Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Fields of Action, Fields of Thought
- 2 Nostalgia and Commemoration
- 3 A Time to Remember: 1937–1962
- 4 The Legend Business: 1962–1996
- 5 Songs of the Lincoln Brigade: Music, Commemoration, and Appropriation
- 6 Breathing Memory
- 7 Epilogue: Patriot Acts
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Epilogue: Patriot Acts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Fields of Action, Fields of Thought
- 2 Nostalgia and Commemoration
- 3 A Time to Remember: 1937–1962
- 4 The Legend Business: 1962–1996
- 5 Songs of the Lincoln Brigade: Music, Commemoration, and Appropriation
- 6 Breathing Memory
- 7 Epilogue: Patriot Acts
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The I.B.'s were the most ragged filthy hungry red eyed bastards
that ever went under the name of troops,
but they could fight and they fought.
They cursed their officers, groused and squawked,
but they held their lines and the lines held.
Every man was his own general but they could obey;
the Internationals never broke.
Never was “some day comrade” said with such longing.
Some day: no soldier has ever oiled or used or hated his rifle so well.
No troops ever loved peace like them.
Volunteer James Neugass, from “Give Us This Day” 19382001: Without a Parachute
I ended my commemorative chronicle with the sixtieth anniversary in 1996, but the process goes on. At the performance of Pasiones in Oakland in 2001, over a dozen veterans took the stage (see Figure 28). Four times a year, the Volunteer reports on activities around the country. Memorial monuments have been dedicated in Madison, Wisconsin, and Seattle, Washington (see Figure 29). The San Francisco post has secured a plot of land on the Embarcadero for a substantial monument that will be of national significance. It is being designed by Walter Hood, a UC Berkeley professor of landscape architecture, and artist Ann Chamberlain. The Post has raised approximately $150,000 toward the monument, and they are now seeking approval at the community level, which is proving difficult to obtain. Commemorative events continue annually in New York, Oakland, and other cities.
The struggle for recognition goes on as well. On Lincoln’s Birthday, February 12, 2001, a plaque almost identical to those placed on the memorials in Madison and Seattle was to be installed in the New Hampshire statehouse. State Senator Burton Cohen, a member of the ALBA board of governors, had received the approval of the House Facilities Committee, and the bronze plaque had been struck. Peter Carroll, veteran Lou Gordon and his wife, and the family of a New Hampshire veteran had all traveled to Concord to attend the unveiling. They were disappointed:
The harmony in New Hampshire disappeared three days before the ceremony was to take place, when the state’s conservative newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader, ran a front page story challenging the decision to honor Americans “who defied the State Department and traveled to Spain” in order to “fight alongside communists.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Radical NostalgiaSpanish Civil War Commemoration in America, pp. 262 - 270Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2005