Beneath the veneer of paradise: The struggle over cuban ethnic identity and place in key west

Cultural Geographies (formerly Ecumene)

Volumn 4, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 139-160

  Meltzoff, Sarah Keene ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CONCEPTUAL APPROACH; CUBAN COMMUNITY; ETHNIC IDENTITY; INTRA-ETHNIC CONFLICT; SENSE OF PLACE;

USA, FLORIDA, KEY WEST;

EID: 0031434614     PISSN: 14744740     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/147447409700400202     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. M. J. Watts, ‘Struggles over land, struggles over meaning’, in R. Golledge, ed., A ground for a common search (Santa Barbara, University of California, Santa Barbara Press, 1993), pp. 31-51.
2. D. Harvey, ‘From space to place and back again: reflections on the condition of postmodernity’, in J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam, G. Robertson, and L. Tickner, eds, Mapping the futures: local cultures, global change (London, Routledge, 1993), p. 22.
3. A. P. Cohen, ‘Culture as identity: an anthropologist's view’, New Literary History 24 (1993), p. 195.
4. E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger, eds, The invention of tradition (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983).
5. Cohen, ‘Culture as identity’, 202.
6. R. R. Flores, ‘Private visions, public culture: the making of the Alamo’, Cultural Anthropology 10(1) (1995), p. 112.
7. The term ‘conch’ came from ‘Conchy Joe’ in the Bahamas, meaning a white settler. Conches in Key West, strictly speaking, had white Bahamian roots. But like ‘Cuban’, ‘conch’ in its unmarked form is fluid and contextual. The definition of who is considered conch has been transformed since the 1960s. It has become a more general term for a ‘native’ of Key West, including first-generation relative newcomers as well as blacks and Cubans. ‘Freshwater conch’ is the newest pragmatic term for all newcomers who have been in Key West at least 7 years - a period arbitrarily chosen by city government. Awarded by the mayor, the title comes complete with certificate and fanfare.
8. D. Harvey, ‘From space to place and back again: reflections on the condition of postmodernity’, in J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam, G. Robertson and L. Tickner, eds, Mapping the futures: local cultures, global change (London, Routledge, 1993), p. 17.
9. The data is based on fieldwork between 1986 and 1990, and in 1994, in Key West, Florida. See E. LiPuma and S. K. Meltzoff, ‘The crosscurrents of ethnicity and class in the construction of public policy’, American Ethnologist (214) (1997), pp. 114-31.
10. In the 1940s (William Albury Collection), statistics show that Cubans accounted for more than one third of the population of Key West.
11. Calle de Tablas was Simonton Street because it had a factory for making the tablas for rolling cigars; Whitehead was Calle de Farola because of its lighthouse; Elizabeth was Calle de Esponias due to its sponge business.
12. A. Portes and A. Stepick, City on the edge: the transformation of Miami (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993), p. 95.
13. J. Browne, Key West: the old and the new (St Augustine, Record Co., 1912).
14. A. Portes and A. Stepick, City on the edge: the transformation of Miami (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993), pp. 90-1.
15. Cubans continued to settle in the Latin community hub of Key West, tending not to scatter throughout the Keys.
16. There was a Florida movement for the US to annex Cuba, adhering to the US policy of Manifest Destiny to control the hemisphere. Those loyal to Spain fell into the minority and out of favour. Key West Anglos supported the revolution against Spain.
17. Many had come from Asturias and the Canaries. When Key West experienced labour unrest, most followed the cigar industry to Tampa.
18. P. Bourdieu, Distinction (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1984).
19. Key West Cubans themselves tended to be racist against blacks as a move to distinguish and distance themselves.
20. E. Ardener, ‘Language, ethnicity, and population’, in J. Beattie and G. Wenhordt, eds, Studies in memory of E. E. Evans-Pritchard (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1975).
21. ‘Latin’ (as in ‘Latin Chamber of Commerce’) has arisen as a politically correct term tc homogenize and override distinctions among Cuban, Spanish, and Hispanic, without overtones of subjugation to Spain. However, the US government has used ‘Hispanic’ as the term of group identification since the 1980 census. M. E. Valle, ‘The quest for ethnic solidarity and a new public identity among chicanos and latinos’, Latino Studies Journal 2(3) (1991), p. 79.
22. The cigar industry had remained strong into the 1910s, despite labour troubles in the 1890s when the industry's heart moved to Tampa.
23. Only US citizens were permitted to hold government-sponsored WPA jobs, much to the resentment of White Bahamian conches with British citizenship, who were passed over in favour of Latins with US citizenship.
24. A. Jorge and R. Moncarz, The Cuban influx into South Florida: culture, entrepreneurship and the emergence of new growth patterns in an advanced society (Human Resources Management and Development Program, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio, 1981); The political economy of Cubans in South Florida (a Cuban Studies Project Monograph, Graduate School of International Studies, University of Miami, 1987).
25. Five-time mayor Sonny McCoy successfully played on these multiple identities and cultural understandings, pointing to his Cuban grandmother.
26. S. Wells, Forgotten legacy: blacks in nineteenth century Key West (Key West, Historic Key West Preservation Board, 1982).
27. The clubs would charter planes and take the members to Havana for party weekends.
28. Quinta was the hospitalization plan. The medical benefits were significant: the services of a doctor, $1.50 a day, and medicine; women could deliver babies and receive $50.
29. The various Cuban lodges are the Mason group in Spanish, the Moose, Logia Cuba 15 of Odd Fellows, the Orden Caballero de la Luz (named after a poet) and the Orden Caballero de Marti. These lodges have rituals from Cuba and Spain.
30. The Anglo conches had a smaller-scale club, Dewey's on Duval. They hung out and traded baseball tips, and gambled and drank too, but their club was less organized and lacked the medical insurance benefits.
31. P. Gilroy, ‘It ain't where you're from, it's where you're at’, The Dialectics of Diasporic Identification, Third Text 13 (winter 1991), pp. 3-16.
32. The grand lodges themselves shifted from Cuba to the USA (e.g. Caballero de la Luz now has its grand lodge in New York City).
33. A. P. Cohen, ‘Culture as identity: an anthropologist's view’, New Literary History 24 (1993), p. 201.
34. Annually, it receives $500 from Monroe County Board of Public Instruction, and $2 500 from the Cuban government; J. Browne, Key West: the old and the new (St Augustine, Record Co., 1912), p. 118.
35. Key West artist Mario Sanchez's ‘Opera House’ is a rendition of the San Carlos, referred to as ‘Opera House’ in its own playbill from 1897.
36. Domingo Milord.
37. The building was designed by a Havana architect, Francisco Centurion, with acoustics continuing in the opera house tradition.
38. A mass plane formation signalled the approach of the steamer Governor Cobb bringing Cuba's Secretary of State, Carlos M. Cespedes. The gunboat Yara followed in its wake, representing the Cuban navy. Key West mayor Frank Ladd officiated, and a king and queen were selected, Elisa Sanchez and Rafael Martinez Ybor.
39. Havana's Office of the Tourist Information Commission also ran a branch office inside the San Carlos. San Carlos itself topped their tourist list of six major Key West points of interest. The list also guided Cuban tourists to two other patriotic places, the house where Jose Marti conceived and wrote his revolutionary tract, Bases del Partido Revolucionario Cubano, and the Cuban Club.
40. From 1937 to 1962 Benildes Remond Sanchez, doctor of education, was sent by Cuba and sponsored to teach Spanish, art, and history. A Key West woman also was sponsored by Monroe County to teach English. In the 1940s (William Albury Collection), 80 students were enrolled.
41. Navy wives took night classes in Spanish.
42. Fidel wanted to give a speech at the San Carlos but the Board refused, asserting that the San Carlos was apolitical, setting a precedent used today. Fidel spoke at the dog track instead.
43. Women did not join the Board until the 1970s, when the community at large begins efforts to renovate the building.
44. The Board photograph. 6 born Key West: Navy civil servant, naval base worker, naval yards painter, theatre impresario (city commissioner before), policeman, street vendor of beer and soda; 1 born in Cuba and came in 1940s: owner of roofing business; 5 born in Cuba and came in 1950s: grocery chainstore manager (Board President), grocery chainstore worker, boat repair worker, mason, labourer; 1 born in Tampa: carpenter.
45. When the anti-Castro Cubans threatened Joe Allen's life over the telephone, he stepped aside and let others take over the push to rescue the San Carlos.
46. The San Carlos won a $5 000 grant from the Department of State; and the Division of Archives, History, and Records Management funded an investigation of the building's architecture and history, and of possible rehabilitation plans. In 1980 the Board via the HPB received another $25 000 from the Florida secretary of state.
47. The Ramos, a prominent Key West Cuban family that had been host to the Spanish prince, had anonymously given $9 000 two years before and now wished it to be known, as a show of support for the McArt lease. It was a challenge to protestors to match the donation in action not words.
48. Prior to 1980, Cuban exiles in Miami had been focusing on building up their businesses and on the political struggle to overthrow Castro; Anglos were even viewed as allies. These Miami Cubans had formed a relatively insular community preoccupied with their own objectives, with few organizations dealing with ethnic issues other than Castro. As noted, they had previously shown no interest in helping the San Carlos Board.
49. The same year the Mariel boatlift triggered a backlash of Anglo anti-refugee campaigns in South Florida. In the same period, the anti-bilingual grasssroots movement passed a referendum in 1980 in Miami's Dade County prohibiting the use of public monies to support instruction and cultural activities in a language other than English.
50. A state representative in the House asked for $500 000 for the San Carlos; then a Florida senator from a Cuban district upped the amount to $1 million to please her own constituency.
51. Among the new Board members selected by Peñalver were: David Alea - HPB trustee; Sonny McCoy - grandson of Barroso who had painted the mural; mayor of Key West 1971-81, who started to be interested in the San Carlos around the time of the Bicentennial; wife was on the HPB until the republican governor Martinez refused to reappoint her since she was a democrat; Lucy Avela Hicks - friend of McCoys, and one who, like Emma Cates, had married an Anglo; Ron Saunders - state representative; Arturo Espinola - compromise choice from anti-McArt group and longstanding Board member.
52. D. Harvey, ‘From space to place’, p. 12, citing D. MacCannell, The tourist: a new theory of the leisure class (New York, Schocken, 1976), p. 8.
53. J. Lantiqua, ‘A martyr for freedom: Cubans in 2 camps vie for Marti's legacy’, Miami Herald (19 May 1995), p. 101.
54. Fidel and Franco, despite drastic political differences, were friends because they both came from Ferrol, Galicia.
55. Ironically, the San Carlos was founded as a place for patriotic political discussion.
56. V. Silver, Key West Citizen, 28 Feb. 1992, p. 11.
57. S. Bellido, ‘San Carlos takeover defended as “above revolution” ‘, Key West Citizen, 26 Oct. 1994, p. 1.
58. Solares Hill, 10 Nov. 1994.
59. Cuban Heritage Trail (brochure, Key West and Last Stand, Inc., 1994).
60. S. Hollander, ‘Cuban heritage trail: new city map, tour spotlights “Cayo Hueso” ‘, Key West Citizen, 19 June 1994, p. 11.