Asturian-American Migration Forum

I think that VCR tapes and DVD's have different formats in Europe and the US. Music CD's seem to have the same format (I have purchased many music CD's directly from Spain and they play just fine on my US equipment).

A CD with the text of the book in a standard word processing format (Word or WordPerfect), in plain text format (with this option, I'm not sure how diacritical characters would turn out), or in PDF format should work globally.

You could also post the book on our website for downloading.

I am looking forward to reading the personal histories that have been written by your group, and I thank you and my cousin Donna for your hard work in producing the book. The project transforms oral history into a print and electronic version that is much more likely to be preserved. Once stories like these are lost, they are lost forever.

Abrazos,

Bob Martinez

BOB--
Thanks for your answer. You are probably right that the different formats apply only to video.
As for posting the book on your website, I think it may be a good idea and I don't think anybody in our group would object to it.
But I should point out that it is not an article of a few pages. Donna says that it's over 200 text pages and includes photographs. I don't know if the length would pose a problem.

Can Donna give us an estimate of the size with photos?

A quick test shows that a 200 page document without photos would probably be close to 250K, but zips down to about 60K.

Adding photos can really bloats the size, depending on the size and quality level of the images. An experiment I did showed that you don't gain much by zipping images. That makes sense because jpgs are already compressed to save space.

I'd be open to trying this. It's a very interesting project. We should be able to do it on the site, although we may have to increase our bandwidth limits.

ART-
I'm sure that Donna can give you an idea of the number and size of the photos. Of the ones I've seen, most are 1/4 page size. Except that the title page and the back page are full-page. There are a few color photos though.I haven't tried to count the total number of photos.

I sent an e-mail today to all the "authors " to see if anybody objected to uploading the book to your site. The only reply I've got so far is that it's a GREAT idea. I really don't anticipate any objections.
If it's feasable, uploading the book to your site would save Donna the trouble of making CD-ROMs, etc...and make it available to more people.

You're right: Having the book available on the site would really make distribution easier and probably cheaper. I've emailed Donna for details.

Obviously, we'd happy to support you in this project. And I've got to say that I'm really impressed that you've (almost!) pulled it off. I've not been able to get my family to write their stories yet. Time isn't on our side, is it?

Art,

Hmm, talking about Donna, I haven't seen her post in a long time. Maybe she was TOO busy doing THE BOOK.

Well, I'm sure that some in the group didn't think we could do it. At least that's what they thought at the beginning. I don't think that Donna knew what she was volunteering for, and she probably was tearing her hair out trying to do the stories written in Spanish. It certainly is no work of ART, but it's almost done.

I do think that if the reader overlooks a "few" flaws here and there and focuses on the meat of the stories, that they'll enjoy it and maybe even learn a little about history.

BACK TO "THE SEARCH"
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Although progress is slow,"The Search" goes on. I may actually have found a couple of organizations that may be willing to help. The most promising one is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), based in NY.
That may sound a little strange, but there were quite a few Jewish children that were brought on the same boats as the Spanish children. There is no doubt in my mind that the Jewish organizations in the US were better organized and kept better records than the organizations responsible for us.
Anyway, after I contacted the HIAS by e-mail, a Mr. Valery Bazarov actually PHONED me to find more details. So I e-mailed him a list of the Spanish children, on which boats they came and dates of their arrivals. He promised to get on the case as soon as possible.
Although it may seem a little strange that I've found the Jewish and Quaker organizations considerably more willing to help than some "Christian" organizations, I have to keep reminding myself that they were more involved in the rescue of European children during WWII.

THREE MORE FROM ASTURIAS (TRES MAS DESDE ASTURIAS )
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Somebody mailed me part of the passenger list of the ship Serpa Pinto.

From the list, we have obtained additional information on three Spanish refugees:

Albina Perez Cuervo...........Gijon
Armonia Perez Cuervo........Gijon
Manuel Perez Cuervo..........Gijon

As soon as I can (unless somebody in Asturias beats me to it) I'll check the Gijon "white pages", if they are available on the internet, to see how many Perez Cuervos live there. If there is family living in Gijon, maybe they know where the three refugees are.

Art...

Concerning the possibility of uploading our soon-to-be book "We Came Alone ", if the number/size of the photos will be a problem, I don't think anybody would object to leaving some photos out. Although they are interesting, they are not crucial.

Corsino, please DO NOT leave out any photos! We have a saying that goes "A picture is worth a thousand words" (una imagen vale más que mil palabras) and we have to find a way to include all of them, even if we have to use CDs or whatever. Is that possible, Art?

Corsino ,siento decirle qué he mirado en la guía de telefono de gijón y los Pérez Cuervo qué hay no son ninguno de los qué uds. busca los nombres qué aparecen son Alicia,Azucena y Miguel Antonio,mi madre llamó al primer nombre y la señora le dijo qué no tenía ningún hermano refugiado ,al segundo telefono también llamó y le contestó un señor ,pero luego el señor le colgó el telefono ,eso es todo lo qué le puedo decir ,de verdad lo siento.saludos

Hola Corsino,

If you use the Spanish white pages you will find one Manuel Perez Cuervo in Salas and one in Mieres, but none in Gijon. No Armonia or Albina, however. I checked only Asturias, not any of the other regions of Spain.

See http://blancas.paginasamarillas.es/jsp/home.jsp

Bob

I have already checked the Manuel Perez Cuervo of Mieres and the one in Salas, and they are not related.
The one in Gijón I talked to (husband of Alicia) was not related, the second one Jomaguca talked to was not at home, but can be discarded also, as they told Jomaguca that they're not related and the third one hung up, so that leaves the 3 in Gijón out of the race.

About Perez Cuervos---

I really don't expect to find Albina, Armonia and Manuel in Spain. Of the refugees we've found, only one, Germinal Luis, returned to live in Spain, and he did that only a year or so ago.
What I'm hoping to find in Asturias is some of their relatives that may know where the three are in the US.

About the book and photos-

Of course I'd like to keep all the photos in the book if possible. I only mentioned the possibility of leaving some out in case that would make it possible to upload the text to the website.
The paper copy of the book, and the Cd will have everything in it. I think the cost of mailing the paper copy to Europe will be too expensive.