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Lector de tabaquería

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Lector de tabaquería

The thumping of the jackknives calls for silence among all cigar rollers. It’s then when the cigar factory reader –declared National Cultural Heritage in Cuba- gets cracking

n 2015, we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Cigar Factory Reading, a social phenomenon that has characterized the Cuban tobacco industry while the skillful hands of our cigar rollers started making the unique habanos. Since December 21, 1865, at “El Fígaro” factory in this city, the voice of one of the workers could be heard, who was handpicked –due to pitch, diction, dramatization capability and cultural knowledge- to read for the rest of them. That became a tradition.
At the very outset, several cigar rollers, all of them men, were in charge of this activity in some factories, but there were other places where only one man did it.
When mentioning the Partagas brand, thousands of habano enthusiasts feel rejoiced as this brand has stood for the genuine strength of habanos while its vitolas are sought after by many around the world. It’s important to recall that the man who founded it, Jaime Partagas, offered the podium for a reader, Saturnino Martínez, a labor leader at the time and publisher of the “La Aurora” newspaper, who eventually became the staunchest advocate for the cigar factory reading.
This practice started a piecemeal establishment all over the city and throughout the island nation in early 1866. And he did it regardless of the many refusals and conflicts that cigar workers had to cope with when dealing with their employers, especially in talking the latter into allowing this form of entertainment that eventually panned out to be a true academy of knowledge and patriotism in our country.
SELECTED WORKS   
There is no ancient documentary register that reflects the newspaper news, works, authors, articles and other topics that have been read over all these years, though several articles and testimonies shed some light on the topics read at Partagas, the diversity of texts that were listened to by cigar rollers, the newspapers the used to be read, together with books, supplements, volumes on the French Revolution, the History of Spain, Víctor Hugo’s classic novel Les Misérables –by far the most read book at the time- works written by Shakespeare, Cervantes and Saavedra, Benito Pérez Galdós and other authors.
The different stages endured by Cuba over the second half of the 19th century certainly made readings focus on social and political problems, so poetry and other literary genres were embraced by socialist and anarchist propaganda.
The education of Cuban cigar rollers reached its peak during the period to organize the 1895 Independence War, schemed and led by Jose Marti, who had found moral and financial support among cigar rollers who had migrated. Tampa and Key West were home to many revolutionary clubs, fundraising actions for the cause and revolutionary activities for the independence of Cuba. Some of the most passionate speeches delivered by Marti took place at the daises of cigar factories.
THE TRIUMPH OF READERS
Why did reading, unlike other sectors, strengthen in the tobacco industry? The first one refers to the level of organization and distribution within the factory, to constant communication among cigar rollers.
Cigar hand rolling is an occupation that has been ranked high by the people, since habanos are works of art with social recognition and universal scope. The level of union organization reached by this sector, especially its firebrand role in the start of working class struggles.
We’ll have to travel back in time a century and a half to properly understand that cigar rollers, regardless that most of them were illiterates, were able to give up on part of their wages to pay for the readers.
A NEW CENTURY
The 20th century, with radio sets and microphones equipped in cigar factories, facilitated the flow of information among cigar hand rollers; baseball games –Cuba’s national pastime- music and radio shows became alternatives to enrich the readings, thus giving readers the opportunity to extend their job to every department inside the factory.
Some aspects that even a century and half later remain unchanged in terms of its methodological structure:

Three reading shifts
The existence of a Reading Commission
A bell sound to start the reading
Cigar rollers vote for titles by reading the synopsis and choosing the most acclaimed works
The thumping of jackknives to signal approval or disapproval for the reading
The use of the radio

Other aspects which are not contained in a Decree Law are also part of the traditions.
It’s important to point out that since the very beginning, that’s the only post in the tobacco industry that has to be approved first by the workers and then by the management.
In 2012, Cuba’s National Heritage Council declared Reading in Cigar Factories, Selection and Wick Removal areas, as National Cultural Heritage.
Nevertheless, this tradition features other values that take it to a new level and open up a possibility to have UNESCO declare it World Live Heritage in the near future. These values are:

    Cigar factory reading stands for an efficient agent of education, science and culture, the three main pillars of UNESCO’s mission.
Cigar factory readers are knowledge repositories in all senses, due to the variety of literary genres they read
Since 1865, the reading tradition has been passed on from cigar rollers to the family, Cuban and foreign visitors that visit the factories, the community, as audio systems have taken the voices of readers miles away from each factory.

So let’s celebrate in this Habano Festival the 150th Anniversary of readings and praise over 200 readers who are scattered across the island nation.