Christopher J Castañeda

The emergence of a self-identified and transnational anarchist movement in the second half of the nineteenth century can be understood as both the manifestation of a philosophical humanitarian ideal and a reaction against those institutions that impeded an egalitarian society, such as authoritarian governments and laws, monarchies, religions of social control, and the societal inequalities fomented by capitalism. US-based Spanish-language anarchist periodicals promoted this movement while maintaining a remarkably cohesive and continuous transnational print network and readership. These periodicals also challenged social and economic inequalities in the United States and abroad through direct action. Despite the patriarchal privilege of the times, anarchist periodicals compel us to emphasize the importance of researching collectives and organizations beyond biographical, gender, ethnic, or national approaches so that we do not exclude cooperative practices from the recovery effort, particularly when unknown or unnamed participants formed the basis of their existence.

Americanized Spanish Culture explores the intricate transcultural dialogue between Spain and the United States since the late 19 th century.
The term "Americanized" reflects the influence of American cultural traits, ideas, and tendencies on individuals, institutions, and creative works that have moved back and forth between Spain and the US. Although it is often defined narrowly as the result of a process of cultural imperialism, colonization, assimilation, and erasure, this book uses the term more expansively to explore representations of the transcultural mixing of Spanish and American culture in which the American influence might seem dominant but may in some cases be the one that is shaped. The chapters in this volume highlight the lives of fascinating individuals, ideologies, and artistry that represent important themes in this transnational relationship of dislocated empires. The contributors represent a wide array of perspectives and life experiences giving breadth, depth, and realism to their observations and analysis. Organized in two parts of five chapters each, this volume offers a unique perspective on the intermixing and intermingling of Spanish and American social, cultural, and literary traits and characteristics.
This book will be of interest to students of US and Spanish history, Iberian and Hispanic American studies, and cultural studies.
Introduction Transcultural Bonds and Americanized Spanish Culture
Christopher J. Castañeda & Miquel Bota
Part I: Spanish Lives in the US
1. Parallel Lives and Clashing Identities: Francisco José Navarro and Pedro Esteve in the ‘capital of the world’
Chris Ealham & Christopher J. Castañeda
2. The Anarchist’s Pen is Mightier than the Bomb: My Grandfather, Maximiliano Olay
Amelia Olay Kaplan
3. Chronicling the Modern US: Aurelio Pego’s Immigration Journalism
Montse Feu
4. The Silence of Fathers: The Story Ramon J. Sender Never Wrote
Ramón Sender Barayón & Christopher J. Castañeda
5. Self-Made Man a la Española : Jean León
Pepa Novell
　
Part II: Cartoons, Dramas, and Lyricism
6. " The Will to Empire :" Josep Bartolí’s Editorial Humor in the New York Magazine Ibérica; For a Free Spain
Montse Feu
7. California Dreamin’: Nostalgia and Retrofuturism in 1980s Spanish Comics
Alberto Villamandos
8. Latin@ Visions: Race and Gender Representations in Netflix’ Cocaine Coast
Zaya Rustamova
9. Our Ways Are Their Ways in Disguise: Cuéntame como pasó and the Wonders of the Spanish Satellite
Miquel Bota
10. Post-National Genres: A ‘Story’ of Lyricism from North America to the Iberian Peninsula
Virginia Ramos
Christopher J. Castañeda is Professor of History at California State University, Sacramento. His interests include transnational Hispanic studies and Spanish-language anarchist print culture.
Miquel Bota is Assistant Professor of Spanish at California State University, Sacramento. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University, and his areas of interest are imperialism and gender studies in the cultural production of Global Hispanophone.

Writing Revolution examines the ways in which Spanish-language anarchist print culture established and maintained transnational networks from the late 19th through 20th centuries. Organized both chronologically and thematically, the chapters in this book explore how Spanish-speaking anarchists based in the United States, Latin America, and Spain promoted comprehensive social and economic reform, that is, the social revolution, while confronting an aggressively industrializing world that privileged authority vested in the state, capital, and church over the working class, specifically, and individual freedoms, generally. Within this historical context of activism and culture production from below, the essays in this volume show how anarchist periodicals connected, fostered, and maintained Spanish-speaking radicals and groups in major metropolises.

Hispanic intervention in the colonial history of the Americas is well-known.1 Much less understood is the modern Hispanic migration to, and struggle for freedom in, the United States. To better understand the complexities of this intersectional migration, we focus on the lives of Hispanic anarchists, libertarians, and free thinkers who rejected the hallmarks of traditional society—church, state, and capitalism—because they deemed those institutions to be oppressive and tyrannical. In their endeavor to create a truly equitable society built upon the ideals of liberty and justice for all, these anarchists developed a vibrant network of transnational periodicals from the late 19th through 20th centuries...

This essay examines the conflict that arose among some Spanish-born (peninsular) cigar makers in New York and Cuban separatists. During the 1890s, a vibrant anarchist community developed in Brooklyn, New York, that published a periodical, El Despertar (1891-1902) and interacted with anarchists in Spain, Florida, and Cuba among other locations. As the conflict between Spanish colonial authority over Cuba became increasingly contentious and violent, tensions between some Cubans and Spaniards increased as well, particularly among Cubans who felt that many Spanish anarchists were indifferent to the separatist cause. Jose C. Campos, a Cuban émigré living in Brooklyn, addressed these issues in a number of essays printed in El Despertar and other workers’ newspapers and attempted to redirect anxiety and anger toward capitalism instead of destructive infighting among Spanish-speaking cigar workers.

After the Spanish-American War (1898), many anarchists began to focus their attention on the rising discontent among Mexico’s landless working class. The Flores Magón brothers sought to galvanize support for revolutionary change in Mexico, and they received welcome support from Spanish anarchists, including Jaime Vidal and Pedro Esteve. In particular, Jaime Vidal, who had also helped to organize Spanish firemen on the East Coast sought to promote and assist Magónismo. Through his essays, his several anarchist periodicals, and fund-raising activities in both New York and California, Jaime Vidal helped to incorporate and promote the Magón’s efforts in the transnational anarchist print network.

Spanish-speaking immigrant cigar makers created an influential anarchist colony in Brooklyn during the late nineteenth century. Although studies of diasporic Spanish radicalism in this era typically identify Ybor City (Tampa) and Key West as the activist cigar makers’ principal locations in the United States, New York’s Spanish-speaking anarchist cigar makers established Brooklyn as a primary center for the support and promotion of anarchism, Cuba Libre, and of opposition to the Spanish monarchy and church. This chapter will examine the origins, development, and significant participants in Brooklyn’s radical colonia within the transnational anarchist network of the late nineteenth and early twentieth