Another source upon which this book is dependent is Jonathan Kozol’s Children of the Revolution: A Yankee Teacher in the Cuban Schools (New York: Delacorte, 1978). Kozol’s book gives many valuable details of the campaign, including contents from the teacher and student books used and the tests given, even a sample letter to Fidel Castro — a wealth of material. I am particularly grateful to these three sources, but I am responsible for any factual errors in my book, including my attempts at Spanish translation.
In addition to the sources mentioned above, I owe a debt to Mark Abendroth’s Rebel Literacy: Cuba’s National Literacy Campaign and Critical Global Citizenship (Duluth, MN: Litwin, 2009). I am also grateful to Ann E. Halbert-Brooks for posting her 2013 master’s thesis from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Revolutionary Teachers: Women and Gender in the Cuban Literacy Campaign of 1961.” I also gleaned much help from the Internet concerning Cuban history, geography, agriculture, flora, and fauna.
Thanks are also due to Leda Schubert, who, seeing my enthusiasm for the story, told me I should write about the campaign, and to Karen Lotz at Candlewick, who felt it was a story that young people in my own country would enjoy knowing. She is, as always, a gracious and perceptive editor. My friend Nancy Graff and my agent, Allison Cohen, read early drafts and gave me valuable suggestions and cheered me on. I hope they know how much I appreciate their help during those crucial stages. Also many thanks to my “special assistant,” Aidan Sammis, who researched the time line, read the manuscript for all those typos and grammatical errors I seem to miss, and was the kind of help every disorganized writer wishes for and few have. And special thanks to Hannah Mahoney, for her thoughtful and careful copyediting of dates and facts, and the suggestions from both Karen and Hannah that were invaluable help in the final shaping of the story. I additionally would like to thank designers Sherry Fatla and Matt Roeser; talented mapmaker Mike Reagan; and jacket artist Rafael López, for his stunning illustration.
And, finally, thanks to the real-life Emilia and Isabel, who are two of the many reasons I have fallen in love with Cuba and the Cuban people.
My Brigadista Year is by no means intended to be a full or balanced account of all events occurring in Cuba in the year 1961. Fidel Castro committed many evils against his enemies, some of whom originally fought on his side for freedom from Batista but felt betrayed by actions of the new government when small farms were seized and innocent families relocated or put in camps. From 1959 until his death, Castro presided over a repressive regime, jailing and executing political opponents and sometimes even those considered allies, and denying ordinary Cuban citizens freedoms we Americans take for granted. These freedoms include freedom of expression — widespread censorship, book banning, and even Bible burning have occurred in Cuba since Castro first assumed power. And the literacy campaign was not entirely staffed by idealistic volunteers like Lora. I understand that some families felt the pressure of potential reprisal for non-cooperation, and therefore, some young people might well have felt forced to join the campaign. As the year went on and the goal remained distant, schools were closed and teachers were also conscripted.
Yet it is true that Castro had a vision that basic literacy was important for a functioning society and for every Cuban citizen. Moreover, for decades Cubans have received universal free education and health care. It was an adventure for me as a writer to see the world through the eyes of a young person in a society quite different from my own. Through Lora’s eyes, the revolution was a new day for her family and for a country that had long suffered under the corrupt dictatorship of Batista. She was excited to be a part of that new day, and as I wrote about her, so was I.
Prehistory: According to archaeological remains, human habitation on the island now known as Cuba dates back to about 4000 BCE. The oldest known archaeological sites are the caves and rock shelters that were home to a people known as the Guanajatabey, who were hunter-gatherers, used stone tools, and made pictographs. Much later, by about 800 CE, they were also known to make pottery, probably as a result of interaction with other Caribbean peoples.
Probably around 400 BCE, the Arawak people began to spread out from Venezuela into the Caribbean. Among them were the Taíno, who arrived in Cuba around 300 CE. The Taíno brought agriculture with them and built villages centered around plazas, where ceremonies, festivals, and games were held. They grew cassava, which they ground into flour for bread, as well as cotton, tobacco, corn, and sweet potatoes. As Robert M. Poole has said, “If you have ever paddled a canoe, napped in a hammock, savored a barbecue, smoked tobacco or tracked a hurricane across Cuba, you have paid tribute to the Taíno” (Smithsonian, October 2011).
1492: Christopher Columbus claims Cuba for Spain.
1511: First Spanish settlements begin under the governorship of Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar. They are met by resistance from the indigenous Taíno leaders and people.
1512: Hatuey, a Taíno chief and resistance leader, is burned at the stake. Suffering through armed attacks and brutal mistreatment, as well as from new diseases introduced to Cuba by the colonizers, the native population is decimated over the next decades.
1526: Importation of enslaved people from Africa begins. Slave revolts begin shortly thereafter.
1607: Havana is named the capital of Cuba.
1717: In the first of three uprisings, tobacco growers protest the Spanish monopoly on the crop.
1762: Havana is occupied by the British during the Seven Years’ War; Spain regains control of Cuba in 1763.
1807: The British end their slave trade and oppose Spain for its continuation.
1808: In parts of Spanish America, wars to end Spanish rule break out; they will last several decades. Many colonies will eventually declare independence.
1812: Slave revolts known as the Aponte Rebellion take place across Cuba.
1817: The Spanish monopoly on goods and trade in Cuba is abolished, opening the island to British, French, German, and later U.S. trade and investment. Cuba’s sugar economy, fueled by massive importation of enslaved labor from Africa and indentured labor from China, will eventually supply 40 percent of the world’s sugar.
1844: Uprisings against slavery and colonial rule are brutally suppressed during the “Year of the Lash.”
1868: The Ten Years’ War, the first war of Cuban independence, begins.
1870: Poet José Martí is sentenced to prison for writings considered treasonous by the colonial government; he is then pardoned and exiled to Spain.
1878: The Ten Years’ War concludes with the Pact of Zanjón, which promises greater freedoms but not the end of slavery. Afro-Cuban General Antonio Maceo leads the Protest of Baraguá, rejecting the pact.
1879: General Maceo and others declare a second war, which ends in 1880; he and others are deported to Jamaica.
1886: Slavery is abolished in Cuba.
1892: Now living in the United States, Martí founds the Cuban Revolutionary Party among Cubans there in exile.
1895: Led by Martí, Maceo, and Dominican-born General Máximo Gómez y Báez, among others, the final war of independence begins. Martí is killed in battle just two days after landing in Cuba, but his political activity and his writings warning about the threat of Spanish and U.S. expansionism establish him as one of the great Latin-American intellectuals; he will come to be known as the “apostle of Cuban independence.”
1898: In what came to be known as the Spanish-American War, the United States declares war on Spain following the sinking of the battleship USS Maine in Havana Harbor. Spain cedes control over Cuba, and the United States begins military occupation of the island.
1903: As a condition of ending its occupation, the United States ratifies the Platt Amendment, a rider to Cuba’s constitutional sovereignty.
1906: The United States begins a second military occupation of Cuba; it will last until 1909.
1917: Cuba declares war on Germany, entering World War I on the side of the Allies.
The
Russian Revolution reverberates around the world, including in Cuba.
1925: The first Communist Party of Cuba is founded, also to be known as the Popular Socialist Party.
1933: Fulgencio Batista leads the Revolt of the Sergeants, which topples the government.
1934: The Platt Amendment is repealed, and the United States relinquishes its right to involvement in Cuban internal affairs.
1940: Batista becomes president and establishes a new constitution.
1941: Cuba enters World War II by declaring war on Japan, Germany, and Italy.
1944: Batista retires and is succeeded by President Ramón Grau San Martín.
1952: Batista overthrows the elected government and becomes a corrupt dictator with close ties to the U.S. Mafia.
1953: Fidel Castro leads a revolt against the Batista regime. Although the attack is unsuccessful, it inspires the 26th of July Movement and is considered the beginning of the Cuban Revolution. Castro is jailed but eventually released and leaves for Mexico, where he continues to muster revolutionary forces.
1956: Fidel Castro, his brother Raúl, the Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and a small band of guerrillas land in Cuba. Most of the group are killed, but a few make their way into the Sierra Maestra mountain range, where they recruit, rearm, and initiate a guerrilla war against Batista’s government. Because of strict censorship of the news, most Cubans are unaware that Fidel is still alive or that the 26th of July guerrillas are winning the war against Batista’s forces.
1959: In January, Castro and the rebels triumphantly enter Havana; Castro becomes prime minister, with his brother Raúl as commander in chief. All U.S. businesses in Cuba are eventually nationalized by the Cuban government.
1961: The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Cuba. A U.S.-sponsored invasion by counterrevolutionaries at the Bay of Pigs is quickly defeated by the Cuban military.
The Cuban Literacy Campaign to abolish illiteracy raises the official literacy rate from approximately 60 percent to 96 percent within one year. United Nations observers declare Cuba an “illiteracy-free” nation.
Castro declares Cuba a socialist state and develops an alliance with the Soviet Union. Many upper-and middle-class Cubans leave for the United States.
1962: The United States imposes an embargo on Cuba.
The Cuban Missile Crisis, a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba, brings the two powers close to nuclear war.
1965: The Communist Party of Cuba, the only official political party, is formally established. There is another exodus of Cubans to the United States.
1976: The 1976 constitution institutionalizes the principals of the Cuban Revolution; Fidel Castro becomes president.
The flow of people northward continues. Some who leave Cuba fear repression from the government and seek political asylum in the United States; others leave for economic reasons as the Cuban economy falters through the 1970s and 1980s.
1980: Tensions between the United States and Cuba over immigration come to a head, leading to the Mariel boatlift.
1982: President Ronald Reagan adds Cuba to the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism for its support of revolutionary movements in Latin America and Africa.
1991: The Cuban economy suffers after the collapse of the Soviet Union and a tightening of the U.S. embargo.
1994: A crisis arises when Castro announces that anyone who wants to leave Cuba may do so. People take to the Florida straits on rafts and small, unseaworthy boats. Many lives are lost.
2002: A museum dedicated to exploring and preserving the history of the Taíno people opens in Baracoa.
2004: The first census to investigate current-day Taíno descendants is announced.
2008: Fidel Castro retires and Raúl Castro takes over as president, promising to consult his older brother on all important matters. Relations with the European Union, Russia, and China begin to improve.
2011: Reforms encouraging private enterprise are approved by the Cuban government.
2013: Raúl Castro is reelected by the National Assembly and says he will stand down in 2018.
2015: The United States removes Cuba from its list of states that sponsor terrorism. Cuba and the United States reopen embassies, and some travel and trade restrictions are eased.
2016: U.S. president Barack Obama visits Cuba, raising hopes for a new era of improved diplomatic and economic relations, though the embargo remains in place.
Fidel Castro dies at age ninety.
2017: U.S. president Donald Trump announces a rollback of recently improved U.S.-Cuba relations.
Raúl Castro’s Communist regime continues. Cuba’s literacy rate remains one of the highest in the world, variously reported as 99.75 percent to 99.9 percent.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2017 by Minna Murra, Inc.
Map copyright © 2017 by Mike Reagan
Cover illustration copyright © 2017 by Rafael López
While every effort has been made to obtain permission to reprint copyrighted materials, there may be cases where we have been unable to trace a copyright holder. The publisher will be happy to correct any omission in future printings.
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First electronic edition 2017
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
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Katherine Paterson, My Brigadista Year
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