In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Junior

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Authors: Wil Haygood
Tags: General, Biography & Autobiography, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Performing Arts, Cultural Heritage, Film & Video
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fell from the calendar with guns still silent. Crisscrossing the nation’s capital like a man possessed, Theodore Roosevelt predicted that the country would “have this war for the freedom of Cuba.” Roosevelt rose before a podium at a Gridiron Dinner and saw that Senator Mark Hanna, who was steadfastly opposed to war, was in attendance. Roosevelt ran down a litany of reasons why it was necessary for America to enter into battle. He assailed business interests, who he felt were screaming against a declaration of war, and implied that Hanna himself was unduly sympathetic to those interests. Realizing the sentiments of those in attendance at the dinner were in his favor, Roosevelt turned to Hanna with a sneer and asked, sharply: “Now, Senator, may we please have war?”
    Death pushes hearts in all directions. A man, any man, scarred by the unexpected calamity of family death might well seek a strange kind of adventure where the heat of life itself can be felt, minute by minute, hour upon hour.
    On April 21 the United States declared war on Cuba. McKinley asked for volunteers. Enrique Aguiar, a widowed father, had to choose between country—Cuba—and daughter, Luisa. There were 125,000 who volunteered, and Enrique Aguiar was among them. He placed his fourteen-year-old daughter with a New York City foster family and promised her he would return. Then he left to go fight the Spaniards and free his countrymen.
    We do not know if Enrique Aguiar fought at the Battle of El Caney, or at the campaign waged at Las Guasimas during the three-month Spanish-American War. We do not know if he was, at any time, in the vicinity of San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. We do not know if Enrique Aguiar, like other soldiers in the conflict, was felled by yellow fever or malaria while in a makeshift hospital on the island. But we do know this of Enrique Aguiar: he never returned home from the Spanish-American War to his daughter, Luisa.
    For months after the campaign’s end, Luisa Aguiar would gaze out windows and worry of her father’s whereabouts. She would swear he was returning to her, as he said he would. She had no other family in New York City. Maybe he was arranging passage for her to Cuba. Or maybe the next knock at the door would be his knuckles rapping. Or maybe a messenger was on his way just now with tickets for her from New York to Tampa, where he was simply collecting himself in one of the city’s hotels, as so many men did coming and going from Cuba. She hoped and wished and dreamed, and brushed away reports of his likely death. But there was no messenger, no telegram, even as young Luisa continued to tell acquaintances that she knew her father was returning to her. She was Catholic; she held to her faith.
    But time passed, and it was as if Enrique Aguiar had vanished from the faceof the earth without a trace. If Luisa Aguiar’s world hadn’t already cracked enough—boarding with a foster family she did not like—the presumed death of her father must have been an unimaginable blow. She couldn’t quite let go, however, of the vision of her father striding into her eyesight. “My daddy,” she would begin conversations in the years to come, before trailing off. The habit, according to her granddaughters, would remain with her into the tenth decade of her life. (Luisa Sanchez lived to be 112 years old.)
    There was a powerful reason Luisa Sanchez did not like her foster family: they beat her. Welts and deep bruises appeared on her head. For her granddaughters, listening to the horror stories became a huge part of their upbringing. First they would hear all about Enrique and his disappearance. “She never saw him again,” says Gloria Williams, the granddaughter, “and that’s the thing that made her cry.” Then Gloria would be treated to tales of Luisa’s sufferings. “She would point to her head, parting her hair, to show bruises. She would say, ‘Look. Look!’ ” recalls Williams.
    Fearful

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