{"id":327913,"date":"2025-09-04T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T14:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=327913"},"modified":"2025-09-03T18:07:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T22:07:57","slug":"what-does-silvio-rodriguezs-dna-tell-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba\/what-does-silvio-rodriguezs-dna-tell-us\/","title":{"rendered":"What does Silvio Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s DNA tell us?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canarian blood runs through his veins, among many others, as well as African blood, but to a much lesser extent than the former. \u201cI would have liked to have more,\u201d laments <\/span>Silvio Rodr\u00edguez Dom\u00ednguez<\/b><\/a> (San Antonio de los Ba\u00f1os, 1946), surrendering to the wonders of science while <\/span>geneticist Beatriz Marcheco<\/b><\/a> shows him the traces and ghosts of his past, in which he shares with Neanderthal man a taste for bitter chocolate.<\/span><\/p>\n

This architect of language and master of powerful and unusual imagery in his hundreds of songs, however, can only manage to say in the face of such wonder: \u201cFascinating, fascinating.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And no wonder. Enraptured, the author of \u201cOjal\u00e1\u201d had before him the annals of his personal history, a rearview mirror that made his gaze wander along a genetic record rooted in 18 generations and some 500 years, which would have made Borges, for example, so devoted to metafiction, burst with happiness, knowing he had been delved into the very core of lineage and time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The
The series\u2019 director, Alejandro Gil. Behind him, some of the series\u2019 protagonists: Nelson Aboy, Zuleica Romay, Osvaldo Doimeadi\u00f3s and Silvio Rodr\u00edguez. Photo: AMD.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Filming was complicated: Gil and <\/b>Ruta ADN Cuba<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The singer-songwriter\u2019s genealogy is captured in one of the six chapters of <\/span>Ruta ADN Cuba<\/span><\/i>, the first season of a series directed by filmmaker Alejandro Gil, inherited from his colleague and friend <\/span>Ernesto Daranas<\/b><\/a>. Gil documents the creation of the genetic map of Cuban personalities and interweaves it with their life experiences in an exercise in memory, identity and emotional introspection.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gil, who achieved fame in 2018 with the film <\/span>Inocencia<\/span><\/i>, brought <\/span>Osvaldo Doimeadi\u00f3s<\/b><\/a> (actor), Silvio Rodr\u00edguez (singer-songwriter), <\/span>Mireya Luis<\/b><\/a> (former volleyball player), Zuleica Romay (researcher), Roberto Diago (visual artist) and Nelson Aboy (anthropologist) in front of the lens.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard work, incredibly hard. You can\u2019t imagine how difficult it was,\u201d Gil confessed while addressing the Chaplin Theater auditorium, where the screening of the hour-long audiovisual took place last Thursday, August 28. The documentary is a co-production between the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), the National Center for Medical Genetics and the Ministry of Culture.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also the director of films such as <\/span>La pared\u00a0<\/span><\/i>(2006), <\/span>La emboscada\u00a0<\/span><\/i>(2015), and <\/span>AM-PM<\/span><\/i> (2023), Gil is currently immersed in the making of his feature film <\/span>Te\u00f3filo<\/i><\/b><\/a>, a fictionalized account of the legendary boxer Te\u00f3filo Stevenson (1952-2012), the Moscow scenes of which were recently filmed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried to never cut away from the doctor, so that her scientific explanations could be understood, and that\u2019s why we used long shots,\u201d explained the filmmaker, who, to avoid interrupting the specialist\u2019s speech, devised a signaling system with his team so that the camera movement, lighting control and sound architecture of the scenes would unfold in a bubble of technical silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese are life stories that create an extraordinary empathy with the audience, and cinema gives them tremendous luminosity,\u201d he concluded, thanking the series\u2019 protagonists for their collaboration, whom he described as \u201cwonderful beings.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Beartriz Marcheco Teruel. Still from the documentary. ENDAC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The clinical eye: Dr. Marcheco<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s talk with Silvio, <\/span>the kid from the Ariguanabo River<\/b><\/a>, where generations ago his ancestors arrived and took root,\u201d invites Dr. Beatriz Marcheco Teruel, the documentary\u2019s host, standing in front of an almost idyllic landscape if it weren\u2019t for the waterway\u2019s pollution, which Silvio evokes in some of his songs.<\/span><\/p>\n

At 53, the researcher is a high-profile professional in constant academic growth. She directs the National Center for Medical Genetics in Havana, a PAHO\/WHO Collaborating Center for the Development of Genetic Approaches in Health Promotion; she is also a practicing physician and specialist in clinical genetics.<\/span><\/p>\n

The discipline deals with the study of hereditary diseases within a family and those that, while not hereditary, are caused by alterations in the sequence of DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid, a macromolecule that contains the genetic information essential for the development, functioning and reproduction of all living beings and some viruses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Marcheco has also conducted important genetic research on the island, such as that which traced the hereditary causes of disabilities and the creation of the National Twin Registry, completed in 2006.<\/span><\/p>\n

An unexpected and painful event sparked her passion for human genetics. Near the end of her medical studies, she learned that her mother suffered from Usher Syndrome, a rare genetic disease that causes progressive vision and hearing loss. \u201cThis became a challenge for me…to prevent, cure or at least help these people navigate life with the least possible trauma,\u201d she told the press at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Between 2018 and 2021, the scientist joined the <\/span>Cuba Ind\u00edgena<\/i><\/b><\/a> team, a project initiated and directed by Spanish photographer <\/span>H\u00e9ctor Garrido<\/b><\/a>, with the support of Dr. Alejandro Hartmann, historian of the city of Baracoa; Julio Larramendi, photographer and visual artist; and sociologist Enrique G\u00f3mez.<\/span><\/p>\n

Marcheco Teruel was in charge of conducting genetic testing on 27 families with Amerindian ancestry in the eastern region of Cuba.<\/span><\/p>\n

Distant memories: \u201cI am from where there is a river\u201d and Grandpa F\u00e9lix<\/b><\/p>\n

Moderated by Dr. Marcheco, the audiovisual captures the exchange of memories between Silvio and Giraldo Alay\u00f3n, a native of San Antonio de los Ba\u00f1os and the artist\u2019s oldest friend.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNothing, we\u2019ve known each other for 74 years. Help!\u201d laughed Alay\u00f3n, a biologist by profession and a defender, along with the composer, of the Ariguanabo River ecosystem since the 1980s. Finally, in September 2018, after a decade of efforts and paperwork, the Ariguanabo Foundation was legally established for the conservation of the waterway and its surroundings.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no doubt that during both of their childhoods the river was \u2014 and still remains \u2014 the region\u2019s main attraction. Both recalled their first clandestine swimming trips \u2014 thanks to one of his uncles, Silvio already knew how and taught his friend \u2014 they also fished and played ball in a small field at the back of the singer-songwriter\u2019s birthplace, at 2.5 Caridad Street, where Alay\u00f3n \u201chopes that one day\u201d a plaque will be placed commemorating the birth of the famous Cuban musician.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Biologist
Biologist Giraldo Alay\u00f3n, a native of San Antonio de los Ba\u00f1os and the artist\u2019s oldest friend. Photo: AMD.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The conversation was not lacking in juicy episodes. One of them, Silvio\u2019s terrified flight from the appearance of a hairy spider \u2014 \u201cit was the size of a chicken\u201d \u2014 as it crawled through a narrow passage in one of the local caves; or the imposing presence of the artist\u2019s maternal grandfather, F\u00e9lix Mar\u00eda Dom\u00ednguez, whom Alay\u00f3n remembers as \u201ca patriarch,\u201d with a graying mustache and a resemblance to General Calixto Garc\u00eda, dressed in white, silently dominating the home scene from his quiet rocking chair.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandfather was a cigar roller…he chewed tobacco. And he made his own chews,\u201d Silvio recalls in the documentary.<\/span><\/p>\n

The musician\u2019s family was one of many that worked in the tobacco industry. His maternal grandmother, Mar\u00eda Le\u00f3n, his mother, Argelia, and his aunts worked as stemmers (they removed the central vein from the tobacco leaves), and the men worked as cigar rollers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Silvio recounts the encounter F\u00e9lix had as a child in a Tampa grocery store with Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed, on one of the trips the revolutionary leader made from New York in the early 1890s to meet with the cigar makers, one of the pillars of the independence and republican project.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the song \u201cYo soy de donde hay un r\u00edo\u201d (<\/span>D\u00e9cimas a mi abuelo<\/span><\/i>), the poet wants to \u201clie down\u201d in \u201chis own grave, without prayer and without a slab,\u201d with the certainty of the cigar-making patriarch\u2019s belongings, \u201chis chair, his knife, his chew, and his Nevada crown, which I also know is his knee.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/b>Olivette<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The investigations carried out by Dr. Marcheco\u2019s team uncovered another interesting fact about F\u00e9lix Mar\u00eda\u2019s life: that in 1908, at the age of 21, he was a passenger, along with his father, Francisco Dom\u00ednguez, on <\/span>the steamship <\/b>Olivette<\/i><\/b>, bound for the United States<\/b><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Launched on July 15, 1887, the ship was used by Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed on his frequent trips to Key West. On the first of these voyages, the ship was decorated with Cuban flags and an onboard band played the Bayamo anthem.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more. The <\/span>Olivette<\/span><\/i> was the ship that carried, as part of the correspondence between the United States and Cuba, the order for the uprising of February 24, 1895, sent by Mart\u00ed to Juan Gualberto G\u00f3mez, one of his trusted men and Delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party on the island.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1918, the ship ran aground 8 miles east of Havana harbor due to heavy seas and fog. All attempts to refloat it were unsuccessful, and it finally sank a hundred meters north of Punta El Jud\u00edo, on the western shore of Bacuranao beach, opposite the current Granma Naval Academy in East Havana, where it still lies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Marcheco invited Silvio and his family to visit the wreck, which rests on the seabed at a depth of about 15 meters. \u201cWell, we survived,\u201d the singer-songwriter laughed, back on land and still wrapped in a wetsuit.<\/span><\/p>\n