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" Cuba has nine official National Public Holidays
January 1st - Liberation Day & New Year’s
Liberation Day is also called “Triunfo de la Revolucion.” This day celebrates the removal of dictator Batista from power and the start of Fidel Castro’s power.
January 2nd - Victory of the Armed Forces
A holiday commemorating its revolution’s history.
Good Friday
Good Friday became a national holiday following the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. The first Good Friday recognized as a holiday was in 2014, according to Granma, the Official Body Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.
May 1st - International Labour Day
Called “Dia de los Trabajadores,” Havana-Guide.com noted there are many celebrations this holiday, including “speeches on the ‘Plaza de la Revolucion’ celebrating the work force and the Communist party.”
July 25th till 27th - Commemmoration of the Assault to Moncada/National Rebellion Day
This three-day long holiday remembers the 1953 capture and exile of Fidel Castro, according to VisitarCuba. This happened near Santiago in the Moncada army barracks. This week is also celebrated with carnivals in Santiago as the saint day of St. James (Santiago).
October 19th - Independence Day, “Dia de la Independencia”
Independence Day celebrates the early independence of Cuba in 1868, when Carlos Manuel Cespedes freed his slaves and began the War of Independence against Spain, according to Travel Cuba.
December 25, 2017 - Christmas, “Natividad”
Christmas has only recently been re-established as a holiday due to Pope John Paul’s visit in 1998. "
― Hank Bracker
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" The terms that Sforza Cesarini offered Rossini, 400 Roman Scudi, were not ungenerous, though it must have been galling for Rossini to see the Figaro, Luigi Zamboni, getting almost twice as much, and the Almaviva, Manuel Garcia, being offered three times the amount. Of the first-night cast, only the 'altro buffo', Bartolomeo Botticelli, who played Bartolo, and the 'seconda donna', Elisabetta Lowselet, who played Berta, were paid less than the composer. "
― , Rossini
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" ¡Zape! (Shoo!) Go away, go away, espíritu maligno (bad spirit)!” they sang. “Go back to where you came from!”
The festive musical celebration combined the prayers and songs with expressive dancing to the rhythm of percussion and string instruments, which accompanied the child’s ascent into heaven, where she would become an angel. Women, men and children ate, drank, prayed, sang and danced. They also played games like la gallina ciega (the blind chicken) where children tried to escape the touch of a blindfolded child who would walk around trying to feel for them. Whoever she touched was disqualified from the game.
The baquiné lasted throughout the night.
In a time when so many children perished to disease, this was a way for the child’s loved ones to say good-bye and endure the painful loss. But when all were gone, the crude reality set in.
Manuel will never forget the image of those poor parents, devastated, sitting alone right next to the altar where their child lay dead, weeping desperately at her loss.
He prayed for Ana’s soul. He prayed for those parents.
And he prayed that he would never have to suffer the agony of losing a child. "
― Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini , Antonio's Will
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" All Americans were immigrants at one point or another,” he explained in his letters to his parents.
Even his father Manuel migrated to Puerto Rico. Manuel was deemed a Peninsular, an immigrant from Spain, and sometimes even the Puerto Rican-born, the criollos, resented the Spanish-born newcomers. Manuel was familiar with being singled out, although not quite as much as Antonio felt while in New York.
“It is amazing how people tend to forget their past,” Antonio wrote to his parents, surprised. “I recall what you told me about Maestro Rafael, Papá, when he said to you ‘never forget your history. "
― Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini , Antonio's Will