Where is my past? History and youth: their many-sided impact

Where is my past? History and youth: their many-sided impact Encouraging the study of history as a learning experience and a pleasure at all ages, especially among young people and adolescents, means changing our approaches to the past, its events and characters, including those that are least visible, hidden and barely remembered

By Raquel Vinat Mata, professor and assistant researcher History, historians, educators One human right that is violated with incredible regularity is that of certain individuals, communities and groups to know about their past.

Devaluing — or even erasing — the life and work of others is a longstanding discriminatory and universal practice, carried out by those who arbitrarily have assigned themselves the power to make other people’s history invisible. The fabricated hierarchisation of historical subjects and events, and even geographic regions, exacerbates divisions and feeds the egomania syndrome of the self-proclaimed “superior” groups. By promoting fatalism and inventing the idea that some people are genetically handicapped, they have made the others believe for centuries that they are “endemically inferior”; even the expression “people without history” seeks to declare that their unproductive existence justifies them being unimportant. However, does the crux of this calibration actually lie in “the people without history” or “history without people”?

A brief overview of historical records that are less handled by the public in general shocks us with their rancid odour of contempt. Yes, because among them drifts the spirit of disdain for so much ignored memory, so many faces made pale from being confined to places of disdain, so much knowledge made dusty due to weakness of will to rescue or restore it. It is bountiful and impressively rich information that, for lack of being included in texts of “obligatory consultation,” leads our children to finish their primary education, adolescents their secondary education, and even university students their higher studies without knowing anything about this hidden side of their history.

In response to these zones of silence, scientific consolidation should inject greater objectivity into its new approaches and eradicate the asymmetrical treatment given to these figures in history. Professionals in the field are displaying intelligence and debating to eliminate these types of unbalanced approaches and illuminate the unprecedented. Their words fill workshops with presentations and the news media with articles; they demand relational exchange, and at the same time do not allow the controversy to die down.

However, few findings or new analyses are introduced with the immediacy that is needed: this lag frustrates the researcher, hurts students and sets back the teacher.

General history, as a synthesising and sequenced summary, cannot condense memory in its entirety — even if it uses prodigious volumes — just as the pedagogical mastery of beloved teachers and academics cannot synthesise it within the span of one course. The new historians do not arm themselves with theoretical/methodological tools to unveil answers — or even non-answers — until the end of their studies; and that, in fact, is when they understand that their real initiation in the trade begins. However, despite absences and empty spaces, we have a treasure trove of information within reach of all hands and wills.

Nevertheless, year after year, curricula, school materials, research projects and even radio and television programmes resort to thematic repetition and appeal to monotone discourse with graphics that in most cases make excessive use of worn-out illustrations — despite the existence of young designers who are avid to unleash their ingenuity for social benefit. These are contributions that when combined and exhibited with quality, subliminally penetrate the cognitive and emotional areas of their young recipients. However, if the seasoning is bland, it makes no contribution; instead, it generates aversion.

Certain types of practical work, designed as evaluation tools, require an “assessment” of historical figures; nevertheless, the short amount of time given or a lack of accessible information alternatives forces reproduction of the data contained in the textbook itself. Do they pass? Yes, and with good grades.

Everybody is happy…. However, we ignore the fact that repetition stifles creativity. Aside from that, in the conceptual rigor of the term assessment, the procedure becomes a utopia: the student only makes a positive assessment, because nobody (not even out of childish innocence or youthful daring) would apply negative criticism to a patriot or martyr. So why don’t we encourage them to take more ingenious and tangible roads, with which we can also gauge whether or not they are making progress in the course? The key is what is possible. Familiarisation with history means urging them to touch it with spontaneous independence and on their own.

This rehabilitation of the how does not infer the theatrical staging of a history class, or caricaturising events (although both of these resources, when used wisely, are not completely unsatisfactory). It does mean changing, to fine-tune the protective mechanisms of history against manifest half-heartedness.

However, it is worth noting that this, like any subject, cannot be adjusted to the “consumer’s taste” like a tailor-made piece of clothing. Historic events are unalterable facts. It is a matter of permeating the same content with emotional colour and new types of dressing.

Conferences, debates and congresses aim to optimise the highlighted teaching/educational process. Valiant efforts are made in the face of tremendous, varied adversities; however, in the praxis, the event does not

achieve an effective symbiosis of historians/teachers: certain workbooks or final exams reveal this divorce. And the young people? We hear their demands and suggestions for change, but we still do not insert them to function in tripartite integration. In five decades of experiences, the indifference that some young people show toward history has not shown signs of improvement; on occasion, it regresses. The virus resists and the cure must be found now, because if not, this era will not be able to “give birth to a heart.”1 Do our books motivate cognitive interest, vocation or investigative curiosity on the part of students? Are our mechanisms activated to combine influential factors such as climate/material conditions/student personality? Do teachers use alternative methods, beyond what is measured in the programme or outside of the school framework? To be more incisive: do our educational personnel “love” the history they teach? It would be absurd to imagine that all of our teaching personnel hold the same affection for this subject. But likings or preferences aside, for an EDUCATOR, the magic of teaching and the fascination of sharing knowledge change clay into a miracle.

On the university level, the history teaching staff is made up of qualified professors who are in love with their field, and who captivate their students with their enjoyment in knowing about our past. Logical and a correct choice. Now, wouldn’t it be prudent to apply this selectiveness to the previous levels of education, stages that — as we repeat so often and know well — represent the foundational stage, in which human values and ethical principles are implanted?

A proposal here and now does not sound very serious, given the current circumstances of a shortage of personnel. But it is not absurd to stop and picture, once again, the particular characteristics of history and its impact on young people.

The practical importance of other subjects is high and essential in the comprehensive education of citizens of a new type; but history, in possessing the added value of its ideological hallmark, is the repository par excellence of the country’s identity heritage, and the main foundation of culture and the essence of being Cuban. Would it not then be worth it to give it special treatment, in terms of ensuring the quality of those who teach it? Based on the great expectations that we desire for those to whom we will “pass the baton,” can we say that we have fully and intelligently exploited all strategies for a solution so that instead of “instructors,” our young people can have the TEACHERS that both they and our own history so deserve?

The Great Figures: the system of “statures” in history Theories on knowledge hold that one of the first steps in human learning is based on comparison. The contrast between one thing and another makes it possible to appreciate similarities and differences; in that way, gradually, concepts are built. In proportional conceptualisation, “greatness” deduces the

existence of its opposite, the “small,” and in fact an intermediate rating of “average” emerges.

This logic of reasoning, applied to historiographical classifications, assumes that if certain figures were to be categorised as “great,” then the rest of their fellow beings must be comparatively “small” or “medium,” an appreciation graded according to the degree of contribution or size of sacrifice made by the first, which merited them a higher evaluation than those of the secondary list.

This evaluative metric mechanism is given to us in the history we receive, via accomplished facts, as the certifying endorsement of the ethical greatness granted and its preservation, because of the exemplary depth that emanates from this constellation of figures, and because of the reputation of those who have placed them among the “nation’s founding fathers.” However, recent and facilitating “excavations” in new arteries of research are democratising the validation of certain individuals who have been invisible until now or made invisible for a long time. Findings/provocations that raise new questions, reactivate the informational crossover, energise controversy and incite questioning. By drawing our own conclusions, we cannot help but return to that Cuban expression, “those who are there are not everybody, and not everybody who is somebody is there.”

Strictly speaking, those figures that have been resuscitated through exploratory and unprejudiced efforts lack “historiographical size”: they are not classified as great figures or as small ones. They are shadow-beings. Despite their former social resonance, causes not yet clarified invalidated them from being able to sufficiently impress the applicators of “sizes,” and after that, they were sentenced to lie without sorrow or glory, but also without a little place in documented history.

Along those lines, a scientific approach requires revisiting the genesis: the effects of the sexism/racism/classicm trilogy reveal how in Cuba, too, their harmful harvest provided guidelines of exclusion, in alliance with regionalism and marginalisation due to religious beliefs. However, in this complex and systemic dynamic (which I am inclined to describe as organised distinction), another devaluating agent was at work, not always accepted by some: adultcentrism.

By mapping the segregationism of yesterday, we understand that the historiographical product that has been consumed until now is a “virilised” history: approached from the perspective of men, written by men, and treated to satisfy their interests. Simultaneously, by virtue of the prevailing racist codes, we perceive that is also the history of men/whites, for men/whites and by men/whites. However, in continuing to scale the historical body, another scar comes to the surface: in its immense majority, written history does not recreate the totality of the “Caucasian” masculine mass; instead, it priviledges and

prioritises the “seasoned ones.” In short: what is commonly disseminated in texts, conferences and lessons as general history is nothing more than the history of men/whites/adults.

As an “interesting” side note, in certain biographies, one can appreciate a leap from the date of birth of the person to his or her activities as an adult or older adult. Does that mean the person had no youth?

Given this androcentric, white and adult-centric context, women were “great,” but not always great figures; instead, they were greatly absent. The visible ones, adults in their immense majority, owe their presence to their relationshiops with important males: the “mothers of,” “daughters of,” “sisters of,” and “wives of.” However, study of their lives and work confirms their social contribution and maturity of thought: personal qualities that demonstrate that their value lies does not solely in their family relationship with the “great gentlemen.” The example of Mariana Grajales is illustrative: the extolled mother of the Maceos contributed much to the nation, but tends to be pigeonholed for the fertile and courageous litter of men she handed over for the independence cause. The patriarchal perspective idealises maternity, minimising other virtues of these worthy matrons, by virtue of over-exaggerating the stereotyped image of the “mater familia.” It would be senseless to deny the force of the very noble maternal function, but in addition to reproducing, many also made important and even decisive patriotic, economic and cultural contributions.

In referring to the independence wars (a recurring theme in history classes beginning in primary school), this criterion is maintained, and the highest recognition given to a woman Mambí (independence fighter) was for her Spartan delivery of children to the homeland. However, in addition to the abovementioned women, shouldn’t recognition also go to those who were prevented from procreating by nature?

The small group of great female figures is sometimes thinned by their intermittent presence in accounts that do not discredit them with complete exclusion, but that do diminish their role in key operations or important activities.

They are symbolised as the emotional mainstay of the male hero; the assistant to the combatant; and the faithful companion who waits. Young people today say euphemistically that they are “familiar” with these female figures (although the list does not exceed five or six — there is plenty of evidence of this), but beyond their names — generally incomplete or erroneous — few are able to explain their relevance, ignorance that they think they cover up by emphasising they were Mambi fighters. A similar informational anemia is suffered by women who stand out in the field of culture (Tula or Luisa Pérez de Zambrana being the exceptions to the silence). It is unlikely to hear them refer to young workers’ action, aside from the Strike of the Apprentices.

Many are amased when they “discover” that an advance party of young women confronted prejudice and, beginning in 1880, defended their right to study.

These young women not only graduated with brilliant grades, but went on to earn their doctorates in different fields. It is unusual to find a visual arts student who knows that the Academy of San Alejandro, founded in 1818, did not open its doors to female students until 1879 and that in its first course, female students represented more than 52 percent of total enrolment. They are also unaware that quite a few of these female students won awards at international exhibitions, and others became professors at that prestigious institution after graduating.

Some women members from the privileged list of outstanding women have a “permanent place” on the calendar marking special days and anniversaries. But is that annually secure place a guarantee of empathy for these women among young people who participate in activities marking those dates? Here, too, young people tend to hear or read messages with the usual spiel and speeches that are identical to last year’s. History is the same, and so are biographies. But this is where we perceive that inertia, adaptation and insensitivity on the part of its promoters — more concerned with complying with the established than establishing commitment — strangle the enchantment of a moment that should be attractive and stimulating in bringing them closer to, and learning about, our history.

Without exceeding the space granted, this writer would like to briefly outline — with the speed of a hummingbird and an eagle’s eye — a group of young 19th century women who went “missing” — not because of a dictator’s political sadism, but because of another tyrant with a long name: sexism/classicism/racism/regionalism, which still holds them in oblivion: 

Ana Josefa de Agüero. From Camagüey, founder of the first female group of action organised with a political nature in our history, during the armed rebellion led by her husband Joaquín de Agüero in July 1851.

With the uprising aborted and her husband executed, she had to leave the country. She raised her children in exile and continued her patriotic activism until her early death. Certain authors blame her for the fatal outcome of the events, supposedly because she confessed the plan to a local priest, who then informed the authorities. One hundred years later, the truth was known, and the memory of this young patriot was restored; however, she remains virtually ignored in history.

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Catalina Berroa Ojea (1849-1911). Of mixed race, born in Trinidad. From a very young age, she mastered eight instruments. A concert pianist, arranger, composer and teacher, she created the first chamber trio founded in Cuba by a woman, and she was a cultural promoter who fostered love for the piano in her region. She is mentioned only as part of

a biography of her nephew, Lico Jiménez, but it is impossible to ignore her impact on the education of that violinist. 

Zoila Rosa del Pino Sandrino (1874-1940). From Pinar del Río. From the age of 10, she was admired by celebrated violinists in the United States and France. As an adolescent, she toured Europe’s largest cities, where whe was acclaimed for her exceptional qualities as a musician.

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Cecilia Porras Pita (1830-1899). From Cardenas. At the age of 19, she defied colonial repression during the landing of Narciso López in her native city, and she wrote and disseminated a poem dedicated to the Cuban flag, the first of its type written by a woman.

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Luisa Martínez Casado (1860-1925). An actress from Cienfuegos who made her debut at the age of 8. At 15, she perfected her dramatic arts skills in Madrid, and was applauded on Spain’s top stages. In tours of South America, she was viewed as an emulator of Sara Bernhardt. At 25, critics said she was one of the best actresses in Latin America. She created her own company and encouraged talented young Cubans to train as actors.

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Edelmira Guerra Valladares (1868-1908). From Matanzas. She married at the age of 14 and moved to Cienfuegos. At 27, now the mother of six children, she became one of the main advocates of patriotic activism in the region. She founded and presided over an important and mixed underground cell, and became an agent for Máximo Gómez. At 29, she drafted a Revolutionary Programme to be presented to the government of the future republic; it was considered the first public petition of the 19th century for the women’s vote, the right of women to work and to divorce, and other demands with a broad social impact, such as an end to administrative corruption and the sale of university degrees.

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María Luisa Dolz Arango (1854-1934). One of our first high school and university graduates. She also earned her doctorate in Natural Sciences.

An innovator in female pedagogy, she introduced scientific, practical and cultural training and physical exercise. Despite her youth, the colonial government authorised her to teach high school to young women at her institute. A prudent feminist, she held up the banner of education as a pillar for the emancipation of women. Her pedagogical speeches addressed to young people were the strongest ideological tool during those years of struggle by Cuban women against obscurantism and discrimination.

In taking inventory of beloved figures of our youth, it is impossible to omit Panchito Gómez Toro, a noble and intelligent young man and loving son who sacrificed his life alongside his leader and hero: Antonio Maceo. His writing,

contained in letters to relatives — which are not even presented in summary form in textbooks — are a valuable legacy about the thinking of young Cubans who grew up in exile, but who did not stop loving Cuba despite the distance, to the extent of dying for their country’s independence. However, along with Panchito, the modest Clemencita, his self-sacrificing sister, also shone. She has received hardly any historical recognition, although Martí praised her merits and precocious maturity. A conscious patriot, she wanted to join the ranks of the Mambí fighers, but due to her frail health, she compensated for that by creating patriotic clubs of young Cuban and Dominican women in Santo Domingo. She was the daughter who accompanied and consoled the stoic Bernarda during the long years of misery and loneliness as immigrants; she was her father’s confidant, her brothers and sisters’ “mommy-teacher,” and the emotional mainstay of all after the unexpected and cruel death of Panchito. How little we know about her! How many there were like her!

Every November 27 is a sad one for Cuban youth. It is the day that the crime committed in 1871 is commemorated throughout the country. Every year, a wave of students walks to a stone monument, the only physical testimony to the premeditated murder of the innocent young people, and this is a march that exudes not condolence but honor and commitment for their legacy, that unites and re-unites. And in admiring the continuity of this collective mourning, the many horrors committed against so many young people in our past come to mind; they were as innocent as those we now honour. And I think about the Meriño sisters, who were not from Havana, like the medical students, but who were daughters of the valiant Bayamo, and who were vilely murdered in the summer of 1869.

Rosa, Teresa, Josefa, Caridad and María — who were 15, 17, 19, 20 and 22 years old, respectively — fled from the burning city with their father, but their hiding place in the mountains was soon discovered by the enemy. An armed group headed by Blas Díaz de Villate, the Count of Valmaseda, noted the beauty of these young Cubans. He personally took Rosita as his war booty and raped the adolescent virgin in front of her tormented father — bound and gagged as he was made to watch this crime. Her sisters were subjected to similar torment by the rest of the troop. When their violent acts were finished, they were shot, along with their father, and their bodies were left without burying for the vultures. This horrifying incident was the not first or last in that heartrending decade.

In reviewing these episodes, their inconceivable silencing in historiography compels us to ask, don’t these young Cuban women deserve at least a moment of remembrance in the directory of “historic dates”?

How can we look past events with such an important impact — including for our sensitive youth of today — while we organise and encourage national and

international campaigns against violence against women and girls? Cuban women of the past can not only illustrate what women have suffered in the past; they are also an example of what many women in many parts of the world continue to suffer for defending their homeland. Victims of the tortured, the missing, whose lives are taken from them after their bodies are sullied, even snatching away their virginity. If we repudiate one crime, why not repudiate the rest? Is it that macho selectivism or “current-ism” prevails? Is poverty of historical knowledge preventing the Meriños and many other young women from being remembered?

And how does it make us look when we demand that young people today fulfil their duty to history and they perceive our culpable indifference or lukewarm requirements to restore, honour and dissenminate that honourable past.

Perhaps the tender but firm speech and fearless intelligence of the youth can decipher the justification for — after 50 years of searching and finding, books completed, results endorsed by scientific councils and publishers — the fact that certain covert enemies of history maintain that memory indefinitely unpublished. Is it that our young people of today do not deserve to enjoy the pride of knowing that in the past — in their national past — there were people as wonderful and young as them? The hook of online issues monopolised by self-proclaimed czars and czarinas of the media and publishing world is blocking the promotion of this history, disparagingly viewed as something obsolete that does not contribute tools for solving top-priority problems of dayto-day living. Moreover, it is not embarrassing to discover that the market is their currency (in the broadest sense of the word).

I accuse…but whom?

It is normal to hear the controversy about who is responsible for educating children and young people. The family/school duo is usually placed on the different ends of the argument — sometimes edged with disputes — without playing down the importance of the role of the media and society as a whole.

The old expression that “education begins in the cradle” attributes the most decisive portion of this social task to the family, given that they are the agents and guides of the new generation. Amid the hazardous aging of the population and low birth rates, aggravated by the growing divorce rate — which creates many more single-parent households — the issue of youth is coming under growing scrutiny in the country’s general strategies, a dilemma that may be universal, but is no less cause for concern. Their young shoulders must bear the weight of a society in which the worn-out energy of those who are older will contribute increasingly less to the community, while the shrinking mass of children — the chronologically immediate substitute, but still unproductive — will swell the ranks of the consumers-only.

Having children is the genetic guarantee for non-extinction of the species, but the impetuous march of the present/future makes it necessary to give them knowledge and ethical resources that will make them individuals fit to face the challenging technology that is aggravating competitiveness in the labour market. The “basic social cell” — in Cuba, led profusely by women heads of household — also educates with the knowledge acquired by its elders, and principally, by example. It is worth remembering that in the early 19th century, the eminent Félix Varela drew the conclusion from his wise reflections that “the mother is man’s first teacher.” The cognitive/volitive/emotional supply from the entire family strengthens its youngest members. That is its function.

In the non-domestic sphere, it is necessary to note that important sums from state finances are devoted to education, and of course, part of them go to paying staff salaries. This reaffirms the idea that teachers and professors exercise their labour on a remunerated, not voluntary, basis. In Cuba, receiving education is a freely granted right, but teaching is an action that is officially paid for via financial income. As a result, and as with any worker, teachers justify what they receive monetarily by fulfilling the duties required by their profession.

Teachers’ share, in social life, is teaching.

Explosions in enrolment, retiring teachers (with no immediate replacement), the opening-up of alternatives to continuing education, and other factors are causing schools to suffer a double decline: qualitative and quantitative in terms of teaching and learning. What is learned in school should be reinforced “at home.” But the home does not replace the school. And this maladjusted imbalance, at the cost of the family’s economic sacrifice, is sometimes “attenuated” with tutors. Conflicts arise and the family trauma blows up, leading to all types of criticism about the education system. The student resorts to cramming, to help from a classmate, but…the F’s begin to multiply, or a C is achieved with “knowledge” that vanishes when put to the test in an oral exam.

And history? What base does it play in this game?

Some parents assume and devote time to history homework to lighten the load for their children in other, more complex subjects. This temporary alternative as a solution is more harmful than beneficial in the long run, because the content is underestimated. Stress is invading homes in response to the official announcement that history will be one of the subjects decisive to whether or not a student passes to the next grade or is approved for a slot in university.

History is not the centre of the educational universe, nor is it the oxygen of social existence. However, no time should be wasted in eliminating adjectives such as boring, rote-learning-based, badly-taught, unmotivating for study, full of unnecessary and unending chronologies…to the highest judgement issued by some young people, with their “it does me no good at all.”

Family, education system, the media, political and mass organisations, neighbourhoods…they all have their share in the love or lack thereof felt for history. However, young people are not exempt from responsibility in this quandary. Not everything can be reduced to “motivations” or a lack thereof in classes or commemorative activities.

For their part, even our scriptwriters lose precious arguments for their scripts by ignoring history or not coming closer to historians. Clandestinos, a beloved Cuban film that made a big impact with its realism, was able to capture a crucial moment in the struggle against the Batista dictatorship by young fighters. Its charm lay in the fact that it showed them as cheerful, in love with fashion and life, dancing, and love, and at the same time, it honourably showed their fears, hesitations and errors. It did not depict them with sublime, unattainable perfection; instead, it left us with the flavour of its lesson: history is made by flesh-and-blood human beings. And that is their greatness: being just like any other mortal, their moral and human growth in decisive circumstances allows them to overcome their limitations and become — without meaning to — heroes and heroines.

Young people have more than enough energy and desire to enjoy history; they need to free themselves of the harnesses that some overprotective adults place on them, and achieve independence of thought and feelings. We are not inciting insurrection by the young against the not-so-young; the imaginary rivalry between generations, as if they were boxers, is nothing but feeding the enemy of beauty. It is to deny the very essence of life in its dialectic, because the bad (which is not always synonymous with old) should be replaced with the good (which is not always necessarily young). It is to do battle against the divisive and devaluating “-isms” with the wisdom of uprooting wrongs, not entrenching them with internal wars.

Encouraging respect for those who came before us is to visualise them with their human virtues and their human defects, but to view them from a realistic perspective, because history is not just learning. It is also pleasure.

The dreams, actions and life projects of our ancestors were different from those of today’s youth, but it is edifying to know about how they confronted the challenges of their time, the alternatives they used to express themselves (rich poetic and musical discourse, which we hardly know about), the human and devine laws and measures that ruled them, the materials they studied, the “can be done” and “can not be done” of their time. Wars, as sadly necessary barbarities, are bitter but necessary milestones to mark. However, along with them, we should become familiar with the sociocultural activities of the past, going to the roots and origins of pleasures and likings, and not forget the existential dramas that weighed on their youth: contempt in the case of the guajiritos — young people from the countryside — and prejudice in the case of

the poor; the suffering of the negritas (young black women) and mulatitas (young mixed-race women) who were marginalised because of their race, gender and age; the moral wounds of the young women (almost girls) who were prostituted out of hunger and ignorance. Young people of both sexes who were impoverished at a young age and who died prematurely from curable diseases, due to the super-exploitation of their labour and abuse.

It is the youth, above all, who should seek their history and not just demand it from others — aside from the duties that each person has. By investigating, reading, asking, debating, polemicising, questioning they are carrying out the moral maxim so that in the end, when they ask where is my past? the youth themselves will respond, within us.

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Translator’s note: lyrics from a song by Silvio Rodríguez: “La Era.”