España Libre had an unprecedented catalytic role in fostering solidarity for victims of Spanish fascism. After their victory, the Francoist forces began systematically rounding up those who had sided with the Second Spanish Republic. Although borders were sealed, Spaniards continued to clandestinely flee from the brutal political repression and execution sentences. Pro-Republic Spaniards in the United States became people “without a country” with no right to U.S. citizenship and unable to seek the services of Spanish embassies and consulates in the United States. The Confederadas would financially and legally support these refugees by relocating them to visa-granting countries.
The Confederadas and its supporters held hundreds of rallies, pickets, and demonstrations across the United States to protest political persecution in Spain. In their cultural fundraisers, antifascist plays were performed, artists danced and sang, speeches were delivered, dinners were served, dance orchestras played, lotteries were held, and funds subsequently collected. España Libre reviewed the extraordinary activism for political prisoners in each of its issues. Protest was extended to other media, too. Members published letters of protest in American mainstream papers and rented radio space in several radio stations. The Confederadas’ numerous forms of protest and occupation of the public space garnered international attention for the incarcerations and executions of dissenters in Spain.
Varied visual strategies were showcased in España Libre. Some authors ridiculed fascists in gendered terms while others sought compassion for refugees. Comic art grew awareness of the threat of fascism and exposed the state of terror perpetrated by Hitler and Franco. When Sergio Aragonés translated the Spanish underground resistance reports into visual language on the front page of España Libre, he perceptively counteracted the Franco regime’s propaganda. Similarly, Josep Bartolí i Guiu’s illustrations humanized political prisoners for readers. As visual discursive spaces, cartoons endorsed emotions brought forth by belonging to a transnational, antifascist, and proletarian community and asked readers to think collectively about the need for solidarity and protection of the working-class culture both in exile and under fascism. Cartoons delivered España Libre’s message powerfully until the last issue of the periodical, even after many founders had passed away.
United by a culture of solidarity and political protest, the working-class community revealed in the periodical España Libre was favored by various networks of support. These included networks associated with the Second Spanish Republican government and politicians in exile; labor unions both within and outside the United States; educators, including Spanish academics and the Modern Schools; as well as Spanish-language and radical publishers operating in Europe and South America. Through the alternative press and fundraising events, exiles met other migrant, ethnic, and radical individuals and maintained a sense of trust and community so necessary to avoid the isolation of exile. On the contrary, ethnic and radical networks strengthened the Confederadas in its commitment to generating its own non-institutionalized and transnational modes of collective organization.
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