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 Entertainment | Books | January 2007 
A Gathering of Fugitives
 PVNN
| | "A Gathering of Fugitives" has been out of print for a while, but thanks to the miracles of modern technology and the hard work of Anhalt’s publisher, John Taylor-Convery of Archer Books, it is now available for purchase at Amazon.com, or as a FREE, printable PDF e-book (click HERE to download) |
Diana Anhalt’s book, "A Gathering of Fugitives," is a fascinating read worth checking out. This lively personal account tells the stories of American expatriates living in Mexico City and elsewhere in Mexico because they had been "blacklisted" during the McCarthy era.
Diana, who was 10 years old when her parents left the Bronx for Mexico City, has tracked down many of these people and their families whom she knew from her childhood. As a witness, she makes their stories come alive in a very personal book.
In her own words...
"During the 1950s, more than sixty American families, including mine, sought refuge in Mexico during the so-called McCarthy era. These political expatriates—individualists, idealists, visionaries, informers and spies are a compelling group."
While some of these lives have been extensively documented, most have not, but deserve to be. The FBI called them the ACGM, the American Communist Group in Mexico. Among their ranks were Spanish Civil War veterans, ‘undesirable’ U.S. resident aliens, Communist Party organizers, Hollywood activists, ‘unfriendly’ witnesses at congressional hearings, and a handful who maintained an underground apparatus of the C.P.U.S.A. (Communist Party of the United States of America.)
As a child, and even later, I was oblivious to all this. I had no secrets; my parents said nothing. If people asked, "Why did your family leave New York and move to Mexico? I couldn’t say: 'My parents were Communists fleeing McCarthyism,' because I didn’t know that. Not until their deaths a few years ago would I confirm my suspicions that they were, in fact, part of this group..."
First published in 2001, "A Gathering of Fugitives" has been out of print for a while, but thanks to the miracles of modern technology and the hard work of Anhalt’s publisher, John Taylor-Convery of Archer Books, it is now available for purchase at Amazon.com, or as a FREE, printable PDF e-book (click HERE to download).
Reviews and Comments on Anhalt's A Gathering of Fugitives:
". . . this is an excellent addition to the literature of Cold War America."
— Library Journal
"A fascinating exhumation of a little-known group of American communists—idealists, artists, spies and Hollywood types—who migrated to Mexican exile in the late 1940s and 1950s. Diana Anhalt tells their story—and her own—sympathetically but not uncritically."
— Dr. Harvey Klehr, Department of Political Science, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
"Diana Anhalt’s lively personal account introduces us to the heretofore unknown story of this struggling community. . . . It’s an important story—and Anhalt tells it well—reminding us of the personal costs that political repression can inflict upon its victims and their families."
- Dr. Ellen W. Schrecker, Editor, "Academe," Bulletin of the Am. Assoc. of University Professors |
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