“When Franco wanted to send us to Fernando Poo”. Fears and hopes in the memory of a gypsy man

Authors

  • Carmen Doncel Sanchez Universidad Complutense de Madrid

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18042/hp.40.06

Keywords:

Oral history, memory, gypsies, Franco’s regime, anti-gypsyism.

Abstract

This article outlines the value and singularity of oral sources as an indispensable methodological tool to know the past of gypsy people. The proposal is based on the life story of an old gypsy “man of respect” from Asturias (Spain) who was interviewed as part of an oral history project on the memory of gypsies about their lived experiences during the Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship. Specifically, we will focus on a particular story told by this man about an event happened in Madrid in the mid 50s and its implications for the Spanish gypsy community as a whole. Through the analysis of this testimony and the anti-gypsy discourse to which that event gave rise in the press of that time, we will show the complex relationships established between what was experienced and what was just imagined in the configuration of memory.

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Author Biography

Carmen Doncel Sanchez , Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Doctoranda en el Departamento de Historia Contemporanea de la UCM

Published

2018-11-15

How to Cite

Doncel Sanchez, C. (2018). “When Franco wanted to send us to Fernando Poo”. Fears and hopes in the memory of a gypsy man. Historia Y Política, (40), 147–177. https://doi.org/10.18042/hp.40.06

Issue

Section

MONOGRAPHS

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