Locks of all kinds and the classic provincial misinterpretations of good, had prevented the presence in the province of Artemis of Dr. Emilio Cueto, a brilliant researcher, actor, musician, writer and Cuban-American collector, to which the locks and misinterpretations – contrary to what happens to many mortals – seem not to disturb him in the least.
It was recorded when, at last, in the antonio Maceo municipal library in Bauta, in November 2015, he was able to give a substantial lecture around one of the titles of his best-received authorship on the island: the magnificently well-documented book La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre in the soul of the Cuban people, a work that every library of intramurals should treasure within it , for the rich cultural background collected on each page of this title around the interpretation of a symbol that goes far beyond the exclusively religious realm.
Since then, Emilio Cueto, without protocols of any kind, sometimes traveling aboard a packed bus and others in the “panza” of a steamy passenger truck, has not ceased to be present in this piece of Artemisese land, where it has been welcomed by an audience that already knows him well and, especially, two magnificent creators and friends: the artists of the plastic Rael Rodríguez Capote and Denys San Jorge Rodríguez.
Precisely in the artistic-literary promotion rock Mix, which leads the second of these creators, where he had presented his book on the Virgin Mambisa, at the headquarters of the same library, Emilio presented another of his titles, before which it would be impossible not to stop long, and in more than one journalistic work, if I am to be fair: Cuba in USA (Ediciones Polymita S.A.) , beautiful and burly volume made in close and decisive collaboration with photographer Julio Larramendi, and with the contribution of designers Yamilet Moya, Camila Suárez and Raúl Izquierdo.
From the beginning of his presentation at the Peña Mezcla, Dr. Cueto made it clear that “the footprint of a large country in a small one is normal, but if it happens the other way around it is a privilege”. With a sharp explanation and a rich gallery of images collected in the book, the author detailed the presence and impact of the Cuban in the most diverse spaces of American life for more than two centuries: in the press, sport, religion, music, Freemasonry, comics, gastronomy, literature, history, architecture…
From his lips we learned that, from the pocket of many Cubans, fundamental resources came out to support george Washington’s independence cause; Cuban national teaching was first printed in a New York newspaper; our essential works such as Oda al Niagara, Cecilia Valdés and The Golden Age came out of the galleys on these northern grounds.
Thanks to Maceo’s exploits, many African-Americans received this name at birth; bronze Titan and Gomez met with Martí on 9th Street in New York; Northern streets are named after these insignes and others such as Ignacio Agramonte and Juan Gualberto Gómez; the Cuban Revolutionary Party was founded in Abraham Lincoln’s homeland, as was Latin jazz from the hands of the must-have Chano Pozo.
The Museum of Modern Art recognized the extraordinary quality of the painters of the Cuban Vanguard and decided to promote them; many American authors placed the eldest of the Antilles as the setting for some of his creations, including the memorable narrator Ernest Hemingway; members of the 26th of July Movement waved the flag of this organization at the top of the statue of Liberty; sixteen northern cities are named Havana and twenty are called Cuba, to which can be joined dozens of restorans that bear the first or second of these names…
All of the above is just a sample button from the book Cuba in the USA. But it is undisputed proof that, despite any obstacle to normal relations between the two countries, a multi-centuries mutual neighborhood and influence cannot be erased by anyone’s whims. Quite the opposite. In this history of neighborhoods and reciprocal influences must be the best of the pretexts for healthy and pressure-free coexistence of any kind.
Dr Emilio Cueto was pleased to donate copies of this book to a group of libraries and educational and cultural institutions in our country, something he had already done with his book on the Virgin of Charity of Copper, generous detail that, in the case of the bautense territory would be expanded, by donating Emilio to the Museum of San Pedro several Italian newspapers and one French , in which the bronze Titan’s fall in combat is collected in that historic place.
Emilio, a man who never stops researching or collecting, is also the author of works such as Frederick Mialhe’s La Cuba quaint, ILustrating Cuba’s Flora and Fauna and Cuba in old maps, where he opens up lucidly to other paths and mysteries of nature and the great human adventure, before which he always has a smile at the best of his lips and a phlegmatic way , elegant and generous to ignore any annoying – and at last insignificant – stone that stands in its way. Ω
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