Sin nombre

Marseille today In July - August of 1968, mamita and I lived with abuela Amalia for 3 weeks after arriving in Miami from Cuba. Surprisingly, considering her history with mamita and papito, she gave us temporary refuge. The new relationship did not last long. Months later, we found out that abuela was calling relatives and friends accusing mamita and I of putting poison in her breakfast juice during the time we lad lived with her. I heard it directly from abuela Amalia, too, without abuela knowing that I was there.

One day, I asked papito to tell me about su mamá, mi abuela Amalia Lussón y Lussón. As he told me, abuela Amalia's ancestors were from the South of France, Marseille, who had migrated to the island of Haiti (Santo Domingo was formed later). There the family had owned a plantation and had become wealthy using slave labor as all plantation owners did.

Because my Lussón ancestors were colonialists in Haiti, they escaped dealing with the French Revolution of 1789; however, they were caught up in the Haitian revolution instead. During the Haitian revolution (1791-1804), whites were massacred and, as a result, the period 1800-1809 saw an influx of about 27000 Haitian French - Amalia's family among them - into Santiago de Cuba, a town in the easternmost part of the island and the seat of Spanish colonial power at the time.

The French and Franco-Haitian émigrés were a great economic engine that revved up Santiago into a commercial center. Unfortunately for them, France and Spain went to war and most of the French were expulsed from Cuba (many moved to Louisiana) in 1810 but my Lussón relatives were among those that were allowed to stay in Cuba. Time passed by, the family did well and, among other things, opened up a pharmacy, a business that was highly valued because it brought in medicines to the area. Years later, both abuela Amalia and papito as a child worked in this pharmacy.

Santiago de Cuba La mamá de Amalia, bisabuela Teodora (Dora to all who knew her), was born into this economically comfortable and respected family that remembered its recent privileged times as plantation owners. But Dora shamed the family when she became the mistress of the scion of a very wealthy and aristocratic family in Santiago de Cuba. Dora bored him two bastard daughters and Amalia was one of them. Being a bastard at no time has been an easy matter (that is why "bastard" is still an insult in our times) but, in addition, Amalia's dad did not recognize his daughters. Officially then, Dora's daughters were recognized by a relative, Emilio Lussón, and so the girls had to endure being "Lussón y Lussón". (In contrast, abuelo Antonio bestowed his apellido on all his bastards; he registered 19 sons and daughters before dying in his late 40's of diabetes. But maybeit is easier when one is neither wealthy nor famous.)

Papito told me the name of Amalia's father, mi bisabuelo, but I can't remember his full name except he was an Aguilera or Aguilar. At the time papito told me, a little over a decade ago, I looked it up on the internet and to my astonishment, the family was a well known, aristocratic and very wealthy family in Spain. And then , it really sank in, how we - Amalia Lussón y Lussón's branch of the family - represented the skeletons in that family's closet.

Abuela Amalia y mi tia abuela (la hermana de Amalia) were shaped differently by the circumstances of their birth. As I heard it, abuela's dad was married and had legitimate daughters and sons. Hence, bisabuela Dora's daughters grew up sin nombre - shamed as bastards - and seeing their half sisters pampered by wealth and as members of the high society. I also heard that, as latifundistas are wont to do, my nameless bisabuelo had a large mansion on a hill that overlooked Santiago de Cuba so, every day, Amalia and her sister may have looked upon it and be reminded of their father, his wealth and social status.

Besides being a bastard, abuela Amalia was a manic depressive who had psychotic episodes. Maybe these forces - shame, rejection and illness - fueled by her pride were what shaped her into what she became.