cubaninsider: My Cuban Odyssey

It Started With A Photo

Truth be known, this photograph started my Cuban odyssey back in the 1980s. At the time, I probably knew two things about Cuba -- "Castro" and "Havana." I then had no more interest in the island of Cuba than, say, Jamaica or the Aleutian Islands (wherever they are). I noticed this photo, quite by accident, in a bookstore in Richmond, Virginia, in 1982. It was on a postcard that was on a circular rack. I lifted it up, studied it, and then dropped it back in its slot. I purchased the hardback book that had enticed me to the store and then went out to my car, starting it up. But looking straight ahead, the image of that photo on the postcard came back at me from the windshield as if from a mirror. I turned the ignition, cutting off the car motor. I reentered the bookstore and purchased that postcard. I remember it cost me $1.06. I guess the six cents was the sales tax. The little girl clutching the block of wood...I didn't know at the time that she was Cuban...fascinated me initially and then, after taking time to study it, I succumbed to it, allowing it to grab hold of my heart and my imagination. But I still didn't know the story behind it. I just assumed that the little girl had a very special attachment to that block of wood. But why? She was, for sure, a beautiful little girl, with big eyes and an awesomely expressive face. What state did she live in? Was she poor? Was she rich? Who took the photograph? Why did she love that block of wood so much? I didn't have those answers, yet I knew the photo was natural and that the block of wood was special, not a prop. The back of the postcard, at least, revealed the photographer's name -- "Alberto Korda." The name looked Spanish to me. I guessed he was Mexican. The other answers took a few days; in 1982, you know, Google had not yet been invented.

The "Alberto Korda" tip on the back of the postcard prefaced my trip to the library where a helpful librarian expedited my research. Korda was born in Cuba on September 14th, 1928. But all other references to him in the library related to a rather famous photo Korda had taken in 1960 of Che Guevara, the Argentine doctor who had become famous as a guerrilla fighter in the Cuban Revolution, which had shocked the world by beating the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship on January 1, 1959. I, in fact, had seen images of Korda's "Che" photo...on T-shirts, coffee mugs, collegiate dormitory walls, etc., but they had never interested me enough to ever take special note of them or even wonder why they were so ubiquitous. But the little girl holding the block of wood did impact me. Very much. The problem was, at least in Richmond in 1982, all my initial research on Korda led right back to "Che." Therefore, I remember spending more than a few days and nights wondering, pondering, about that little girl holding the block of wood. Why was that block of wood so special to her? The elusive answer verily challenged me.

I distinctly remember getting irked about the ubiquity of Korda's "Che" photo every time I tried to find out about the Korda photo that really concerned me, the one of the little girl and her...block of wood.

But gradually, as I learned more about Alberto Korda in my diligent efforts to separate him from "Che," the photo of the little girl and the block of wood came more into focus. That helpful librarian, perhaps wary of my persistence, surprised me one day with an intriguing update. She directed me to an article about Korda in the London Daily Mail. The "Che" photo had made him and his name "Korda" world famous. The significance of the article resonated strongly with me when the librarian pointed to a segment she had cordoned off with a blue magic-marker. Just past the obligatory references about "Che," there was a quotation, underlined in yellow by the librarian, that instantly quickened my heartbeat. The article quoted Korda saying these revelatory words: "But truth be known, my excitement about the Che photograph emerged only after it began to take off. Yes, it is why I can hold exhibitions in London and around the world. But apart from the money and fame, the photograph that has most affected my life...and changed my life the most...is that one over there, the one on the upper-left of that display rack." The Daily Mail reporter then said, "You mean...the little girl?" Korda, obviously showing emotion, said, "Yes, I mean...the little girl."

"Yes, I mean...the little girl."

Alberto Korda died of a heart attack on May 25th, 2001, while holding an exhibition of his photographs in Paris, France. "Yes, I mean...the little girl." Till the day he died, of all the historic and iconic photographs he took, Korda was most famed for and will eternally be identified with "Che." But the one dearest to his heart was the one of the little Cuban girl holding the block of wood. She was not only holding it, she was loving it. She was pretending it was a doll. It was her most treasured possession. Her parents, you see, were too poor in Batista's Cuba prior to the Revolution to buy her a doll, or even buy products to make her a doll. But Korda noticed that the little girl prized her doll, the wooden block of wood, more than most rich little girls would love their expensive dolls. That little girl, and the photo he took of her clutching her doll, not only "affected" Korda's life but "changed" it. He was aware, in the Batista-Mafia dictatorship of the 1950s, enormous amounts of money were being made by the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and rich U. S. businessmen who owned most of the so-called "legitimate" businesses and companies in Cuba.

Korda had seen poverty like this in Batista's Cuba.

And Korda also saw poverty like this in Batista's Cuba.

And Korda saw brave marches like this in Batista's Cuba as mothers, outraged over the murders of their children, killings supposedly designed to quell dissent, actually fueled the Cuban Revolution.

Abundantly aware of the one-sided poverty and unconscionable brutality in Batista's Cuba, Korda fervently supported the Cuban Revolution that defeated the Batista-Mafia dictatorship on January 1, 1959.

After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Korda became Fidel Castro's official photographer and later said that Fidel "never told me what to photograph or what not to photograph. I chose the subjects." This Korda photo shows Fidel with Earnest Hemingway and was taken when Korda was with the newspaper Revolucion. Korda traveled with Fidel to the U. S. in April of 1959 and took many famous photos during that 12-day trip. In the next ten years he also traveled with Fidel to Venezuela, Russia, and other countries.

Korda took this photo of Fidel Castro on April 16, 1959, in Washington, D. C. It shows Fidel looking reverently up at the Jefferson Memorial. On that day, Fidel was a heroic and very popular U. S. visitor.

Korda took this photo of Fidel on April 18, 1959. Fidel is shown reading dispatches at the Cuban Embassy in Washington. He didn't know then that the embassy would soon be closed for half-a-century.

Everything was fine and celebratory for Fidel, Korda, Celia Sanchez, Camilo Cienfuegos and the rest of the Cuban entourage on their 12-day trip to Cuba in April of 1959...until Vice President Richard Nixon flummoxed Fidel {above} by telling him the Cuban exiles and the U. S. would "be back in charge of Cuba within weeks." That, of course, has never happened in all the decades since, but Nixon's boastful and imperial words set the tone that has existed since April of 1959, at least till Mr. Obama tempered it.

In the interim, the great Cuban photographer, Alberto Korda, found everlasting fame in 1960 with his iconic photo of "Che." But till the day he died in Paris on May 25th, 2001, the photo that was dearest to Korda's heart was the one he took during the Batista dictatorship, the one of the little Cuban girl clutching the block of wood and pretending it was her doll. When I first saw that heart-wrenching photo in 1982, only with the help of a diligent librarian could I discover how Korda himself had been touched by that little girl, and that hard-to-obtain information first came to me with the 1982 article in the London Daily Mail. But now here in 2016 we have Google...and even Wikipedia! So in just a matter of a few seconds a researcher can now discover what Korda thought of that little girl. In Korda's Wikipedia bio, you can see that he says: "Nearing 30, I was heading toward a frivolous life when an exceptional event transferred my life: The Cuban Revolution. It was at that time that I took this photo of the little girl who was clutching a piece of wood for a doll. I came to understand that it was worth dedicating my work to a revolution which aimed to remove these inequities."