Migration and the Construction of National Identity in Spain


Book Description

Public debate about immigrant integration has often led to a heightened awareness or even a collective redefinition of identiy. Such processes are studied through the unique example of Spain.




Demographic Analysis of Latin American Immigrants in Spain


Book Description

This book provides a unique, timely and comprehensive insight into Latin American immigrants in Spain. Each chapter uses a demographic framework to examining important topics related to the experiences of Latin American immigrants in Spain, like their rapid acquisition of nationality, their contrasting patterns of migration and settlement compared to other immigrant groups, their labour market experiences before and during the economic recession, their reproductive behaviour before and after settling in Spain, as well as the push and pull factors of what is regarded as one of the single biggest waves of international migration ever experienced by Spain. Beyond the investigation of such pertinent topics, this book addresses issues relating to the adequacy of demographic theory in explaining the presence of Latin American immigrants in Spain, particularly the trailblazing presence of women among the immigrants. Spain unquestionably constitutes a good example of the fact that the future of demographic growth in post-transitional countries is mainly and irreversibly marked by the evolution of migratory movements, while the latter factor is closely linked with the economic state of affairs. In the short term at least, the causal relations go from economy to demography. In the long term, if economic growth is linked with demographic growth as some economists hypothesise, this would also be fundamental, not only in the sense of growth itself but also with regard to how this might be distributed.




Hidden Out in the Open


Book Description

Hidden Out in the Open is the first English-language volume on Spanish migration to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This panoramic study covers a period defined by the crucial transformations of the Progressive Era in the United States, and by similarly momentous changes in Spain following the Restoration of the Bourbon monarchy under Alfonso XII. The chapters in this volume are geographically wide-ranging, reflecting the transnational nature of the Spanish diaspora in the Americas, encompassing networks that connected Spain, Cuba, Latin American countries, the United States, and American-controlled territories in Hawai’i and Panama. The geographic diversity reveals the different jobs immigrants engaged in, from construction gangs in the Panama Canal to mining crews in Arizona and West Virginia. Contributors analyze the Spanish experience in the United States from a variety of perspectives, discussing rural and urban enclaves, the role of the state, and the political mobilization of migrants, using a range of methodological approaches that examine ethnicity, race, gender, and cultural practices through the lenses of sociology, history, and cultural studies. The mention of the Spanish influence in the United States often conjures up images of conquistadores and padres of old. Forgotten in this account are the Spanish immigrants who reached American shores in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hidden Out in the Open reveals the role of the modern migration of Spaniards in this "land of immigrants" and rectifies the erasure of Spain in the American narrative. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of US history and the history of modern Spain and Europe, as well as those interested ethnic and migration/diaspora studies, Hispanic/Latino studies, and the study of working class and radicalism. Contributors: Brian D. Bunk, Christopher J. Castañeda, Thomas Hidalgo, Beverly Lozano, Phylis Cancilla Martinelli, Gary R. Mormino, George E. Pozzetta†, Ana Varela-Lago.




Home Away from Home


Book Description

Home Away from Home: Immigrant Narratives, Domesticity, and Coloniality in Contemporary Spanish Culture examines ideological, emotional, economic, and cultural phenomena brought about by migration through readings of works of literature and film featuring domestic workers. In the past thirty years, Spain has experienced a massive increase in immigration. Since the 1990s, immigrants have been increasingly female, as bilateral trade agreements, migration quotas, and immigration policies between Spain and its former colonies (including the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, and the Philippines) have created jobs for foreign women in the domestic service sector. These migrations reveal that colonial histories continue to be structuring elements of Spanish national culture, even in a democratic era in which its former colonies are now independent. Migration has also transformed the demographic composition of Spain and has created complex new social relations around the axes of gender, race, and nationality. Representations of migrant domestic workers provide critical responses to immigration and its feminization, alongside profound engagements with how the Spanish nation has changed since the end of the Franco era in 1975. Throughout Home Away from Home, readings of works of literature and film show that texts concerning the transnational nature of domestic work uniquely provide a nuanced account of the cultural shifts occurring in late twentieth- through twenty-first-century Spain.




Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders


Book Description

Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders: Migrants, Transnational Encounters, and Identity in Spain offers a new approach to the cultural history of contemporary Spain, examining the ways in which Spain’s own self-conceptions are changing and multiplying in response to migrants from Latin America and Africa. In the last twenty-five years, Spain has gone from being a country of net emigration to one in which immigrants make up nearly 12 percent of the population. This rapid growth has made migrants increasingly visible in both mass media and in Spanish visual and literary culture. This book examines the origins of media discourses on immigration and takes the analysis of contemporary Spanish culture as its primary framework, while also drawing insights from sociology and history. Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders introduces readers to a wide range of recent films, journals, novels, photography, paintings, and music to reconsider contemporary Spain through its varied encounters with migrants. It follows the stages of the migrant’s own journey, beginning outside Spanish territory, continuing across the border (either at the barbed-wire fences of Ceuta and Melilla or the waters of the Atlantic or the Strait of Gibraltar), and then considers what happens to migrants after they arrive and settle in Spain. Each chapter analyzes one of these stages in order to illustrate the complexity of contemporary Spanish identity. This examination of Spanish culture shows how Spain is evolving into a new space of imagination, one that can no longer be defined without the migrant—a space in which there is no unified identity but rather a new self-understanding is being born. Vega-Durán both places Spain in a larger European context and draws attention to some of the features that, from a comparative perspective, make the Spanish case interesting and often unique. She argues that Spain cannot be understood today outside the Transatlantic and Mediterranean spaces (both real and imaginary) where Spaniards and migrants meet. Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders offers a timely study of present-day Spain, and makes an original contribution to the vibrant debates about multiculturalism and nation-formation that are taking




Governing Irregular Migration


Book Description

This thorough analysis of immigration governance in Spain explores the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion at play at one of Europe’s southern borders. David Moffette analyzes Spain’s processes of immigration governance and reveals the complicated series of legal obstacles facing many migrants. Differential access to border mobility is a central concern of contemporary politics, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the European Union, where external borders have been strengthened to prevent irregular entry and internal borders have been removed to promote free circulation. Moffette draws on interviews with policymakers and on more than three decades of parliamentary debates, laws, and policy documents to show that culture, labour, and security issues intersect to create a regime of migration governance that is at once progressive and repressive. A detailed empirical analysis of Spanish immigration policy, this book provides a thought-provoking and insightful contribution to debates in socio-legal, border, and citizenship studies.




Spain Unmoored


Book Description

Long viewed as Spain's "most Moorish city," Granada is now home to a growing Muslim population of Moroccan migrants and European converts to Islam. Mikaela H. Rogozen-Soltar examines how various residents of Granada mobilize historical narratives about the city's Muslim past in order to navigate tensions surrounding contemporary ethnic and religious pluralism. Focusing particular attention on the gendered, racial, and political dimensions of this new multiculturalism, Rogozen-Soltar explores how Muslim-themed tourism and Islamic cultural institutions coexist with anti-Muslim sentiments.




Migrations in Spain


Book Description

Se revisan los diferentes episodios de emigración en España desde los comienzos del siglo XX, haciendo énfasis en los factores que la provocan. Los periodos considerados son 1900-1950 y 1950-1973. La emigración extranjera es tambien considerada.




Spanish Legacies


Book Description

Much like the United States, the countries of Western Europe have experienced massive immigration in the last three decades. Spain, in particular, has been transformed from an immigrant-exporting country to one receiving hundreds of thousands of new immigrants. Today, almost 13 percent of the country’s population is foreign-born. Spanish Legacies, written by internationally known experts on immigration, explores how the children of immigrants—the second generation—are coping with the challenges of adaptation to Spanish society, comparing their experiences with those of their peers in the United States. Using a rich data set based on both survey and ethnographic material, Spanish Legacies describes the experiences of growing up by the large population of second-generation youths in Spain and the principal outcomes of the process—from national self-identification and experiences of discrimination to educational attainment and labor-market entry. The study is based on a sample of almost 7,000 second-generation students who were interviewed in Madrid and Barcelona in 2008 and then followed and re-interviewed four years later. A survey of immigrant parents, a replacement sample for lost respondents in the second survey, and a survey of native-parentage students complement this rich data set. Outcomes of the adaptation process in Spain are systematically presented in five chapters, introduced by real-life histories of selected respondents drawn by the study’s ethnographic module. Systematic comparisons with results from the United States show a number of surprising similarities in the adaptation of children of immigrants in both countries, as well as differences marked by contrasting experiences of discrimination, self-identities, and ambition.




Labour Migration in Malaysia and Spain


Book Description

De overheid wordt in de regulering van arbeidsmigratie geconfronteerd met een dubbele paradox. Ten eerste: terwijl markten een op en grenzenbeleid vereisen om aan de behoefte van arbeidsmigranten en de marktvraag tegemoet te komen, leggen de grenzen die inherent zijn aan burgerschap een zekere afsluiting van de buitenwereld op. Ten tweede: terwijl de exclusiviteit die burgerschap met zich meebrengt een gesloten lidmaatschap vergt, ondermijnen burgerschap- en mensenrechten de mogelijkheid van de staat om buitenlanders uit te sluiten zodra zij zich in het land bevinden.