Women

Despite the limitations imposed on women by both the patriarchal exile and the USA context they inhabited, women were effective activists. They leaned on previous networks and built new ones that united overlapping exile, ethnic, radical, labor, and personal relations. This exhibit features several women in the context of US Hispanic antifascist print culture. Their scattered records cannot always be pieced together; however, even if only in short biographical sketches, women’s activism can be recognized, made available, and help us think how antifascist culture was built and how it has been studied.

In comparison to their male counterparts, women received scant coverage in workers periodicals, with the exception of the announcements and reviews of fundraisers. Although their activism fulfilled the gendered expectation as mothers and wives, women also acted as workers, US residents, and consumers. For example, women delegates attended the SHC yearly national congresses, rallied and demonstrated in US streets, boycotted fascist products, and picketed pro-fascist businesses. US Hispanic periodicals covered their demonstrations in front of the Italian, German, English, and Spanish consulates. On May 7, 1937, for example, hundreds of women protested on the streets of Tampa against the bombing of Guernica, Spain and demanded the lifting of the arms embargo (Varela-Lago 12).  On April 2, 1938 women led the demonstrations in front of the British Consulate in New York (“Nuestro piquete en el consulado británico”). The same year, the impressive number of 2,500 women demonstrated in front of the Washington House of Representatives against the arms embargo during the Spanish Civil War (“Inquietudes” Apr. 8, 1938).

Visit: https://montsefeu.wixsite.com/montsefeu/ffs-the-exhibit

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How to cite the project: Montse Feu. "Women." Fighting Fascist Spain --The Exhibits. Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Digital Collections. http://usldhrecovery.uh.edu/exhibits/show/fighting-fascist-spain--the-ex. Accessed [DATE].

Also see:

Varela-Lago, Ana. “¡No Pasarán! The Spanish Civil War’s Impact on Tampa’s Latin Community, 1936-1939,” Tampa Bay History 19, 2 (1997): 5-35.