From Azaleas to Zydeco: My 4,600-Mile Journey through the South

Ybor City

Ybor City Central Florida sure is a crowded place. The St. Petersburg–Tampa area, which covers only a portion of the western side of central Florida, has a population equal to the population of the entire state of Arkansas and only slightly less than the population of South Carolina. Originally a winter resort, the area boomed after World War II when air-conditioning became common. St. Pete still retains some of that resort theme because it’s smaller, less dense, and has the Don CeSar Hotel on the beach. With its watchtower and pink walls, and despite the condos which now flank it, “The Don” sets the tone of this resort area of sun and sugar-white beaches on the Gulf of Mexico. The Don CeSar has a pretty interesting history, opening in 1928 and being taken over by the federal government after Pearl Harbor, some thirteen years later. The Don served the government until 1967 as a military hospital, a convalescent center, and finally an administration center. A few years after being sold to private interests, it reopened as a luxury hotel and since that time has welcomed visitors to the Sunshine City. (St. Pete contends that it gets sun 360 days a year. It rained the day I was there.) With its vibrant Hispanic culture, Florida differs from the rest of the South. One of my misimpressions of Florida was that its Hispanic influence was Cuban. There’s no doubt the Cuban influence is strong in Florida, particularly in South Florida. But, in Central Florida, the 360 Hispanic community is variegated: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Central and South Americans all contribute to the melting pot of modern Hispanic life here. In Tampa, the melting pot includes a strong Spanish flavor. Ybor City, Tampa’s Latin Quarter, was founded by Spaniards looking to relocate their cigar operations from Cuba. It was a matter of free trade. Just before the Civil War, Congress imposed high tariffs on Cuban cigars. During the war, the tariffs didn’t make much difference. But once peace came, this tax policy put a crimp in the cigar industry and the owners looked for ways to get around it. The Spanish tobacco manufacturers figured that Cuban tobacco could be shipped in bulk to the United States, rolled into cigars here, and be considered “American made”— and thereby avoid the tax. In the mid-1880s, Mr. Ybor moved his tobacco operations to a threestory brick building in what would later become known as Ybor City. Many other cigar tycoons followed so that by the turn of the century, Ybor City had become the cigar capital of the world. They came to Tampa because of its location: Tampa Bay was due north of Cuba’s main shipping point and the closest point to a United States railway connection . In Tampa, the Cuban tobacco was rolled into cigars and then transported by train north to the rest of the United States. The cigar industry was quite different from other Florida business endeavors of the time, primarily fishing or ranching. A cigar roller was an artisan producing perfect hand-rolled cigars. Rollers worked on the production system. To keep their minds occupied as they worked, the workers collectively hired a “lector” to read aloud to them during the day. The lector sat on a platform above the workers and read newspapers, novels, and magazines to the workers. Cigar rollers were well informed about current events. Victoriano Manteiga, one lector who moved on, founded a local newspaper, La Gaceta. Mr. Manteiga’s grandson still publishes La Gaceta in Ybor City; it is the nation’s only tri-lingual newspaper , carrying stories in English, Spanish and Italian. Unlike other southern workers, cigar rollers created mutual aid societies by contributing five percent of their wages to the common good. Their mutual aid society provided medical care, gymnasiums, and audi361 toriums for the community’s common benefit. The Cuban community had two social clubs, one for those with lighter skin coloring and the La Union Marti-Maceo for darker-complexioned Cubans. (Remember this is during the time of Jim Crow.) Ybor City never really recovered from the Depression and the decreased demand for cigars. When demand recovered, hand-rolled cigars gave way to machine rolled largely because the sellers of machine-rolled cigars engaged in a “spit” campaign. They contended hand-rolled cigars were less pure because they contained human saliva, whereas...