MONMOUTH, Ill. — International author Diana Anhalt will deliver a convocation lecture at Monmouth College on Sept. 15 at 11 a.m. in the Dahl Chapel and Auditorium. Although primarily intended for first-year students in the college’s “Introduction to Liberal Arts” (ILA) class who are studying “exemplary lives,” the free lecture is open to the public.

In 1950, when Anhalt was 8 years old, her parents packed up their family and relocated to Mexico. She left briefly to attend college in the United States before returning to Mexico to settle. It wasn’t until Anhalt was an adult that she began to question what had never been spoken of to her outright. Her parents – the children of Jewish refugees from pogroms in Poland – were among a group of “undesirables” who relocated to Mexico to avoid the impact of McCarthyism.

Once Anhalt knew that her parents were a part of what the FBI called the American Communist Group in Mexico (ACGM), she had to learn more. Her book, “A Gathering of Fugitives” is the culmination of years of research, correspondence and interviews.

“Writing the book helped her piece together the parts of her life, in ways that many of our students will have to later,” said MC professor Mark Willhardt, who coordinates the ILA program.

“I was expecting a childhood memoir set in the political context of the times, but that was not what I got,” wrote one reviewer of Anhalt’s book. “Instead, I took a fascinating look at a segment of history of which I was mostly ignorant, and one from which the population in general could learn an important lesson about freedom.”