Charlie’s research focuses on the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and American Medical Bureau who chose self-exile in Mexico during the Cold War. He is particularly interested in Mexico’s role as a transnational site of cultural production, commemoration, comradeship, and resistance to the U.S. Cold War state. Beyond Mexico, Charlie explores the intersection between surveillance and state repression, historical memory, and intergenerational trauma and activism. Centering on the children of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and American Medical Bureau veterans, he seeks to understand how the political commitments of their parents, and the consequence of those causes, affected them throughout their lives. Charlie is launching an oral history project with the children to explore this question.
Charlie is a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, a member of Veterans for Peace, and active in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives.
