Today’s Food for Thought is in celebration of the exhibit, “Invisible Immigrants: Spaniards in The United States, 1868-1945.” This very important exhibit premieres in our country in Tampa due to our ties to Spain and the foundation of the cigar industry in Ybor City built by Spanish immigrants. The exhibit can be viewed at The Tampa Bay History Center, March 1-August 3, 2025. This acclaimed exhibition garnered over 30,000 visitors during its successful tour in Madrid, Spain. “The Invisible Immigrants: Spaniards in the US, 1868-1945” exhibit is devoted to the history and value of “Spanish immigration to the United States during the last decades of the 19th century and the early 20th century.”
The contributions of our Spanish Immigrants who settled and developed Tampa and Ybor City can not be underestimated. In its heyday, there were 200 cigar factories in Tampa producing one million cigars daily. Our Spanish immigrants, with their cigar making experience, put Tampa on the map.
This exhibition is more than making cigars. Invisible Immigrants documents Spaniards working in Hawaii’s sugar cane fields, Zinc mines in Newark, New Jersey, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, sheep farming and agriculture in California, cattle ranches in Idaho and Montana, farms in Wallkill, New York and Vermont, businesses in Cherryvale, Kansas to fledgling business enterprises wherever they settled. Our Spanish immigrant’s contributions helped make our country what it is today. Collaboration with the curators of the exhibition, journalist and filmmaker Luis Argeo, of Asturias, Spain, and New York University Professor, Dr. James D. Fernandez made this remarkable exhibition available in the US. The Spain-United States Council Foundation has also made this Invisible Immigrants Exhibit possible. Visit their website at:
Photo courtesy of Invisible Immigrants: Spaniards in the US (1868-1945)
In this Food for Thought, friend, fellow writer, historian and researcher Cathy Varon Alvarez, is my guest contributor. Following are excerpts from her memoir, Diaspora, stories documenting her family’s journey to Tampa and Ybor City from Spain and Cuba. Cathy unearthed this history through photographs, letters, recipes and books discovered in her mother's Tampa storage unit, some of which are also featured in Dr. James Fernandez book, Invisible Immigrants. Cathy's photographs are part of the display in this esteemed and important exhibit at the Tampa Bay History Center.
Cathy has written of the closeness of her family and the special events shared cementing ties between Spain and the United States. To further her research, Cathy learned to speak Spanish and traveled to Spain to meet long-lost family members in Asturias and Galicia. The result of Cathy’s research and travels has established her as a sensitive writer, historian and dedicated researcher who has illuminated her family’s history, and that of other Spaniards, in her memoir, Diaspora.
The following excerpts from Diaspora illuminate the lives, difficulties, joys and sorrows of Cathy's family who made their way from Spain to the United States in the late 1800s to the early 1900s. From wet nurse, to nanny to cigar makers, Cathy’s grandparents and great-grandparents helped build our city. Cathy has documented the legends, history, and myths passed down by the spirits of these ancestors. Her stories rise from the ephemera unearthed in a Tampa storage unit. These artifacts establish the basis for Cathy’s Diaspora. To continue her journey supporting history, Cathy is to be a docent at the Tampa Bay History Center.
Ramona
"Here, drink this, it will calm your nerves and it’s good for your milk.” Ramona dutifully did as she was told. She was leaving in the morning for A Coruña. She would leave her three young children, Jesus, age ten, Emilia, three, and baby Maria. The children would remain in the care of her husband, Manuel, and his sister Concha. Ramona would board a steamship bound for the tropics the following morning.
Ramona sank into the rocking chair as Concha brought little Maria to suckle her breast one last time. Her tired body was soon warmed by the combination of the roaring fire in the fireplace and the beer she had drunk earlier. The rocking chair creaked quietly on the damp wood floor beneath her. She turned her thoughts to the coming days and weeks. Manuel was busy making the final arrangements for her train passage to A Coruña. He would accompany her to the port and ensure she boarded safely. She had to be in Havana in three weeks to report for work.
Her employer, a Cuban aristocrat, Señor Martinez Ybor, who was the Cuban Consul in the United States, had paid for her passage. Señor Ybor’s wife was expected to deliver her baby any day now.
Ramona lifted Maria to her shoulder and patted her on the back, eliciting a satisfactory burp. She lowered her to her other breast to continue nursing. Ramona could hear Concha singing a soft lullaby as she tended to Emmy and Jesus in the next room.
She once again burped her sweet baby and changed her diaper. After placing Maria in her crib she turned her attention to the older children. Knowing it would be a long time before she would have the opportunity to tuck her children into bed again it took all her strength and fortitude to hold back her tears. She watched her children silently as they drifted off to sleep. She would be on the train to A Coruña by the time they woke in the morning. Jesus would be practically a man by the next time she saw him. Emmy would be a schoolgirl, and Maria, a toddler playing with dolls.
Before they left for the train station, Concha reminded Ramona to massage her breasts and continue to express milk during the journey. Perhaps there will be a baby on board the ship who will need to nurse.
Once they arrived at the port Manuel found a stevedore to help with Ramona’s steamer trunk. He and Ramona tearfully reassured each other that this was the right thing to do. “Once we can save enough money, we will join you, either in Havana or in Tampa.”
That day would come more than two years later when the family was reunited in Cuba. On October 6, 1912, one day after Maria’s third birthday, the family boarded the SS Olivette bound for the Port of Tampa.
Josefina
It was early in Josefina's pregnancy when she boarded the ship which would bring her to a new life. She endured unending nausea. She could not keep her food down and was losing too much weight from her already petite frame. Even in her misery, Josefina was beautiful with long, dark curly hair and deep brown eyes. She caught the eye of a handsome older gentleman, aptly named Angel.
Angel was originally from Malaga, but currently lived in Cuba and traveled back to Spain frequently. Josefina had never seen such a dark Spaniard. He looked much different from any Spaniard she had ever seen in the north of Spain. He was at least twice her age, but there was not a single wrinkle in his olive complexion, a trait he must have inherited from Moorish ancestors. There was not a hint of grey in his almost jet-black hair.
For Angel, it was love at first sight. Although Josefina was appreciative of his attention and care, her emotions were still raw. Her village had been ravaged by the flu, killing her husband, mother and father. Josefina was not ready to consider Angel as anyone more than a dear friend, which she desperately needed. Love would come with time. Angel never left her side for the rest of her life.
Josefina never made it to Argentina, her original destination. She delivered a baby boy in Cuba and Angel loved and raised little Pepe as his own son. Josefina learned to roll cigars and together she and Angel came to Tampa where she bore him four more children. Fifteen years after first meeting on the passage to Cuba, Angel and Josefina were married.
Benigno
On Cuero Mountain in Asturias, thirteen-year-old Benigno is preparing to leave with his three teenage brothers, Antonio, Jose and Maño. They must leave the country or face mandatory conscription into the Spanish Army, a fate worse than death. The army was so ill-equipped that soldiers were more likely to die due to famine and pestilence than to perish in battle.
Their oldest brother, Celestino, left several years earlier with their cousin and was now living in Ybor City, a thriving immigrant colony near Tampa on the West Central Coast of Florida. In his letters, he wrote of the booming cigar industry, reassuring his family the boys would have no problem finding work in the factories. He wrote about the dances he attended at the Centro Asturiano, one of several mutual aid societies available to help the immigrants in their new country.
Finally, the day arrived and it was time for the boys to leave. They kissed their tearful mother and sisters as they bid farewell. With a few coins in his pocket, Benny grabbed his mandolin and a bag of apples and jumped into the back of the hay wagon. Their father and their younger brother, Alvaro, took turns guiding the mule-drawn cart along the road to the port of Gijon. There, they would board a ship bound for Havana.
Upon arrival in Havana, Benny was quarantined due to illness. It would be a few months before he was strong enough to continue his journey to Tampa. Meanwhile, the other boys went on ahead and were reunited with their oldest brother, Celestino. Soon enough Benny rejoined them and they became Tabaqueros, making the finest cigars in the world.
Celestino died in the 1918 Flu epidemic, but the others lived on and thrived in their new home. The cigar industry was booming and Ybor City was at the center of it all.
Lecturer at an Ybor City cigar factory, who read newspapers and the classics to cigar makers as they worked.
Cathy’s ancestral history is just one link in a long necklace of immigrants who have come to our country since the wave of immigrants began in 1607 in Jamestown, Massachusetts. Unless you are Native American, your family came from somewhere else.
Immigrants helped develop our country in all industries. Spaniards were recruited by flashy posters in their native countries encouraging them to join our labor ranks. They helped to feed us not only through agriculture but also bringing their recipes to establish ethnic restaurants from Brooklyn to Tampa and beyond. Today, we all enjoy these Cuban and Spanish restaurants and markets.
Tampa became the cigar capital of the world, thanks to the Spaniards who brought their talent to Ybor. Every state in our country has been enhanced by the labor and knowledge of not only Spaniards, but all immigrants. They brought their culture in language, literature, music, art, dance, sports and food. Today, citizens from Mexico, Venezuela, Guatemala and other southern borders are the backbone of our vegetable and fruit production as well as labor, creativity and brain power in all industries.
The common factor of all of us is that we came to this country in search of a better life. My life, and that of my husband’s, would not exist were it not for our ancestors arriving here from England, France, Ireland and Germany since the 1800s to 1929.
We are the United States of America. To preserve our future we must embrace our past. Let’s all recognize our roots and the ways in which we have all contributed to our country for hundreds of years. We were all immigrants once. I encourage you all to visit this remarkable exhibit, Invisible Immigrants, at the Tampa Bay History Center, March 1-August 3, 2025.
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Cathy Varon Alvarez
Born in the vibrant neighborhood of Ybor City and raised amidst the charm of South Tampa, Cathy Varon Alvarez is a native Tampanña. Cathy has dedicated herself in reclaiming her Spanish heritage through her discovery of her mother's past in letters, photographs, recipes and books. Cathy enlarged her ancestral search through her travels to Spain where she met long-lost family members. Being a gifted storyteller, Cathy weaves the "true myths and legends" of her ancestors into her memoir, Diaspora. Her expert research, sensitive writing and photographs are a tribute to her ancestors and made Cathy a valued contributor to Immigrants: Spaniards in the US book and exhibit. The Invisible Immigrants events will begin February 27 and continue through the premier opening at the Tampa Bay History Center, March 1. The exhibit will be exhibited at the Tampa Bay History Center through August 3, 2025. Cathy earned her Bachelor of Science Degree from Loyola University in New Orleans. She continues to practice as a Certified Registered Dental Hygienist in the Tampa Bay area. Cathy lives in Tampa with her husband. Her greatest joy is time spent with her family as well a cooking family recipes, researching, writing, reading and gardening.
Very good piece, Jayne, I enjoyed it.