Exciting news! The Spanish edition of Jim Higgins’ book, Luchando por la Democracia, has just been published by the University of Zaragoza Press (PUZ), AND I’ve just made plans to be in Spain from October 14 through November 8 to celebrate. It’s all happened rather quickly.
The man holding Fighting for Democracy is Ben Pratt, a full time firefighter/paramedic in Augusta; Maine’s state capital.
So what is my father’s book doing in a fire station in Maine and why is it featured in this image.
Continue readingLea la traducción al español aqui.
I knew little about Juan José Ibañez Esnal, the man behind the Spanish translation of Jim Higgins’ book, Fighting for Democracy, A Canadian Activist in Spain’s Civil War. I set out to learn more about his family but more importantly, I wanted to know why he did it. His reasons are somewhat surprising.
Continue readingLea la traducción al español aquí.
I’m still rubbing my eyes in disbelief — I have in hand a full Spanish translation of Fighting for Democracy by Jim Higgins. Si, el libro Luchando por la Democracia de Jimmy Higgins, ha sido traducido al translado al espagñol!
It’s all because of a man named Juan José Ibañez Esnal who lives in San Sebastián, a port city in Basque Country in northern Spain near the French border. Here’s how it all went down.
Continue readingMoving. Gripping. Inspiring. These are just some of the descriptors I’ve heard from strangers who’ve read “Fighting for Democracy.” Friends have jumped in, too; some of whom wouldn’t normally read a book like this.
Continue readingThis Remembrance Day, as always, the veterans of the Mackenzie Papineau Battalion are not amongst those officially honoured here in Canada; unless they also fought in the First or Second World Wars, as many did.
Today, November 11, 2020, I went to the Mac-Pap memorial in Toronto on the grounds of the Ontario Legislature to honour them in my own small way. The memorial is a boulder from the battlefields near the town of Gandesa Spain; a place where the Mac-Paps fought and where many lost their lives.
Continue readingI remember it well. It was a sunny day, thirty-eight years ago today, and much hotter than usual for late September. I was sweltering in my red wool sweater and pleated plaid skirt, and standing with my siblings and a few others in Peterborough’s Little Lake cemetery where my father, Jim Higgins, was to be buried beside our mother. There was one person I didn’t know—a young woman—and it’s only in recent years that I’ve come to know who she was and why she was there.
Continue ReadingJim Higgins (1907-1982) lived the history of Canadian labour, so it’s fitting that his book, Fighting for Democracy, should launch this Labour Day Weekend, 2020.
Jim came to Canada from England in 1928 at age twenty-one. It didn’t take long for him to experience his first lesson in collective action. He’d arrived with others under the Canadian government’s wheat harvest scheme and while waiting to be assigned to wheat farms across Canada, they stood up to officials who wanted them to stop smoking. (It was a different time!)
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Jim Higgins defied Canadian law to fight for democracy in the Spanish Civil War. On return, he was branded a communist, hounded by the RCMP, and welcomed by Lincoln Battalion comrades when he sought refuge in New York.
Continue reading“I was riveted. There are few workers’ memoirs as excellent…engaging, informative, and very well written.” James L. Turk, Centre for Free Expression, Ryerson University and Author, Free Speech in Fearful Times
“The fact that (Jim) was involved in secret ops makes this book particularly memorable…a key read for historians looking for new details of the Battle of the Ebro.” Jason Webster, Author, Violencia: A New History of Spain
I received Jim Higgins’s RCMP file in Spring 2019 under a Freedom of Information request. Not only did the Royal Canadian Mounted Police file document many of his activities during the Great Depression, and after, it also held an intriguing glimpse into his romantic life, a couple of years before he met his wife, Reta Palliser.
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