our independence. His sons, who head the criminal enterprise which has despoiled our country and enslaved her people for more than half a century, have attempted to co-opt Martí's legacy, proclaiming him the "intellectual architect" of their anti-Cuban Revolution though it is the negation of everything Martí lived and died for."

Continue reading here.

Msgr. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (Gone and Quite Forgotten)

Partly because it was not reported widely, or, indeed, anywhere, and partly because it is impossible to keep a perpetual deathwatch over the thousands of traitors who have destroyed our country over the last 56 years, it is not surprising but entirely explicable that I did not learn until today of  Msgr. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes' demise, which occurred on January 14, 2014.

The news, many years after the fact, that a dear one has died in Cuba — an experience common to all exiles — can still be a devastating loss, whether mourned in or out of season. It is not so when an enemy's death catches you unawares. Then you feel that you have been somehow cheated out of the comfort which such news affords; not for that reason, however, would you wish that it were not so.

On his grave, literally, was placed a wreath of flowers from Fidel Castro.

Msgr. de Céspedes has returned the compliment in the only way available to a dead man: he has stated in a posthumously published book, Monseñor Carlos Manuel se confiesa, which was presented today at the Havana Book Fair, that he is convinced that Fidel Castro will go to heaven because "he deserves to." Previously, Céspedes had expressed a similar conviction about the sanctity of Ernesto "Ché" Guevara in an op-ed in Granma.

This man was once the Vicar General of Havana and President of the Cuban Conference of Bishops.

He would certainly have become the Archbishop of Havana if he had not lived openly and infamously with his boyfriend for many years. A little more discretion, though not much more, is required to occupy that position.

Now, we all know where Msgr. de Céspedes is going; he was preceded there by Guevara and will be followed by Fidel.

But before he disappears completely in a cloud of smoke, let us invoke his hallowed name (the only hallowed thing about him) for one last time:

Bishop Agustín Román Bequeaths $60,000 to Castro's Church

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes III

The Stone Age in Cuba (1959-?)

"Wherever man is born abandoned and left to fend for himself, with no knowledge of what came before him, there the Stone Age shall begin again." — José Martí

"En dondequiera que el hombre nazca abandonado a sí mismo y sin conocimiento de lo que le ha precedido, comenzará otra vez la edad de piedra". (Obras Completas, 22:306).

"José Martí in Tampa" by Cecil Charles

This is Cecil Charles' earliest known article on José Martí, whom she had met for the first time some months earlier. It is written from Tampa on the day of Martí's triumphal arrival there, which indicates that Cecil Charles may have arrived with him or was at least present to witness his apotheosis, though it is unlikely that she was there by happenstance. As in all future articles, she introduces Martí to her readers as a man of uncompromising principles who is ready at all times to sacrifice his own personal interests on behalf of his country's redemption. To illustrate this point, she uses the same example in all three articles: Martí's voluntary resignation of his lucrative consular posts in New York in order to devote himself entirely to the cause of Cuban independence. She describes his physical appearance in glowing terms, again alluding to his "pale, fine face," his "almond-eyedness, and "dreamy expression." She says in the article that she had personally interviewed Martí for it, and it is undoubtedly so. In no other contemporary account do we find such a wealth of detail on Martí's life, details that could only have come directly from his own lips. Others, too, may have heard him say similar things but only Charles paid to his words all the attention that was due them and faithfully recorded and preserved what she heard, letting us decide its import. We only wish she had been around him more, for no other friend of Martí's came closer to becoming his Boswell. For more than 100 years it was not known that Martí was elected as a delegate to a workingmen's congress in Mexico. Finally, Paul Estrade found a mention of Martí's early syndicalism in a socialist Mexican newspaper, which, of course, led to a spate of articles about Martí as "champion of the proletariat." Only someone profoundly ignorant of Martí's life would have supposed him to be something other than a champion of the rights of the oppressed. Charles also mentions another fact of which history has left no trace even in musty newspapers, that Martí was offered the position of personal secretary to a Mexican governor, which because of his "lack of worldliness" he had turned down much to his later regret. (Let's be grateful that he did turn down the "secretaryship" or otherwise he might have ended up as another Cuban ornament of the Mexican judiciary). Cecil Charles mentions also that Martí was president of the Spanish-American Literary Society, to which she herself belonged. On one recorded occasion,  Martí read to the assembled literati of New York works by such well-known Hispanic poets as "Magariños Cervantes, of Uruguay; Salvador Díaz Mirón, of Mexico; Julián del Casal, of Cuba; and Cecil Charles, of  Costa Rica," as reported in Enrique Trujillo's El Porvenir. Cecil Charles ends her revealing sketch of Martí's life and work with a highly characteristic quote, which summarizes both: "My life has two purposes; the second of them is the unification in spirit, and in accord with their nature, of the Spanish-American republics: to explain them, maintain them, and defend them without offence to the United States. I have faith in the United States, when she comes really to know our countries and people. I shall live and die for Cuba — to unite her scattered elements, in order that we may live in justice, peace, and liberty after the inevitable war."


JOSE MARTI IN TAMPA

Much Importance Attached to His Visit in Relation to the Cuban Question.

The New York Sun
November 26, 1891

Tampa. Nov. 25.— Señor Don José Martí, the noted Cuban orator, poet and leader, arrived this evening from New York, and was welcomed. by an immense crowd of Cubans and Americans, with a slight sprinkling of Spaniards as well. Señor Martí has come to Tampa upon tho invitation of the Ignacio Agramonte Club, whose guest he is. To-morrow night he will take prominent part in the grand political jubilee to be held in Ybor City. Although tired from his long journey he responded cordially to the warm greeting extended to him by his Tampa friends. The welcome took the form of an ovation of remarkable proportions, with bands of music and the wildest enthusiasm. Señor Martí will remain until Saturday. His visit is looked upon as highly significant in relation to the Cuban question.

—
When a man deliberately resigns a Government appointment with several thousands a year and honors in proportion, and smilingly lowers his forehead to the grindstone of meek and patient daily toil at the most prosaic of occupations, in order, as he says, "to preserve his independence," one naturally regards him as a singular sort of an individual. When Mr. José Martí, some weeks since, telegraphed his resignation of the Consulship General of the Argentine Republic in this city to the Minister of that country at Washington, it was not any complaint on the part of the Spanish Government had compelled the act but because he felt the necessity of relinquishing a post in filling which he considered himself trammelled in his labors for his country's independence.

Martí had not been guilty of violence in speech, as was at the time suggested by newspapers. This Cuban leader is a man incapable of violence in speech or act. Mild, magnanimous, and large hearted, Martí is a man of strange and varied experience. He is but 38 years of age, yet the first glance at his pale, fine face, the complexion strikingly white in contrast to the jet mustache and crisply curling hair, would cause one to believe him older. A noble forehead and a slight tendency to almond-eyedness give him a dreamy expression. He dresses in black and wears on his wedding finger a wide band of silver with a strain of iron through it. On the ring is quaintly carved the one word, "Cvba," by which it may be seen that the one great love of his heart is his country.

For a wonder I had an opportunity to converse uninterruptedly with Mr. Martí. As a rule his little office is crowded with callers from 1 until 4 o'clock. During these three hours all the thinking Cubans of the city seem to flock around him. and now and then a newly exiled General from Cuba makes his appearance. They fight the old battles over and plan new campaigns. Cuban independence will come, they believe. as surely as the sun will rise and shine. It will come before long very long. Fusion complete is what the agitators labor for. The enthusiastic demonstration in Tampa. in which not only the 2.000 Cubans of that city take part but the Americans as well, and even a few Spaniards, the first effort of the sort since the war of 1868, is in pursuance of these ideas of fusion and united strength.

Martí, who was born in 1853, was still too young at the time of that war to be condemned to death. But, youngster as he was, the Spanish Government found that his ready pen and silver speech were calculated to aid and encourage the revolutionaries. Martí. not l6, was editing a small newspaper, the Devil On Crutches. The Government could not send this tender youth, with the dreamy, almond eyes, out to be shot like a dog. but it could send him to the Political Penitentiary. Here, forced to go barefoot with chain and ball attached to his ankle.the boy was set to work in the quarry breaking stone. A tiny statuette was made of him appearing thus, and some of the Cubans in this city possess this interesting work of art. From 4 in the morning until sunset young Martí pounded away at his stone-breaking, and at the end of the first week his feet were torn so that he could hardly walk.

In that prison, says Mr. Martí, were political prisoners nearly 90 years old and negro children of 12; idiot slaves of 100 and white lads of 14. Later, when he had been sent to Spain, Martí published a pamphlet on these prison horrors, and asked that they be remedied. He described them and set the. Spaniards face to face with them, but in vain.

The young man then, became a student at the university ot Zaragoza, where he obtained the degrees of licentiate at law and bachelor of philosophy and of letters before he was 21. He started a school for poor and ignorant creatures in a humble suburb, and there dwelt, suffering constantly from illness contracted during imprisonment, but not subdued. His parents, self-exiled to Mexico, required his presence, and he went. There the young idealist found shelter and friends, but was not worldly-wise enough to accept a proffered secretaryship from one of the Governors. He was elected delegate to a workingman's congress, however, and there and then began his literary life in earnest.

Martí is known everywhere in Spanish America: more widely known perhaps than any other individual living. Not only is he known as an author, orator, and teacher but also as a friend to all the Spanish-American countries. From Mexico he went to Guatemala to accept the chair of philosophy and literature in the university. The war having ended in Cuba, he wandered back to his beautiful island home, but he was not long there when everything of a revolutionary tendency seemed to concentrate in his personality. This was quickly perceived, and the Government said: "He must go to Spain at once." However, they permitted him to wander about Madrid and he soon escaped. He came to New York to head the revolutionary Junta at about the time of Calixto Garcia's unsuccessful expedition. Garcia was unable to get the other important chiefs to ally themselves to him. and did not understand how to control the revolutionary elements. The forces were surrendered and the effort fell through. Martí arrived in time to explain the state of affairs and to save many persons from going to die when the sacrifice would have been useless.

After this Martí went to Venezuela. He would neither solicit nor accept any Government post from Guzman Blanco, but turned professor. He also founded the Venezuela Review. Then he came to New York, and here this remarkable man divides his time in hours of labor and hours of good works. Articles from his pen are eagerly sought by the Mexican and Central and South American journals. His mornings are devoted to literary work; his early evenings to classes in languages and literature. He is President of the Spanish-American Literary Society, and presides over its meetings on alternate Saturday evenings.

Every Tuesday evening, on leaving bis classes in Sixty-second street at 9:30, he makes his way down to a certain humble hall in Bleecker street, where is gathered a number of wonderfully intelligent young colored men intent upon educating themselves. Tired as he is, Mr. Martí is always happy to get to these honest and ardent young friends. They gather round him with faith and affection; they ask him all sorts of questions, historical, moral, sentimental, political, physiological, theological, metaphysical. He comes in with his pale, smiling face and his wonderfully magnetic presence, like an animate encyclopaedia, and he does not leave until nearly midnight.

"My life." says Mr. Martí, "has two purposes; the second of them is the unification in spirit, and in accord with their nature, of the Spanish-American republics: to explain them, maintain .them, and defend them without offence to the United States. I have faith in the United States, when she comes really to know our countries and people. I shall live and die for Cuba — to unite her scattered elements, in order that we may live in justice, peace, and liberty after the inevitable war."

Martí is a man of modest and almost ascetic life. The jubilee welcome extended him by the Tampa people was unsought by him, and undesired save as an expression of progress of the movement toward independence. The Cubans in New York are at work quietly and intelligently. Gens. Maceo. and Flor Crombet bide their time in Costa Rica. "No annexation, but independence," is the watchword. It is only natural to suppose that Martí will be chosen President of the new Island republic.

CECIL CHARLES

This article was graciously provided to us by Professor Jorge Camacho.

Cecil Charles Blog

Does Cecil Charles (aka Lily Curry Tyner), Martí's friend, translator and self-acknowledged "lover," deserve her own blog?

Deserve it or not, she has one:

Cecil Charles Blog

I think she would be pleased that her blog and Martí's are hosted by the same individual, a fellow translator of the Versos sencillos and one of the few people living today who knows her name and is acquainted with her life and works.

I should ask no more for myself in the inscrutable future.

"The Leaders of the Cubans" by Cecil Charles

"Martí as a Lover," which we contend was authored by Cecil Charles, has received much favorable comment from academics and other martianos. Although I believe (and they believe) that I have made my case, and I do not as rule revise published posts except under rare circumstances (that is, when I have incurred in an error of fact), I have thought it best, nonetheless, to present new proof that I was not wrong. This article by Cecil Charles, published in The Sun on March 29, 1895, which we have rescued from undeserved oblivion, anticipates and could be called the "prequel" to "Martí as a Lover." It is useful in that it helps to establish the parentage of the unacknowledged child by its resemblance to the acknowledged one. Here Cecil Charles recounts her personal recollections of not only Martí, but Antonio Maceo and Francisco "Flor" Crombet. Cecil Charles, it would appear, never met a Cuban man that she didn't like. Martí, Maceo and Crombet represent all possible types of homo cubanis (at least until the Chinese-Cuban was incubated). There is much to like and admire about Cecil Charles in this article: first and foremost, her unqualified support for the Cuban rebels and belief in their inevitable victory. Perhaps Martí did help her find her better angels. Cecil Charles was truly a woman ahead of her time, and this is clearly shown in her treatment of Maceo and Crombet. What she admits in this article no single white woman in the 19th century would have dared to do much less admit: she invited the Afro-Cuban patriots to visit her home. She uses the pseudonym "Cecil Charles" in her article, which, of course, is a man's name (Cecily or Cecilia would have been the female equivalents). Although she does not write like a man and can easily be distinguished as a woman, her pseudonym is sufficient cover for her subversive socializing. Finally, Cecil Charles presents in this article one of the most touching contemporary evocations of José Martí, and certainly the most interesting by a woman with the exception of Blanche Zacharie de Baralt's. Of special interest is her description of Martí's personal library in his office at 120 Front Street, New York. His widow, Carmen Zayas-Bazán, disregarded Martí's request, contained in his "Literary Testament," that a catalog be prepared of his books before their disposal, and, instead, had them packed up and shipped to Mexico for sale, where they were subsequently lost (and with them Martí's invaluable annotations in almost all of them). A score of random books, however, which he had kept at Carmen Miyares' house, were saved and eventually found their way to the Havana Historian's Office, where presumably they are still kept. Among eleven books in English (of what once must have been hundreds if not thousands) was found Cecil Charles' Honduras: The Land of Great Depths (Chicago and New York: Rand, McNally and Company, 1890).


LEADERS OF THE CUBANS

Men Who Are Foremost in the Struggle for Freedom.

Maceo's Colonization Scheme — Crombet as a Fisherman — Martí's Patient Labor of Love in Organizing the Patriotic Cubans.

The New York Sun
March 24, 1895

The first time I saw Gen. Maceo, the dauntless Antonio Maceo y Grajales, for whose coming the Cuban insurgents hiding in the hill ranges from Santiago all the way up to Puerto Principe and beyond are waiting and praying, was about four years ago, in Costa Rica. I was breakfasting in a hotel at San José, that white jasmine-like city that lies in one of the most beautiful valleys in the world, the Aserri paradise, extending from the indigo shadow of the volcano Irazu to the exquisite sapphire Candelarian hills.  A tall man entered in ordinary citizen's clothes, a mulatto at the first glance, but clearly a person of distinction.  As I knew almost every one in the city and almost every one knew me as an American and a correspondent it was not long until I made the General's acquaintance.

Exquisitely neat in appearance and perfect in breeding, with a certain reserve and modesty of bearing, he could not fail to interest one who had heard of him as a brave young leader In struggle for his country's freedom twenty years before. General Maceo was in Costa Rica looking for a colony site and a Government concession.  He was not exiled there, or in any way under Spanish surveillance, as one might believe from reading a recent Tampa despatch to the effect that the Spanish Consul had been removed for allowing Maceo to escape.  He was there to see about locating a colony of his countrymen. He wanted a site on the Atlantic side, that coast being time more accessible, but he had to take what he could get up in the peninsula of Nicoya on the Pacific. The Costa Rican Government gave him as its reasons that too many other enterprises had first choice on the Atlantic coast. But the General let me into the secret of his suspicion that the Spanish Government had requested Costa Rica not to give the proposed Cuban immigrants, who would naturally be revolutionists, a too advantageous site for the embarkation of an expedition at short notice.  Maceo finally accepted the remote lands and entered into a very interesting agreement with the Minister of  Fomento (Public Works), by the terms of which he promised to bring into the country some five hundred and ultimately a thousand Cuban families — no negroes to be admitted. Just how much regret Costa Rica may feel at the loss of this colony, which would have been an undoubted benefit to the country and which in the event of a long-continued war in Cuba will be postponed and in the event of a successful revolution be abandoned, it is hard to say.

I believe Maceo was in earnest in trying to get the contract. He had given up hope of another struggle for years to come. Pacific and suave he went about the streets of San José attending to his business, like a man who had never been wounded, or driven to hide in mountain fastnesses and starve there for days, or to escape in a small boat by night and drift out to sea to lie, festering and delirious, under the burning tropical sun. Cuba's freedom was only a question of time, he said calmly. The only time he showed any excitement was when news came of Flor Crombet's escape from Cuba and the confiscation of his property. Then General Maceo got himself ready in short order and went down to hot Port Limon to meet his brother warrior. They came up to the capital together, and I had the pleasure of receiving the two big fellows at my home.

 Flor Crombet is a man one couldn't help liking — frank as a boy he admitted he didn't care to go into Gen. Maceo's colony scheme, but he thought he would stop a while and see the country — his complexion showed nothing of the African, but suggested Indian blood. He had a direct honest glance and the pleasantest way in the world. The scar on his face seemed to want to apologize for being there ahead of time — that is, before Cuba is a country. To amuse himself and make a little money he bought a fishing smack and set to work catching fish along the coast by Limon. Now, the sea along the coast is the nastiest bit of water for making one repent that one could imagine. There is a horrid choppiness all the way down toward Bocas del Toro — but the fish are certainly fine.  Crombet sold all he could catch and nobody appeared to think he could turn his boat to expeditionary purposes. He was unmolested and cheerful as a school child. Occasionally he came up to San José — and Maceo and he certainly made a fine-looking pair. Nobody ever saw them engaged in any mysterious conference or plotting. Maceo was very friendly with a family that had lately come from Cuba, a Spanish family, or, at least, loyal to the Spanish rule, for the Spanish Minister was also a great friend of theirs, and Gen. Maceo and he must have met very often at the house. The meetings were without the slightest annoyance or feeling on either side, I am confident, for Señor Arellano, the Minister, who is now in Guatemala, I think, is a most delightful man, and Maceo was also delightful in a social way. Only it seemed a little odd that they should meet thus.

Gen. Maceo was a little older than Gen. Crombet, but the two offered a strong combination — Maceo reserved, astute, far-sighted, of unguessable thoughts; Crombet outspoken, earnest, enthusiastic, daring. From a personal knowledge of the pair, I should say that if they are really on Cuban soil it simply means that the astounding success of the revolutionists may be looked for. I say astounding success because such a victory against such terrible odds should astound the world. Maceo would never waste his life or Crombet's; if they are in Cuba, it means the beginning of the end.

Carrillo and Sanchez I met at a steamer on my return to New York not long after, where, with the patriot Marti, they were seeing off some Cuban friends bound for Costa Rica — Carrillo affable, full of hope and good spirits, in appearance more Saxon than Latin; Sanchez pale, serene, contemplative, with these words on his lips:

 "I can assert without boasting that our [last] war first with all its miseries and dangers and our defeat afterward with all its sorrows and losses, have only succeeded in making me stronger in my belief. The task to which I have consecrated myself for twenty-five years I shall not desert today at forty-seven What I cannot do is to leave my country in slavery through my indifference and lack of patriotism."

Sanchez was pale and still suffering from the wound in his leg from the bullet that killed the horse he rode when fighting under Gen. Roloff in 1876. I have before me a little book he has written, "Humble Heroes." The simple tales of Cuban patriots, told with pathos and modesty, are part of the revolutionary propaganda, which has attained to splendid proportions here in New York and wherever else the Cubans await the day of their deliverance. The network of clubs and leagues stretching from New Vork down to Tampa and Key West is perfect. It has been woven patiently and with consummate art. There is not a weak spot in it. José Martí has taught his followers how to weave it.

 Is Martí with Maximo Gomez in Cuba? is asked. I hardly think so. Martí's sword is his pen, a weapon that will do more for the cause than many swords, perhaps. Once, five or six years ago, it was my privilege to be a pupil of this remarkable man. At that time he had just resigned several important and lucrative South American Consulships rather than desert the Cuban cause, and was quietly pursuing life as patriot and teacher. The cosey office now occupied by the revolutionary paper, Patria, at 120 Front street, was then his headquarters and the scene of many exciting patriotic meetings. Pupils, like myself, who studied there with the "maestro," as he was affectionately called, can never forget the place. I never saw another room so full of books. There were shelves to the ceiling, and movable bookcases and tables and chairs loaded down with books and magazines and papers. All languages were represented in that precious collection, which had not a single worthless volume in it. The maestro was still young; not tall or strong looking. Pale, with refined features and slightly almond-shaped eyes, he seemed the typical poet-exile from sunnier lands. Sensitive and easily moved as a woman, affectionate with friends, courteous to strangers, and always willing to give information whether it was the question of the best part of South America to immigrate to, or where to find a pipe to drink maté tea through, important and trivial people were all kindly treated.

Martí was an easy writer, but a painstaking one. He used to work feverishly away for hours over a single article, whether intended for publication or discourse. His cheeks would take on a brilliant flush, his eyes would gleam, and his entire frame tremble with excitement as sheet after sheet slipped out from under his hand. No one who ever heard Martí as orator before the wild crowd of his countrymen and sympathizers assembled in Hardman Hall on a memorable 10th of October could ever forget the elegant flow of thought, the fire, the poetic imagery, the insistent cry for liberty.

Martí was a busy man: besides earning his bread as a teacher he must also teach others as a labor of love. I remember a class of  fine young fellows that used to meet in Fourth street.  At their head was Rafael Serra, a young Cuban negro, quite black; a fellow of great talent. In the class were Cubans, Puerto Ricans and others. The maestro took more delight in instructing these eager and earnest young men than in all the adulation of the fashionable clubs that sought him as a notable speaker and thinker. Martí's literary work has been considerable. His translation into Spanish of Helen Hunt Jackson's "Ramona," his own poems, "Ismaellillo" and "Versos Sencillos," place him in a high rank. Martí has been spoken of as possible President of the Cuban republic. He would be no unworthy figure at the head of a new nation. But at present where is Martí, and where is the redoubtable, the faithful, the invincible Maximo Gomez? If they, too, have landed in Cuba, the end of the struggle must be at hand.

CECIL CHARLES