In much of the world, people
\ncelebrate Mothers\u2019 Day on the second Sunday in May. In some countries it is called Mother\u2019s Day, but it has the same meaning everywhere. While it is about love that is \u2013or should be\u2013 expressed all year long, this day is set aside as a special moment for honoring mothers. When this chronicler was a boy, we all used to leave the house wearing red or white carnations, depending on whether our mothers were alive or deceased. Men wore them on their lapels, and women, on their blouses. In recent decades, those carnations have disappeared, at least in Cuba, giving way to Mother\u2019s Day-themed postcards that are supposed to reach the recipient right on that date.<\/p>\n
Love for our mothers continues to be expressed, and not just for our own mothers; it is extended to all of the women we love and those to whom we are bound by ties of gratitude, whether or not they have children. It\u2019s like another International Women\u2019s Day, but more intimate. Leading up to the date, stores make a fortune, because nobody wants to honor his or her mother with empty hands, even though a kiss is present enough for a mom. And those whose mothers are deceased go to the cemetery. On that day, the flower sellers run out, the restaurants fill to bursting, the postponed visit to the elderly, faraway aunt is made, and transportation becomes insufferable.<\/p>\n
The celebration of Mother\u2019s Day began in the United States. In Philadelphia, Anna Jarvis created an association to promote it. At first the new organization received hardly any attention, and its purpose was ignored, but it did not take long for it to score some partial successes; by 1914, several U.S. states, following the group\u2019s recommendations, had made Mother\u2019s Day a local holiday, and the House of Representatives recommended that it be observed by both houses of Congress, and by the president. A few years later, the initiative spread throughout the United States and began to be known in other parts of the world.<\/p>\n
Early on, it came to Cuba. And here it is essential to mention the multifaceted, tireless journalist V\u00edctor Mu\u00f1oz, because he was the very first to promote the celebration of Mothers\u2019 Day in Cuba. He did so in his column \u201cNext to the Capitolio,\u201d which he wrote for the Havana newspaper El Mundo, using the pseudonym Attach\u00e9. His headline for the Mothers\u2019 Day column was \u201cMy white carnation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1oz had an extraordinary comic streak, and he reported on baseball games between Cuba and the United States as if they were a competition in which the new republic was justifying its right to life. In his comments, he encouraged a Cuban victory as if it were a matter of national sovereignty. Using another pen name, Frangipane, he was the creator of the Cuban sports chronicle.<\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1oz\u2019s idea did not fall on empty ears, and in 1920, with the backing of a group of young people with social and intellectual interests, Mothers\u2019 Day was celebrated in Cuba for the first time. It was in Santiago de las Vegas, a city south of central Havana.<\/p>\n
Months later, during the Nov. 1, 1920 elections, Mu\u00f1oz was elected a Havana city councilman, and on April 22, 1921, the brand-new official proposed the establishment of Mothers\u2019 Day in Santiago de las Vegas. It was not until 1928 that the House of Representatives, at the proposal of Pastor del R\u00edo, passed a law making Mothers\u2019 Day a national holiday. By then, Mu\u00f1oz had died, in 1922. A ward in the Am\u00e9rica Arias Maternity Hospital, known as the \u201cMaternidad de L\u00ednea,\u201d in Vedado, is named after him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In much of the world, people celebrate Mothers\u2019 Day on the second Sunday in May. In some countries it is called Mother\u2019s Day, but it has the same meaning everywhere. While it is about love that is \u2013or should be\u2013 expressed all year long, this day is set aside as a special moment for honoring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":8728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13930],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[33567],"class_list":["post-8731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technologies-of-communication-and-media"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n