Arleen's Ignorance: Martí's Admiration for Edison and the Wonder of Electric Light

When Arleen Rodríguez confidently proclaimed that “José Martí never knew electric light and was a genius,” she not only displayed an unforgivable ignorance but also insulted Martí himself and the intelligence of Cubans. During his final years spent in New York City, the electric light of Thomas Alva Edison was already flourishing, a marvel of modernity that Martí observed, studied, and celebrated.

The Misguided Comparison and the Moral Blackout

Rodríguez's statement, “The blackout is terrible? Well, José Martí never knew electric light and was a genius,” aimed to downplay the hardships caused by power outages currently plaguing the island. The underlying message is clear: if Martí could create in the darkness of the 19th century, 21st-century Cubans should not complain about being without power for hours or days. This comparison, made during an interview with Rafael Correa, comes amid prolonged power cuts, spoiled food, and an exhausted nation, attempting to turn resignation into a patriotic virtue. Correa, visibly uncomfortable, counters her with a disarming phrase: “But Arleen, we're in the 21st century,” reminding her that progress is not a luxury but a fundamental right in any modern society.

Martí in New York: Witness to the Light

Between 1880 and 1895, José Martí resided in New York, during a time when the city was becoming a showcase for electric modernity. In 1882, Edison launched one of the first public electric lighting systems in Manhattan, illuminating the city with incandescent lamps that extended urban life beyond sunset. Martí was not a passive observer; he walked those streets, saw those lights go on, attended industrial exhibitions, and wrote about the technological revolution transforming daily life.

In his articles for publications like La América, Martí frequently highlighted scientific advancements, with a particular focus on electricity. He wasn't merely an impressionable enthusiast; he studied the machinery's workings, described their applications, and translated technical jargon into layman's terms without losing precision. For him, electricity was a cornerstone of the new industrial era, capable of transforming production, transportation, communication, and even how humans perceived the night. The exiled Cuban in New York was, in this sense, a privileged chronicler of the moment the world began to light up.

Martí and Edison: Fascination with the "Beautiful Electric Light"

If any name is synonymous with this luminous revolution, it is Thomas Alva Edison, and Martí was well aware of it. In writings like “Luz Edison,” he documented his admiration for the American inventor's creativity and the social impact of his innovations. Far from being unfamiliar with electricity, Martí was an enthusiastic promoter of incandescent lamps, power plants, and distribution systems making their way into theaters, banks, workshops, and streets. He wrote that Edison's electric light “prospers and conquers cities,” emphasizing not only the technical novelty but also the swift pace with which the technology was integrating into urban life.

His view of Edison’s machines blended precision with poetry, describing the installations as “slender and simple, yet heavy and graceful, like a giant's toy,” an image that reveals both knowledge of the mechanism and aesthetic sensitivity to modern engineering. He did not speak as someone who heard secondhand accounts but as someone who had seen, asked questions, and observed the intricacies of the machinery. For Martí, Edison represented the kind of scientist who used his talent to change the world, and electricity was the tool that broke the darkness and expanded human capacity to work, study, and enjoy.

The Electric Idea: Science, Dignity, and Future

Martí’s relationship with science was not ornamental. His writings in La América outline a philosophy of technology as a tool for emancipation, not oppression. For him, scientific progress was meant to serve “the poor of the earth,” to elevate their standard of living, and to provide access to education, knowledge, and material well-being. In this vision, electricity symbolized the possibility of illuminating schools, hospitals, workshops, and fields, extending the useful hours of the day and making life safer and more productive.

This “electric idea” permeates his thought: light is not merely a physical phenomenon but a metaphor for moral clarity, political transparency, and openness to the future. To invoke his name today to normalize darkness is, therefore, doubly offensive. It is not only historically false to claim that Martí did not know electric light; it also uses the Apostle to preach technological stagnation, resignation to scarcity, and praise for backwardness.

While Martí celebrated every technical advance that brought America closer to the industrial development levels of the great powers, the contemporary official discourse seems determined to turn deprivation into virtue and to call “resilience” what is often mere incompetence. In Martí’s thought, science and technology are allies of freedom; in Arleen’s narrative, they are suggested as unnecessary, dispensable if “genius” and sacrifice are present. This is a complete inversion of the original sense.

Arleen's Ignorance and the Betrayal of Martí

Arleen Rodríguez's statement is not an isolated slip but a symptom of an official culture that manipulates history to support an indefensible present. Presenting Martí as a genius without electric light serves a political purpose: if the greatest Cuban could live without electricity, today’s citizen has no right to demand it. The factual ignorance—denying that the Apostle knew, described, and celebrated electricity—thus becomes a tool of social control.

But this narrative comes at a high cost: it distorts Martí's figure until it is unrecognizable. The man who marveled at Edison's “beautiful electric light” and saw science as a path to dignifying the poor cannot be used as an excuse to keep an entire country in physical and symbolic darkness. By reducing him to a saint of deprivation, the official discourse betrays his modernizing legacy and his faith in progress.

An honest reading of his texts makes it clear that Martí wanted a bright future for Cuba, in the most literal and profound sense of the term. He wanted schools with light, workshops with machines, cities vibrant at night, farmers with access to technology, entire communities connected to the currents of universal science. Those who invoke his name in 2026 to justify 40-hour blackouts not only err in fact: they shamelessly side with darkness against the light Martí admired and defended.