Everything is Ideology: a Cultural Studies Podcast
Indigenous Solidarity Towards Spanish Exiles in Mexico, 1936–1939 w/ Kevan Antonio Aguilar
Buymeacoffee.com/everythingisideology Shownotes : Today I’m joined by historian Kevan Antonio Aguilar, Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, to discuss his recent article, “Decolonizing Refuge: Indigenous Solidarity Towards Spanish Exiles in Mexico, 1936–1939,” and his broader research on Spanish Republican exile, Indigenous politics, and revolutionary Mexico. Our conversation begins with what appears to be a contradiction. In the aftermath of centuries of Spanish colonial domination, Indigenous and campesino communities in Mexico petitioned the revolutionary government of Lázaro Cárdenas to resettle Spanish refugees on their lands. But these communities did not simply understand the refugees through the racial and colonial categories imposed by the Mexican state. Instead, many recognized Spanish workers and peasants as comrades: people who had themselves been dispossessed from the land, displaced by political violence, and drawn into a global struggle against fascism. From there, we explore the politics of agrarian reform and Indigenous land tenure; the racial and eugenic assumptions embedded within revolutionary nationalism; competing ideas of mestizaje, indigeneity, and Mexican identity; and the limits of understanding decolonization solely through the categories of race or national belonging. We also discuss petitions, popular assemblies, anarchist internationalism, and the remarkable circulation of political consciousness between Mexico and Spain. Finally, we turn to culture itself as a terrain of struggle. Traveling exhibitions, political posters, radio, newsreels, and film brought images of the Spanish Civil War into rural and Indigenous communities across Mexico, where audiences transformed spectatorship into political action—organizing, debating, protesting, and building new forms of international solidarity. Kevan Antonio Aguilar is an assistant professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. He is currently completing his first book manuscript “Revolutionary Encounters: Spanish Exiles in the Mexican Countryside.” He is also a cofounder of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) at UC Irvine and recently served as the vice president of labor relations for the Council of University of Faculty Associations (CUCFA). Links: https://read.dukeupress.edu/radical-history-review/article-abstract/2025/153/116/405053/Decolonizing-Refuge-Indigenous-Solidarity-Toward?redirectedFrom=fulltext
