I didn't want to understand it.
The first I can remember was knowing that there were many Spanish shop owners, specifically: bakeries, furniture shops, general food shops. The owners had come to Mexico during the Civil War and in my little girl's understanding very long time ago. There were also the Spanish and the Asturian Clubs, the Spanish restaurants, the Colegio Madrid, the Luis Vives school, and every now and then you met some of them with their 'funny' accent. At school I met some girls whose parents had come to Mexico in those years.
My mother told me that when she was a little girl too, she tried to imitate the Spanish accent, that one of her -never forgotten- boy friends had been Spanish. But it all seemed at a far distance.
At the other hand at that time, as my grandparents owned a big building, the apartments started one by one getting inhabitated by political refugees from South America. Like our friends Ricardo and Hildegard, the last had been working directly for Allende. They told many sad and cruel stories to my parents, but as I was always around, I was carefull to follow them. After a while I had the larger picture of the situation in Chile. That was near and real to me.
A bit older at our literature lessons I learned that Garcia Lorca was killed during the Guerra Civil, and about the Guernica painting by Picasso. But I never quite understood the meaning of that war in Spain. All of a sudden all the information comes to its place and I understand (and want to understand) more the significant situation for the Spanish people to share the same streets with the "enemies", for generations, and how they are confronting now the past.
I am full of questions now, but I will try to read better between lines. The history gave an important shape to Mexico, and some how to me. But, how?
What are the Capa photographs are going to reveal? Probably not much, but questioning the past is already a big step.
Many of the photos are Capa's and other sources.
The first I can remember was knowing that there were many Spanish shop owners, specifically: bakeries, furniture shops, general food shops. The owners had come to Mexico during the Civil War and in my little girl's understanding very long time ago. There were also the Spanish and the Asturian Clubs, the Spanish restaurants, the Colegio Madrid, the Luis Vives school, and every now and then you met some of them with their 'funny' accent. At school I met some girls whose parents had come to Mexico in those years.
My mother told me that when she was a little girl too, she tried to imitate the Spanish accent, that one of her -never forgotten- boy friends had been Spanish. But it all seemed at a far distance.
At the other hand at that time, as my grandparents owned a big building, the apartments started one by one getting inhabitated by political refugees from South America. Like our friends Ricardo and Hildegard, the last had been working directly for Allende. They told many sad and cruel stories to my parents, but as I was always around, I was carefull to follow them. After a while I had the larger picture of the situation in Chile. That was near and real to me.
A bit older at our literature lessons I learned that Garcia Lorca was killed during the Guerra Civil, and about the Guernica painting by Picasso. But I never quite understood the meaning of that war in Spain. All of a sudden all the information comes to its place and I understand (and want to understand) more the significant situation for the Spanish people to share the same streets with the "enemies", for generations, and how they are confronting now the past.
I am full of questions now, but I will try to read better between lines. The history gave an important shape to Mexico, and some how to me. But, how?
What are the Capa photographs are going to reveal? Probably not much, but questioning the past is already a big step.
Many of the photos are Capa's and other sources.
