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I grew up in Capellades, a small town outside Barcelona, in a bourgeois Catalan family. Now I live in Eugene, Oregon. After ten years in the Bay Area I moved to Eugene in 1986, to do graduate work at the University of Oregon and never returned to live in Spain.

In the early 1970s, my boyfriend then Ignasi Vidal, an editor at Editorial Edima and later at Grijalbo, was interested in finding documents and manuscripts in the archives of exiles from the Spanish Civil War for publication.  We visited Toulouse several times where we met Ramón Puig, a member of the CNT, who during the Republic was the last mayor of Ripoll, a town in the  Girona’s province, near the Pyrenees.

Ramón was generous and open minded, he trusted us, sharing important information, books, and guidance, as well as telling us political and personal stories.  He was a remarkable human being.  The last time we saw him, as we were leaving and already in the street, he looked up and down to make sure no one was observing us, then he pulled the scarf from his packet and gave it to me and said “be careful.” His words and loving protection, resonated with me deeply. In my life, as I moved from place to place, I have remembered him and his advice.

These encounters with Ramón, as well as other exiles, transformed my views of the Spanish Civil War, of Catalunya and Spain.  I learned from him and other exiles more than I ever could in any classroom during the dictatorship of Franco and beyond. He gave me a hunger for learning and helped me to be the person that I am today.

Growing up, exiles from the Spanish Civil War had been demonized by teachers and religious leaders. They were the “rojos,” the devils. Interacting with them, seeing how they lived, and talking with them, I was able to appreciate their humanity, knowledge, and deep commitment to build a just and better world.