Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Spring/105i/Section 22/Fernando Lemos

Overview
Fernando Limos was a Cuban cigar-factory worker that born in the late 19th century. Lemos was part of the first wave of Latin immigrants that helped establish the Ybor City neighborhood. Lemos lived to see the neighborhood flourish and eventually fall in prosperity due to the Great Depression. Lemos was interviewed by the Federal Writer's Project on January 9th, 1939.

Early Life
Fernando Limos was born on May 30th, 1870, in Havana, Cuba, to truck-driver Manuel del Pilar. Lemos grew up attending an upper-class school known as “La Caridad Cerro” until the age of 13, when his father sent him to become an apprentice in a Havana cigar factory. After training for a year, Lemos worked for five years in the factory of Antonio belle in Arroyo Naranja, a Havana suburb. Lemos immigrated to Ybor City, Tampa, with his uncle in 1888 at the age of 18.

Work in Cigar Factory
In Ybor City, Lemos immediately started working at Vicente Martinez's first cigar factory. Lemos married his wife on November 18th, 1889. With both of their incomes, Lemos was able to buy a house through a home loan, which he paid back at a rate of $7.51 a month. As the Federal Writer's Project's article reports, Lemos grew to dislike the racially biased nature of the cigar industry and the new cigar-making machines, which led to the firing of numerous cigar makers. Due to preference of employment given to white Spaniards over Cubans, Lemos was never able to hold a substantial income in the factory.

Later Life
Lemos worked at the factory for 32 years continuously, excluding 1921, when he worked moving furniture due to widespread strikes in Tampa. As a result of moving heavy furniture, Lemos ruptured his vein and was unable to work for the remainder of his life. Lemos never had children, and as a result, relied on government relief for support in old age. His date of death is unknown.

Race Relations in Cigar Factories
Unlike other cities in the American South, Ybor City held a great amount of ethnic and linguistic diversity. As a New York correspondent reports when visiting Ybor City and Key West, "the Cubans run the island to a very great extent” and that “there is such a conglomeration of American colored and white folks, Cubans, colored immigrants from Nassau and Conchs . . . that it is impossible to determine where the line begins and where it ends.” The Ybor Factory Building, established by the Spaniard, Vicente Martinez Ybor, brought large scale immigration of cigar makers from Cuba, Italy, and Spain. Despite the racial diversity, Jim Crow laws divided whites and blacks, and made it difficult for many Cubans to find employment. Furthermore, social clubs and unions often excluded Afro-Cubans and catered to those of Spanish descent. Specifically, the best paid cigar positions, such as lectors and selectors, were given exclusively to Spaniards or white Cubans.

Race relations greatly deteriorated in Ybor City during the 1930s. With the economic decline due to the Great Depression, the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups took over the city and terrorized the multi-racial working class population. Due to these conditions, many cigar-factory workers abandoned Tampa, leading to the decline of Ybor City.

Labor Rights and Economic Decline
Ybor City's growth was severely undermined by the tense relationship between the cigar factory workers and the factory owners. Factory owners often limited the rights of their workers and labor unions due to fears of worker radicalization. Due to the economic hardships during the early years of the Great Depression, several unions in Ybor City began to show communist sentiment. As a result, factory owners banned lectors, who they attributed with spreading the communist agenda among the workers. Lectors were the main source of diversion for the factory workers as they read aloud the daily news, music, and literature. The workers, in return, revolted, leading to the Tampa Strike of 1931.The end of the strike resulted in the permanent expulsion of the lector workers, leading to a general decline in the number of workers and the industry itself. While strikes played a great part in the Ybor City's decline, the Great Depression and changes in cigar making collapsed the local economy. Mechanization and the establishment of cigar machines, led to the firing of many cigar makers, as the cigar rollers were no longer needed. Furthermore, due to lower worker costs in other states, many factories moved north to states like New Jersey and Connecticut. As a result of these factors, Ybor City's economic decline lead to an exodus of the immigrant population.