There is considerable literature on emigration from Spain to Mexico in the wake of the republican defeat in the Spanish Civil War. This study by Dolores Pla Brugat is different for several reasons: first, it focuses primarily upon the Catalans who emigrated after 1939; second, it rests upon a large number of interviews; third, the project is primarily a social history of the Catalan exiles although she does review the political context in Mexico.
Pla Brugat traces the flight of the Catalan exile through France to Mexico. Bitter experiences with the French fascist coix de feu mixed with harsh conditions in camps. Fortunately, there were also many individual French people who reached out with material help at the most difficult moments. Mexico’s willingness to accept 8,000 of the 23,000 refugees who were eventually relocated from France contrasted acutely with slight intake from other countries in the region. The book locates...
