Nuevitas, 2025.- One way to enjoy the summer is to visit museums, accessible to all audiences and steeped in history.
For example, the Nuevitas Museum carefully preserves the work of the locals, and among those treasures stands out the Hymn to Nuevitas.
So if we look up the meaning of the word hymn in the Cervantes Dictionary of the Spanish Language, we find the following: A song in honor of someone or something. A musical composition for that purpose.
For Cubans, this concept goes far beyond the previous one. That is why the national anthem is known as a patriotic symbol, and its lyrics delve into the roots of the process of national formation. Since 1868, the anthem has been known and sung throughout Cuba; the people have kept it alive for three centuries, and it is an indispensable element of Cuban culture. Along with other attributes that distinguish us, it provided the foundation for the development of a legitimate national liberation movement.
Over the years, other musical compositions have debuted as a result of the island's historical processes. As Cubans have participated in the economic, sociopolitical, and cultural dynamics, other aspects of the material and spiritual culture that characterize certain social groups have emerged.
What unites us and makes us feel part of a community, what identifies us and marks us apart within a cultural mix is what we call identity.
It also expresses itself in hymns, and that is why a teacher and journalist from Nuevitas, Josefina Rodríguez de Pereira, decided to write, in the first decades of the 20th century, a Hymn to Nuevitas. It was published in the local press of the time and sung with great fervor in some local schools.
The score is no longer preserved today, only the lyrics, but a reading of these verses reveals the author's affectionate feelings toward the city, its people, the things that surround it and what is considered its own, in addition to the assurance of being an inhabitant of a wonderful place, with a splendid bay and values inherent to a piece of Cuban soil that belonged yesterday to them, today to us and tomorrow to ours, to all of us who love the seafaring and industrial city of the legendary Camagüey.
Nuevitas' Hymn
¡Oh Nuevitas! Tus hijos te aclaman/ como perla del norte, escondida,/ entre lomas de verde vestida/ y asomada a tu puerto feliz.
Es tu vida una vida triunfante/ eres cuna de nuestra nación,/ pues no en balde Cristóbal Colón,/ a tus costas primero arribó.
De Nuevitas pongamos el nombre/ entre nombres de gloria y honor/ y sus hijos fervientes juremos/ en Nuevitas poner nuestro amor.
Son tus hijos de claro talento/ tus escuelas así lo han mostrado,/ ¡adelante! que un pueblo educado/ se abre paso doquiera que va.
En tu escudo muy bien se demuestra/ y tus playas que inspiran amor/ tu riqueza y tu gran esplendor,/ al que Maternillos ha de guiar.
De Nuevitas muy alto su nombre/ en glorioso esplendor conservemos/ y en sus aras solemnes juremos/ trabajar para verla feliz.
