Nostalgia Corner: Why the Bolero Was Censored in Cuba | My Latino Voice

My Latino Voice, November 4, 2009

Nostalgia Corner: Why the Bolero Was Censored in Cuba

Written by Kenia Fernandez

The recent Juanes concert in Cuba created a storm of controversy over the issue of censorship of cultural expression. Many non-Cubans were perplexed by the intensity of emotion in Cuban-American communities. But a recent conference I attended illustrated how the emotions were attached to the sounds and scenes we saw erupt across the country.

Boleros Prohibidos, o La Habana Sin Olga Guillot ["Forbidden Love Songs, or Havana Without Olga Guillot," the acknowledged queen of Cuban torch songs], is a powerful multimedia tour of the romantic music of Havana in the 1950s, the golden age of the bolero. Its author, Armando López, a journalist and cultural critic, was a man who came of age in Havana's cabarets and night clubs, when world-class stars such as Olga Guillot, Elena Burke, and Beny Moré were creating their best ballads: "Miénteme," "Qué Sabes Tú," "Cómo Fue."

Olga Guillot, her music was banned and black listed by the Castro regime.

I grew up hearing this music, and it does evoke powerful emotions in me as well. Few love songs in English can move me so. These songs and artists are the soundtrack of memories of my mother and father, dancing to "Soy Tan Feliz" in an embrace, of my abuelito serenading my abuelita with "Contigo en la Distancia," in his honeyed baritone.

The Union City audience of several hundred bolero fans -- many silver-haired abuelitos y abuelitas, and not a few much younger folks -- sang along with every single sound clip, and ooh'ed and aah'ed at the photos and film clips of their idols. Many were overcome with feelings and memories.
Why the nostalgia, why such emotion? Anglo-American seniors don't tend to cry like this when they hear Nat King Cole or Johnny Mathis.

López went on to explain that in Revolutionary Cuba the bolero came to be seen as incongruent with the goals of building a new society. First, jukeboxes were confiscated from corner bars and nightclubs (there were as many as 20,000 jukeboxes in Havana in the 1950s). Then, in 1961, at the First Congress of Writers and Artists, music was defined as an organ of integration into the new Revolutionary society. The bolero came to be seen as a reactionary genre, in bad taste, and ultimately, banned. Cuba's world-class composers and performers, many of whom had brought the genre to its golden age, were abruptly silenced.

Finally, in 1968, in the Ofensiva Revolucionaria -- the Cuban equivalent of China's Cultural Revolution -- most of the 1,200 cabarets and dance halls for which Havana was known were shut down (with only a couple of exceptions, including the notable Tropicana). Bolero lovers and performers were left with no viable venues. An entire generation was traumatized by loss of the very words and music that had defined the key moments of their lives -- coming of age, first loves, stolen kisses, secret romances.

So in the context of musical censorship, it is not surprising that Juanes and his project stirred so much controversy. Heartfelt debates on the usefulness of economic and cultural boycotts are not likely to end, as long as there are states that attempt to silence a love song.

Armando López is a writer, journalist, and arts producer, using a fusion of genres and artists. His shows have been staged at Lincoln Center and other major venues in New York and Havana. In Cuba he founded the journal Opina, which the state shut down in 1990. He has spoken on Cuban popular music at universities and cultural institutions all over the US. He often writes for Cubaencuentro.com.

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