El Tigre

Rolando Masferrer
I was more than a bit proud, when I received an e-mail today from George “Pitbull” Moneo informing me and other recent additions to the Babalú lineup of contributors that our names would be added to the sidebar. Maybe it was just a bit of housekeeping, but a proud moment just the same, considering the company.
However, there was one condition: We needed to include a nickname.
I didn’t give it much thought, because I knew the name I wanted: El Tigre.
First of all, I love tigers. Take me to a zoo, and invariably I will make my way to the tiger exhibit. The big cats have always capitvated me with their mystery.
There are more personal reasons, too, why I now answer to “El Tigre.”
As a child, my father’s pet name for me was, “Tiger.” I don’t know why, and I never asked, but my memories of hearing my Papi call me that are attached to only good memories.
I don’t know why he stopped. I probably told him I was too old for that anymore.
Why I was “Tiger,” I don’t know.
Maybe it had something to do with my father’s uncle, my grandfather’s brother, Rolando Masferrer Rojas.
The original “El Tigre” Masferrer.
Rolando Masferrer — I’m told no one in the family ever called him “El Tigre” — was a player in Cuba, in the 1940s and 1950s.
He was a lawyer. A journalist. A senator.
He was a man of action. I don’t know if he was a patriot, but when Cuba needed him to stand up to the rebels lead by his old enemy, fidel castro — more than once, they almost had killed each other in their younger days — Rolando was there on the front lines. And so were the fighters in his private militia, “Los Tigres de Masferrer.”
The army failed to fight. Many of Los Tigres fought to the death.
Rolando, and my grandfather Raimundo, also a “Tigre,” and their brother Rodolfo, made it out of Cuba on Rolando’s converted PT boat on New Year’s Eve 1958.
Rolando in exile didn’t have the best of reputations, but he continued the struggle. His rhetoric, which could be harsh, was almost matched by his actions. A lot of what he did might be called crazy — he spent time in federal prison for trying to organize an invasion of Haiti, from where he would attack Cuba — but that’s what happens when you are so determined to rid the world of someone like fidel castro.
I don’t remember ever meeting the man. My first memory of him came when I was 8, when someone — maybe castro, but other theories ring more true — murdered him in Miami.
But as I have read about him and heard the stories, I keep going back to one conclusion about my great-uncle Rolando.
He was a man of action. If he were around today, maybe the journalist in him, too, would have a Web site or a blog to spread his message. But he was about more than words. He wanted, he needed to be on the front lines in the fight against castro, whether or not you liked him or his tactics.
Not all about Rolando Masferrer is pretty, and I don’t shirk from that legacy. Some readers may gasp when they see the name “‘El Tigre’ Masferrer” on this blog. But Cuba in the ’50s was a tough place and considering how things turned out, he was on the right side.
Tiger.
El Tigre.
Masferrer.
All are names I am proud to carry, here, on Babalú and everywhere, in part, because of Rolando Masferrer.
For more about Rolando Masferrer, read my earlier articles, “Rolando Masferrer, the man from Holguín,” and “More on my Uncle Rolando.”
The best online resource on Rolando can be found at Cuba Information Archives.