About The House Next Door
After almost five years since publishing “Illuminating Family: Paquita and Alberto, My Catalan Grandparents” I felt the strong need to complete and publish its needed counterpart “The House Next Door: My Cuban Family.” The former was a formal study of my Catalan family ancestry and history; this one is about the extraordinary and eventful history of my maternal Caribbean family, mostly in Cuba. The two families, while sharing some commonalities, were very different socially, culturally, historically, and even financially. Even though both memoirs overlap towards the end, they do complement each other. Their differences stage an interesting family counterpoint.
The House Next Door: My Cuban Family is a historical memoir about ancestors, immigration, identity, and belonging. The story includes the lives of five related families: the colonial Hechavarrías and Cos, the Cuban Fernández Fernández and García Fernández, and ultimately my own immediate family the Catalan/Cuban Ràfols García. This being a historical memoir, my personal impressions on main characters, places, and times are interwoven throughout.
Regardless of the many difficulties encountered through the research there were some significant highlights. Among them: the finding of common ancestry with the aristocratic Hechavarría family in colonial Santiago; the uncovering of the controversial 18th century wedding of ancestor María del Rosario Hechavarría in the cathedral of Santiago; the unexpected finding of the birth certificate of my great-great-great grandfather Ulpiano Cos Hechavarría in an old Santiago church; and the discovery, via a distant cousin in Canada, of ancestry and documentation on my great-grandfather Pedro Fernández from León.
The House Next Door: My Cuban Family has fifteen chapters preceded by an Introduction and succeeded by an Epilogue. The first chapter, “The House Next Door,” describes my personal impressions as a fifteen years old of my maternal grandparents. Beginning with the second chapter the memoir follows chronologically the history of the family from the earliest known ancestors in 16th century Spain, early colonial times in Cuba, the island’s fight for independence, the Republic, the Castro Revolution, and ultimately the family departure from the island and exile to the United States in the mid 1960’s. The last three chapters describe the family struggles during the early days of the revolution.
Stories From the Book
3. Sanctum Sanctorum.
On a few occasions my brother and I ventured into Abuela’s sanctum sanctorum, her small dark room off the patio. Among large bags of rice, frijoles, and other food containers she kept statues of Saint Barbara and Saint Lazarus there. Small, red votive lights flickered in front of the saints, allowing us to glimpse the intriguing offerings of cigars, fruit (an apple), flowers (usually red carnations), and a shot of rum. The Cuban folk belief was that by smoking a cigar one could communicate with the spirits of the departed. We had a taste of the rum but did not dare smoke the cigar.
Saint Barbara and Saint Lazarus were two of the main deities of Santería, an Afro-Cuban religion with roots in the traditional Yoruba religions brought to Cuba between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Santería revolves around deities called orishas, and Saint Barbara and Saint Lazarus are orishas with peculiar attributes.
Abuela was known for being charitable and compassionate to the needy, particularly to her hired help. Unknown to Abuelo she pilfered food from her well supplied storage room and gave it to the poor and sometimes offered household employment to the destitute. I am certain these compassionate traits reflected the difficult years of her youth.
5. Drama in the Cathedral.
The drama of the sisters María del Rosario (ancestor) and María Caridad, began when the priest read the required announcement of their upcoming joint marriages in the Cathedral of Santiago. This announcement enraged the Cathedral community because the two sisters had been referred as “doñas” and as Hechavarrías. According to local protocol the term “doña” could only be assigned to “non-colored” respectable people. In addition, everybody knew that they were Antonio and Rosalía’s illegitimate daughters.
Further aggravation came the fact that they intended to marry two young hidalgos (gentlemen) from prominent Santiago families: Don José Antonio Cos and Don José Antonio Veranes. José Antonio Cos’ father, Lieutenant Antonio Cos, had been born in Havana in 1730 and married María Caridad Pérez de Corcho, from a distinguished Santiago family.
It did not take long for the Cathedral congregation to investigate and debate the issue. Ultimately, the verdict was that the two sisters did not meet the requirements regarding race and legitimacy — hence, they could not be recognized neither as doñas nor as Hechavarrías.
However, thanks to the influence and wealth of the powerful Hechavarría family, and under the protection of a real cedula (Spanish royal decree) of legitimization the sisters were “cleansed” and allowed to marry the two “white” gentlemen.
Racial limpieza (cleansing) and legitimation were relatively frequent in eighteen-century Santiago. It was usually obtained by paying a hefty fee, which was done in this case. For both sisters, their “colored” status was erased, and they were listed as doñas and legitimized as daughters of “Regidor” Don José Antonio Hechavarría. A caveat was that they were not allowed to use the last name of their “parda” mother (Ramos).
María del Rosario (born circa 1774) was legitimized on February 27, 1794. She married Don José Antonio Cos Pérez de Corcho on March 22, 1794 in the Cathedral of Santiago. A note on the margin of the official marriage registration records her legitimization. Her father, don Antonio, had died a few months before at age fifty-six.
15. Leaving Cuba.
The April 14, 1958, assassination of twenty-two-year-old Calixto Bergnes Brauet (the son of an old, prominent Guantánamo family and friends of my parents) accelerated our departure. Young Calixto had gotten involved with rebel groups that operated nearby. After being caught, he and a friend were tortured and shot dead by Batista troops in a suburb outside the city.
Calixto’s large, public funeral sparked protests and galvanized the population against the government forces. Mother attended the funeral, which ended in street shootings, and returned agitated. We were forbidden to attend but heard all the details from her. From that moment on, she began to pressure Father to send us to Barcelona. We could live there temporarily with Abuela Paquita and continue our secondary education safely until the revolution was over.
Shortly thereafter, my brother and I were informed that we were leaving in early May. I have not forgotten how excited we were to begin this new chapter in our lives. We would never forget the many congratulations we received from friends and family members. We prepared to leave chaotic Cuba for an enticing, new environment that we had admired only from afar.
Because of our parents’ financial means and political connections, our passports, official papers, and tickets were processed expeditiously. Our Cuban passports were issued in Havana on April 2 and our Spanish visas at the Santiago consulate on April 22. We barely had enough time to say goodbye to family and friends.
My parents, brother, and I boarded a Cubana (subsidiary of Pan American Airways) DC3 at the primitive Guantánamo airport for a direct flight to Havana. My brother remembers that in spite of the excellent safety record of the DC3, an attendant stood with a fire extinguisher behind the propellers as the twin engines were turned on. The plane ascended gradually. Looking through the windows, we admired the lush, verdant valleys and imposing mountains of the famed Sierra Maestra, Cuba’s highest mountain range.
Beyond the standard exhilaration that came with any trip, I was well aware that leaving Cuba was the beginning of an exciting adventure, and I loved it. Looking back now, I realize that at that time, I was not fully aware about the implications of leaving our home, my parents and sister, and my Cuban identity behind.