Yale Historical Review an Undergraduate Publication Spring 2015
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THE YALE HISTORICAL REVIEW AN UNDERGRADUATE PUBLICATION SPRING 2015 THE YALE HISTORICAL REVIEW AN UNDERGRADUATE PUBLICATION The Yale Historical Review provides undergraduates an opportunity to have their exceptional work highlighted and SPRING 2015 encourages the diffusion of original historical ideas on campus by VOLUME IV providing a forum for outstanding undergraduate history papers ISSUE II covering any historical topic. FOUNDING PATRONS Yale European Studies Council Matthew and Laura Dominski Annie Yi In Memory of David J. Magoon Sareet Majumdar For past issues and information regarding Brenda and David Oestreich submissions, advertisements, subscriptions, The Program in Judaic Studies, Yale contributions, and our Editorial Board, please University South Asian Studies Council, Yale visit our website: University Stauer WWW.YALE.EDU/ Undergraduate Organizations Committee YALEHISTORICALREVIEW Derek Wang Yale Club of the Treasure Coast Or visit our Facebook page: Zixiang Zhao FOUNDING CONTRIBUTORS WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/ Council on Latin American and Iberian YALEHISTORICALREVIEW Studies at Yale Department of History, Yale With further questions or to provide University feedback, please e-mail us at: Peter Dominski J.S. Renkert [email protected] Joe and Marlene Toot Yale Center for British Art Or write to us at: Yale Club of Hartford Yale Council on Middle East Studies THE YALE HISTORICAL REVIEW CONTRIBUTORS 206 ELM STREET, #200233 American Historical Association YALE UNIVERSITY Department of the History of Art, Yale NEW HAVEN, CT 06520 University Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations The Yale Historical Review is published by Department at Yale Yale students. Yale University is not Greg Weiss responsible for its contents. ON THE COVER: “Niños republicanos exiliados.” C. 1939. Photograph. El País. Nov. 18, 2012. Last accessed April 5, 2015. http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2012/11/18/al- bum/1353195678_661629.html#1353195678_661629_1353198419. EDITOR IN CHIEF Scott Remer, PC ’16 EDITORIAL Spencer Weinreich, PC ’15 David Shimer, DC ’18 Lauren Wackerle, TC ’16 BOARD MANAGING EDITOR Christine Wang, SY ’18 Samuel Becker, CC ’16 COPY EDITORS SENIOR EDITORS Graham Ambrose, JE ’18 Olivia Pollak, DC ’16 Bernard Stanford, JE ’17 Andrew Tran, BK ’16 Maxwell Ulin, TD ’17 Jacob Wasserman, SY ’16 Emily Yankowitz, PC ’17 DEVELOPMENT CHAIR Andrew Stein, TD ’16 ASSOCIATE EDITORS Simon Horn, JE ’18 PRODUCTION AND Anthony Kayruz, BR ’17 DESIGN Jessica Liang, TD ’17 Julie Lowenstein, TC ’16 DAVID BLIGHT ADVISORY Class of 1954 Professor of American History; Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the BOARD Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition JOHN GADDIS Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History; Director of the Brady Johnson Program in Grand Strategy BEVERLY GAGE Director of Undergraduate Studies for History GLENDA GILMORE Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History, African American Studies, and American Studies JAY GITLIN Lecturer of History; Associate Director of the Howard R. Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders STEVEN PINCUS Bradford Durfee Professor of History; Co-Director of the Center for Historical Enquiry and the Social Sciences NORMA THOMPSON Director of Undergraduate Studies for Humanities LETTER FROM THE EDITORS As the 2016 election cycle slowly starts to play out in earnest, the question of immigration reform will no doubt take ever greater prominence in our public discourse. Yet the Americas have seen many centuries of migration, movements of individuals, families, and entire nations. It is to this long and continuing story that this edition of The Yale Historical Review is dedicated. The Spanish Civil War is often regarded as the forerunner to the Second World War, the first chapter in a dark period of European bloodshed. Two of our essays, however, examine the important role of the Americas in this “European” conflict. Omegar Chavolla-Zacarias ’16 considers the decision of the Mexican government to accept Spanish Republican refugees, highlighting how this humanitarian decision furthered myriad political, institutional, and ideological goals. Moving further south, Tomas Piedrahita, University of Pennsylvania ’16, studies a wide variety of Argentinian discourses surrounding the Spanish Civil War, inviting us to understand their rhetorical significance within the Argentinian political realm. The relationship of peoples and places is perhaps never more fraught than in the often violent history of European encounters with the native populations of the Americas. Jonah Bader ’16 examines one of the earliest and bloodiest such conflicts, King Philip’s War (1675–1678). His essay analyzes the colo- nists’ perceptions of Christianized “praying Indians,” following the political and cultural power of this easily manipulated image. And while the memory of battles between indigenous peoples and European settlers remains fresh in our minds, John Paul Paniagua, Whittier College ’14, brings our attention to a less obvious - but nonetheless formative - narrative, that in which Europeans forced over 2,000 Apache peoples away from the American Southwest and exiled them to a life of labor in Mexico City and Havana. Place may mean islands, nations, or whole continents; it may also manifest on the smaller scale of a single city. In his essay on the creation of the Major League Baseball stadium in Atlanta, Daniel Judt ’17 focuses on race, class, and urban renewal in an examination of how various inhabitants of the same city view the development of place and space from deeply divergent perspectives, creating or enforcing schisms within their communities. Once again, the Review is proud to present a longer essay through our website. Irma Mariana Ramirez Villa, Buena Vista University ’15, outlines the many registers of the American response to the dis- placed Jews of post-1945 Europe, unified by a measured altruism she characterizes as “calculated kindness.” The past two years have been an exciting period for the study of history at Yale: booming en- rollments, transformative changes to the undergraduate major, and the arrival of numerous new faculty members. One of our associate editors, David Shimer ’18, sat down with Professor Anne Eller, a scholar of Caribbean and Latin American history who joined the department in 2013, to discuss her research, the state of the field, and history at Yale. The end of the spring semester is traditionally a time of transition, as a class of seniors prepares to depart and a new class of freshman prepares to take its place. We at the Review extend a warm welcome to the class of 2019, and salute our graduating editors, past and present: Tiraana Bains, Stewart McDonald, Noah Remnick, Maude Tisch, and Spencer J. Weinreich. We would also like to thank the record number of students who were generous enough to share their projects of historical analysis with us, as without such enthusiasm we would not be able to present such a diverse and engaging collection of essays. We hope you will enjoy reading them as much as we have. Sincerely, Spencer J. Weinreich, Editor in Chief Samuel Becker, Managing Editor CONTENTS MEXICO AND THE REFUGEE QUESTION 7 Rewriting the Narrative of Colonization through Polititical Asylum Omegar Chavolla-Zacarias IN DEFENSE OF OUR BROTHERS’ CAUSE 18 Argentine Perspectives on the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 Tomas Piedrahita “ALL INDIANS ARE RECKONED TO BE FALSE AND PERFIDIOUS” 35 Colonists' Perceptions of Praying Indians During King Philip's War Jonah Bader APACHES IN THE RED ATLANTIC 49 Exile From Northern New Spain, 1729-1816 John Paul Paniagua LIMITATIONS OF THE PAST 81 Atlanta's Stadium and Atlanta's Image, 1960-2015 Daniel Judt “CALCULATED KINDNESS” 110 The Immigrant Experience of Jewish Refugees in Post-WWII America, 1945-1951 Irma Mariana Ramirez Villa AN INTERVIEW WITH ANNE ELLER 157 Assistant Professor of History Conducted by David Shimer MEXICO AND THE REFUGEE QUESTION REWRITING THE NARRATIVE OF COLONIZATION THROUGH POLITICAL ASYLUM As the Spanish Civil War was drawing to a close, the beleaguered Republican government arranged for Mexico to accept refugees fleeing Francisco Franco’s victorious Nationalists. Omegar Chavolla-Zacarias ’16 follows this story on multiple scales, examining the political aims and policy changes of the Mexican government alongside the stories of individual refugees. The essay identifies the ideological side of Mexico’s decision – inverting the power- dynamic of colony and colonizer–while never losing sight of the practical problems of transporting and settling thousands of refugees. Chavolla-Zacarias integrates this policy into the broader history of early twentieth century Mexico, its emergence and self-perception as a modern (and modernizing) nation-state. By Omegar Chavolla-Zacarias, BR ’16 Written for “Law and History” Professor Rohit De Faculty Advisor: Genevieve Carpio Edited by Jacob Wasserman and Anthony Kayruz 7 MEXICO AND THE REFUGEE QUESTION INTRODUCTION Night fell as 24-year-old Josefina García left her family’s home in the Spanish province of Leon with only the clothes on her back. Afraid of leaving footprints in the freshly fallen snow, she carefully avoided walking on the worn paths of her mountain village. Spain’s Civil War had just begun, but the right-wing Nationalists had already killed her brother, a supporter of the Spanish Republic, and Josefina suspected they would come for her next. As the war continued to unfold, it became clear that the Republicans would not win, and Josefina became a