For a little more than a month in the summer of 2001, I traveled to the Colonial Archive of Trinidad with Dr. Marial Iglesias Utset, now of Harvard University and then a professor at the University of Havana’s Department of History and Philosophy. We were joined by a recent graduate of Bates College in Maine, Michael McCarthy, who served as our tireless research assistant and is now a specialist of international relations. At the time, Marial and I were interested in the rise (and general historical silencing) of women activists in the early Twentieth Century as well as Black Cubans’ struggle to end de facto segregation. We discovered La Mariposa, a women’s newspaper that spanned almost a decade of publication, along with an extraordinary array of evidence that this allegedly sleepy provincial town had been deeply politicized. What is missing from these pictures is just how hot we were! Because it was over 95 degrees every day with close to 100% humidity, we found ourselves so often soaked to the bone in sweat that we had to take regular “wipe off” breaks to prevent it from dripping and endangering our documents. Our greatest champions were undoubtedly the archivists who brought every fan they could find from home and set them up so that Mike and I—the two “Mainers”—and our laptops did not overheat! Trinidad de Cuba, June-July 2001.
