Photos: Tampeños file into Ybor City’s Centro Asturiano for ‘Latina Legacies’ brunch and history talk

Dr. Sarah McNamara hates the cliche about history repeating itself, but hundreds of Tampeños packed into Ybor City’s Centro Asturiano de Tampa last Saturday seemed pretty happy to see hear the homegrown historian shed more light on her award winning 2023 book, “Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina South.”

“History only repeats itself if we don’t remember and don’t learn,” McNamara told an audience that included elected officials like Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and District 3 City Councilwoman Lynn Hurtak. “Nationally we’re terrible when it comes to remembering. As a nation we prefer to reinvent and remember the heroic moments rather than the human moments.”

McNamara’s talk, moderated by another homegrown history hero Manny Leto—and in full disclosure, emceed by this reporter who’s covered McNamara in the past—focused on those human moments, specifically as they related to the role Latino women played in Ybor City’s labor, immigration, and antifascist history.

The talk, co-organized by the Tampa Bay History Center and part of the city’s weeklong Archives Awareness Week, was preceded by free brunch pasties and mimosas in the upstairs of the historic venue and followed by a meet-and-greet book signing in the cantina.