Century of the Wind
Memory of Fire, Volume Three
Eduardo Galeano
“I believe in memory not as a place of arrival, but as point of departure—a catapult throwing you into present times, allowing you to imagine the future instead of accepting it. It would be absolutely impossible for me to have any connection with history if history were just a collection of dead people, dead names, dead facts. That’s why I wrote Memory of Fire in the present tense, trying to keep alive everything that happened and allow it to happen again, as soon as the reader reads it.”
EDUARDO GALEANO
Contents
Preface
1900: San José de Gracia The World Goes On
1900: West Orange, New Jersey Edison
1900: Montevideo Rodó
1901: New York This Is America, to the South There’s Nothing
1901: In All Latin America Processions Greet the Birth of the Century
1901: Amiens Verne
1902: Quetzaltenango The Government Decides That Reality Doesn’t Exist
1902: Guatemala City Estrada Cabrera
1902: Saint Pierre Only the Condemned Is Saved
1903: Panama City The Panama Canal
1903: Panama City Casualties of This War: One Chinese, One Burro,
1903: La Paz Huilka
1904: Rio de Janeiro Vaccine
1905: Montevideo The Automobile,
1905: Montevideo The Decadent Poets
1905: Ilopango Miguel at One Week
1906: Paris Santos Dumont
1907: Sagua la Grande Lam
1907: Iquique The Flags of Many Countries
1907: Rio Batalha Nimuendajú
1908: Asunción Barrett
1908: San Andrés de Sotavento The Government Decides That Indians Don’t Exist
1908: San Andrés de Sotavento Portrait of a Master of Lives and Estates
1908: Guanape Portrait of Another Master of Lives and Estates
1908: Mérida, Yucatán Curtain Time and After
1908: Ciudad Juárez Wanted
1908: Caracas Castro
1908: Caracas Dolls
1909: Paris A Theory of National Impotence
1909: New York Charlotte
1909: Managua Inter-American Relations at Work
1910: Amazon Jungle The People Eaters
1910: Rio de Janeiro The Black Admiral
1910: Rio de Janeiro Portrait of Brazil’s Most Expensive Lawyer
1910: Rio de Janeiro Reality and the Law Seldom Meet
1910: Mauricio Colony Tolstoy
1910: Havana The Cinema
1910: Mexico City The Centennial and Love
1910: Mexico City The Centennial and Food
1910: Mexico City The Centennial and Art
1910: Mexico City The Centennial and the Dictator
1911: Anenecuilco Zapata
1911: Mexico City Madero
1911: The Fields of Chihuahua Pancho Villa
1911: Machu Picchu The Last Sanctuary of the Incas
1912: Quito Alfaro
Sad Verses from the Ecuadoran Songbook
1912: Cantón Santa Ana Chronicle of the Customs of Manabí
1912: Pajeú de Flores Family Wars
1912: Daiquirí Daily Life in the Caribbean: An Invasion
1912: Niquinohomo Daily Life in Central America: Another Invasion
1912: Mexico City Huerta
1913: Mexico City An Eighteen-Cent Rope
1913: Jonacatepec The Hordes Are Not Destroyed
Zapata and Those Two
1913: The Plains of Chihuahua The North of Mexico Celebrates War and Fiesta
1913: Culiacán Bullets
1913: The Fields of Chihuahua One of These Mornings I Murdered Myself,
1914: Montevideo Batlle
1914: San Ignacio Quiroga
1914: Montevideo Delmira
1914: Ciudad Jiménez Chronicler of Angry Peoples
1914: Salt Lake City Songster of Angry Peoples
1914: Torreón By Rail They March to Battle
1914: The Fields of Morelos It’s Time to Get Moving and Fight,
1914: Mexico City Huerta Flees
1915: Mexico City Power Ungrasped
1915: Tlaltizapán Agrarian Reform
1915: El Paso Azuela
1916: Tlaltizapán Carranza
1916: Buenos Aires Isadora
1916: New Orleans Jazz
1916: Columbus Latin America Invades the United States
1916: León Darío
1917: The Fields of Chihuahua and Durango Eagles into Hens
1918: Córdoba Moldy Scholars
1918: Córdoba “The Pains That Linger Are the Liberties We Lack,” Proclaims the Student Manifesto
1918: Ilopango Miguel at Thirteen
1918: The Mountains of Morelos Ravaged Land, Living Land
1918: Mexico City The New Bourgeoisie is Born Lying
1919: Cuautla This Man Taught Them That Life Is Not Only Fear of Suffering and Hope for Death
Ballad of the Death of Zapata
1919: Hollywood Chaplin
1919: Memphis Thousands of People Flock to the Show,
1921: Rio de Janeiro Rice Powder
1921: Rio de Janeiro Pixinguinha
1921: Rio de Janeiro Brazil’s Fashionable Author
1922: Toronto This Reprieve
1922: Leavenworth For Continuing to Believe That All Belongs to All
1922: The Fields of Patagonia The Worker-Shoot
1923: Guayas River Crosses Float in the River,
1923: Acapulco The Function of the Forces of Order in the Democratic Process
1923: Azángaro Urviola
1923: Callao Mariátegui
1923: Buenos Aires Snapshot of a Worker-Hunter
1923: Tampico Traven
1923: The Fields of Durango Pancho Villa Reads the Thousand and One Nights,
1923: Mexico City/Parral The People Donated a Million Dead to the Mexican Revolution
1924: Mérida, Yucatán More on the Function of the Forces of Order in the Democratic Process
1924: Mexico City Nationalizing the Walls
1924: Mexico City Diego Rivera
1924: Mexico City Orozco
1924: Mexico City Siqueiros
The People Are the Hero of Mexican Mural Painting, Says Diego Rivera
1924: Regla Lenin
1926: San Albino Sandino
1926: Puerto Cabezas The Most Admirable Women on Earth
1926: Juazeiro do Norte Father Cicero
1926: Juazeiro do Norte By Divine Miracle a Bandit Becomes a Captain
1926: New York Valentino
1927: Chicago Louie
1927: New York Bessie
1927: Rapallo Pound
1927: Charlestown “Lovely day,”
1927: Araraquara Mário de Andrade
1927: Paris Villa-Lobos
1927: The Plains of Jalisco Behind a Huge Cross of Sticks
1927: San Gabriel de Jalisco A Child Looks On
1927: El Chipote The War of Jaguars and Birds
1928: San Rafael del Norte Crazy Little Army
“It Was All Very Brotherly”
1928: Washington Newsreel
1928: Managua Profile of Colonial Power
1928: Mexico City Obregón
1928: Villahermosa The Priest Eater
1928: Southern Santa Marta Bananization
1928: Aracataca The Curse
1928: Ciénaga Carnage
1928: Aracataca García Márquez
1928: Bogotá Newsreel
1929: Mexico City Mella
1929: Mexico City Tina Modotti
1929: Mexico City Frida
1929: Capela Lampião
1929: Atlantic City The Crime Trust
1929: Chicago Al Capone
Al Capone Calls for Defense Against the Communist Danger
1929: New York Euphoria
From the Capitalist Manifesto of Henry Ford, Automobile Manufacturer
1929: New York The Crisis
1930: La Paz A Touching Adventure of the Prince of Wales Among the Savages
1930: Buenos Aires Yrigoyen
1930: Paris Ortiz Echagüe, Journalist, Comments on the Fallen Price of Meat
1930: Avellaneda The Cow, the Sword, and the Cross
1930: Castex The Last Rebel Gaucho
1930: Santo Domingo The Hurricane
1930: Ilopango Miguel at Twenty-Five
1930: New York Daily Life in the Crisis
1930: Achuapa Shrinking the Rainbow
1931: Bocay The Trumpets Will Sound
Sandino Writes to One of His Officers: “We won’t be able to walk for all the flowers …”
1931: Bocay Santos López
1931: Bocay Tranquilino
1931: Bocay Little Cabrera
1931: Hanwell The Winner
1932: Hollywood The Loser
1932: Mexico City Eisenstein
1932: The Roads of Santa Fe The Puppeteer
1932: Izalco The Right to Vote and Its Painful Consequences
1932: Soyapango Miguel at Twenty-Six
1932: Managua Sandino Is Advancing
1932: San Salvador Miguel at Twenty-Seven
1933: Managua The First U.S. Military Defeat in Latin America
1933: Camp Jordán The Chaco War
Céspedes
Roa Bastos
1934: Managua Horror Film: Scenario for Two Actors and a Few Extras
1934: Managua The Government Decides That Crime Does Not Exist
1934: San Salvador Miguel at Twenty-Nine
1935: The Villamontes-Boyuibe Road After Ninety Thousand Deaths
1935: Maracay Gómez
1935: Buenos Aires Borges
1935: Buenos Aires Discepolín
1935: Buenos Aires Evita
1935: Buenos Aires Alfonsina
1935: Medellín Gardel
1936: Buenos Aires Patoruzú
1936: Rio de Janeiro Olga and He
1936: Madrid The Spanish War
1936: San Salvador Martínez
1936: San Salvador: Miguel at Thirty-One
1936: Guatemala City Ubico
1936: Trujillo City In the Year Six of the Trujillo Era
Procedure Against Rain
Procedure Against Disobedience
1937: Dajabón Procedure Against the Black Menace
1937: Washington Newsreel
1937: Rio de Janeiro Procedure Against the Red Menace
1937: Cariri Valley The Crime of Community
1937: Rio de Janeiro Monteiro Lobato
1937: Madrid Hemingway
1937: Mexico City The Bolero
1937: Mexico City Cantinflas
1937: Mexico City Cárdenas
1938: Anenecuilco Nicolás, Son of Zapata
1938: Mexico City The Nationalization of Oil
1938: Mexico City Showdown
1938: Coyoacán Trotsky
1938: The Hinterland The Cangaceiros
1938: Angico The Cangaceiro Hunters
1939: São Salvador de Bahia The Women of the Gods
Exú
María Padilha
1939: Rio de Janeiro The Samba
1939: Rio de Janeiro The Scoundrel
1939: Rio de Janeiro Cartola
1939: Montserrat Vallejo
1939: Washington Roosevelt
1939: Washington In the Year Nine of the Trujillo Era
1939: Washington Somoza
1939: New York Superman
1941: New York Portrait of an Opinion Maker
1942: New York The Red Cross Doesn’t Accept Black Blood
1942: Oxford, Mississippi Faulkner
1942: Hollywood Brecht
1942: Hollywood The Good Neighbors to the South
1942: María Barzola Pampa A Latin American Method for Reducing Production Costs
1943: Sans-Souci Carpentier
1943: Port-au-Prince Hands That Don’t Lie
1943: Mount Rouis A Little Grain of Salt
1944: New York Learning to See
1945: The Guatemala–El Salvador Border Miguel at Forty
1945: Hiroshima and Nagasaki A Sun of Fire,
1945: Princeton Einstein
1945: Buenos Aires Perón
1945: The Fields of Tucumán The Familiar
A Wake for a Little Angel
1945: The Fields of Tucumán Yupanqui
1946: La Paz The Rosca
1946: La Paz Villarroel
1946: Hollywood Carmen Miranda
1948: Bogotá On the Eve
1948: Bogotá Gaitán
1948: Bogotá The Bogotazo
1948: Bogotá Flames
1948: Bogotá Ashes
1948: Upar Valley The Vallenato
1948: Wroclaw Picasso
1948: Somewhere in Chile Neruda
1948: San José de Costa Rica Figueres
1949: Washington The Chinese Revolution
1949: Havana Radio Theater
1950: Rio de Janeiro Obdulio
1950: Hollywood Rita
1950: Hollywood Marilyn
1951: Mexico City Buñuel
1952: San Fernando Hill Sick unto Death
1952: La Paz El Illimani
1952: La Paz Drum of the People
A Woman of the Bolivian Mines Gives the Recipe for a Homemade Bomb
1952: Cochabamba Cries of Mockery and Grievance
Shameless Verses Sung by Indian Women of Cochabamba to Jesus Christ
1952: Buenos Aires The Argentine People Feel Naked Without Her
1952: On the High Seas Wanted: Charlie the Tramp
1952: London An Admirable Ghost
1953: Washington Newsreel
1953: Washington The Witch Hunt
1953: Washington Portrait of a Witch Hunter
1953: Seattle Robeson
1953: Santiago de Cuba Fidel
1953: Santiago de Cuba The Accused Turns Prosecutor and Announces: “History Will Absolve Me”
1953: Boston United Fruit
1953: Guatemala City Arbenz
1953: San Salvador Dictator Wanted
1954: Washington The Deciding Machine, Piece by Piece
1954: Boston The Lie Machine, Piece by Piece
1954: Guatemala City The Reconquest of Guatemala
1954: Mazatenango Miguel at Forty-Nine
1954: Guatemala City Newsreel
1954: Rio de Janeiro Getulio
1955: Medellín Nostalgia
1955: Asunción Withdrawal Symptoms
1955: Guatemala City One Year after the Reconquest of Guatemala,
1956: Buenos Aires The Government Decides That Peronism Doesn’t Exist
1956: León Son of Somoza
1956: Santo Domingo In the Year Twenty-Six of the Trujillo Era
1956: Havana Newsreel
1956: At the Foot of the Sierra Maestro Twelve Lunatics
1957: Benidorm Marked Cards
1957: Majagual Colombia’s Sainted Egg
1957: Sucre Saint Lucío
1957: The Sinú River Banks Saint Domingo Vidal
1957: Pino del Agua Crucito
1957: El Uvero Almeida
1957: Santiago de Cuba Portrait of an Imperial Ambassador
1957: El Hombrito Che
Old Chana, Campesina of the Sierra Maestra, Remembers:
1958: Stockholm Pelé
1958: Stockholm Garrincha
1958: Sierra Maestra The Revolution Is an Unstoppable Centipede
1958: Yaguajay Camilo
1959: Havana Cuba Wakes Up Without Batista
The Rumba
1959: Havana Portrait of a Caribbean Casanova
1959: Havana “We have only won the right to begin,”
1960: Brasília A City, or Delirium in the Midst of Nothing
1960: Rio de Janeiro Niemeyer
1960: Rio de Janeiro Guimaraes Rosa
1960: Artemisa Thousands and Thousands of Machetes
1961: Santo Domingo In the Year Thirty-One of the Trujillo Era
1961: Santo Domingo Defunctisimo
1961: Bay of Pigs Against the Wind,
1961: Playa Girón The Second U.S. Military Defeat in Latin America
1961: Havana Portrait of the Past
1961: Washington Who Invaded Cuba? A Dialogue in the U.S. Senate
1961: Havana María de la Cruz
1961: Punta del Este Latrine Diplomacy
1961: Escuinapa The Tale Spinner
1961: São Salvador de Bahia Amado
1962: Cosalá One Plus One Is One
1962: Villa de Jesús María One Plus One Is All
1963: Bayamo Hurricane Flora
1963: Havana Everyone a Jack-of-All-Trades
1963: Havana Portrait of the Bureaucrat
1963: Havana Bola de Nieve
1963: Río Coco On His Shoulders He Carries the Embrace of Sandino,
1963: San Salvador Miguel at Fifty-Eight
1963: Dallas The Government Decides That Truth Doesn’t Exist
1963: Santo Domingo A Chronicle of Latin American Customs
1964: Panama Twenty-Three Boys Are Pumped Full of Lead
1964: Rio de Janeiro “There are dark clouds,”
1964: Juiz de Fora The Reconquest of Brazil
1964: La Paz Without Shame or Glory,
1964: North of Potosí With Savage Fury
Hats
1965: San Juan, Puerto Rico Bosch
1965: Santo Domingo Caamaño
1965: Santo Domingo The Invasion
1965: Santo Domingo One Hundred Thirty-Two Nights
1965: Havana This Multiplier of Revolutions,
Che Guevara Bids Farewell to His Parents
1966: Patiocemento “We know that hunger is mortal,”
1967: Llallagua The Feast of San Juan
1967: Catavi The Day After
1967: Catavi Domitila
The Interrogation of Domitila
1967: Catavi The God in the Stone
1967: On the Ñancahuazú River Banks Seventeen Men March to Annihilation
1967: Yuro Ravine The Fall of Che
1967: Higueras Bells Toll for Him
1967: La Paz Portrait of a Supermacho
1967: Estoril Society Notes
1967: Houston Ali
1968: Memphis Portrait of a Dangerous Man
1968: San Jose, California The Chicanos
1968: San Juan, Puerto Rico Albizu
1968: Mexico City The Students
“There was much, much blood,” says the mother of a student,
1968: Mexico City Revueltas