Veronica Garcia (b. 1944) reached for my arms and pulled me into her home. “I KNEW you would come!” She said, putting aside and, more curiously, ignoring the hostess gifts that I had come bearing, with hard-to-get-in-Cuba foodstuffs. With her broad smile, jet-black, soda-can-size curls and thick makeup, she was the embodiment of a retired cabaret performer. Before we could take our seats in her living room, she paused for a brief moment of choreography, extending her arms outwards and one hip out. Then, with considerable husk and ease, she projected her voice into the room and sang, “What can I tell you about my history?”
From the outset, Veronia Garcia was direct and to the point: She wanted her history written. I hesitated, explaining that I was really an art historian and that I worked with photographs. Veronica only shrugged and sent her daughter to pull out her collection of a few hundred images. She slipped her reading glasses through her enormous curls and immediately began sorting her photographs. Our encounter was so disarmingly pleasant that, only days later upon sitting at my desk to transcribe the interview, the scenario became suspect. After more than two years, I understand why the interview went all too well: Veronica and I share the professional challenges of photo editing—the process through which individuals carefully select a group of images to tell a story.
. . .photo editing is a hazard because the images provide details that can either enrich or fatally problematize that story.”
Based upon my particular exchange with Veronica that day, and other much less interesting career gaffes of my own, I now believe that even the basic steps in photo editing can be near perilous. These dangers exist on two accounts. On the first, the images that create a critical structure for a story need to be both visually organized as well as singularly compelling. Namely, the viewer must be able to identify the main subject of an edited photograph collection quickly, but the viewer also needs to be interested in each image enough to keep paying attention for the next photograph. On the second account, photo editing is a hazard because the images provide details that can either enrich or fatally problematize that story.
With regards to the basic scaffold of the story that Veronica shared with me, truth be told: the playback of our recorded exchange is not very engaging. As we discussed her selection of images, our conversation featured an organized but predictable tale. Veronica’s account revealed that throughout her career, she struggled a lot, but she also had a number of professional coups.
Sometimes, oral histories that fall this easily into place might still manage to be charming. However, a story that succeeds in written form can still become weighed down by photographs. After working for nearly five decades in Cuba’s extremely competitive entertainment industry, Veronica is not just a lead performer—or storyteller—but she also wields different types of media with considerable skill. In retrospect, our discussion probably suffered from both her advanced editing skills and my overeager prompting. Veronica told me about her history and she showed me images about precisely what I would aim to elicit during an interview. Overall, I did not get much idiosyncratic and captivating material that would let me write about her in the unique way that she deserves to be portrayed. She had presented the photographic material so effectively that I cannot claim to be able to write a new critical story of this master entertainer. All I am doing here is examining the path through which she, very skilfully, led me.
She selected more than 80 portfolio cabaret portraits that she deemed fine for me to scan and reprint. She even signed a waiver for me to reproduce the images. I was fortunate enough to take these selected materials back to my place of residence for the night. I stayed up until the early morning hours scanning photographs. I scanned all of her “better” career photographs, the ones that she found most useful and also aesthetically pleasing. Notably, materially, these attest to extreme handling. There are glue remnant marks on the back of select images as she transferred the images between different albums. I have now examined scans of the damage to these photographs for two years. I finally recognize that I will never be able to piece together the incredible stories that Veronica has told with her different portfolios of audition images. I was too late for those performances. And even as a writer, I will not be able to write, revise or edit her story beyond Veronica’s very strongly outlined instructions- those spoken or photographically cued.
After a great deal of consideration of our discussion, and the images put before me, I understand that Veronica had a specific campaign in mind to present to me during our meeting. She argued that her performance work in the private tourism market was more important than the histories that emphasize Cuban government sponsored entertainment. There are now a number of books and articles that discuss the growth of state entertainment in the 1960s and beyond. In contrast to these accounts, Veronica’s photographic evidence depicts her youth and early success. In 1962, she regularly purchased images produced by the professional photographer at Havana’s “Lucky Seventh” Club. Her collection includes close ups, posed portraits, images of her dancing and singing, as well as some scrapbooked elements from the club.
Like many entertainers in the 1960s, Veronica became involved in Afro-Cuban Religion, particularly the belief system known as Santería or La Regla de Ocha. She developed a large religious family network that, arguably, continues to be foundational for much of Cuba’s entertainment industry. Her attendance of religious music celebrations led to connections with the Conjunto Folklórico Nacional de Cuba. Although she did perform with the group in the Teatro Nacional, her career benefitted from more lucrative performances for the private tourism industry.
Neither the entertainment industry associated with the Cuban State, nor the private tourism entertainers, enjoyed tremendous success in the 1980s.”
Veronica emphasized that the better Afro-Cuban religious performers, like herself, moved into the tourism market. She provided me with visual evidence of a compelling travelogue through Hungary and Bulgaria. These performances in Eastern Europe were part of extended cabaret tours that Cuban entertainment companies participated in during the 1980s when the government could not support the alcohol industry and most of the clubs closed. State-run entertainment facilities remained, to a limited extent, open. Ultimately, I am not sure that either side of the debate wins. Neither the entertainment industry associated with the Cuban State, nor the private tourism entertainers, enjoyed tremendous success in the 1980s.
While sorting her images, Veronica delegated the photographs of an ex husband—who also worked in the entertainment industry—to the personal pile. A number of photographs of entertainment colleagues, several of whom had departed for the United States and might have achieved some international fame, also went into the private pile. For Veronica, this was not their story. I tried asking her to talk about this material several times. Her arguments about the private industry might have been stronger with greater discussion about the diaspora. However, Veronica herself had stayed in Cuba and continued to perform within the private sector.
Throughout her entertainment career, Veronica regularly edited her images into a professional portfolio. By that, I mean she routinely selected the images that would tell a particular story for her different types of professional interviews. Veronica Garcia has never stopped interviewing, ever. She has constantly auditioned with employers, performance troupes, television, radio, advertising and now an art historian. The photographic images that she has selected do not simply highlight the strength of her career in performance, but also her agency in shaping her story. Veronica Garcia had known that I would visit her. I do not believe she expected me personally, but surely another interviewer, or audience member, would appear.