The revolution’s ‘Yeyé’: Haydée Santamaría Cuadrado

Haydée Santamaría Cuadrado, also known as “Yeyé”, was a Cuban revolutionary and politician. Yeyé, who was subjected to torture in custody for days, didn’t talk and played an important role in the Cuban Revolution.

News Center- Haydée Santamaría Cuadrado was born to a Spanish family on December 30, 1922, in Encrucijada, Cuba. Her father was a master carpenter. She started working at a young age, in the agricultural sector. After trying to become a nurse and working as a teacher for a short time, she left her family and joined her brother in Havana, Cuba in the early 1950s. She met her brother’s comrades in Havana. She and her brother reached the large masses through the newspapers “Son Los Mismos” and “El Acusador”. Their house became a station for revolutionaries.

She joined the guerrilla forces

She and Melba Hernández participated in the Moncada Barracks assault led by Fidel Castro on July 26, 1953. The attack failed and Fidel Castro, Melba Hernández, Haydée Santamaria, and the remaining survivors of the attack were arrested. During her imprisonment after the Moncada assault, the guards allegedly brought her the bleeding eye of her brother and threatened to tear out the other. But her response was: “If you did that to him and he didn't talk, much less will I.” Her brother Abel Santamaría and her fiancé Boris Luis Santa Coloma were tortured to death. After her release she helped to found the 26th of July Movement, joining the guerrilla forces led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in the Sierra Maestra mountains. She then joined the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon, an all-female military platoon.

After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, she founded the cultural institution Casa de las Américas, and remained its director for two decades. Haydée Santamaría’s unique role within the Casa de las Americas allowed her to practice internationalism in the face of the United States embargo against Cuba, creating a space for artists and intellectuals from around the world to meet and collaborate in Cuba.

She was affected by the deaths of her comrades

She married Armando Hart and had two children with him, Celia Hart and Abel Hart. Haydée Santamaría committed suicide at the age of fifty-seven in the home two days after the 27th anniversary of the attack on the Moncada Barracks. Her death followed six months after the death of her close friend Celia Sanchez from lung cancer, and several months after a car accident left her in chronic pain.

Tomorrow: Tania the Guerrilla: Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider