Source: The Huffington Post
Louise Mirrer
New-York Historical Society president
This is the story of a Spanish-speaking immigrant–one of nine children in his family, who grew up plowing fields in Spain and eventually made his way to this country from Cuba in search of a better living. Manuel Rionda was just 16 years old when his family sent him to Portland, Maine, to take a job in a sugar refinery. He was 20 in 1874 when he arrived in New York–a city where some of the wealthiest people had built their fortunes in the sugar trade.
By the time Rionda died in 1943, he was one of these people. He had founded one of New York’s most important sugar brokerages–a vast international enterprise–had been central in establishing large American investments in Cuba, and from 1898 on had played a key role in virtually every American policy decision relating to the sugar economy of Cuba.
One of the pioneers in the sugar business internationally and one of the most successful, Manuel Rionda had started as an immigrant and finished as a New Yorker, with his headquarters on Wall Street.
Rionda was extraordinary in his success–but in some ways he was typical as an immigrant of his era, and perhaps of our own. He went through multiple relocations, strived for an education (spending four years at a school in Maine before coming to New York) and worked tirelessly for his money.
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