Monday, 11 April 2011 16:57
Cuba´s Arab House
Over the centuries, the legacy and cultural amalgam of Arab, Chinese, American, African, Spanish and French have formed a great melting pot, as defined by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz. In the case of Arabs, perhaps we can attribute their migration here to Christopher Columbus or the illustrious Catholic Monarchs, since there is speculation about the presence of Moorish crew members during the conquest, something quite logical after so many years of Arab domination in Spain.
There was also the subsequent introduction of slave labor for productivity on the island, as well as the Africans´ arrival and ethnic groups beréberes and yolofes, who practiced Islam. Many religious and civil buildings erected on the island during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, have an Arabic architectural footprint, specifically called the Mudejar style; for example, Havana´s Holy Spirit Church and houses on Tacon #4 and Oficios #12 Streets in the historic city center, all of which can be visited.
During the second half of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, a significant amount of Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians, Libyans, Algerians and Yemenis immigrated to Cuba—the biggest percentage being Lebanese. Cubans, with our bad habits of categorizing people geographically, call everybody Moors, even the Polish (although they had nothing to do with Federico Chopin´s homeland), just as we call anyone from Spain a Galacian.
In Havana, the Arabic community settled mainly in Monte roadway, where they have established stores, restaurants, sweet shops, Maronite Rite churches, help and recreational societies, always with a clear sense of ethnic identity and community. Also, in the Santa Amalia cast, which today belongs to the Arroyo Naranjo area, there was a special group, mostly of Lebanese, who engaged in retail and wholesale, founding an Arabic association, and many of whom became part of the town´s social elite.
There are countless Arabic imprints in Cuba, through contributions to the Castilian language and our Cuban sayings, as well as the important Moorish spices used in our Creole cuisine and their aromatic plants in our gardens.
Since 4 April, 1979, Cuba´s Arab Union gathered Levantine immigrants and their descendants residing on the island, in order to unify and form Havana´s Lebanese Society, the Arabic Center and the Palestinian Arabs of Cuba, which are all meant to promote and spread their identity, traditions and overall Arabic culture. Havana´s Historian Office´s House of Arabs is another institution working toward promoting Arab cultural heritage on the island, and has an ethnographic museum and memorial exhibition of the Arab immigration to Cuba.
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