Murder in San Isidro: Crime and Culture during the Second Cuban Republic

Abstract

This article uses the murder of a well-known politician in Cuba, Alberto Yarini y Ponce de Leon, who was also a celebrated pimp, to delve into questions of national identity and nationalist discourse. The theoretical framework relies on the importance of gender images and prostitution in nation-building rhetoric, arguing that these matters have been used in support of political interests. Its methodology analyzes the tensions and ambivalence surrounding Cuban national identity in the first two decades of the republic. The murder of Alberto Yarini catalyzed a seemingly odd convergence of Havana elites, underworld figures linked to prostitution, and the social and cultural layers in-between. The confluence of class and culture displayed the duality that was--and some argue remains--a fundamental feature of Cuban national identity. However, this article questions the extent to which national identity--cubanidad--was the product of a nativist counterculture that contested elite nationalist discourse. The romantic version of Yarini was the embodiment of that developing consciousness. In the midst of endemic institutional corruption and graft, his most cited attribute was his "honor," within the nuanced context presented by the environment of popular classes and their sense of esteem. This work will, therefore, examine the sociocultural milieu that produced this tension, which formed part of the identities and solidarities that energized Cuban popular culture, thus providing new ways of observing an emerging national identity and drawing important but hidden connections between gendered discourse and popular leadership.