Andie Fortier

Cinematic Spain (Fall 2017)

Final Essay

Professor Sara Villa – The New School

David Miller

Personal Statement

I began my research reading a collection of letters that David Miller himself had written. I began to familiarize myself with his language and his extremely detail oriented, observant writing. Reading these letters allowed me to begin to infer certain things in regards to his experience, but most of all they sparked my curiosity and only pushed me further to ask more questions and find more answers. Many of these questions were answered by the in the Fredericka Martin Papers (ALBA #1 box#19 folder 16). Her correspondences with Miller, as well as her meticulous collection of newspaper articles and writings about Miller allowed me to view the Spanish Civil war through the eyes of an individual. It humanized what is so often inhuman.   (more…)

Jane Balfus

Cinematic Spain – Fall 2017

Final Essay

Prof. Sara Villa – The New School

Alvah Cecil Bessie

Alvah Cecil Bessie was born in a wealthy sector of Harlem in 1904 to a Jewish family. His father was an inventor, and also worked in business, which allowed for their affluent lifestyle. Bessie attended Columbia University and majored in English studies. He became involved in a friendship with Eugene O’Neill after college, who was a prominent  member of the Provincetown Players; a group of creatives involved in theatre, that began in Massachusetts. This relationship with O’Neill launched Bessie into a performance career. He acted for almost five years with the Provincetown company. He eventually moved to France in 1928 and pursued writing. He fell under the category of US-born writers and businessmen who relocated to Europe in the 1920s. A few years later, his concerns regarding Fascist ideology became increasingly more aggravated. It can be assumed that perhaps his proximity to Spain led him to solidify his supposed “radical communist thought”. Almost ten years after he moved to France, on the twenty second of January in 1938, Bessie sailed to Spain on the S.S. Lafayette with the intent to join the International Brigade’s fight against the Franco-led rebellion (Bessie Papers). (more…)

Ross Wheeler
Español 37026

Hunter College-CUNY

Profesora Hernández-Ojeda

James Bernard Rucker

Dos grandes obreros heroicos se enfrentan a las puertas del archivo Tamiment, de NYU; pintado de pie, están como acomodadores hacia los documentos, fotos, pósteres, y artefactos que documentan las causas y condiciones laborales en los Estados Unidos hace dos siglos. Los documentos de la colección de la Brigada Abraham Lincoln fueron el interés de la clase. Después de una introducción, la bibliotecaria demostró los métodos de uso e interpretación por contextualización de los materiales históricos. Inicié una búsqueda de los soldados de Bridada Abraham Lincoln y aprendí, por una colección de papeles recogidos para crear el libro African Americans in the Spanish Civil War: “This Ain’t Ethiopia, But It’ll Do”, que 83 soldados africanos americanos servían en España[1]. El libro me interesó porque el asunto del racismo en América fue (more…)

Laura Montoya

Hons 2011J

Hunter College-CUNY

Professor María Hernández-Ojeda                                                                                                                                             

Jewish Involvement in the Spanish Civil War: The Story of Mark Straus

Personal Statement

          It is not often one gets the chance to go through primary sources and relive the story of such heroic characters. It was an intimidating task at first to think that words would not be sufficient to narrate the memories of a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War and accurately bring their story back to life. While going through the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives list it was difficult to decide whose story I would be brave enough to tell. I chose Mark Straus because, unlike most volunteers, his files extended only to one small box. I concluded that the limited content in the box made telling his story evermore important. When I began going through the materials I realized that there was not one printed document. Instead, it was a composition of hand-written letters from him, family members and friends in French, English and Yiddish.  (more…)

Rafid Amin

HONS 2011J

Hunter College-CUNY

Professor Hernández-Ojeda

Milton Wolff

Personal Statement

                Milton Wolff first caught my eye when I watched the documentary The Good Fight (1984) with classmates in our Spanish Civil War in Literature, Film and Art course, led by Professor Maria Hernandez-Ojeda. We watched the documentary fairly early into the semester and so, I did not know much about the Spanish Civil War yet. At first, I was interested and awed by the fact that we were watching a documentary involving veterans from a war that happened almost eighty years ago. Milton Wolff, as well as several other volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, made an appearance and although I knew very little about the war at the time, there was something uplifting about the documentary. Wolff caught my attention as he had a way with words in the documentary and he fully expressed his need, a global need, in fact, to take on fascism during the Spanish Civil War. It was immediately clear to me that Milton Wolff had a perspective on life larger than his own, that he could see a much bigger picture. (more…)