The Festival of Cuban Identity is for many people a meeting point with its basics. Such is the case of the Colombian Rodrigo Rueda Arciniegas Williams Sonalgueiras Silva Figueredo, great-great-great-grandson of the Bayames patriot Perucho Figueredo, author of our National Anthem.

The Cuban Identity Festival makes many people come back to their roots. The tribute to La Bayamesa turned the National Anthem, that coming October 20th will mark the 150th anniversary of the first time it was sung in public, allows that descendants of Perucho Figueredo arrive these days at the city of Bayamo.

One of his great-great-grandchildren the Colombian Rodrigo Rueda Arciniegas Williams Sonalgueiras Silva Figueredo, says that being here on such a significant date is very moving for him.

It is a very moving circumstance because everything we have heard this morning has been part of our history, he noted.

Maria de Luz Figueredo, after the execution of Perucho, and having lived some very difficult months in the Cuban jungle, very young and exiled she arrives in the United States. There she married to another Cuban in exile, Dasilio Angueira Perdomo in 1873. Two years later they went to Colombia, they had a very hard trip. Because, they already had 2 girls, and during the journey the youngest daughter died. Blanca was the name of the older, the little girl name was Aurora, she died while crossing the Magdalena river in Colombia, he explained.

In 1875 the family settled in a Colombian Andean in the Tunja town, in the Boyaca department. Looking for a job, Dasilio had been invited to travel to Colombia by Francisco José Cisnero, an engineer in railways. There he got work as an engineer to build some roads, he highlighted.

In 1877, just 7 years after the death of Perucho Figueredo in Santiago de Cuba, my grandmother was born, he stated.

Imagine, since I was very young my grandmother told us many stories. I was lucky to live with her and I remember when I was 5 years old, I was singing La Bayamesa with her, she got excited and we did not understand the reason. Every October 20, she pulled the Cuban flag from her wardrobe and sang with her grandchildren La Bayamesa. It was something incomprehensible for us until we arrived to Bayamo in 1999, when we were able to come, he noted.

The other La Bayamesa by Fornaris, was her lullaby. She sang the gentle Bayames to her little grandchildren. Then since our childhood we lived the history of Cuba and all these stories of the PhD. Torres Cuevas, he added.

What the grandmother had as very important, we could only understand after coming to Bayamo. This is the third time I come to the Identity Festival, we can understand those heroic and of great generosity acts taht the Figueredo´s family had to join to Carlos Manuel de Céspedes in his longs for freedom, he noted.

Rodrigo Rueda also emphasized that the city is proud of its history and living the celebration of Cubania is an essential space for this.

Every time we visit the city, we find Bayamo more beautiful, its monuments are well conserved, the House of the Cuban Nationality is a beauty. It is very important for us to live this celebration, he stated.

Several descendants of the Bayames patriot Pedro Figueredo Cisnero ¨Perucho¨, participate in the 24th edition of the Festival of Cuban Identity, an event that this year is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the wars for independence and the first performance of the National Anthem.


Related content