Early in the morning, cigar makers start sitting at the vapores in the factory, putting their working day in order and getting down to the job unhesitatingly.

Their skills turn into nonstop clicking and clacking atop the planks. Sitting snugly in their rustic chairs, some even light up Habanos they had previously rolled for themselves and soon their faces get blurred by the rings of rising smoke. They slip their snappy fingers through the five leaves they blend, thus commencing the sculptural process that gives way to the tubular pleasure. The aroma and the flavor come together to whip that supreme delight into shape. Breaking the amazing silence of the galley –only shattered by the vibrant and emphatic voice of the factory’s reader- the chavetas clank on the tables as a signal of approval. The blaring sound of these jackknives make the moment solemn.

But, who’s this emblematic figure so capable of rattling passions and controversy? What reasons have prompted his presence only in this industry for so many years? What mystery is enshrined in his expressive voice? Traveling in time, scouring the origins of tradition, piercing into the minds of the listeners. All that makes both readers and the literary characters tell us a story in this cultural institution. The origin of factory readers goes a long way back. Some mark the year 1864 at the Viñas de Bejucal Factory. Other point to Julian Rivas’s El Figaro a year later in Havana.

I wouldn’t like to delve into multiple criteria about who the possible creator was: Jacinto de Salas y Quiroga, a Spanish traveler who is said to have left his writings in coffee plantations of rural Havana and the possibility that through reading “they could soothe the nuisance of those miserable people” (1) and make headway in the field of moral education. There’s also appreciation for a cultivated man who loves the progress his homeland makes, the great speaker with his word-laden phrases and his friends, the endearing days at the Guanabacoa School, the Cuban Don Nicolas de Azcarate.

With all due respect for those who never let go of this topic, I’ll rather like to make room for an initiative wielded by Don Nicolas when he suggested to do “something similar to… the out loud readings performed in certain religious orders. That could be done in jails in order to contribute, not only to teach, but also to amuse and comfort the unhappy inmates with long hours before them…” (2) That’s how it was born! At the Havana’s Arsenal Station, with a literary message for convicts who used to make cigarettes at the time.

At the end of the day, the prisoners had enriched their wisdom and their spirits with some reading that someone paid with wage contributions made by the listeners has provided to them. This person had the mission of conveying texts to the two galleys, a term that spilled onto the cigar-making factories as time went by.

But there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was the cigarmaking industry, that old-timed, topmost and historic sector, the one that swung its doors wide open to an old tradition that’s called reading while others work. Branders like Jose Cornello y Suarez and Don Jaime Partagas welcomed the idea with open arms and contributed to make the reader’s voice be heard in their factories. Others, on the contrary, afraid of working and political debates, fought against reading with might and main. Their complaints reached as high as the island’s Governor’s Office, who ordered the elimination of that “tradition.”

Those were times of reformists and firebrands, of anarchical thoughts, separatism and trade union beliefs that have washed ashore after sweeping Europe from Italy to Spain, and have sailed on to Cuba. There was profound concerns about Cuba’s future.

The jackknives are clanking again. They’ve never stopped since our great-grandparents worked there, either to approve or disapprove. The sound of that pleasant voice that’s literally music to the ears, that voice with a flair for the performing arts, the one that informs about politics, humor, poetry and so muchmore. The reader must wait nervously for a sign of approval. Everything’s set to let the spirals of historic, scientific, philosophical, literary and economic knowledge reach out as a source of wisdom, or just to put it in Jose Marti’s own words, as a whip with rattles on the tips.

The Struggles of the Century, A History of the French Revolution, Political Economics by Flores y Estrada, The King of the World by Fernandez y Gonzalez, A History of Spain, The Girondinos, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Lord Byron, just to name but a few, are cases in point of works from universal literature that used to be read, and are still being read today, hand in hand with Cuba’s most contemporary literary pieces.

Controversies of all stripes. Saturnino Martinez’s La Aurora, El Artesano, El Siglo –printed by the workers, and their counterparts, El Diario de la Marina, El Ajiaco or Don Junipero, a well-known satirical newspaper that even published cartoons lampooning that tradition, were read each daybreak in each and every workshop.

During the migration of cigar makers to Key West, New York, Philadelphia and other US cities, they also had their own factory readers there, men like Jose Dolores Poyo, a genuine harbinger in this particular trade. Very little has changed in this tradition since then and time has not withered it away. As many as 230 readers keep that fire burning today, the same guiding light that has kept cigar hand-rollers enlightened through their history.

Romeo & Juliet, in its 141st birthday, reminds us of the fact that this factory has also had its breeds of readers. It’s been a long time since The Count of Montecristo abandoned the galley, yet it lent its name to the world’s most sought-after brand. Don Quixote de la Mancha and his Rinoceronte still ride in joy because they have once again visited every hardworking man we find there.

Technological breakthroughs, like the radio and the microphone, came along in the 20th century to help our friendly reader speak softer as he skims through the best novels of all time and let them be the masters of silence. There can’t be any breach to that. No way.

The cigar factory reader will speak from his dais of wisdom to underscore that this tradition ought to be preserved no matter what as a piece of intangible heritage this Caribbean island loves so dearly. Author’s notes: (1-2) Taken from Reading in Cigar Factories, by Jose Rivero Muñiz. Page 23.