IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 116

n July 10th, on the government’s
flagship program titled Mesa
Redonda (Round Table) was
devoted to the bicentennial of Mariana
Grajales. I could not help recall the way
renowned historians mocked their
colleagues when the latter suggested that
this famous Cuban woman be
definitively acknowledged as the Mother
of the Nation, in Santiago de Cuba, at
the National Congress of Historians
more than 10 years ago. The fact that the
monument to this matriarch of the
heroic,
pro-independence,
MaceoGrajales clan had been abandoned to
systematic decay in a centrally located,
Havana park was also not new
knowledge. How could I forget that at
was in the shadow of that monument,
erected in 1931, that members of the
Citizens’
Committee
for
Racial
Integration (CIR) endured harassment
and repression when they offered
homage to Mariana on every Mother’s
Day. Even though all this came by
regime sympathizers, it was still hard to
believe the cumbersome operation, the
energy, resources, and logistics that were
expended just to keep a dozen Cuban
from placing a simple floral offering at
the monument to the Maceo brothers’
mother. For many years, Mariana
Grajales, like so many Afro-descendants,
has been insufficiently acknowledged or
remembered. Thus, the Mesa Redonda
embraced her as a joint exemplary
person and standard from time to time;
yet, educational and propagandistic
systems, which are entirely under State
control, do not offer a systematic or

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meaningful analysis of the importance
and transcendence of this figure as a
paradigm of the enormous contribution
of humble, Afro-descendent women to
the shaping of the nation and to its
freedom struggles. Upon seeing the
propagandistic barrage that exalts
images and judgments of figures of
special interest to the Cuban authorities,
like Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Vilma
Espín, the five spies liberated from U.S.
prisons, or the now dead Venezuelan
President Hugo Chávez, it is noteworthy
that the Maceo-Grajales family is not
seen as having the importance it
deserves in our memory and historical
references. Little is said about Mariana
Grajales’ elevated human, ethical, and
patriotic values taught all her children in
her unswerving commitment to the just
causes. These led them to the redemptive
wilderness, where they distinguished
themselves as exceptional warriors and
military leaders. Many of them gave
their lives to the independence cause.
Similarly, the most renowned of Mariana
Grajales’ sons, Major General Antonio
Maceo, one of the most universally
recognized figures of the 19th century, is
never seen as a great political, antiracist, and communitarian leader, nor as
the great businessman he was. Cuba’s
governing leaders give out or deny
honors and investitures according to
their interests and preferences. It was
totally easy for them to designate
communist and acolyte Nicolás Guillén
as the National Poet Laureate, to whom
no one with any brains would deny his
greatness and intellectual importance.

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