El Lector: A History of the Cigar Factory Reader (review)

Throughout its history, Cuba's destiny has been closely linked to two products: tobacco, a native plant, and sugar, an import. They have played a determinant role in the island's economic and political events. Fernando Ortiz, in his landmark study Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar (1940), goes even further and ties them, allegorically, to Cuba's cultural identity. The historical figure of "el lector" was born in Havana in 1865 at a time of political turmoil which would erupt shortly after (in 1868) in the Ten Year War, when Cubans were trying to gain their independence from Spain. One of the consequences of these political struggles is the successive waves of Cuban diasporas to the United States, Spain, and neighboring Latin American countries. With them, Cubans carried their culture, trades, and practices. Thus, "el lector" becomes an item of export and establishes roots in places like Tampa and Key West in the United States, Spain, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic.

Tinajero's excellent study approaches the topic from a variety of angles. First, she establishes that the tradition of reading aloud goes back to the classical era, among the Greeks, and has been practiced for more than fifteen hundred years by Catholic monastic communities. In addition to her ethnographic interviews with "lectores" and "lectoras" today, she delves into historical records that reveal the importance of this figure and the tobacco industry during the late nineteenth century at the times of Cuba's struggles for independence from Spain. For instance, José Martí, Cuba's foremost hero, visited the tobacco factories in the United States when he was trying to gather support and resources for the cause. Literary representations complete Tinajero's analysis.

Part 1 ("Reading Aloud in Cigar Factories until 1900") consists of two sections. The first is dedicated to the birth of the tradition in Cuba in 1865, where the cigar rollers selected one member from their ranks, who was paid by the workers. Standing on a tribune or stand, he read newspapers, novels, or other intellectual works. It was not without controversy and some feared that it would distract the workers, or that it could be used to promote radical ideas and dissent. For others, it encouraged discipline because it was conducive to the cigar rollers sitting quietly performing their work and listening. The second part moves to Spain, to Emilia Pardo Bazán's novel La Tribuna (1882). Cigar making and the "cigarrera" had been the subject of Prosper Mérimée's Carmen (1847), later immortalized in Bizet's opera in 1875. After 1868, many Cubans fled to Spain in exile and some towns became permeated with Cuban culture—the tradition of the reader, music such as the "habanera," among others. The "lectores" lasted until the 1880s when manual workers were displaced by machine operators.

Part 2 ("Workshop Graduates" and "Workers in Exile") moves to the United States and Puerto Rico and covers the period 1868-1931. The first cigar workers arrived in Key West in 1868. The small village with its humid climate and strategic location—the closest point to Cuba from the United States—made it ideal for the tobacco investors. It also offered easy channels of communication with other major cities such as New York. By 1885, Key West had become one of the fifteen most important ports in the United States. Cuban culture was also thriving. As the tobacco industry expanded, cigar factory owners moved to Tampa, giving birth to the new communities of Pino City and Ybor City—the later still exists with the same name, and newspapers in Spanish started at this time are still being published. Cuban cultural institutions were abundant throughout the growing city. Some "lectores" took a leading role in the community.

Part 2 ends with two specific cases of "lectores"—one fictitious and one real, the Puerto Rican "lectora" Luisa Capetillo. Tinajero discusses Anna in the Tropics (2003) by Nilo Cruz...