In December 1949, my great-grandmother “Cuca” threw a Christmas Eve party that featured one of the ultimate symbols of fashion and modernity at the time: a dazzling aluminum Christmas tree imported from the United States. Known as a generous and joyful host, Cuca (who rarely consented to any photographic documentation of her “aging process” after the age of 15), displayed that Christmas tree on an “advent altar”, flanked by a handmade image of the Holy Family in the manger on one side and of the Magi still en route to Bethlehem on the other. In the background hangs an iconic image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Distributed across the island in the early 20th century when the Papacy re-introduced the Jesuit order into America, the same large-scale, framed image could be found in the homes of both humble rural families and the historically “high” provincial elite, like that of Cuca and her folks. Behind the symbols of modernity and power reflected in this photograph, however, there are also signs of political and social rebellion. Cuca herself was no shrinking violet, having established a reputation as a teenager who dressed as a geisha for her coming-out party despite the devastation of Cuba’s last war for independence and the US military occupation that followed (1898-1902). Beside Cuca stands her fox-fur-clad daughter, Olga, a kindergarten teacher at a racially and class-integrated public school. Olga never got married and lived, despite the gossip, with her cousin Chacha, for nearly fifty years of her life. Then there is Cuca’s brother, Diego Sotolongo Suárez del Villar, with his hair parted in the middle (according to a thirty-year-old style trend). The namesake of an ancestral, 16th-century grandfather who had been a0 co-conquistador of Mexico and later governor of Cuba, Diego Sotolongo Rojas, Tío Diego was far less known for his masculinity in the hometown of Cienfuegos, Cuba, than for the sweet acts of kindness he displayed toward his wife, Cristina Bellas, to his right. A reputed hypochondriac, Cristina would not allow anyone but Diego to wash her stockings and “interior clothes”, which he did daily, wearing a pair of rubber gloves and using mild laundry soap. The grandkids from left to right are also there: Julián, Hectico, Titica (my mom Luisa), and Bertón. Cienfuegos, Cuba. Photograph by Heriberto “Chichi” Rodríguez Rosado, 1949. Personal Collection of Lillian Guerra.
