Vilma Espín

Early life and education

Vilma Espín Guillois was born on 7 April 1930 in Santiago de Cuba to a wealthy Cuban lawyer, Jose Espín, and his wife Margarita Guillois. She had four siblings: Nilsa, Iván, Sonia, and José. For primary school she attended Academia Pérez-Peña, and during the 1940s she studied ballet and singing at the Asociación Pro-Arte Cubano. In the 1950s she studied chemical engineering at Universidad de Oriente, Santiago de Cuba, becoming one of the first women in Cuba to pursue that subject.

While at university she played volleyball and tennis and sang soprano in the University Choir. There she also met her mentor, Frank Pais, through the Oriente Revolutionary Action (ARO) group. After graduating, her father encouraged her to attend MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts for postgraduate studies, hoping it would dissuade her from socialist activity. She completed only one semester at MIT, and on her return to Cuba through Mexico she officially joined the 26th of July Movement.

Role in the Cuban revolution

After returning to Cuba, Vilma Espín deepened her work against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. A key meeting with revolutionary Frank País led her to take on a leadership role in the movement within Oriente province. She met the Castro brothers, who had moved to Mexico following their unsuccessful 1953 assault on the Moncada Barracks and their subsequent release from prison in 1955. Espín served as a courier, carrying messages between the 26th of July Movement in Mexico and País back in Cuba.

Following the movement's return to the island aboard the Granma in November 1956, she provided support to the rebels operating in the Sierra Maestra. Because she was fluent in both Spanish and English, Espín became an international representative for the revolution. In 1957, Pepín Bosch, a Bacardi Corporation executive, set up a meeting between CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick and movement representatives. Espín, who was both a revolutionary leader and the daughter of a Bacardi executive, told Kirkpatrick that the rebels simply wanted clean politics and a clean police system.

She also translated during a 1957 interview between Fidel Castro and New York Times reporter Herbert Matthews, an event that helped broadcast news of the revolution and disprove Batista's claims that Castro had been killed.

Role in the Federation of Cuban Women

Espín was an outspoken supporter of gender equality in Cuba but distinguished herself and the Federation of Cuban Women from traditional feminism, advocating for causes she described as feminine rather than feminist. In 1960 she became president of the Federation of Cuban Women, a position she held until her death in 2007. The organization focused on educating women, providing skills for gainful employment, and encouraging political participation in support of the revolutionary government.

In 1960, when sugar mills and cane fields came under attack shortly before the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Federation created the Emergency Medical Response Brigades to mobilize women against counter-revolution. The Cuban government and the Federation encouraged women to join the labor force, and in 1975 the Cuban Family Code was passed, mandating that men help with household chores and childcare to lighten the workload for working mothers.

Role in the Cuban government

Espín served on the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party from 1965 to 1989. She held numerous other government roles, including chair of the Commission for Social Prevention from 1967 to 1971, director of Industrial Development in the Ministry of Food in 1969, president of the Institute of Childcare in 1971, and member of the Cuban Council of State in 1976. She also represented Cuba at the United Nations General Assembly. Espín acted as Cuba's First Lady for 45 years, initially as the sister-in-law of Fidel Castro, who was divorced when he came to power, and officially became First Lady in 2006 when her husband Raúl Castro became president.

She was granted the title of Secretary of State in the Government of Cuba. In September 1959 she headed the Cuban Delegation to the Congress of the International Federation of Democratic Women in Chile, and later headed Cuban delegations to subsequent Conferences on Women, praising them as invaluable to women in developing countries.