Identidades in English No 4, December 2014 | Page 109

The Silent Grind (II)

The value of memory

Boris González Arenas
Historian, filmmaker
Blog Probidad
Havana, Cuba

T

here was a debate organized in Havana by
the Proyecto Cultural Temas on September 24th, 2009: Cultura agraria, política y
sociedad [Agrarian Culture, Politics and Society].
Engineer and researcher Mavis Álvarez, who was
among the invitees, asked: “What are the people
who work in UBPCs called [UBPC=Basic Unit of
Cooperative Production, a cooperative]? ‘UBePeCistas.’ What is that? Where did that word come
from? What tradition does it represent? What
does being a UBePeCista mean in Cuba’s agrarian culture? Nothing. It represents a total loss of
identity…What are people who work on family
farms being called? They’ve always been called
campesinos [peasants]; peasant agriculture involves family work and economies; but now they
call them finqueros [farmers]. In considering our
country’s culture, its cultural patterns, there is no
difference in being one or the other. Another typical title that is being used is usufructuario [usufructuary]. That’s what they are calling those who
are receiving lands in a usufruct way, for personal
benefit, according to Law 259.”1
Mavis Álvarez was alluding the Cuban State’s
policy of tending to ignore the names of practical
traditions, while disregarding the empty nature devoid of meaning - of the replacement terms
they create.
The possible consequences of a name
Any practice, be it agricultural, social, commercial or something else, becomes disconnected
from its past with just a name change. No matter
how similar the activities, a name change strips

away identity, at a very minimum. Just because it
is a new name doesn’t make up for the lack of
roots or context of just a word.
Even when an agricultural practice has hardly
changed, certain events could require it to have a
new name. If the change is successful, the passage
of time will confer the name with its own history
and social legitimacy. Coachmen became chauffeurs when the motorized vehicle was introduced;
royalty went on to the landed gentry, when the social system that had put it before the State
changed; [in Cuba] a sovereign patriot became a
gusano [traitor] due to the moral bankruptcy of
the despot who used the term. All these definitions achieve notoriety and, for whatever reasons,
define new habits and practices.
There are quite a few references to such changes
in Cuba after 1959, in the interviews collected by
Maylan Álvarez in her book La callada moliendo
[The Silent Grind]: Héroe Nacional del Trabajo
[National Working Hero], Bon de los 500 [The
500 Good], militant, (blood) donor, Millionaire
(for the millions of measures of sugar cane cut),
‘cooperativist,’ etc. All these monikers helped
characterize the country’s new labor landscape,
from many different points of view, and managed
to generate a sense of meaning, as a beacon for
the countless workers.
Yet, any redefinition also be '26W'F