(singing in foreign language) - [David] The largest city in Eastern Cuba is Santiago de Cuba, and it was once Cuba's capital.

It remains strongly African in its roots.

To the east, is a rural region seldom visited by non-Cubans.

It's a land of sugarcane fields, semi-desert, pine-forested mountains, and a city by the sea with indigenous roots.

It's called Baracoa.

(percussion music) - [Announcer] Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was provided by Agnese Haury.

Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was also provided by the Guilford Fund.

(mellow music) (chattering) (singing in foreign language) - Cuba is nearly 700 miles in length from east to west.

Toward the southeastern end is the city of Santiago de Cuba.

(singing in foreign language) Santiago is a city of over a million people and not only is it very, very old, but it reigns extremely important in the history of Cuba and in the history of the entire western hemisphere.

Historians can give us a very good understanding of how it fits in to what's happening today in the western hemisphere.

(speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] The visitor always seems to notice an increased presence of the black and mestizo population because they are much more noticeable here than in other cities of Cuba.

Here in Santiago, our customs and language are different from the rest of the island.

Our culinary tradition is also different as you can see in our traditional foods.

Sometimes, our names for foods are different from what they are known as in Havana.

For example, we have different names for fruit.

The Santiaguera culture, although it is an indisputable part of the Cuban culture, has its own face, its own personality.

(singing in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] Santiago's importance in Cuba is undeniable.

The city was the capital of the island at the beginning of the 17th century and afterwards became the capital of the eastern department or section of the country.

Today, it is the second largest and second most important city in the country from a political, economic, and religious perspective.

We have the great privilege of having here the sanctuary of our Lady of Charity of el Cobre, and from here, in these and its people came all the elements that have become the cult of the Virgin of Charity of el Cobre.

I think Santiago at this moment is the spiritual capital of Cuba.

A proclamation from the Vatican was issued when a group of officers and veterans of the war of independence who were devoted to the virgin asked Pope Benedict the XV to proclaim our Lady of Charity of el Cobre as the patron saint of Cuba.

May 10th, we celebrate the anniversary of this proclamation.

(plaintive violin music) (speaking in foreign language) In 1517, the expedition of Hernan Cortez set sail from the bay you see here in the background on its way to conquer the empire of Montezuma.

This was the most important event in the 16th century Americas because it continued the Spanish conquest and colonization of America and the opening up of the continent for Spanish interests.

It is an event of enormous significance, a transformation that we often forget because it occurred a long time ago.

The other event, also of pivotal importance for Santiago, is that we were the principal location of the war of 1898, the Spanish Cuban American war, the war that put an end to Spain's colonial rule in America.

All of America.

The Spaniards left, never to return.

(upbeat music) - Most traffic from Santiago heads west toward Havana.

We head east instead.

It's a hundred-mile drive to Baracoa, and I've heard it has a lot of picturesque country along the way.

Driving around in one of Cuba's vintage cars is like a time warp.

They don't drive the cars because they love old cars, but because the US embargo made it virtually impossible to get new cars or even parts for the olds and have to make their own.

So the air conditioning in this '53 Plymouth, which is a great year, consists of a fan that is mounted on the dashboard.

The windshield is pretty much original.

The engine has been replaced with a Japanese diesel, but otherwise, it's pretty much the way it was.

And we see these old cars everywhere.

Buildings are not freshly painted because of the US embargo.

They could not import paint, nor the raw materials.

(singing in foreign language) Over this hillside that's planted in beans and corn, there's a small housing development.

It just looks ordinary to us, but the Cubans are especially proud of it.

It was donated by the Venezuelan government.

When hurricane Sandy arrived in Cuba, those buildings withstood all of the force of the wind and the rain without damage.

That really couldn't be said for what happened in New Jersey.

(upbeat music) When you're driving down the highway in Cuba, you may be on a freeway, a three-lane very well maintained road, but there are startling differences.

First off, just the general lack of traffic.

The other even more astonishing thing, there are very few billboards, and no billboards that are advertisements.

The few billboards there are have social messages, environmental messages, or political messages on them.

And they are used then as a way of education and orienting people's thinking.

If there's any one picture of Cuba that symbolizes the problems and its history, it's sugarcane, these vast fields of sugarcane.

This area was once entirely the richest forest in all of the western hemisphere, and now and for the last 400 years, it's been sugarcane, and sugar has no real food value for anyone.

It was all shipped away from Cuba and perpetually condemned Cuba to a sugar economy.

- Sugar may not have any food quality, but it added a kind of spice to the life of Europeans who could add it to coffee, could put it in cakes, could do all kinds of things with it.

And so, the kind of dull cuisine of Europe was changed dramatically with sugar, and so it became an incredible export product for the people who controlled Cuba.

- [David] When the Spaniards and other colonists realized, to have sugar, you had to have a lot of labor, they had to bring in slaves.

Only slaves could harvest the sugar.

So the sugar was harvested with this horrible amount of labor, made into molasses, that goes to Rhode Island, Massachusetts, where it was made into rum, and the ships were built there as part of the whole economy of New England based on slavery.

The rum then goes to Africa, traded for slaves, more slaves come (mumbles) more sugar, that historic triangle that you've talked about.

- Yes, it's a historic triangle, but it's also a vicious circle, so you can imagine how this took place.

It was the key to incredible wealth in Rhode Islands and the US colonies, then American states.

The same thing here in Cuba for wealthy Spanish land owners.

- [David] The few, the few.

- [Bill] Very few, exactly, and for slave hunters.

- I'm in the province of Guantanamo near the city of Guantanamo, and the people here are called Guantanameras.

Not far away over here is the base occupied by the United States, the base called Guantanamo.

It's been occupied for over 100 years by the United States.

It is now used as a place of internment for suspected terrorists.

Cubans view the land and the base as rightfully theirs.

The United States says it occupies it because it can.

It's a point of international discord and very sensitive for Cubans.

Looking at their history, we can understand that maybe they have a point.

(singing in foreign language) At the very eastern tip of Cuba, the land changes dramatically.

It's highly mountainous.

Dry part of the year, wet for another part, and changes depending where you are relative to the mountains.

If one side's dry, the other's wet.

Then one side's wet and the other's dry.

It separates the eastern end of Cuba from the rest of the country.

And so you find a very different culture, even different kinds of food.

It's as if it's a part of Cuba that was left behind or left ahead.

And we're here.

(vibrant percussion music) (speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] And what is that?

- [Woman] Cucorucho.

- [Translator] And how is it?

- [Translator] It's shredded coconut.

It's sweetened with sugar or with honey.

And you can add fruit to the mix of oranges, pineapple, or guava.

Now, squeeze it like this.

- So you eat it like this?

Okay, it's coconut.

Wow, that's very good, very rich.

It is sweet, but it's just got the right amount of coconut to make you very happy.

(singing in foreign language) This machine, they call a quivichana.

It has got a brake, you can brake it with this.

- [Translator] We use it for work, to paint.

(speaking in foreign language) - There's the brake in case going downhill too fast.

And you can steer it, it's got a steering wheel.

You can move it either direction, the front wheels move.

It'll be hard work pushing it up, but it's an ingenious contraption and you only find it here.

He moves it around many, many kilometers.

He's got a line plaster here.

Terrific going downhill, but then you gotta come back.

The wheels really help, but as he says, you gotta be really strong to push this all the way back uphill.

He's got double brakes here.

This one hits the wheels and this one hits the pavement.

(chuckles) You gotta double because it's really steep here and you get some momentum going downhill, you'd get carried away.

What a machine.

(vibrant music) (singing in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] We are with a young girl, perhaps the most important chocolatier of Baracoa.

She maintains the ancient traditional process of making chocolate from cacao fruit, by fermenting, drying, roasting, and grinding cacao to make chocolate.

She represents a new concept to Cuban society, an enterprising girl that will make money and pay taxes to the Cuban state.

(chattering) - This is a cacao pod.

It's quite heavy, I would guess, it probably weighs close to two pounds.

It is full of the seeds, which become chocolate.

The preferred method for determining whether it's ready to be picked or not, and this one just apparently fell, is if you scratch it and if it's green, and this one is green, it means it's not ready to be harvested.

(speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] After we collect the fruit, we open it.

We take out the seeds of the cacao.

We put it out for fermentation, which lasts about six days.

Then, when the cacao is dry, we toast it here by fire in a frying pan, 20 minutes, approximately.

After 20 minutes, it starts to pop.

Pop, pop, pop, pop.

- [Translator] Like popcorn?

- [Translator] Similar to popcorn.

That means that the cacao is ready for the next step of the process.

We peel it.

We roll it like this into a ball, and after we set it aside for a few hours, it becomes hard as a rock.

Like this, you see?

Very hard.

(tapping) Yes, 100% pure chocolate.

(singing in foreign language) - Sugarcane has this downside, believe me, but its upside is they can make a drink straight from the cane.

Guaraco, it's good.

- [Bill] Is it rum or what is this?

- No, this is straight cane juice.

It's non-alcoholic, unfortunately for some people.

This is good stuff.

- I thought cane juice was rum, but clearly this is not rum.

- No, this is not rum.

This is a juice.

It's a straight liquid from the cane, pressed, and is unlike any other juice in the world.

- Ah, sweet?

- Yeah, it's cane, sugarcane.

- [Bill] Yes, of course, but... - Now if you distill this, if you ferment and distill it, you have what Brazilians call cashasa.

If you dry it out somewhat and get molasses and ferment that, you get rum.

- Does this have an alcoholic content?

- This has zero alcohol.

Children can drink this and it won't hurt them except for their teeth.

It is awfully good stuff.

- Oh, this is a fiesta in my glass.

- Yeah, it really is.

(singing in foreign language) When I was a kid in school, I was taught that Columbus discovered America and brought European values to the Americas and everything got better.

Things have changed.

- Many of the indigenous people refuse to accept what the Spaniards brought with them.

This is a hero who resisted conversion to Christianity, led his people against that whole idea, and was burned alive for his efforts in 1513.

Today, he is a hero.

(singing in foreign language) What we're gonna see here is called the beginnings of the music here in Cuba.

But Son in Veracruz Mexico, Tamolitus Mexico, coastal Columbia would be exactly what we're gonna see here with the instruments, the lyrics, the kind of dancing that's taking place.

Cubans have expanded their version of Son into something else with trumpets and more modern instruments.

But for people who love Son music, this... - This is the base.

- This is the base in the whole Caribbean area.

(singing in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] The Kiriba is considered the origin of Son, which is the root rhythm for salsa.

Many thought it had vanished, but it still survives here in this area.

In the 19th century, Kiriba and Nengon were common here.

Since the war of independence, these rhythms were passed on from one generation to the next.

(singing in foreign language) For 30 years or so, I have been documenting the fiestas that last three to four days and are associated with regional foods, such as fish with coconut milk, black beans and rice, and fried yuccas, and plantains.

The instruments played here are the tres, in marimbula, that makes the lowest tones of the base; the maracas; (singing in foreign language) and the guajo.

(singing in foreign language) We participate in everything that has to do with popular traditions inside and outside of the country.

(singing in foreign language) - [Bill] The music is not just indigenous, but if you look at the instrumentation, it's African, it also is European.

- Yeah, I see it, a box over there from which a metallic instrument will come, which I suspect was not found in the Americas.

- No, it's played something like a marimba.

- So that really came from Europe.

- Yeah, and the other instruments, all are indigenous, for sure.

The scraper, for example, is clearly indigenous.

- [David] Yeah, we can make that locally.

- [Bill] Yes.

But what's interesting is that the people from Baracoa, which is 15 kilometers away from here, identify this place as an indigenous community.

That's their identification is, it has dirt floors.

That's the way you identify indigenous communities.

(speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] We also have many traditional dishes, around 35, 36 regional dishes because we are descendants from aboriginal culture and we try to maintain the culinary heritage with all the traditional dishes of the region.

The Nengon is danced in a circle as well as in a line, similar to other social dances.

The Kiriba is a little faster and moves in different directions because it bids farewell to the fiesta.

(vibrant percussion music) (cheering) (splashing) - Cuba has multiple cultural roots: Spanish, indigenous, and African.

The size of those are stronger in the eastern part of the country than they are in anywhere else and vast distances still separate it from the metropolis of Havana, yet the government has instilled a spirit of socialism here as well as everywhere else.

The changes are now coming fast and furious and everyone is interested to see how the effects will be here.

(splashing) (singing in foreign language) (clapping) Join us next time In the Americas with me, David Yetman.

In southern Mexico, a single highway connects the two southernmost states, both of them rich in traditions.

That highway takes us from spicy food and mezcal, to marimbas, sink holes, (chattering) and Parachicos.

The road from Oaxaca to Chiapa.

This pod came from this field in here, which is a mixture of bananas and cacao trees, even a few coffee.

We're not allowed to go in there, and the reason is the government is very concerned that pests, (mumbles), diseases would get in there and cacao, especially, the Cubans, I think, are justifiably concerned that foreigners might deliberately infect their products.

(upbeat music) (mellow percussion music) - [Announcer] Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was provided by Agnese Haury.

(mellow percussion music) Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was also provided by the Guilford Fund.

(mellow percussion music) Copies of this and other episodes of In the Americas with David Yetman are available from the Southwest Center.

To order, call 1-800-937-8632.

Please mention the episode number and program title.

Please be sure to visit us at intheamericas.com or intheamericas.org.

(mellow music)