ORCID
Kathryn Everly: 0000-0001-9757-805X
Document Type
Article
Date
Spring 3-30-2022
Keywords
Salaria Kea, Spanish Civil War, Intersectionality, Abraham Lincoln Brigades, African Americans in Spain
Language
English
Funder(s)
Syracuse University Humanities Center
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the Syracuse University Humanities Center for a Faculty Fellowship spring 2020, to the helpful and knowledgeable staff at the Tamiment Library Special Collections, and to my research assistant, Lucas Gascón, for his patience and insight.
Disciplines
African History | Communication | European Languages and Societies | Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature | Women's History | Women's Studies
Description/Abstract
Salaria Kea was the only African American woman to serve with the American Medical Unit during the Spanish Civil War. Her experience has been silenced and edited within the archive by traditionally more authoritative voices. Reconsidering the impact of intersectionality on personal experience can lead to a better understanding of Black U.S. participation in voluntary war efforts as well as to a decentering of the predominant euro-centric versions of the war in Spain and of history in general. The impetus of many African Americans to join the fight against fascism in Spain stemmed directly from the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and the Spanish war in 1936 symbolized racial freedom from fascist oppression for many Black volunteers. For many female nurses, the war in Spain was a chance to actively participate in anti-fascist politics and work side by side with men on the front lines. Through a close textual analysis of papers in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives housed at New York University’s Tamiment Library, this article examines the intersectional experience of Kea as a Black woman in Spain and uncovers the textual violence that has silenced her story in the archives.
Recommended Citation
Everly, Kathryn, "Intersectional Silencing in the Archive: Salaria Kea and The Spanish Civil War" (2022). Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship. 29.
https://surface.syr.edu/lll/29
Source
submission
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Included in
African History Commons, Communication Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons, Women's History Commons, Women's Studies Commons
