Key West: So close to Cuba and yet so far away
En español: Key West: Tan cerca de Cuba y sin embargo tan lejos
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By Miguel Pérez
KEY WEST, FL. — So there I was, standing in line to get to the buoy/marker designating the southernmost point in the continental United States, only 90 miles away from Cuba. It's a huge tourist attraction, but the lady in front of me would not stop complaining. "It's just a gimmick," she kept repeating to her companion. "I don't see why we are doing this. It means nothing." I was directly behind them, practically over their shoulders. And she would casually look back to see if I supported her diatribe. I tried to smile, but it was difficult. |
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"Can you keep your voice down? her friend said, pointing to me and a number of people who had accumulated in line behind us. "Obviously, there are other people here who don't agree with you."
Of course, I did not know them and I was not about to intrude in their argument. But I had to bite my tongue several times. I still can't believe that I was able to control myself. LOL I knew exactly what I wanted to say, although it could have been a little rude: "Lady, I agree, you shouldn't be here. Why don't you step out of the line so I can get to that 'gimmick' a little sooner?" The 90-mile to Cuba buoy/maker may not mean anything to her, but to a Cuban who has been away from home for 62 years, standing only miles away means a lot, more than words can say. Many Cuban Americans go back to their homeland as tourists nowadays, but for those of us who refuse to return until Cuba is free, this is literally as close as we get — unless we get on a boat! Obviously, some tourists appreciate Key West's history and geography less than others. |
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Of course, local folks will tell you that the buoy/marker is actually not the true southernmost point. The real southern tip of the U.S mainland is just southwest of the buoy, at a U.S. Navy property that is not accessible to the public. But there is another accessible point that is further south than the buoy, the say, at the beach in Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park, which reaches some 500 feet further south than the buoy. And instead of 90 miles north of Cuba, as the buoy says, all three of these points are some 94 miles north of my homeland.
Yet, since it was erected by the city in 1983, the buoy is seen as the official southernmost point, and the unofficial place for us Cuban-Americans to recharge our ethnic batteries without having to return to the communist dictatorship that we repudiate. |
Our three southernmost points. To enlarge this map, click on it!
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For Cuban-Americans, there is a lot to see here in Key West. And perhaps because of the proximity to Cuba, there is a lot to feel. This is hard to explain, but I felt it, as if your entire body recognizes that you are close to home.
Since you can hear Cuban radio stations here, I kept thinking that my body had some sort of radio antennas. LOL But it was the streets, the old homes, the monuments, the lighthouse, the chickens roaming the streets, even the cemetery that made me feel like I was in Cuba. |
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In Key West, you can visit an impressive José Martí monument, honoring the apostle of Cuban independence from Spain who came here in the 1880s and early 90s to organize a revolution.
You can spend some very educational time at the San Carlos Institute, now a museum, where Martí met with other revolutionaries. You can even visit the home where Martí stayed, now a restaurant, and see the balconies from where he spoke to his followers. Like Ybor City in Tampa, where Marti's visits are celebrated and showcased, Key West remembers his visits too. You see his image so often that you think you are in Cuba! |
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At the Key West Museum of Art and History, you see a model of the Key West Waterfront even before Martí came here, in the 1850s. "It was the second-largest city in Florida with approximately 2,700 residents," the exhibit says. "The deep natural harbor and maritime facilities make it a major port for commercial and military traffic to and from Latin American, Caribbean, Gulf Coast, East Coast, and European ports." (See photo).
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Key West Waterfront in the 1850s
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Mind you, I drove to Key West on the Overseas Highway and over the Seven-Miles-Bridge. But when Martí came here in the 1880s and early 1890s, there was no overseas highway and no bridge. Not even a railroad! Martí came directly from Tampa — on a steamship!
According to exhibits at the Museum of Art and History, the lower and middle keys were "totally dependent on ships to transport all goods and passengers to the mainland" until oil millionaire Henry Flagler completed the overseas railway to Key West in 1912. |
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However, in 1935 a hurricane washed away some 40 miles of the railway and it was never rebuilt, leaving access to the lower keys once again limited to marine transportation, until a new highway was completed in March of 1938.
"The new highway was build on the old railroad bead and was widened to accommodate two driving lanes," the museum exhibit explains. "However, the narrowness of these lanes on the long bridges was frightening to drivers, particularly for those operating big trucks passing each other with only a few feet between vehicles." That's the same road that brought me here, and it's no longer scary. Thankfully, it was widened in the 1980s. From Miami, it was a pleasant drive. But back to Miami, on some rush hours, additional lanes are needed now. |
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In Key West, Cuban history is everywhere. Even in the sculpture garden at Mallory Square, which is strictly reserved to honor people like Ernest Hemingway and other prominent Key West residents, I found Carlos Manuel De Cespedes y Cespedes. He was a former mayor of this city who was also the son of the first "president in arms" of Cuba during the unsuccessful 1868, 10-year war of independence, and the half-brother of Cuba's sixth president. Obviously, Cuban and Key West politicians were often familia.
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Near the Key West Harbor, a historic brick warehouse is now the "Cayo Hueso y Habana Historium," a mini mall of Cuban art, cigars, souvenirs and food that is unique to Key West. And outside the "historium," a historical marker has a timeline that gives visitors a quick lesson on the history of this city's long and unique relationship with Cuba.
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The "Highlights in the History of the United States, Cuba, Key West and Havana" goes from the time when Christopher Columbus discovered Cuba in 1492 and Juan Ponce de Leon discovered Key West in 1513 to the 1995 "Democracy Flotilla" from Key West and near Cuba, with flowers to honor the victims of today's communist regime.
"The Spanish Cayo Hueso literally translates to Bone Island, the first name of the island we now know as Key West," the marker says. "It was given by the Spaniards who discovered scattered human bones along our shore, remnants of an ancient Indian battle. The English speaking people hearing Cayo Hueso mistook it to mean Key West." |
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The marker explains that shipwrecks and their salvage brought the first permanent settlers to the island. And amid the many sculptures in Mallory Square, there is a monument paying tribute to "The Wreckers" which "captures the spirit of Key West as a bold, boisterous and bustling sea town out on the frontier of a young America," according to its historical marker. "The early wreckers are depicted engaging in their work of saving lives and cargo from a vessel come to ultimate peril on our reefs. Wrecking was the island's first economy and the reason for her early existence."
But it was Cuban cigar makers that made this town grow. "In the 1860s and 70s the migration of cigar factory owners and their workers from Cuba made an indelible mark on the island that soon became Cigar City USA," another maker says. |
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Later on, one of those factory owners, Don Vicente Martinez Ybor, seeking better means of transportation to distribute his cigars on the mainland, took his factories to Tampa and became the namesake of Ybor City. As noted in a previous article, Ybor City then became known as "The Cigar Capital of the World."
In both cities, the Cuban cigar culture has survived as well as the memory of Martí. Although he lived in Manhattan during his 15 years in exile, he came to Tampa and Key West frequently, because among exiled Cuban tobacco workers is where he found moral and financial support for his revolution. It was Martí's fiery speeches in Ybor City and Key West that earned him the title of “Apostle of Cuban Freedom." In fact, the same ferries that traveled from Tampa to Key West also went to Havana. And it was from Key West that the orders to start the Cuban revolution of 1895 were embarked. |
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Marti was back in New York shortly after his 42nd birthday in 1895 when he wrote and signed the order to begin the uprising against Spain in Cuba. It was passed through several revolutionary carriers assigned with smuggling the decree into the island. When it got to Tampa, the document was rolled inside a cigar and carried to Key West by a passenger on a steamer. Another passenger on another ferry then took the cigar to Havana. After it was received by insurrectionists in Cuba, the War of Independence began on Feb. 24, 1895.
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But when Marti first came to Key West, the martyrs of a previous effort to liberate Cuba were already buried here. The Key West Cemetery has a section devoted to "Los Mártires de Cuba," for those who fought for independence from Spain in the 1868-78 war. And there is also a U.S.S. Maine Plot, for many of those who died when that American battleship mysteriously blew up in Havana Harbor, killing 266 of its 354 crew members on Feb. 15, 1898, sparking the Spanish-American War. (See photo).
The Museum of Art and History has an impressive scale model of the Maine. The exhibit includes photos to the sailors on the ship and a piece of the ship's pennant. (See photos). |
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Here you learn that the Maine was commissioned in the New York Navy Yard in September of 1895, that it was equipped with some of the most advanced naval weaponry of that time, that it cost "an astonishing $2,500,000" and that it was considered "the pride of the American fleet."
You also learn that before going to Cuba, the Maine was docked in Key West for about two months and that its crew members even had time to win a Key West baseball tournament against local folks and teams from other military vessels docked here. "Her introduction to the U.S. Navy came at a crucial time," the marker explains. "Cuba was embroiled in a revolution against the Spanish government attempting to gain its independence. With tensions heating up in Cuba, the Maine was ordered to Key West in December 1897 . . . much to the delight of residents who had concern for their safety should war break out a mere 90 miles away." |
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But although the Maine was sent to Cuba to protect American citizens living in the midst of a revolution, it lasted only three weeks before it blew up in Havana harbor. Most of the victims were brought back to be buried in Key West.
Of course, in today's Key West, there are many Cuban restaurants and cigar shops amid the many souvenir shops and tropical bars that also make this city famous. But there is one restaurant/hotel that, instead of Cuban food, serves Cuban history. It's called "La Te Da" and it was once the home of Teodoro Pérez, a cigar manufacturer who hosted Martí and invited him to speak to his followers from his second-floor balcony on May 3, 1883. |
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A historical marker outside the restaurant/hotel notes that the establishment "will forever be a symbol Key West's strong ties to Cuba" because Martí "was the symbol of Cuba's bid for independence from Spain."
"La Te Da" derives from "La Terraza de Marti” or “The Martí Balcony.” But there is another balcony made even more famous by Martí, the one at the San Carlos Institute, which is my destination for my next article. Are you coming? |
Depiction of Martí at the San Carlos Institute, from the Cayo Hueso y Habana Historium
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