Administrative Information
Scope and Contents
Separated Materials
Organization and Arrangement
Indexing Terms
Title: Wells / Hajjar Central America Solidarity Collection
Dates: 1958-1992 and undated
Collection number: H.Mss.1084
Creator:
Nicaragua Task Force
Extent:
5 Linear Feet
(4 records boxes, 1 oversize box, 3 shoe boxes)
Repository:
Claremont Colleges. Library. Special Collections, Honnold/Mudd Library. Claremont, CA 91711
Abstract: The Wells / Hajjar Central America Solidarity Collection represents the grass-roots organizational, operational and public
relations efforts of a network of political action groups founded in the late 1970s by former California State University,
Fullerton professor of history and art Carol Wells and her husband, Theodore [Ted] Hajjar. Beginning in 1979 and continuing
throughout the eighties and early nineties, Wells and Hajjar founded and promoted political action groups such as the Nicaragua
Task Force, Solidarity Feminist Network, the US Committee in Solidary with the People of El Salvador, the New American Movement,
and many others.
The network of organizations included in this collection campaigned for non-interventionist policies including the US withdrawal
of troops in Central America and an end to US financial and military aid in the region. The group worked against US partisan
policies in Central America between 1979 and 1992, though the bulk of the organizational records herein cover the period of
1979-1989. The collection is comprised of three series’ which contain administrative and operational records for organizations
and movements, periodicals and pamphlets for not only these organizations but others which they worked and/or co-existed with,
and audiovisual cassette tapes featuring news, interviews and documentaries taken from both US and Nicaraguan television broadcasts
primarily between 1981-1990.
Physical Location: Please consult repository.
Language of Material: Languages represented in the collection: English and Spanish.
Administrative Information
Access
Collection open for research. No VHS player is available for viewing in the Reading Room. Content of tapes may be digitized
upon request.
Publication Rights
All requests for permission to reproduce or to publish must be submitted in writing to Special Collections.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Wells / Hajjar Central America Solidarity Collection (H.Mss.1084). Special Collections, Honnold
Mudd Library, Claremont University Consortium.
Provenance / Source of Acquisition
Gift of Carol A. Wells and Theodore Hajjar, 2016.
Accruals
Additions to the collection are anticipated.
Processing Information
This collection was processed by the Archival Studies 310 course (Fall 2016) of Claremont Graduate University as the culminating
practicum and was processed at the folder level. Most materials within folders were placed in alphabetical order. All records
have been placed in new folders and Boxes appropriate to the materials. During processing, staples were removed where necessary,
items laid in were noted, and materials were organized into series. Materials are arranged alphabetically by folder title
and date order, whenever available. Undated materials are placed at the rear of the folder.
Biographical / Historical
Carol Wells is an activist, art historian, curator, lecturer, and writer. Wells was born on February 12, 1946, in the town
of Lynn, Michigan . At age 11, her family moved to California, settling in the Los Angeles area. While attending Dorsey High
School from 1959 to 1963, Wells began working in support of the civil rights movement, writing articles for her school’s newspaper
against the adverse impact of white flight in urban areas and participating in voter registration efforts. When attending
the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as a freshman, she engaged in her first sit-in protesting de-facto segregation
in Los Angeles public schools. Wells would eventually graduate from UCLA with a BA in History and an MA in Art History . During
her time at UCLA, Wells also became increasingly active in the anti-war movement mobilizing against US involvement in Vietnam,
attending numerous teach-ins and participating in various demonstrations. While participating in a lawful anti-war demonstration
against President Lyndon B. Johnson in Century City, she witnessed police physically assault peaceful protestors. For Wells,
witnessing these events in Century City marked a “turning point” in her life, and confirmed her ongoing commitment to social
justice activism . It was while continuing to engage in protests and other actions against the Vietnam War that Wells met
Theodore Hajjar.
Theodore Hajjar is a retired educator and activist who was born in Manhattan, New York on August 10, 1942 . Hajjar did not
become politically active until later in his college years. Upon graduation from Massapequa High School in 1960, Hajjar pursued
a BA in Sociology from Stony Brook University in 1964, and began graduate work at University of California, Berkeley in that
same year. Hajjar’s entry into Berkeley coincided with the Free Speech Movement, a sizeable protest that related to student
life on campus, the civil rights movement, and anti-war activism protesting US involvement in Vietnam . Hajjar would remain
active in anti-war work, but would leave Berkeley in 1966 to pursue his MA in Sociology at the University of California, Santa
Barbara (UCSB). Shortly after receiving his MA, Hajjar began teaching in the Department of Sociology at California State University
Northridge (CSUN) while continuing to pursue coursework at UCSB. Hajjar would work at CSUN from approximately 1968 to1975,
beginning as an adjunct professor but eventually becoming full-time faculty . Hajjar would finish out his teaching career
working at an experimental high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Wells and Hajjar met while Hajjar was still
teaching at CSUN and Wells was a student at UCLA. Together, they attended a massive anti-war protest against the Vietnam War
in San Francisco, California in 1969 . They were married shortly thereafter on July 21, 1974 .
Following US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, Wells and Hajjar remained politically active and began to focus upon political
developments in Central America, paying special attention to events unfolding in Nicaragua. They joined the New American Movement
(NAM) in 1978 . Wells continued to engage in activism around Nicaragua as part of Nicaragua Solidarity (NICASO) after the
successful Sandinista revolution in 1979 and until NICASO disbanded in 1980 . Hajjar, while not involved directly in NICASO,
maintained an interest in events in Nicaragua, and felt compelled to begin work actively supporting the Sandinista revolution
following Ronald Reagan’s election to the office of President of the United States in 1981. For Hajjar, the broad domestic
support that put Reagan in the White House was proof that Reagan could only effectively be criticized from a foreign policy
perspective. He also believed that the Sandinista revolution could function as an example of successful, progressive, and
democratic governance . In July of 1981, Wells and Hajjar traveled to Nicaragua with UCLA Art History professor David Kunzle
to collect posters and other artwork associated with the Sandinista revolution. They would return to Nicaragua in 1983 and
1984 . Both Wells and Hajjar grew more committed to work opposing US intervention in Central America, and especially in Nicaragua,
as a result of their initial experiences in the country.
Wells and Hajjar would eventually leave the NAM and establish the Nicaragua Task Force (NTF). Hajjar left the NAM shortly
after returning from Nicaragua in 1981. Wells would remain a member of the NAM up to and after an internal split in approximately
1980 that resulted in part of the organization’s membership merging with the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (D-SOC)
. Some remaining members would go on to formally found Solidarity: A Socialist-Feminist Network (SOLIDARITY) in approximately
1981. Wells was a member of SOLIDARITY until roughly 1989, all the while continuing her work in a leadership position within
the NTF and engaging in continued activism in support of the Sandinista revolution .
The NTF was established in 1982. For administrative reasons, the NTF was originally established as The Nicaragua Task Force
of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador prior to its work as an independent organization . The Committee
in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) is an activist organization founded in 1980 that focuses on political
events in El Salvador and works in opposition to US political, economic, and military intervention in the country . It maintains
close ties with both the national liberationist Frente Democratico Revolucionario (FDR) and the Frente Farabundo Marti para
la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) . While Wells and Hajjar remained involved in work on El Salvador and continued to collaborate
with CISPES, the NTF became a distinct organization shortly after its founding so that the NTF could more fully develop its
work around Nicaragua without diverting time and other resources from the work of CISPES members focusing on developments
in El Salvador .
From its founding in 1982 until it ceased to operate in 1990, the NTF engaged in a variety of actions in support of the Sandinista
revolution and against US political, military, and economic intervention in Nicaragua under Reagan. Along with developing
ties to the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN), through its work in support of the Sandinista revolution and
its involvement with other activists and domestic organizations, the NTF also developed relationships with the Nicaraguan
Asociacion de Mujeres Nicaraguenses Luisa Amanda Espinoza (AMNLAE) and the Asociacion de Trabajodores del Campo (ATC) . Much
of the NTF’s work was intended to educate the general public about the state of affairs in Nicaragua and to counter the prevailing
narrative of the Reagan Administration. These actions included, but were not limited to, participation in demonstrations and
other protest actions, participation in local and national conferences, building broad-based Nicaraguan solidarity coalitions
with religious, human rights, and other organizations, fundraising through the sale of buttons, shirts, and other merchandise,
providing material and other aid to the Nicaraguan people, hosting speakers like FSLN leader Daniel Ortega and other Nicaraguan
political figures, providing temporary asylum for refugees, and work in multiple campaigns to call attention to the adverse
impact of US intervention in Nicaragua . Following Ortega’s statement that the FSLN had won a “strategic victory” over the
Contras in 1989, and the FSLN’s defeat in the Nicaraguan general election of the following year, the NTF ceased to operate
in 1990 .
Currently, Carol Wells is executive director of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, which she founded in 1989
. Theodore Hajjar retired from teaching at Southwest Middle College High School, where he taught History and Civics, in 2008
. Both Wells and Hajjar remain politically active.
Sources:
Wells, Carol A. In discussion with the author. November 2016.
Futch, David. “85,000 of the World’s Angriest Political Posters are Sitting in Culver City.” LA Weekly. March 12, 2015. http://www.laweekly.com/arts/85-000-of-the-worlds-angriest-political-posters-are-sitting-in-culver-city-5426721.
Pool, Bob. “Protest Posters Find Asylum with Activist.” Los Angeles Times. June 5, 2001. http://articles.latimes.com/2001/jun/05/local/me-6581.
Hajjar, Theodore. In discussion with the author. December 2016.
Wells, Carol and Ted Hajjar. “Political Graphics.” Works and Days. 28, no. 55/56 (2010): 296.
Aronowitz, Stanley. “The New American Movement and Why it Failed.” Works and Days. 28, no. 55/56 (2010): 25.
CISPES. “Who We Are.” CISPES: Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. Nov. 21, 2016. http://cispes.org/about.
Regional Surveys of the World. South America, Central America, and the Caribbean 2002. New York: Routledge, 2010.
Scope and Contents
The Wells / Hajjar Central America Solidarity collection includes the organizational, administrative and working papers for
several grass-roots political groups founded by Carol Wells and Ted Hajjar in the late seventies and early eighties. The
groups founded and operated by both Wells and Hajjar originally sought to oppose United States (US) interventionist policies
in Nicaragua, which remained its primary focus, but was later expanded into other Central American countries.
The two primary organizations comprised herein are the Nicaraguan Task Force (NTF), along with several smaller subsidiaries,
and Solidarity: A Social Feminist Network (SOLIDARITY). The NTF is the predominate organization in the collection and the
source of the majority of records contained in Series 1. These include but are not limited to bank statements, purchasing
and inventory invoices and receipts, telephone and utility statements, a book of folkloric guitar sheet music, and several
handwritten meeting notes and planning agendas by Carol Wells. There are also several governmental agency reports, news clippings,
magazine articles and copies of speeches—not produced by NTF—but concerning the socio-political and economic conditions and
regimes in Central America during the era, as well as information on the US/Reagan Administration’s policies of intervention
in this region.
The NTF’s sub-committees represented here include the US Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES),
the Frente Democractico Revolucionario (FDR), the Frente Marti para la Liberacion National (FMLN), and the New American Movement
(NAM). The records herein representing these sub-committees include meeting agendas, minutes, resolutions, steering and planning
goals, expansion projects, fundraising, and countless newsletters. The newsletters are both the sub-committees’ own newsletters
as well as ones received from a myriad of organizations serving similar Central American grass-roots movements.
SOLIDARITY is a sister organization to NTF but with its central foci on the women’s socialists movements of these same time
periods. SOLIDARITY was never specifically designated to a particular Central American country and strove to increase awareness
and bi-partisanship network with other socialist movements. The SOLIDARITY records contained in this collection include organizational
and structural planning, meeting agendas and minutes, brochures, fundraising flyers, and a large quantity of SOLIDARITY’s
own newsletters, resolutions and annual conference reports.
The collection also includes extensive propaganda materials in both print and media formats. These include pamphlets and
periodicals, complete newspapers and indiviudal newspaper clippings, flyers and brochures as well as Video Home System [VHS]
and Betamax [Beta] cassette tapes featuring documentaries, news broadcasts, interviews from both U.S. and Nicaraguan television
broadcasts and in both English and Spanish.
Separated Materials
The following monograph items can be found in the Claremont Colleges Library online catalog using the keyword search term
“Wells/Hajjar Central American Solidarity Collection”:
Organization and Arrangement
The collection has been organized into the following series:
Series 1: Organizations and Movements, 1979-1989 and undated, 2 boxes
Series 2: Pamphlets and Periodicals, 1977-1992 and undated, 3 boxes
Series 3: Audiovisual Materials, 1958 and 1981-1990, 3 boxes
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library’s online public access catalog.
Subject Terms
Central America--Foreign relations
El Salvador
Nicaragua
Political refugees -- Central America
Women -- Organizations
Genre and Form of Materials
Periodicals
Pamphlets
Video recordings