Give It Time

Give It Time / Fernando Damaso
Posted on May 3, 2015

Fernando Damaso, 30 April 2015 — Looking over some documents from
different eras, I have determined that, when it comes to renaming
things, our authorities have broken all records. Victims of their
frenzied efforts have included numerous streets, public plazas, parks,
virtually all sugar refinery factories, businesses and outlying
buildings, towns, cities, provinces, commercial and service
establishments, educational and health care facilities, theaters,
cinemas and even some of the keys within our archipelago. One needs the
patience of a saint to find a name from the past that is still in use
today. I can only imagine how arduous the work of our historians must be.

The result has been to create widespread historical confusion, which
strikes me as being more than a coincidence given that it happens to
coincide with an interest in blotting out significant parts of our past
in order to address the political needs of particular moments in time.

If we take a look at some of these changes, we see that Havana's former
Civic Plaza is now referred to as the Plaza of the Revolution. This
latest designation has also been applied to every town square in every
municipality in every province. The possible exception is Tenth of
October, where it is referred to as Red Square, though it might more
appropriately be called Black Square in honor of all the grime that has
accumulated there.

The historic beer factory La Tropical (shuttered along those of La Polar
and Hatuey) has for years now been called Jose Marrero. The Saint
Francis Piers are now called the Sierra Maestra. The neighborhood
formerly known as Country Club is now Cubanacán. The Blanquita Theater
is now the Karl Marx (not even Carlos Marx).

The names of all the sugar refineries along with those of their outlying
buildings were replaced with names of personalities from the new
pantheon of saints established after January 1, 1959. Gone also were
well-known, resonant names such as Toledo, Hershey, Constancia, Narcisa,
Cunagua, Jaronu, Najasa Violeta, Baltony, Chaparra, Jobabo, Preston,
Miranda, San Germán and many more, to be replaced by 161 others, which
was the total number of enterprises at the time. A cement factory known
as Titan was rechristened José Mercerón.

An even greater misfortune befell commercial establishments. Rather than
allowing the stores to retain their original names, in a showy display
of bureaucratic pretension, each was given a letter and number that
identified it by province. As though that were not enough, Isla de los
Pinos (Isle of Pines) was rechristened Isla de la Juventud (Isle of
Youth). At least its residents are still referred to as pineros rather
than as they might otherwise be called: juventuderos. Then there is Key
Smith, located in Santiago de Cuba Bay, now called Key Granma*.

As absurd as these examples are, the saddest case is that of so-called
Granma province (the repeated use of this name is striking), formerly
known as Bayamo province out of respect for its rich history. Carlos
Manuel de Céspedes, the father of the country, was bayamés, and the
first government of an independent Cuba was established here. Its
citizens burnt down their city rather than hand it over to the enemy.
The flag hoisted here was the flag of Bayamo and the first stanza of our
national anthem begins, "To the battle in haste, Bayameses…" To Cubans,
Granma is simply a letter of the Greek alphabet, the name of a yacht, a
baseball team and a newspaper, and a very tedious one at that.

Source: Give It Time / Fernando Damaso | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/give-it-time-fernando-damaso/