Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century, as told to her daughter Daisy Rubiera Castillo
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Canadian Committee on Labour History
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| 001 | 218788015 | ||
| 003 | UK-CbPIL | ||
| 022 | |a 0700-3862 | ||
| 022 | |a 1911-4842 | ||
| 035 | |a 218788015 | ||
| 045 | 2 | |b d20021001 |b d20021231 | |
| 084 | |a 54871 |2 nlm | ||
| 100 | 1 | |a Bueno, Maria de los Reyes Castillo | |
| 245 | 1 | |a Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century, as told to her daughter Daisy Rubiera Castillo | |
| 260 | |b Canadian Committee on Labour History |c Fall 2002 | ||
| 513 | |a Book review-No Opinion | ||
| 520 | 3 | |a These considerations do not detract from the immense interest of the book, which at times is hugely entertaining. Although not told in strictly chronological order, most of the book is taken up with [Reyita]'s memories of her childhood and with her difficult relationship with her mother, Isabel, who was keen to "whiten the race" and ashamed of her daughter's African features. In order to explain this racist attitude Reyita relates what she knows of her mother and maternal grandmother's upbringings. The grandmother was brought over to Cuba as a child slave and the story of how she was captured (in today's Angola) has been passed down through the family, so that the collective memory of the book reaches back to the second half of the 19th century, before the abolition of slavery in 1886. In fact, Reyita's mother, Isabel, was the daughter of a slave owner, which no doubt accounts for the aquiline features she so wished to see replicated in her children. Isabel had several children by different men, some of whom died in infancy, but she was always at pains to keep her lighter-skinned children separate from the others. Reyita's father was a Mambi soldier, the only Black man Isabel shared her life with. Reyita also recounts briefly her early involvement in the Garvey movement in Oreinte province, and testifies to the strong influence of the Jamaicans in that part of Cuba. Her uncle was directly involved in the Independent Party of Color (IPC) which was brutally suppressed in 1912, resulting in the massacre of the Black activists, some of whom Reyita had met. One of her most telling comments is when she asks why no one in post-revolutionary Cuba thought to interview the survivors of that massacre to collect their first-hand information not only about the organization of the IPC, but also the political manoeuvrings of the time -- she herself suggests that the US was involved. (52) Reyita also knew Batista when he was a child, describing him as a cheerful boy who was known by the name of "Venus." She participated in the Popular Socialist Party's activities in the 1940, a life which she describes as "waking up from the blindness caused by my naivete," (84) by which she means that she acquired a feminist consciousness. Further historical value is provided by Reyita's account of her involvement in education in the 1920s. she made her living as a school mistress with her own school for poor children, subsequently closed down when the state school opened. She gives lengthy descriptions of the city of Santiago in the 1920s and 1950s, particularly of the mixed poor quarters, in order to "emphasize the fundamental problem in Cuba was not just being black but poor." (72) | |
| 651 | 4 | |a Cuba | |
| 653 | |a Race relations | ||
| 653 | |a History | ||
| 653 | |a Working class | ||
| 653 | |a Families & family life | ||
| 653 | |a Women | ||
| 653 | |a Abolition of slavery | ||
| 653 | |a Books | ||
| 653 | |a Black people | ||
| 653 | |a Infancy | ||
| 653 | |a Racism | ||
| 653 | |a Race | ||
| 653 | |a Mass murders | ||
| 653 | |a Childhood memories | ||
| 653 | |a Life | ||
| 653 | |a Feminism | ||
| 653 | |a Socialism | ||
| 653 | |a 19th century | ||
| 653 | |a Children | ||
| 653 | |a Collective memory | ||
| 653 | |a Memories | ||
| 653 | |a Slavery | ||
| 653 | |a 20th century | ||
| 653 | |a Massacres | ||
| 653 | |a Schools | ||
| 653 | |a Child poverty | ||
| 653 | |a Blindness | ||
| 653 | |a Socialist parties | ||
| 653 | |a Grandparents | ||
| 653 | |a Attitudes | ||
| 653 | |a Massacre | ||
| 653 | |a Armed forces | ||
| 653 | |a Activism | ||
| 653 | |a Mothers | ||
| 700 | 1 | |a Davies, Catherine | |
| 773 | 0 | |t Labour |g no. 50 (Fall 2002), p. 363 | |
| 786 | 0 | |d ProQuest |t ABI/INFORM Global | |
| 856 | 4 | 1 | |3 Citation/Abstract |u https://www.proquest.com/docview/218788015/abstract/embedded/75I98GEZK8WCJMPQ?source=fedsrch |
| 856 | 4 | 0 | |3 Full Text |u https://www.proquest.com/docview/218788015/fulltext/embedded/75I98GEZK8WCJMPQ?source=fedsrch |