Latinx antifascist periodicals in the United States were produced by Hispanics, Spanish exiles, anarchists, socialists, and unionists. Print culture was central to Latinx antifascists in the United States and they built on previous traditions of worker print culture. From 1880 to 1940, about 235 anarchist periodicals circulated in the United States, and about 850 in Spain. Some of these periodicals were ephemeral, while others lasted decades and published thousands of issues.
Radical workers have placed significant emphasis on preserving and memorializing their own history. From its earliest days, they have preserved their collective memories in periodicals, through the educational and cultural practices of their organizations. Despite these efforts, their records have been destroyed, censured, deemed irrelevant, or unworthy of institutional care or research attention. Consequently, worker antifascist culture is not always widely available or accessible. The mission of this digital project is one of historical justice. Periodical research diversifies antifascist studies by including migrants and radical workers in the cultural and historical discourse.
Despite the irregularity inherent to the alternative press, workers’ periodicals constituted a reliable source of news, opinions, ideas, and practices. They also operated as connecting hubs for anarchist networks in the United States, as their editors and staff became organic leaders of the anarchist movement. For many decades, anarchist newspapers and magazines functioned as effective resources to contest elitism and repression, while fostering grassroots solidarity and mutual aid in the heterogeneous and decentered cultures of the US anarchist movement.
The Exhibits show the connections between antifascist activism and its press. US Hispanic antifascists, in particular anarchists, believed in the free press as a means to engage the general public intellectually, politically, and culturally through journalism, literature, theater, and graphic art.
Worker periodicals editorial agency was a team and grassroots effort and that means that they were funded, written, and printed collectively. In other words, editors, contributors, writers, and readers had a cooperative relationship and the distinction common in the main press is not so obvious in a community periodical.
The confederation of US worker societies, Sociedades Hispanas Confederadas or SHC, published the antifascist periodicals Frente Popular (1936-1939) and España Libre (1939-1977).
Fighting Fascist Spain also showcases antifascist activism from other periodiclas
Ibérica (1953-1974), published by Socialist exile Victoria Kent and her partner Louise Crane, among others.
Workers and exiles have placed significant emphasis on preserving and memorializing their history. From its earliest days, they have preserved their collective memories in periodicals, through the educational and cultural practices of their organizations. Despite these efforts, their records have been destroyed, censured, deemed irrelevant, or unworthy of institutional care or research attention. Consequently, worker antifascist culture is not always widely available or accessible.
http://usldhrecovery.uh.edu/exhibits/show/fighting-fascist-spain--the-ex
Feu, Fighting Fascist Spain. Worker Protest from the Printing Press. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2020.
Feu, “Recovering Spanish-Language Anarchist Periodicals: Thoughts on Silences, Identities, Access, and Affective Engagement,” American Periodicals. A Journal of History and Criticism. 29 (1) (April 2019), 12-16.
Montse Feu and Olga Glondys, “Estados Unidos. Introducción.” Olga Glondys (Eds). La prensa cultural de los exiliados republicanos. Los años cuarenta. Sevilla: Editorial Renacimiento, 2018, 493-497.
Feu, “España Libre de Nueva York, exiliados y emigrantes Unidos por el antifascismo. Olga Glondys (Eds). La prensa cultural de los exiliados republicanos. Los años cuarenta. Sevilla: Editorial Renacimiento, 2018, 498-512.
Feu, “España Libre: Anarchist Literature and Antifascism, 1936-1977.” Writing Revolution: Hispanic Anarchism in the United States. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2019, 245-257.
Feu, “España Libre: periódico de exilio en Nueva York.” Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage, Vol. VIII. Clara Lomas and Gabriela Baeza Ventura (eds). Houston: Arte Público Press, 2012. 61-78.
Feu, “Sátira y denuncia política desde Nueva York: Lirón, Onuba y Aurelio Pego.” Manuel Aznar Soler y José Ramón López García (eds). El exilio republicano de 1939 y la segunda generación. Sevilla: Editorial Renacimiento, 2011. 931-8