El Mejunje Cultural Center | Inclusion in Cuba: The Dream of a "Society of the Future"

Virginia creeper grows over the colorful facade on Calle Marta Abreu in Santa Clara. Guitar sounds and laughter drift from the courtyard. Jorge Luis Crespo appears in the doorway of number 12. The gaunt man is wearing all white today, his long dreadlocks falling over his shoulders. He is the good soul of the El Mejunje cultural center – sometimes a craftsman, sometimes a bartender, always there where he is needed. He greets me with a broad grin: "Are you visiting Cuba's most inclusive club again?" He points to the mural of laughing hands on a brick wall. The image represents diversity and is dedicated to the now 75-year-old actor and educator Ramón Silverio, who helped establish the cultural center. This openness, which Jorge Luis Crespo embodies, is reflected in the entire concept of the Mejunje.

Santa Clara is located in the interior of the country, with a population of 350,000. Virtually every child knows the cultural center, which offers bolero afternoons for the older generation, rock and techno events for the younger generation, and theater and art workshops for the very young – in addition to exhibitions, concerts, and party events. The concept is open and diverse. The cultural center includes exhibition spaces, a 150-seat theater, as well as offices and studios.

More than a dozen drag queens from the region have contributed significantly to the innovative reputation. Colorful wigs, thick eyeliner, lavish blush, garish outfits, and radiant smiles are the trademarks of the "transformistas," or quick-change artists, like Zulema Anderson. Her photo hangs alongside others on the exposed brick wall at the rear of the center, where Orlando Reynoso has been behind the bar every evening for more than 30 years, transforming the space.

Tonight, it's disco time. Santa Clara's queer scene flocks to Mejunje. Drag queens in dazzling dresses strut across the cobblestones on stilettos. Their brightly colored wigs bob to the beat of the music. Cuban cowboys sway their hips while elegant women in austere evening gowns or skimpy miniskirts whizz by—aloof yet part of the colorful spectacle.

"Our drag queens are a flagship," says Orlando Reynoso. "But above all, we stand for diversity and respect." The bartender looks serious. Because Mejunje is more than just a stage and a bar. The center's social commitment is particularly evident in the current economic crisis. Older people, in particular, are falling through the cracks of the social safety net.

"We networked with other cities and exchanged ideas about what we can do better, because the social divide in Cuba is widening."

Argelia Fellove

This spirit of solidarity attracts people from all over Cuba. LGBTIQ activist Argelia Fellove has also been convinced of this. In 2019, she co-founded the grassroots organization "Afrodiverso," which runs a local soup kitchen. "We networked with other cities and discussed what we can do better, because the social divide in Cuba is widening," explains Fellove, who is considered a pioneer of the Transformista scene in Cuba.

On stage, the 57-year-old transforms into Alberto, the salsa dancer, and counteracts Cuban machismo, as well as the public treatment of the queer scene, with a great deal of humor. She has also performed as Alberto at Mejunje and is good friends with Ramón Silverio, who has become a figurehead of a cosmopolitan Cuba.

Ramón Silverio is a child of the Cuban revolution. "It wasn't until the victory in 1959 that my generation gained access to education," explains the 75-year-old. He grew up in humble circumstances, in a small village near Santa Clara. "My family lived in a hut with a rammed-earth floor. My mother made sure that we didn't just preach solidarity, but lived it." It was normal, he says, to give something to neighbors when they lacked rice or beans. This influence of rural solidarity flowed into his life's project. Therefore, the cultural institution also includes a mobile theater brigade that visits small villages in the Sierra del Escambray mountains to perform plays.

Silverio has been involved with Mejunje from the very beginning. The name derives from a herbal decoction that the Mambises, Cuban independence fighters fighting against Spanish colonial rule, prepared to protect themselves from disease. However, more difficult than finding a name for the founding group was securing the venue on Calle Marta Abreu in the mid-1980s. The artists had previously performed on the street and at the Teatro Guiñol and were now looking for space.

In 1985, the signs in Cuba pointed toward political reform. Despite the ideologization of everyday life, Silverio and his fellow activists were awarded the contract for the hotel ruins. This was highly unusual, as gay, bisexual, and transgender people, as well as lateral thinkers who didn't quite fit into the socialist norm of Ernesto Che Guevara's "new man," experienced discrimination and marginalization. Persistent activists like Silverio, who continues to advocate for diversity and freedom of expression in the Communist Party, were the exception at the time.

"We had good arguments for a cultural center in the heart of the city, because at the time, there was nothing for the younger generation in Santa Clara," recalls Silverio. Together, they restored the building. The two adjacent buildings now also belong to the Mejunje. They house the theater, the gallery, and the rehearsal room.

There, as well as in the center's inner courtyard, enclosed by ancient walls, Ramón Silverio regularly performs. He presents offbeat theater, sometimes bitingly funny, often mercilessly off-the-wall, and always with critical undertones. This is what the Silverio show stands for, and it has fans outside of Cuba as well. Corny Littmann, director of Hamburg's Schmidt Theater, is a Silverio fan and donated new restrooms to the inclusive center in the late 1990s.

Santa Clara, where the triumphant march of the Cuban Revolution began in December 1958, has long been a model for other Cuban cities. Mariela Castro, the daughter of former President Raúl Castro, has contributed to this as director of the National Institute for Sex Education. She visited the city several times, and under her patronage, Cuba's first nationwide drag queen contest took place in Santa Clara in 2010—at the Mejunje, of course. From then on, the events, popular among the queer community, lost their stigma.

The feature film "Fresa y Chocolate," which won a Silver Bear at the Berlinale in the mid-1990s, also contributed significantly to openness in Cuba. The film addresses the situation of homosexual couples in Cuba. It draws attention to latent discrimination and initiated a change. "'Fresa y Chocolate' created spaces of freedom in Cuba that didn't exist before," says Uniel Velásquez, an activist in the Cuban LGBTIQ movement. "And the Mejunje was a hub for sexual self-determination."

Jorge Luis Crespo confirms this. He is now in his early 60s and HIV-positive. In the late 1980s, he was a young man desperately searching for a place where he wouldn't be treated as an outcast. He finally found the Mejunje, which is still open to people like him. The cultural institution aims to offer something for everyone – and at affordable prices. "Anyone can afford the entrance fee of just a few Cuban pesos," says Crespo.

But he also admits that much has changed in Mejunje with the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis. "The emigration of young people is a huge problem – many have left." This is due not only to the economic downturn , which was exacerbated by the US embargo , but also to the brutal crackdown on the nationwide protests that began on July 11, 2021. Police arrested more than 1,600 people at the time. Courts sentenced many to prison terms of up to 30 years. The charges included breach of the peace and damage to property. Often, simply demonstrating peacefully or filming the protests was enough. Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as UN offices, criticized the actions of the security forces.

Latent state repression weighs heavily on society. Ramón Silverio reacts cautiously to the contradictions in Cuban reality: "We've made many mistakes, but the protests are also being systematically fueled by ultra-conservative circles in the US," he points out. At the same time, he makes no secret of his concern about the latent exodus, especially of young, well-qualified Cubans. "For us, this is a bloodletting that we will find difficult to compensate for," he admits.

Silverio also brings these concerns to the party committees. Whether his voice will be heard there is uncertain. But here in Mejunje, between the ivy-covered walls, his vision lives on: a society in which every person is respected – regardless of skin color, origin, or sexual orientation. "We dream of a society of the future here."