José Marinas was my father. His image in my mind arose warm feelings in my heart. I deeply loved and love him. His major gift was his spirit of service to the others. Consciously, I have tried to imitate him. Even if I don’t tell people why I am the way I am, deep inside I know that this is the best that I could do to preserve his memory, to be a Marinas.
My father was born in the countryside of the province of Asturias, Spain. He was native from Muñas, an aldea near Luarca and Oviedo, probably the two most important cities of Asturias. He was the younger of two children. His oldest brother was born with cerebral palsy and lived all his short life in a wheelchair. His mother’s name was Maria Suarez Poladura. He used to have a picture of her working in the field with other relatives. Using my imagination, I liked to give motion to the only photo of her my father had, and observed her harvesting the earth, or taking cattle to pasture, always working with her hands. She was a tall woman. Since I am the tallest of my father’s offspring he used to say that I resemble her. (“Tú eres la que te pareces a ella.”) And I looked at the photo to see the resemblance and felt very proud of it.
Maria Suarez Poladura, my paternal grandmother, was a single mother who was born in Muñas, lived in Muñas, and died in Muñas. I was not sure where my paternal grandfather was born. Once I heard my mother say that he was born in Cuba from Asturianos parents. Other times I heard that he was born also in Muñas. What is true is that Bernardo Marinas Garcia left his wife and children behind and migrated to Cuba when my father was a young child. He did so because he had some relatives there and also because there were more opportunities in Cuba than in Asturias, Spain.
My father followed his father’s path to Cuba. He told us that he came in his late adolescence, in a ship, with other immigrants from Asturias. The first stop was usually the port of Havana and from there to Key West and later, Tampa. At that moment, Spain was going through many economic and political difficulties: in 1917 there was a general strike that broke into violence. Socialism and anarchism were growing and labor unrest spread. Many of the workers were also anti-clerical and they turned their anger on the church. Several churches and convents were burned. Finally, in 1923 General Primo de Rivera staged a coup to restore order.
When my father arrived to the port of Habana, he was taken to a military quarter called Triscornia because he didn’t have any relatives with an address that could be responsible for him. There he was for a few days or weeks until one of the soldiers of the military quarter, José Eleuterio Pedraza, allowed him to be free and gave him a few pesos to travel to meet his father in an unknown region and without means to survive. The last information about his father in Cuba was that he was working in Central España. So to Central España went my father, to find out that Bernardo Marinas was no longer there.
Without money and with just a few mudas de ropa (changes of clothes), my father asked for work and bed in the Departamento Comercial (commercial department). The administrator of the Departamento Comercial, a native from Galicia, understood his needs and allowed him to work and to sleep in the back, in the storehouse.
There, José Marinas started his life in Cuba. He worked very hard, he did whatever he was asked to do, he saved to send money to his mother Maria, and he continued asking questions while trying to find his father Bernardo.
My father never forgot this good deed of Pedraza. He always was in contact with Pedraza. At one moment of Cuban history, Pedraza went to prison and my father traveled to La Cabaña prison, in the province of Habana, to see him at every possible opportunity. Toward the end of the revolutionary struggle, December 1958, a group of rebels killed Pedraza’s oldest son. My father went to Manacas, in a town in the province of Las Villas, for the funeral. At that difficult moment in the history in my country, that gesture of my father spoke by itself of his values and sense of loyalty to those who helped him in moments of despair.
Around 1935, my father went back to visit his mother. His brother had already died. He found her as he left her before, working with her hands on her own piece of land. The political situation in Spain had not improved: Spain was affected by the world depression and unemployment rose. Disaffected workers held strikes, which often became violent. In November 1933, “the right” won a general election and they set about undoing the modest reforms of the previous government. The result was an uprising in Asturias, Spain. However the government crushed the revolt. In February 1936 “the left” wing won an election and Spain became bitterly divided between right and left. My maternal grandmother pushed my father to return to Cuba as soon as possible, afraid that he could be involved in the political struggles that Spain was facing. My father returned to Cuba less than a month after his arrival to Spain.
A few years later, his mother died. My father didn’t attend her funeral. He never went back to Spain. He never wanted to go back again. When I was five or six years of age, through the Embassy of Spain in Habana, I learned that my father sold the piece of land that he inherited from his mother to his relatives. He used the money to buy life insurance for him and his family.
My father continued working in the Departamento Comercial of the Central España. First, he used to live in the store’s warehouse but later he moved to one of the barracon rooms constructed during the previous century to host the African slaves that were working in the sugar plantations. After Cuban independence, the administration used the barracones to host the single men that came during the sugar harvest to work in the field and in the ingenio (sugar factory).
Soon he found a new family and became a member of La Logia Masónica del Perico, the town next to Central España. What I learned about freemasonry or masonry was from my father. Freemasonry is not a religion but is dedicated to the Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God. It uses the tools and implements of ancient architectural craftsmen symbolically in a system of instruction designed to build character and moral values in its members. Its singular purpose is to make good men better. Its bonds of friendship, compassion, and brotherly love survived even the most divisive political, military, and religious conflicts through the centuries. Moreover, freemasonry is a fraternity that encourages its members to practice the faith of their personal acceptance. Masonry teaches that each person, through self-improvement and helping others, has an obligation to make a difference for good in the world. In sum, the Masonic experience encourages members to become better men, better husbands, better fathers, and better citizens. The fraternal bonds formed in the lodge help build lifelong friendships among men with similar goals and values.
My father devoted his life to be a good Freemason, to participate actively in their activities until the last moment of his life. He went through all the steps within the local institution, and later the Logia Masónica of the City of Matanzas, the capital of the province, recognized him. He became grado 33, which is the supreme step within the fraternity, and a member of the Supremo Consistorio of the Gran Logia Masonica de Cuba.
My father dedicated his life to serve others, “to do favors.” He also was a very friendly person. Peasants from the different farms came to ask for help. They might say, “I have a son sick and there is no bed in the hospital,” and my father took him to the hospital because he knew someone there, maybe a Freemason, or maybe another person that he had met before, or maybe just a compassionate person that listened to him and helped him to help others. “My brother died and I don’t know how to prepare him for the burial,” someone might say, and my father went and cleaned and dressed the dead brother. “My son had problems with the police but he is a good child,” and my father went to the police station and discussed his case with the police and he gave his word (su palabra) that it would never happen again. And it never happened again because “Marinas dio su palabra por ti.” (Marinas gave his word for you.) When my father retired in 1960 and went to live with us in Habana, he became the head of the Comision de Duelo y Beneficiencia (Commission of Grief and Benevolence) of the Supreme Consistory of the Masonic Temple in Habana. His voluntary work was to visit the sick members or the sick relatives of the members, to accompany them during funerals, and to go with them to the cemeteries when they died.
My father also remained connected with the other Asturianos living in Cuba. He was member of the Centro Asturiano and the whole family was also subscribed to the Quinta Covadonga, a health clinic with inpatient and outpatient services. For a few years, in the month of September, my father took his family to La Romeria to the facilities of the beer brewer industry of “Cerveza Polar”. It was a celebration of the Virgen de la Covadonga, patroness of Asturias. The festivity began with a mass and was followed by food, drink, and dance. My father met his paisanos, introduced his children to them with big pride, and drank sidra. When I was around three years old, my mother prepared the typical Asturiana dress for me so I could wear it on La Romeria. My father loved to see me dressed as “Asturiana.” And through his proud eyes, I enjoyed being called pichon de asturiana.
Whatever my father had said throughout the years about the history of Asturias stayed in my mind and when I had the opportunity to visit Oviedo, the capital of Asturias, I was able to identify the cathedral. When I went to Los Picos de Europa National Park and to the Shrine to the Virgin Mary of Covadonga, and at the mountain lakes (Los Lagos) near Cangas de Onís I remembered the legend that my father had told me about Pelayo and how the virgin blessed Asturian forces so they could defeat the Moorish column in the valley of Battle of Covadonga. From him I learned not only the important role played by the province of Asturias in the Reconquista of Spain, but I also learned why the heredero al trono is called Principe de Asturias. Moreover, I learned why some proud Asturians say that “Spain begins in Asturias” or “Spain would not be Spain without the cojonudos Asturianos.”
My father never attended formal school. He knew how to read and write in a very primitive way. He knew the rudiments of math, but he heard the national and international news through the shortwave band every night. He had a fantastic memory. He was able to discuss international economy and international governments. He listened every night to the military debriefings during World War II. I have the vivid image of my father, after work, drinking a cold beer next to the radio, listening and reacting to the news.
Later, my father subscribed to Diario de la Marina, the most prestigious newspaper in Cuba. The Diario de la Marina used to have several sections, one of them the graphic one where reporters displayed photos “de la crónica social.” On this crónica social, my mother found a picture of Monsignor Arcadio Marinas, a second cousin of my father, who at that moment was the general vicar of the Habana Archdiocese. That was the beginning of very radical changes in my life. I will write about it later.
At noontime, the Departamento Comercial closed for two hours, and all the workers went to their houses for almuerzo y siesta (lunch and nap). After lunch, my father always went to bed with the Diario de la Marina. He never passed page after page just looking the pictures. No, he invested his time and effort to reading every single article about politics in Cuba and abroad, world economics, regional and worldwide wars, etc. I never asked how long he spent finishing the reading of any article … but I enjoyed his comments and summaries at night.
Usually my father was the one that accompanied me during my travels to and from the boarding school in Habana. Those trips were opportunities for him to talk to me about his town, this country, his life, about his difficulties, about his ambitions for me, and about the big sacrifice they were doing separating me from them and separating them from me. “Es por tu bien, mijita, para que te hagas una mujer de provecho, para que seas una doctora.” (It is for your good, my daughter, so you became a person with resources, so you can become a doctor.) The eternal dream of poor immigrant parents: to give their children the best so they can bring to reality their own dreams and feel their sacrifices and difficulties as justified by their children’s deeds.
When I grew up my father used these trips to discuss with me his big source of enjoyment: politics. I learned about General Francisco Franco, Juan Domingo Peron and his wife Evita, Gerardo Machado, and Fulgencio Batista from my father’s analysis. I learned about the United States and its vision regarding Latin America and I learned about the Guerra Civil Española. I learned the meanings of autonomia, ingerencia, libertad, democracia, and constitution (autonomy, intruder, freedom, democracy, and constitution). When he discussed the history of his native Spain, his voice got inflamed with patriotism. My father hated Marxist-Leninist Communism. He was able to describe its differences with the free pluralistic societies and how this movement “used” the workers, peasants, and poor families on its behalf. But he was not blind to the defects of democracy. This informal teaching has guided my political criteria throughout my life.
Around the late 1960s I went to San José de las Lajas, a town in the province of Habana. At that moment I was part of a secular institute called Instituto de Cooperadoras Diocesanas I went there with another member of the community during Lent to work in a mission. During the day we went to visit different places to advertise what we were doing in the Catholic Church every night. I still don’t know why, but I went to one shop where the owners were selling men’s hats. The place looked very familiar to me. The owners were immigrants from Spain, more specifically from Asturias, and as I got more information, those people seemed to me like people that I knew. I still didn’t know when, how, and why. When I identified myself as Gelasia Marinas, the daughter of another Asturiano from Muñas, they looked at each other. “You have been here before,” they told me. “When you were a child. Your father used to come here on his trips to Habana and from Habana. We are not relatives, but we are from the same aldea. After 1957, your father never came back, and we didn’t have the opportunity to tell him that Bernardo came to live here the last days of his life. He died in the almacen (warehouse) where we allowed him to live. Poor Bernardo, he killed himself drinking. Would you like to go to his tomb in the cemetery?”
The whole picture of my father searching for his father came to my mind. All the struggles that he went through, his poverty, his loneliness, his drinking difficulties that interfered with his social and family life, his pain… all these memories deeply hurt me more than ever before. That night when I was preaching about the spirit of Lent, I was proclaiming the Word that I was unable to follow because I was talking about forgiveness, and I cannot forget what my paternal grandfather and my father went through. When I came back to Habana after the mission, I visited my father and talked to him about the parientes de la aldea (relatives from the hometown), but no word about Bernardo. I still don’t know why I omitted that piece of information but for sure, today I regret not doing it because I took away an opportunity of closure for my father.
My last memory of my father was the day before his death when I went to visit him at the hospital. I was seven-months pregnant. At that moment in Cuba there was no way to know if the newborn was going to be a boy or a girl. My father always had said, “Ahí viene un Pepito.” (Here comes Pepito.) We sat together and I told him about the international news of the day: the return of Juan Domingo Peron and his new wife Isabel to Argentina. My father was not happy with that and he described why. I left him and went home feeling the same way that I always felt when I was near to him. The next day my father died as he had lived: quiet and without making problems. After taking his shower, he sat on the rocking chair of the hospital and said, “I don’t feel well.” That was it.
When my father died on May 26, 1973, his funeral was held in the Gran Templo Masonico of Habana, the supreme institution of the Freemasons in Cuba. To his funeral came people from many Cuban cities, and I heard many good deeds done by my father: “He was a dedicated person. He was so caring. He was always there to help others.” He was my father, José Marinas Suarez.
During this funeral, I didn’t approach the corpse. I didn’t sit in the first row. I was in the back, putting together all “our” memories, enjoying all the tributes that my father was receiving, and feeling terribly proud of him.
On February 10, 2005, our son moved to Spain with his wife and their dog. So that summer, Pepe and I decided to travel to Madrid to spend some time with them and use the opportunity to discover Muñas. I prepared myself for this visit: I collected the very old photos of my father, his father, his mother, his baptism certificate, and his 1928 Spanish passport.
During the years that I was working in the Diocese of Brooklyn, I met and worked with a priest, born in Asturias, who went back and at that moment was working in the Archdiocese of Oviedo, Asturias. Before traveling, I contacted him with the hope of finding out if there were relatives of my father alive in Muñas. He contacted the priest who serviced the parish of San Juan Bautista de Muñas who gave the name and phone number of one person whose last name was Marinas, was born in Muñas, still had a house in the town, and, most importantly, whose relatives traveled to Cuba and/or went to live in Cuba.
We traveled to Oviedo on July 1, 2005. My son and my daughter-in-law took turns driving. As soon as you left the province of Leon, we started to notice the different landscape. Asturias is a set of green mountains and hills whose tops reach the sky in such a way that you only find two colors with different modalities: green and blue.
The next day, Ms. Marinas and her son came to pick up us. We traveled through the mountains, doing zigzags all the time—with mountains on one side and a deep green valley on the other side. When we reached Muñas my heart stopped for a while. The aldea consisted of country houses or horreos surrounded by green fields because the aldea was in a valley surrounded by green hills. The aldea had a cemetery and a church.
Ms. Marinas’ father’s name was José too. She cannot remember the connection of my father with their family roots, but when she saw the photo of my father in his thirties she got very impressed and took me to her living room where she had the photo of her father. The similarity was impressive—the same facial expression, the same eyes. With her, I visited the church where my father was baptized and I touched la fuente baptismal (baptismal fountain), as if by doing so I was bringing him back so we could pray together for our family.
A few months later, I spoke with Ms. Marinas over the phone. She told me about “some of her cousins” that just returned back to live in Luarca, They had knew my father in San José de las Lajas. They said that my paternal grandfather, Bernardo, was born in Cuba from Asturian parents who migrated to Cuba, worked there for a while, and later retired and returned back to live in Luarca.