Tonal Asymmetry: "Universidad del aire" Finds Its Footing

• In Event: Radio and Revolution in Cuba and Beyond

Abstract

Does capitalism have a sound? Can you hear a revolution if you can’t make out the words? Among the many new insights granted historians and theorists of sound and Cuban culture by the Universidad del aire broadcast recording archives is how broadcasters struggled to find a new tone to accompany the Cuban Revolution’s call for a “new man” and a “rebel radio.” As the revolutionary government sought to remake Cuban culture in 1959—with the expropriation of Goar Mestre’s Radio CMQ, the government takeover of the Havana Hilton under the new name of the Habana Libre, and the establishment of a new state newspaper dubbed Revolución—elements of U.S. capitalism uneasily co-existed alongside the guerrilla government’s socialist actions. Thus, Revolución could announce Fidel Castro’s agrarian reform on one page, while advertisements for General Electric and other US manufacturers sold their wares on the facing page. Something similar happened with sound on the radio. While memoirs and later histories tell the story of Radio Rebelde as a militant propaganda station that replaced commercial melodrama with narratives of epic battle and patriotic hymns, the Universidad del aire recording archives contradict these histories of sonic rupture. My paper will explore the meaning of these sonic archives, examining how the tone—of advertisements, as well as the intellectual debates of La universidad del aire—shifted in the early years of the Cuban

Author

• Tom P McEnaney, University of California, Berkeley