The Cold War culture of political exile: United States artists and writers in Mexico, 1940--1965

The onset of the Cold War precipitated a distinct and extensive formation of political exile, comprised of North American writers and artists who left the U.S. during the 1940s and 1950s. My dissertation examines key exile communities---consisting primarily of Spanish Civil War veterans, Hollywood exiles, and visual artists interested in the work of Mexican painters and printmakers---that developed in Mexico City and Cuernavaca. Within these communities I focus on the work of composer Conlon Nancarrow, novelist Willard Motley, poet George Oppen, visual artist Elizabeth Catlett, and screenwriters Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner, Jr., Albert Maltz, Hugo and Jean Butler, Gordon Kahn and Julian Zimet. These individuals chose exile in Mexico in order to continue producing cultural work and through this displacement their cultural practices were transformed by the transnational character of their predicament. As a result, the work of these artists and writers does not correspond to any one national cultural tradition. Instead I suggest that their work destabilizes the concept of national culture and offers a way to understand transnational cultural production in the post-World War II era.;This dissertation begins by focusing on the development of U.S. exile communities in Mexico during the 1940s and 1950s, analyzing the dual position of the U.S. exiles in Mexico as political exiles and "resident imperialists." The central section maps out four different options for the production, exhibition and distribution of cultural work which developed through the relations of exile. It also explores the three ways in which these individuals perceived their exile, through allegorizing their own experiences in Mexico, and by understanding Mexican culture as well as North American tourists in Mexico. The last section examines the forces which contributed to the dispersion of the Cold War exiles from Mexico starting in the mid-1950s. It concludes with the reintegration of the Cold War exiles into U.S. culture during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and an analysis of the significance of their exile in Mexico on their lives and work.