Afro-Cuban Theology: Religion, Race, Culture, and Identity

5. La Caridad del Cobre: Mother and Author of the Cuban People

5 La Caridad del Cobre Mother and Author of the Cuban People Qué cubano no ha oído hablar alguna vez de la Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre? Ni siquiera es preciso tener creencias religiosas para interpretarla como un símbolo de la cubanía. Un aspecto ineludible en cualquier estudio referido a la formación de nuestra conciencia nacional, sera el origen y evolución del culto popular de la misma. (What Cuban has not heard at least once about La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre? You don’t even need to have religious beliefs in order to interpret her as a symbol of Cuba. The origin and evolution of her popular devotion is an unavoidable aspect of any study on the formation of our national conscience.) Olga Portuando Zúñiga, La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre La Caridad del Cobre has been invested with expressing something of the racial and class dynamics of Cuban society. She is at once a figure in the struggle for racial and social identity among African Cubans as well as a symbol of the inalterable mixture of identities in a Creole society. She is herself a Creole, born out of the stormy waters of the Atlantic. Joseph M. Murphy, “YéYé Cachita” La Virgen de Caridad del Cobre, or Cachita as Cubans affectionately call her, is a vital symbol of Cuban religious and national identity. Even for those without religious beliefs, she is a symbol of what it means to be Cuban. La Caridad began as a local devotion among a community of slaves in seventeenth century Cuba and has grown over the years to become the national patroness of the island. Perhaps for this reason alone she represents not only Cuba, but also the AfroCuban roots of Cuban identity and religiosity, for in La Caridad we have an example of an Afro-Cuban practice that has grown to represent what it means to be Cuban regardless of race. She is revered both on the island and among Cubans in the diaspora, and her shrines can be found in Cuba and in Miami. Even in Castro’s Cuba, in a community where religious belief is deemphasized or even discouraged, thousands flock to her shrine on her feast day, bearing sunflowers as offerings. Over three centuries, the image and story of La Caridad have been so thoroughly transformed that the narrative and iconography surrounding her today differ sharply from historical accounts of her actual appearance. La Caridad present in the minds of today’s Cubans and Cuban-Americans is not quite La La Caridad del Cobre / 79 Caridad of the seventeenth century. Much of her narrative and iconographic transformation occurred during Cuba’s wars of independence from Spain, when she rose in prominence as a national symbol. La Caridad, therefore, is not only a symbol of Cuban identity; she represents the Cuban process of identity-making, Cubans’ self-construction as they articulated a distinctive identity from Spain. This chapter examines the history of and devotion to La Caridad del Cobre , drawing from her story to explore Cuban/Cuban-American identity and to construct a Cuban/Cuban-American Mariology. The story of La Caridad not only tells us what it means to be Cuban, it also reveals how Cubans understand the Mother of God, and consequently, God’s presence in their lives. A devotion rooted in the Afro-Cuban community, La Caridad reveals the Afro-Cuban foundation of Cuban and Cuban-American religiosity. Her story offers deep Mariological reflections on the way Cubans and Cuban-Americans understand God’s preferential option for the marginalized. Providing an image of Mary in solidarity with Cuba’s forgotten, La Caridad is simultaneously at the center of Cuban/Cuban-American devotions. I begin by examining the narrative of La Caridad’s appearance in the early seventeenth century. While this narrative has changed over time, it is vital to examine the same story that the original devotees embraced. The second part of the chapter examines how the image and narrative of La Caridad have functioned throughout Cuban history. I begin in the slave era with the original slave community of devotees in El Cobre. Next, I turn from the local to a national milieu to explore how La Caridad grew to become a national symbol and devotion . In section 3, I return to the Afro-Cuban community and discuss how La Caridad came to be associated with the African orisha, Oshun. This nineteenthcentury development has left a...