Spanish Civil War exiles in Mexico

Abstract

This paper deals with the characteristics of the group made up by the Spanish women exiled in Mexico since 1939 as a consequence of the Civil War. We view the exile from a general perspective which lets us compare it (in the forties and fifties) with the economic emigration to America of the first thirty years of the XX century, in order to see the differences and similarities between the women who took part in those migrations and, in a more general sense, the relationship between both groups of Spaniards in Mexico.

A qualitative survey of the female group in exile requires the use of new sources, such as the oral and the iconographic ones. These are personal interviews with the protagonists of the exile and the photographs of the Mayo Brothers' archives.

As for the activities carried out by the Spanish women in Mexico, it is possible to point out two aspects: first, the dedication of most of the exile women to sewing at home and, second, that there was an important group of women working in solidarity with the Spanish prisoners within the Union of Spanish Women and a significant minority occupied in intellectual and professional activities, specially education.

It was precisely the dedication to political and cultural activities one of the distinctive features of the exile, which always stressed the interest in keeping the Spanish Republican culture alive, hoping to retum to a Spain without Franco.