The Fòrum de Debats of the Universitat de València presents this Wednesday, 13 April, at 19:00, in the Aula Magna of the Cultural Centre La Nau, the documentary from InfoTV ‘La guerra de siempre’, the third of a series published in the project ‘Del Montgó a Manhattan. Valencians a Nova York’, which revises life of Valencian emigrants in United States and the consequences of their return to Spain in the Republic years.
Valencian who emigrates 100 years ago to United States not only brought money to buy lands but a more modern way of life. Lots of towns of the Marina and the Safor, where most of emigrants came from, had, during the republic, mayors and councillors who returned from New York. They had more knowledge than people from the same place, there they had seen a different way of life and a different government and, when they returned, the wanted to initiate reforms in their towns,which imitated the American model, fairer, freer and more equal.
Pego, el Verger, Benimantell, Bellreguard, Pedreguer, Gata, Tormos, Benissa, Beniarbeig, Vall de Gallinera, l'Alfàs del Pi, Murla or Famorca are some of the halls governed from 1931 by republican and left-wing councillors who learnt in New York that things could be made on other way. In fact, they are members of the Socialist Party or Esquerra Republicana of Manuel Azaña, but the don’t want to introduce any revolutionary Soviet system. The one they have in mind is the one they looked in United States, a capitalism hardly nuanced by sympathy and which hadn’t any public system of pensions or unemployment benefits until the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt (1933-1945). But, even so, it was fairer than the old despotic system dominant in their towns.
That years this towns knew fiscal reforms which forced the one who had more to pay more; compulsory school until 16 against child labour; nursery for the young children, to make possible the work of the parents; street paving and the access to safe water. But the war and the post-war stumbled on the good intentions. Despite the moderation that they showed draw from the putsch of general Franco and they intervened in some towns to avoid the murderous of right-wing people. all the detected cases in the research ended in April 1939 with the exile, with years of prison or even in some capital punishments, like Aquilino Barrachina and Antoni Vicent Borràs, matyors of Pego and Bellreguard, respectively. That is why; the documentary is homage to those who paid a high price for their reforming longing.
A second migratory wave for the one who were born in U.S.A.
The second part of the documentary is dedicated to the post-war, which degenerated into a second migratory wave to U.S.A. This option, however, was saved to those Valencian young people who were born twenty or thirty years ago in United States, under the wing of emigrant and returned families. Only they, who has the right to an American passport, had safe passage in their country of birth. And they went on, despite difficulties of the government of Franco. When they arrived, they claimed their closest relatives, to begin a new life, the one of the American dream, far from political and economical misery of the post-war in Spain.
‘La guerra de sempre’ (82 minutes) is the continuation of the two previous documentaries of the series of InfoTV dedicated to Valencian emigration to the United States and Canada, ‘Cap a la terra promesa’ (93 minutes) and ‘Adéu Amèrica’. And there is a fourth documentary, which completes this tetralogy, ‘Els valencians d’Àmerica’ (88 minutes), which will be release in the middle 2016. All of them are signed by the journalist Juli Esteve, as scriptwriter and director; and by Esther Albert and Antoni Arnau, as responsible for image, edition and postproduction.
The global project, ‘Del Montgó a Manhattan. Valencians a Nova York’, has been supported by the Institut d’Estudis Comarcals of the Marina Alta; the Valencian Council, Universidad de Alicante, Universitat de València, Politècnica de València and Miguel Hernández, the company Rolser, the CEIC Alfons el Vell of Gandia, the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, and the Mancomunitat Cultural de la Marina Alta and around 40 halls.
Last update: 11 de april de 2016 12:14.
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