La Macorina

La Macorina was born María Constancia Caraza Valdés[2] in 1892[3] in Guanajay, Cuba, then in Pinar del Río Province. She was reputed to be of Afro-Chinese heritage, but her driving license appears to show a white woman.[2] Little is known of her childhood, but at 15 she left home and moved to Havana with her boyfriend. Although her parents tried to get her to return she stayed in Havana. The couple were faced economic hardship until a woman told her how they could live luxuriously and La Macorina turned to prostitution.[2] She assumed the name María Calvo Nodarse and moved to Galiano Street, near the Malecón,[4] a popular location in Havana at the time, including for prostitution.[5]

Personality and beauty helped La Macorina become one of the most elegant and famous prostitutes, entering the most select circles of Cuban society at the time. She was selective of her clients and in an interview by Guillermo Villarronda[6] for Bohemia magazine in 1958, she said "more than a dozen men were at my feet, full of money, and begging for love.”[2] She wore her hair short in the Garzón style, which was considered scandalous at the time, and smoked cigars.[7]

By the time she retired in 1934 she had amassed a fortune. She owned mansions in Havana, Calzada, Linea and San Miguel,[7] race horses, expensive furs, a large collection of valuable jewellery and 9 cars.[2]

The Asturian Alfonso Camín wrote a poem about her, "Macorina", which was later recorded as a song by Chavela Vargas,[12] one of the best-known songs of her career. The chorus is a suggestive "Put Your Hand Here Macorina ...". Vargas met La Macorina in Havana "getting out of a white car" and was struck by her "her slanted eyes and fierce hair." She later said of La Macorina “She was a beautiful woman. Black mixed from China. I saw her and I was speechless.”[13] The song became the "lesbian hymn"[12] and was banned in Spain during Francoism.[7]

La Macorina frequently drove around Havana in a red convertible Hispano-Suiza.[3] Artist Cundo Bermúdez portrayed her in that setting in a painting from memory[2] in 1978, the year after her death.[11] The red car also featured in the modified lyrics of the 1950s recording of "Macorina" by Abelardo Barroso.[3][11]

Poet Vigil Díaz wrote enthusiastically about La Macorina in his "Fatamorgana" column for the Dominican newspaper Listín Diario.[3]

In his novel Las Impuras, Miguel de Carrion based the main character La Aviadora on La Macorina.[7]

In the brass bands parade during the Charangas de Bejucal annual festival, La Macorina was honoured as one of the parade's characters by a doll with a mask of her face.[11] The doll has been preserved.[4] La Macorina is still one of the characters of the Charangas, usually being present on the floats of "La Espina de Oro" and the "La Ceiba de Plata".[14]

The nickname La Macorina is reputed to have come from a drunken young man. Whilst walking past the Acera del Louvre[15] (the terrace of the Louvre cafe where Cuba's literati and baseball players met),[16] the young man on seeing her beauty said "there goes La Macorina!". He had meant to say "La Fornarina", mistaking her for the famous Spanish cupletista, Consuelo Bello, who was commonly called La Fornarina after the famous painting of the same name by Italian master Raphael of his lover Margarita Luti.[15]

La Macorina's first car, a Ford,[17] was presented to her as compensation by an influential politician who had run her over in his car.[9] Having the car, she applied and was issued with a Havana driving licence in 1917 under the name of María Calvo Nodarse,[18] the first woman in the Americas to be issued with a licence.[19]

At the time, licences could be denied if the applicant was of an "immoral character". It has been speculated that sexual favours were given by La Macorina to obtain her licence. There are anecdotal reports that La Macorina had problems with the police soon after she obtained her licence due to her poor driving.[20]

By the time of her retirement in 1934 she owned 9 cars, mostly European brands,[2][3] including a red Mercedes[9] and two from Hispano-Suiza, one white and one a red convertible. She was often seen driving around Havana in one of the Hispano-Suizas with popular music of the time playing loudly.[2][3] The current owners of her cars sometimes bring them together as the "La Macorina Club"[21] for exhibitions in Havana.[22]

• Prostitution in Cuba

• Alfonso, Vanessa (12 April 2016). "The True History of La Macorina". www.radiometropolitana.icrt.cu (in Spanish). Retrieved 15 April 2020.
• Bono, Ferran (8 October 2013). "Chavela Vargas y la deslumbrante belleza de Macorina" [Chavela Vargas and the dazzling beauty of Macorina]. El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 15 April 2020.
• del Castillo Pichardo, José (18 November 2017). "Ponme la mano aquí Macorina" [Put your hand here Macorina]. www.diariolibre.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 15 April 2020.
• Cooke, Julia (2014). The Other Side of Paradise: Life in the New Cuba. Basic Books. ISBN 978-1-58005-532-1.
• Echevarria, Roberto Gonzalez (2001). The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-534917-7.
• Iglesias, Gema Rull (24 April 2008). "La primera mujer que condujo un auto y que obtuvo una licencia de conducción" [The first woman to drive a car and obtain a license from driving] (PDF). www.sld.cu (in Spanish). Retrieved 16 April 2020.
• Nodal, Leonel (24 February 2019). "Macorina, el nombre de una leyenda" [Macorina, the name of a legend]. Excelencias del Motor (in Spanish). Retrieved 15 April 2020.
• Ortega, Josefina (2008). "La Macorina". La Jiribilla (in Spanish). Retrieved 16 April 2020.
• Ramos-Kittrell, Jesús A. (2019). Decentering the Nation: Music, Mexicanidad, and Globalization. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4985-7318-4.
• Ross, Ciro Bianchi (2017). Cuba: A different Story. RUTH. ISBN 978-959-211-427-2.
• Schweid, Richard (2009). Che's Chevrolet, Fidel's Oldsmobile: On the Road in Cuba. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-8862-9.
• Valenzuela, Lídice (2004). "Los almendrones: museo rodante de La Habana" [Los almendrones: rolling museum of Havana]. www.cmbfradio.cu. Archived from the original on 31 May 2009. Retrieved 16 April 2020.

• La Macorina at EcuRed (in Spanish)