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Cultural Studies
ISSN: 0950-2386 (Print) 1466-4348 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcus20
LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN
Emma Martín Díaz , Francisco Cuberos Gallardo & Simone Castellani
To cite this article: Emma Martín Díaz , Francisco Cuberos Gallardo & Simone Castellani
(2012) LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN, Cultural Studies, 26:6, 814-841, DOI:
10.1080/09502386.2012.669774
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2012.669774
Published online: 21 Mar 2012.
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Emma Martı´n Dı´az, Francisco Cuberos
Gallardo and Simone Castellani
LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN
Discourses and practices from ‘la madre
patria’
On the whole, Latin American migration currently represents the highest
percentage of migration into the Spanish state. This situation results from a series
of factors, combined in both the points of origin and destination, and relating to
the economic policies of the emitting and receiving countries within the framework
of globalization. However, despite the way in which the phenomenon is portrayed
by politicians and the media, this predominance is not due exclusively to the
historical and cultural ties between Latin America and Spain, but rather to the
implementation of a complex series of legal measures which contribute to
the constant renewal of national collectives at the service of the labour markets in
search of the desired ‘flexibility’ based on ethnic and gender segmentation of
migrant workers.
Keywords migrations; globalization; ‘cultural compatibility’;
employment segmentation; migratory policies; migrants’ strategies
This paper proposes a reflection on migratory flows from Latin America into
Spain during the Spanish economic boom, taking into consideration the
historical boundaries between Spain and its ex-colonies and the dynamics
caused by the organization of labour, especially those established during the
globalization era.
In order to analyse these ‘historical ties’ the article includes a brief initial
review of bi-directional mass movements of population between Spain and
Latin America from 1800 until now. The paper subsequently focuses on the
analysis of economic and political factors which have encouraged Latin
American migration into Spain in the era of globalization, paying special
attention to the domestic labour market and the evolution of Spanish State
policies on the regularization of migrants.
In addition to considering the macro-economic factors which can be
understood as the structural causes of these intercontinental movements within
Cultural Studies Vol. 26, No. 6 November 2012, pp. 814 841
ISSN 0950-2386 print/ISSN 1466-4348 online #2012 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandfonline.com http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2012.669774
the context of globalization (Wallerstein 1974), this paper aims to provide a
new perspective on the cultural aspects undergone by these migratory
processes, assuming that they cannot be separated from material conditions.
Thus, analysis initially shows one of the stronger shared attitudes of Spanish
society towards Latin American migration, which describes Latin American
migrants as culturally closest to Spaniards and assigns them the status of
‘preferred’compared to other migrant collectives (Izquierdo Benito 2001). To
provide a more in-depth analysis of this supposed cultural compatibility the
authors support their arguments with the theoretical tradition that understands
the migrant’s condition as a sociocultural construct (Balibar and Wallerstein
1991, Taguieff 2001, Fanon 2005), which falls within the more general
literature on the construction of the foreigner (Bauman 1993). Following this
line of thought being an ‘immigrant’is understood as an existential condition
used to stigmatize and exclude people from the southern hemisphere, rather
than as an attribute which identifies a human being who moves from one place
to another (Sayad 1999). This construction which awards an inferior status to
the other, as a biological carrier of insurmountable differences (Said 2003) is
based on an essentialist definition of the culture (Gilroy 1987, Hall 1996a) on
which the ‘cultural distance’with respect to the national ethnos is built. This
makes it possible to define some migrants as culturally closer, and therefore
more human and ‘integratable’, while other collectives are described as more
removed and uncivilized and therefore incompatible (De Lucas 1998). This
shared reasoning also tends to be confirmed by a legislative framework which
translates into different steps to access citizenship (Kofman 2002).
Research shows that Latin Americans, though defined in this discourse as
preferred in terms of migration, have at the same time been the most exploited
in the labour market in times of the Spanish economic boom. This paper aims
to argue the hypothesis that the cultural definitions which bring together or
distance migrant collectives from the central national ethnos can be
dialectically articulated with the needs of a post-Fordist labour market in
search of an increasingly vulnerable and interchangeable workforce. In other
words, we are trying to prove that there is a connection between cultural
definitions and an increasingly ethno-stratified labour market. Thus, this paper
is closer to the line of post-colonial studies (Said 1994, Hall 1996b) which
understand culture as a key element for maintaining the construction and
reproduction of power relations.
1. Latin America and Spain: a ‘return’ relationship
Migratory flows between Europe and Latin America have been constant
throughout the last two-hundred years. In order to understand the major
growth observed recently among the population of Latin American origin in
LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN 815
Europe, it is necessary to provide a context for this episode, one of a long
series of round-trip relationships.
1
These relations have left an enduring mark
on social realities on both sides of the Atlantic.
Leaving aside the considerable population movement brought about by the
conquest of the American continent, the political independence of Latin
American countries has been accompanied by the formation of solid migratory
flows from Europe to America almost from the very start. During the second
half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, these new
American countries welcomed the arrival of Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese and
Germans (Palazo´n 2002, Bade 2003). The demographic impact of this process,
unevenly spread throughout the continent, was decisive in certain instances, as
in the case of the Southern Cone. Migration was initially linked to work, a fact
that helped establish the ties which would later facilitate new migrations
associated with the political exile of thousands of Europeans. In agreement
with Said (2002), here we prefer to use the term exile as referring to the
socio-existential condition of those who have been forced to leave their own
countries for reasons of political dissidence in non-democratic regimes, have
been displaced and live with the stigma of being foreign. There is a difference
between this and the condition of refugee defined in the twentieth century,
which has taken on a more political and bureaucratic character. Both
conditions are distinguished from that of the migrant who enjoys some degree
of freedom of choice when leaving for another country.
It is thought that 3,500,000 Spaniards settled in Uruguay, Argentina, Cuba
and Brazil between 1846 and 1932. The Portuguese population headed for
Brazil, while the Italians settled mainly in Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela.
This massive influx of European population to Latin America marked a turning
point in the history of both continents. The new American countries went on
to experience profound transformations in their social structures and cultures.
The arrival of new settlers would bring about noticeable changes, both in
everyday practices such as language or diet and in politics, art or
architecture (Ye´pez del Castillo 2007).
In Europe the 1930s witnessed the ascent of totalitarian regimes which
would force thousands of political exiles to leave. Within this context,
American countries such as Mexico, Cuba, Chile, Puerto Rico and the
Dominican Republic offered refuge to approximately 50,000 Spaniards who
had fled after General Francisco Franco rose to power (Ye´pez del Castillo
2007). The traditional migratory flows based on economy were thus
strengthened by new migrations based on political exile. Important figures
such as Mexican president La´zaro Ca´rdenas, or Chileans Pablo Neruda and
Gabriela Mistral, are indispensable points of reference in recent Spanish
history. Spanish emigration was reactivated in the 1950s with the end of the
Francoist autarchy and the initial stages of economic recovery in central
Europe, with most emigrants concentrating on countries such as France and
Germany. However, emigration to America then began to decrease until it
8 1 6 CULTURAL STUDIES
became almost insignificant during the 1960s. From that point on, and
particularly throughout the decade that followed, the deterioration of the
political situation in Latin America meant the direction of migratory flows was
inverted (Del Campo 1979).
2. The migrations of exile
The first few years of the 1970s witnessed a profound restructuring of the
capitalist system. The crisis of the Fordist model brought about the dismantling
of chain manufacturing companies and the rise in the ‘informalization’of the
economy. The appearance of powerful transnational companies and the
technological revolution which accompanied information technology boosted a
series of transformations which left European states and national unions
powerless (Castells 1996). In this context, Europe reacted unanimously,
toughening up migratory policies within the process of economic convergence
which preceded political convergence. The only exception to this process of
‘closing down’borders to emigration was Holland (Colectivo IOE
´1987, Gil
2004).
In Spain, this crisis of the Fordist model led to the progressive stalling, and
final disappearance in the late 1970s, of emigration to central European
countries, which had shielded their national labour market. But this was also to
affect Spain in another way since many African, Philippine and Portuguese
emigrants, faced with the growing difficulty in direct migration to other
European destinations, were to then choose Spain, initially just as a country to
pass through. Spain’s lack of a consolidated policy for border control at the
time turned out to be a determining factor for this trend. The fact that until
1985 Spain had no immigration law made it extremely easy for foreign
population to enter the country as tourists.
In the meantime the consolidation of dictatorships in the Latin American
Southern Cone triggered a major migratory movement which consisted mainly
of political exiles. The dictatorships of Jorge Rafael Videla in Argentina and
Augusto Pinochet in Chile, as well as the twelve-year civil-military dictatorship
in Uruguay, were the setting for the violent and systematic persecution of
political dissidents. This persecution was to lead to significant migratory
currents some of which followed trends already inaugurated years before by
exiles from Cuba and Venezuela (Colectivo IOE
´1987).
The condition of political exiles was a defining feature of migration,
represented by these collectives in Spain. However, the provisional legislation
improvised by the brand new Spanish democracy was unable to properly
comprehend the importance of this phenomenon. In 1983 Spain legally
recognized the existence of 167 Latin American refugees in its territory, while
the research carried out at this time by the Colectivo IOE
´(1987) calculated the
LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN 817
actual number to be around 45,000. According to its data, Latin American
migrants made up 76 percent of the total refugee population in Spain.
The importance of the figures for these migrations of Latin American
exiles had an evident effect on Spain, which was then starting, slowly and
unbeknown to the authorities and public opinion, to experience the shift from
emigrant society to immigrant society. Beyond these figures, Chilean,
Argentinean and Uruguayan exiles had a symbolic importance which was
soon to be noticed both in the discourses of the receiving population and in
national politics. The arrival of the Spanish Socialist Workers’Party (PSOE) to
power in 1982, inaugurated an official cycle of opening up to political
refugees. However, this was not accompanied by a more relaxed attitude
towards other foreign nationals. Equally, programs for the assistance of
refugees began to receive increasing financial support from the administration.
Finally, out of almost 40,000 foreign nationals who acquired Spanish
nationality between 1956 and 1983, approximately 45.5 percent were Latin
American primarily from the Southern Cone and Cuba and these were the
collective which most benefited from doing so (Colectivo IOE
´1987).
This friendly policy towards refugees has a correlation with the positive
attitude of Spanish society towards the Latin American exiled population,
particularly those from the Southern Cone. This fact is doubtless conditioned
by the context of the return to democracy, which made it easier for Spaniards
repressed by the Franco regime during decades to identify with Latin American
exiles. The political parties of the left, Socialist, Communist and ‘Izquierda
Unida’(United Left) founded in 1986, played an active part in the political and
cultural integration of these refugees. The moral obligation to ‘return the
favor’became a feeling widely assumed by part of Spanish society, unable to
forget the role of Latin American governments and intellectuals who
sympathized with those persecuted by Franco’s dictatorship. But besides the
time being right, the ethnic and sociological profile of these migrants favoured
their relatively simple insertion in Spain.
A high level of education and work qualifications operated as a marker that
clearly benefited Latin American migrants over other collectives. Fifty-five
percent of these had university or secondary education, which led to their
accessing comparatively high work positions, although a significant sector 26
percent were in a precarious work situation (Colectivo IOE
´1987).
Nevertheless, and particularly among the first exiles, there was a significant
percentage of liberal professionals. To this it is necessary to add the high level
of pro-democratic associationism particularly practiced by those from the
Southern Cone, as well as the symbolic importance of left-wing Latin
American intellectuals in this period (Bolzman 1993). This led to the Latin
American exiles being seen as educated, competent and committed to
freedom, an image which fitted in satisfactorily in Spanish society, then in
the process of constructing a democracy.
8 1 8 CULTURAL STUDIES
Throughout the 1980s this positive attitude towards the Latin American
migrant was gradually challenged by the first symptoms of rejection towards
the exiled population. These symptoms were particularly apparent in Madrid
and Barcelona, where the bulk of the exiled population tended to concentrate.
2
Such rejection mainly stemmed from the fact that Latin Americans formed a
sector of the population which presented a degree of disparity between the
level of professional qualifications and the level of social and labour integration.
The criticism prompted by this situation among exiles themselves led to
xenophobe reactions from the autochthonous population, and this started to
erode the initial feelings of solidarity. But above all, this rejection was closely
tied to the change of direction Spanish legislation was taking in terms of
borders at the time. The drafting of the first Spanish Immigration Law
(Organic Law 7/1985), a vital condition for Spain’s subsequent inclusion in
the European Economic Community in 1986 represented a turning point in an
immigrant policy which had barely been defined until then. When Spain was
declared Southern Frontier of Europe it determined the implementation of the
Law in a context in which the overall number of migrants throughout the
country did not reach 0.5 percent (Martı´n & De la Obra 1998, King 2000,
Ferrajoli 2008).
3. Latin American migrations to the Spanish State within the
context of globalization
Organic Law 7/1985 on the Rights and Freedoms of Foreigners came into
effect in July 1985. The aim of this law was to put into place, for the first time
ever in Spain, a set of rules which would establish some sort of order in
immigration. In order to do so a fundamental distinction between legal and
illegal (Baubo
¨ck 1994, Bauman 2001) was established as the cornerstone of the
content and application of this law. For legal migrants the new law entailed an
increase in their rights, while the Immigration Law simply condemned the
illegal migrants, deemed potentially dangerous, to discrimination and
insecurity. Based on a series of administrational criteria which had been
unilaterally imposed by the Administration itself, this law punished migrants
who, owing to their situation of economic uncertainty, were unable to fulfil
certain requirements such as legal employment or financial means which
could give them the possibility of regularizing their situation as regarded the
administration. From this point on, the symbolic limit between ‘bad’ and
‘good’ migrants was established, placing their economic function as a positive
factor and stressing the social order problem entailed by the existence of
‘uncontrolled’ population as a negative factor. Both axes, economic function
and national security, would become the bases of the discourse of political
parties in Spain, with left-wing parties clearly leaning towards the former and
LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN 819
right-wing parties towards the latter. It must be noted that in no case does the
positive view take into account the dimension of the migrant as a person, but
simply as a tool for the labour market, as highlighted by several authors (De
Lucas 1996, Martı´n & De la Obra 1998, Martı´n 2003b).
On 1 January 1986 Spain became a full EEC member. The signing a year
later of the Single European Act and the signing in 1992 of the European
Union or Maastricht Treaty, constitute the two milestones which over a
few years were to consolidate the emergence of Europe as a new economic and
political space. Outlining a new privileged stage for commercial exchanges,
increasingly transformed into a supranational political body, prompted, as was
to be expected, a rethink of border policies of member states and the
renegotiation of their own sovereign powers. In parallel with this, the political
and economic convergence process strengthened the image of a prosperous
Europe increasingly regarded as an alternative to the United States, the
traditional destination of Latin American emigration (Herrera 2006).
In any case, the 1985 Immigration Law included clauses which greatly
facilitated the entry of Latin Americans as tourists. This was a response to
Spain’s express desire to establish preferential policies for its former colonies,
something which can also be seen throughout the text of the law.
3
For the first
time, this law made it compulsory for all foreign nationals wishing to enter
Spain to be in possession of visas. But article 12.2 established as exceptions
‘conditions laid down in internal laws or International Treaties in which Spain
takes part’, and it just so happened that these international treaties included
existing bilateral agreements with Ibero American states. Owing to these
circumstances and coinciding with the tougher US border policies, Spain
became a desirable alternative for thousands of Latin American workers who
found themselves affected by the aforementioned neo-liberal adjustment
policies. Most migrants from the American continent would choose to enter as
tourists since by law they were allowed a three-month stay with no need for
visas.
Initially, it was Dominican migrants who took advantage of this fact, and
along with Philippine and Moroccan migrants they were to constitute the first
major migratory flows to Spain for work purposes.
4
In the case of the
Dominican Republic, and thanks to an agreement with Spain which had
suppressed the need for visas since 1966, there was an intense migratory flow
from the mid 1980s to 1993, when Spain made it compulsory for Dominican
nationals to obtain visas. Just as in the case of the Philippines, Dominican
migration appeared as a trend characterized by a considerable female presence.
Compared with the refugee flows from the Southern Cone it is possible to
observe that Dominican emigration was characterized by the predominance of
single individuals with considerably lower qualifications (Lo´pez de Lera et al.
2004). Most new arrivals from the Dominican Republic were women who
started to work immediately as housekeeping staff, often live-in, establishing
migratory chains with a strong female presence which were the direct result of
8 2 0 CULTURAL STUDIES
the economic needs of Spain, then immersed in a profound process of change.
During this period, the mass incorporation of Spanish women into the regular
labour market was not supported by social policies which could guarantee the
capacity of Spanish families for social reproduction (Izquierdo Benito 2001).
Inasmuch as this incorporation did not prompt a redistribution of housework
tasks between men and women, cheap labour was provided by Dominican
women whose exploitation would serve to cushion the social and emotional
cost of the process (Gregorio 1996).
Soon a second migratory current from Latin America rivalled the
Dominican one in importance. Peruvian migration also consisted mainly of
women (Escriva´2000). From 1991 there was a sharp increase in the number
of female Peruvian workers based in Spain. The figures demonstrate the speed
of the process: in 1990 there was a total of 3,832 Peruvians legally resident in
Spain. A decade later, in April 2001 when Spain made it compulsory for
Peruvians to obtain visas, there were almost 40,000 Peruvians legally resident
in Spain. Naturally this figure does not include illegal migrants or Peruvians
who have acquired Spanish nationality (Anuario estadı´stico de extranjerı´a
2002).
As mentioned earlier, these first major migratory flows from Latin
America to Spain within the context of globalization are characterized by a
significant trend towards feminization. The explanation to this could be found
in the specific needs of the Spanish labour market at that point, needs which
also obeyed the profound socio-economic transformations taking place at the
time. However, the peculiarities of societies of origin must also be taken into
account: these networks of Dominican and Peruvian women were created
from cultural contexts where women appeared to have traditionally had a
particularly important role in the provision and management of domestic funds
(Hondagneu-Sotelo 1992, Oso 1998, Parren
˜as 2001, Parella 2003). In any case
it is important to bear in mind that, in addition to the predominant emigration
for work reasons in these Dominican and Peruvian migrations, it is possible to
find others linked to political exile.
This migration, formed mostly by women, was to precede the major
Latin American migratory currents that were consolidated in the late 1990s
and definitively transformed the Spanish demographic panorama. On the
brink of the twenty-first century, a set of interlinked factors resulted in a
massive affluence to Spain of citizens mainly from Ecuador, Colombia and
Bolivia. These new migratory flows coexisted with the sustained action of
already existing migratory networks, such as the Argentinean or Peruvian
ones. Once again, these are migrations with a clear feminine predominance
in the initial stages, closely linked to a financial restructuring boosted by
neo-liberal globalization and with a rhythm completely conditioned by
Spain’s policy for the imposition of visas (Herrera 2006, Martı´net al.
2008).
LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN 821
The three years between 1999 and 2001 also saw a spectacular increase in
arrivals to Spain from Colombian, and particularly, Ecuadorian population. In
the case of arrivals from Ecuador, these were of particular significance because
of the numbers that arrived and the great speed of the process, which have
resulted in these nationals being the most numerous Latin American collective
in Spain. In barely five years the Ecuadorian population has gone from having a
nominal presence to becoming the country’s third largest migrant collective,
only exceeded in number slightly by Moroccans and more recently by
Romanians. The financial, political and institutional crisis which developed
during the 1990s in Ecuador and definitively peaked in 1999, is at the heart of
what some authors have deservedly termed the ‘Ecuadorian migration
stampede’(Ramı´rez and Ramı´rez 2006). In the case of Colombia, the
structural violence in the country (Guarnizo 2000) was a cause which
interacted with the situation of heightened financial instability affecting all the
Andean countries. Finally, in order to comprehend the importance Spain has
acquired as a migratory destination for Ecuadorians and Colombians, we
should bear in mind that it must be seen within the context of toughened US
immigration policies, particularly following the terrorist attacks of 11
September 2001.
Bolivian migration has also been particularly important for its figures,
although as this is a more recent movement it is hard to quantify the total data
with precision (Table 1).
It is enlightening to contrast the rhythm of these migratory flows with the
dates in which the Spanish state has imposed compulsory visas on each group.
In the case of Ecuador, the rhythm of arrivals to Spain went from merely
anecdotal in 1998 to more than 90,000 entries per year between 1999 and
2003. In 2003, when visas were made compulsory the number of arrivals fell
sharply and has stood at a regular 10,000 from 2004 onwards. Colombian
migration also rose sharply from 1999, peaking at a historic maximum with
70,000 entries in 2001 and stopping altogether once visas were made
compulsory in January 2002 (Izquierdo Escribano 2004b). The increase of the
number of arrivals from Bolivia was a later development which first appeared
in 2002 and increased from the year 2004 onwards. The imposition in April
2007 for Bolivian nationals to have a migratory visa also reflected by a
significant drop in the number of arrivals to Spain. What is interesting about
this is seeing how the policies of the receiving country, in this case Spain,
manage to almost completely neutralize the action of migratory networks and
the survival of the actual structural causes of these migrations. But beyond the
efficiency of Spanish border policies, it is necessary to research the motivations
that guided them. Thus, the rhythmical succession of compulsory visas for
citizens from different Latin American countries has played a vital role in the
ethnic segmentation of labour markets which were in particularly precarious
situations (Figure 1).
8 2 2 CULTURAL STUDIES
TABLE 1 Latin American population included in the Spanish census by sex and nationality. Year 2010.
Registered
Foreigners Percentage (%) Women Percentage (%) Men Percentage (%)
Total 5,747,734 100.0 2,729,799 47.5 3,017,935 52.5
Latin Americans 1,760,030 30.6 970,161 55.1 789,869 44.9
Nationalities Percentage of L.A. (%)
Ecuador 399,586 7.0 22.7 201,811 50.5 197,775 49.5
Colombia 292,641 5.1 16.6 161,810 55.3 130,831 44.7
Bolivia 213,169 3.7 12.1 122,221 57.3 90,948 42.7
Peru 140,182 2.4 8.0 71,095 50.7 69,087 49.3
Argentina 132,249 2.3 7.5 66,742 50.5 65,507 49.5
Brazil 117,808 2.0 6.7 73,526 62.4 44,282 37.6
Dominican Republic 91,212 1.6 5.2 52,385 57.4 38,827 42.6
Paraguay 85,687 1.5 4.9 57,418 67.0 28,269 33.0
Venezuela 60,399 1.1 3.4 35,221 58.3 25,178 41.7
Cuba 54,954 1.0 3.1 30,188 54.9 24,766 45.1
Uruguay 46,865 0.8 2.7 23,536 50.2 23,329 49.8
Chile 44,570 0.8 2.5 22,520 50.5 22,050 49.5
Other L.A. countries 80,708 1.4 4.6 51,688 64.0 29,020 36.0
Source: Authors’elaboration of data from Municipal Register, INE (2010).
LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN 823
4. Changes in the immigration policies and the construction
of the Latin American’s image as ‘culturally compatible’
Spanish immigration policy, including regulations relating to visas, establish-
ment of quotas and signings of bilateral agreements has played a fundamental
role in adapting the management of flows to the needs of the Spanish labour
market (Martı´n 2003a). Over the last few years the state has gradually adapted
its legislation to encourage the entry to Spain of a large number of migrants of
Latin American origin, whose presence in the Spanish work panorama has
turned out to be crucial for sustaining strategic economic sectors in a highly
precarious situation. But over and above the economic result of this process, its
significance in social cultural terms must be broached. The incorporation of
Latin American migration to Spain at the turn of the century has strengthened a
FIGURE 1 Latin Americans included in the census and resident in Spain years 19982009
(31dic).Note: Discrepancies among census data and residency data are due to the fact that
the census figures include both foreign nationals legally resident in Spain and those in an
irregular situation, that is to say, without legal residency authorization. Spanish law allows
foreign nationals in an irregular situation to register in the Municipal census. Hence the
number of foreign nationals in the census is always greater than that of residents.Source:
Authors’ elaboration of data from Municipal Register, INE (2010) and Residential Variation
Statistics, INE (2009).
8 2 4 CULTURAL STUDIES
series of deep and complex transformations in the construction always
unfinished of cultural otherness. At the same time these transformations have
conditioned the financial integration of migrants and their political manage-
ment. We should define the cultural framework which has welcomed the Latin
American migration boom in Spain, bearing in mind the always dialectic nature
of the relations between the economic, political and cultural contexts, as has
been stressed in Hall’s theoretical purpose (i.e. Hall 1996a, 1996b).
It is understood that the increase in number of Latin American migrants to
Spain has been accompanied by the construction of an image of these migrants
as ‘desirable’within a context of ethnic segmentation of the Spanish labour
market. Several authors have rightly termed Latin American collectives as
‘preferred’in early twenty-first-century Spain (Izquierdo Escribano 2004a). In
fact, typifying these people as preferable migrants, based on their supposed
cultural compatibility with the autochthonous population, has been a
determining factor in the political and economic management of these
migratory currents. To comprehend this process in all its complexity it is
necessary to remember episodes which have represented turning points in the
construction of social representations of Latin American migration.
Throughout the last third of the twentieth century African migration,
particularly from Maghreb was the most important in terms of numbers (Lo´pez
Garcı´a and Berriane 2004). These migratory currents, formed mainly by men
and focused on very specific work sectors, had mainly settled in the cities of
Madrid and Barcelona, with the younger male migrants settling especially in
rural areas. The initial welcome given to these workers was relatively
favourable since their presence answered to the needs of agricultural enclaves
in full expansion. However, the evolution of agriculture itself, increasingly
linked to extremely competitive international markets, translated into a
gradual increase of the level of exploitation of the workers. The final links in
the distribution and commercialization chains, which were becoming increas-
ingly powerful, gradually forced agricultural owners to increase the pressure
on workers, and often also on environment (Martı´n 2002). Since the amount
of time migrant workers had been working allowed them to stage a certain
degree of resistance to the progressive worsening of work conditions, African
and especially Maghrebi, migration attained a high social profile in a very
short space of time. Lamentably, this profile was partly orchestrated by
economic and political agents and under suspicion as a supposed ‘resistance to
integration’on the part of the migrants. Until 2000, agricultural workers of El
Ejido had a rather ‘schizophrenic’view of Moroccan migrants. During our
fieldwork (Martı´n, Castan
˜o and Rodrı´guez 1999) the most repeated line was:
‘Moroccans cannot be trusted but I have one working with me who is an
absolute gem’. This contradiction in terms between the rejection of the
collective and the individual valuation of the worker weakened as workers
became more demanding in the labour sector. The conflictive perspective
gained predominance, causing great tension in the inter-ethnic relations in the
LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN 825
town. The explosion of violent racist riots which took place in El Ejido in the
province of Almeria in February 2000 was paradoxically the event which part
of the media and the powers used to finally confirm the image of the Maghrebi
migrant as ‘unintegratable’(A
´lvarez 2002).
In a newspaper article the right-wing politician Miguel Herrero de Min
˜o´n
expressed this view in the following manner:
The reception of legal migrants prompts us to think about the problem of
integration. Do we want a truly open, fully-integrated society with its
own identity? Or a fragmentary, non-pluralist, interculturalism which
produces tensions and radicalization? Spain does not yet suffer this
problem: let’s prevent it in time ... in order to do so it is important for
the planning of immigration to favor the arrival of those who are more
easily integratable
5
owing to linguistic and cultural affinity.
Without doubt Latin Americans, Romanians and Slavs are preferable to
Africans. It is one thing to cooperate closely with Maghreb and it is
another to encourage Maghrebi migration, which is difficult to
integrate. Faced with the stupor of they’re coming! Let’s provide the
rational, who should we bring?
(Published in El Paı´s on 8 October 2000)
The disturbances in El Ejido took place in the midst of a legislative explosion
surrounding the phenomenon of migration. During the 1990s Spain had
gradually accepted the stable nature of migration, as well as its importance as a
factor to provide structure to the country’s social and economic life. Faced
with the obsolete Law 7/1985 which still saw migration as something transient
which affected other European countries to a greater extent, the progressive
visibility of migration created the need to draft a new immigration law geared
towards favouring the integration of stable migrant populations present in large
numbers. This resulted in Law 4/2000 on the rights and freedoms of
foreigners in Spain and their integration. This law established a general
principle of equality with Spaniards and granted greater rights to foreign
nationals, but was fated to be reformed. The Partido Popular, one of whose
factions was in charge of reforming the 1985 Law was, paradoxically, the only
political party not to support it in Parliament and also announced its intention
of carrying out an in-depth reform of Law 4/2000 if they were re-elected.
This party’s toughened stance regarding migration was one of the factors which
contributed to its majority win in the 2000 General Elections (De Lucas 2002).
Controversial Law 8/2000 soon appeared in a political climate which was still
reeling from the commotion caused by the attacks in El Ejido. Large sectors of
society, including members of numerous associations of migrants and pro-
migrant associations, soon joined together in their opposition to this law. The
High Court itself later legitimized this opposition when it annulled up to
8 2 6 CULTURAL STUDIES
thirteen of the articles included in the Regulations for the Organic Law passed
by Royal Decree in July 2001.
The new Immigration Law came into force in an atmosphere where the
subject of migration was a particularly sensitive one. While it has already been
stated that at that point Spanish political life saw the construction of migration
from Maghreb as a problem, we ought not to forget the process of
stigmatization and demonization of Islam which was taking place internation-
ally at the same time. The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 thus augured
a new turning point for immigration policy in the western world. There was a
new turn towards legislation characterized by what Javier de Lucas termed a
‘security obsession’(De Lucas 2002). That is to say, there was a considerable
reduction of immigration policies, which in practice disappeared from the
agenda of European states, appearing only in relation to security and public
order. Migration began to be perceived as a potential danger, essentially
represented by people from societies which were quickly deemed culturally
incompatible with democratic principles. The book by Sartori (2000) is only
the tip of an enormous political and media iceberg which quickly consolidated
the fear of anything Islamic and, by association, of migration from Africa
and the southern and eastern Mediterranean.
In Europe the start of the twenty-first century therefore saw the
confirmation of a generalized fear of Islam, identified with global terrorism,
as well as a redefinition of immigration policies in terms of security policies
(Said 2001, Semati 2010). As seen earlier, this coincided with the first explicit
symptoms of rejection in Spain towards Maghrebi migration which has proven
its ability to resist forms of exploitation accompanying an economically and
ecologically unsustainable model of agriculture (Martı´n 2003a). In the case of
Spain, the construction of the Muslim migrant as ‘culturally unintegratable’
would in return involve a vision of European and Latin American migrants as
desirable labour, owing to their supposed ‘cultural compatibility’, in according
with the essentialist explanation of culture (Gilroy 1987). In short, this is a
major ideological apparatus at the service of the need to replace certain ethnic
groups in some economic sectors in highly precarious situations (Lo´pez Garcı´a
and Berriane 2004).
In the province of Huelva the 2001 strawberry-picking season was affected
by the events of the previous year with the result that Moroccan migrants, who
had a seasonal pre-contract (2,000 people, mostly men) found that agricultural
bosses did not wish to formalize the contract, preferring Latin American
workers instead. These workers organized a sit-in protest demanding
compliance with the agreement. At the same time the recently-hired Latin
American workers also had a sit-in protest in order to get their ‘papers’,as
most were in Spain illegally. It is extremely interesting to observe the different
reaction of the locals in this strawberry-producing region: while the protests of
the Latin Americans were supported by the town and the church, the
Moroccans only gained the support of pro-migrant NGOs and radical left-wing
LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN 827
unions. Latin American leaders waded straight into the cultural compatibility
argument when they emphasized that ‘the priest had let them use the church
because they were Christians, just like the Spaniards’and that people
supported them ‘because Spain was the Motherland’. However, this support
must be understood as a rejection of the increased labour organization of
Moroccans rather than as support for the Spanish-speaking Christian Latin
Americans. As proof of this statement we must point out that the following
year neither Moroccans nor Latin Americans were sought as strawberry-
pickers. The protest of the Latin Americans resulted in strawberry-picking
bosses choosing to hire Eastern European women, believing these, as women,
would be more likely to accept work conditions and less predisposed to
organize themselves and defend their labour rights.
At the same time, the equation of Muslims with terrorism and the idea of
cultural compatibility had severe repercussions on the Spanish people as a
whole, and specifically on business groups that were closely linked to migrant
labour. While in 1989 and 1990, when we carried out research on strawberry
production in Huelva, we encountered severe difficulties when explaining to
the informants (strawberry-growing bosses) what anthropology was and what
the concept of culture entailed. In 2001, surprisingly the manager of one of the
largest strawberry cooperatives of the province justified the lack of compliance
with the agreements with Maghrebi migrants as being due to their ‘cultural
incompatibility’. When asked to explain this lack of compatibility, the
informant was extremely sure of his statement: ‘Look what they’re doing in
Sarajevo’. When we pointed out that in this case Bosnian Muslims were the
victims, he did not believe us at first and then, following our insistence, he
replied: ‘well they must have done something to be persecuted that way,
because you just can’t live with these people’.
As against perceptions of the Islamic migrant as unintegratable, the
ideological discourse of Latin American cultural compatibility gained ground.
As a consequence, the specific needs of the Spanish labour market soon led to
an unequivocal adaptation of the immigration policy. The system of quotas and
contingents, which aimed for the hiring of a pre-established number of
workers at the point of origin and in accordance with existing job offers, had in
actual fact worked as a way to regularize the situations of people already
resident in Spain. However, from 2001 on Spain tended to tie the contingents
to policies preferential towards countries with which Spain had previously
signed bilateral agreements on the regulation and ordination of migratory
flows. Soon after the implementation of Law 8/2000, tragically preceded by
the accidental deaths of twelve Ecuadorian workers in Lorca (Murcia), Spain
signed the first of these bilateral agreements with Ecuador. More agreements
of this type were subsequently signed with Colombia, the Dominican
Republic, Morocco, Romania and Poland. This decision to hire workers at
their point of origin in specific countries was endorsed by the suspension of the
work permit process through the General Regime, which hired workers
8 2 8 CULTURAL STUDIES
already installed in Spain. Spain went on to concentrate its work permit policy
on hiring at point of origin, limiting the possibilities available to migrants
already resident in Spain but in an irregular situation (Martı´n 2003b, Gil
2004).
In short, it is possible to observe a complex exercise in the redefinition of
Spanish migratory policy closely linked to the transformations of the labour
market and its needs in the neo-liberal globalization model. But, as already
stated, this process was facilitated by the parallel construction of the image of
migrants deemed desirable for their supposed cultural compatibility. In this
discourse Latin American migration is seen as ideal labour given its cultural
characteristics: linguistic and religious affinity, a self-interested resurgence of
historical ties, etc. However, how has the integration of the Latin American
population into Spanish society taken place? To what extent has the supposed
cultural compatibility favoured the successful integration of this population in
Spain? Available data, as well as our own field research, force us to be critical
towards the discourse of cultural compatibility.
5. From discourse to practice: the reality of the insertion of
Latin Americans into society and employment
Until now, the supposed cultural compatibility of Latin American migration
has not been expressed as practices which dignify its protagonists. However,
the compatibility discourse covers an entire process of precarization and
segmentation of the Spanish labour markets which reserves a particularly tough
role for these migrants. Indeed, the receiving society prefers Latin Americans
due to their precarious legal and labour conditions, and not because of their
cultural peculiarities.
The value of compatibility represented by a common language and religion
rests on a questionable supposition: the assumption that intercultural conflict is
less probable when coexisting cultures are similar (Huntington 1997, Sartori
2000). However, history provides many examples to the contrary: conflicts
between culturally similar peoples are very frequent and often turn out to be
the most violent. Historical processes and the economic and political
framework tend to be the factors capable of constructing a disparity that
does encourage conflict. And in the case of Latin American migration in Spain
these are the factors that support the social and labour incorporation
characterized by a precarious situation and segmentation.
This migration is being geared towards integration into labour markets
where salaries, work conditions and social guarantees are visibly deteriorated.
It is necessary to face up to the active role that Spanish immigration policies
have played in the construction of this situation. We have already mentioned
how the rhythmical imposition of compulsory visas has resulted in a cyclical
LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN 829
work dumping situation among Latin Americans, where each collective that
has emigrated has seen their achievements weakened by the subsequent
importation of less organized, needier, and therefore, cheaper, labour. In
parallel, the toughening of the conditions for accessing regularization in
accordance with the General Regime of the Social Security
6
leads migrant
workers into extremely vulnerable positions. The imposition of guidelines for
minimum contributions to the social security in order to renew residence and
work permits, along with the difficulty in regaining legally regular status if
lost, encourages a feeling of fear and docility among migrant workers. In short,
immigration policies have managed to provide the vulnerable labour needed to
redefine labour markets within the context of globalization (Overbeek 1995).
This is what leads us to state that if these policies have encouraged worker
migration from Latin America it is because they are ‘exploitable workers’, not
because they are ‘culturally compatible’.
The workers of Latin American origin, inasmuch as they are integrated
into the more precarious and less skilled labour markets, are as desirable as
they are exploitable, and they are exploitable because of the difficult living
conditions existing in their society of origin. The discourse of cultural
compatibility covers up a strategy of precarization and segmentation of labour
markets in the throes of a transformation process. A good example of this is
the case of domestic work, which has played a key role in the social and labour
insertion of Latin American women. This is of particular importance since, as
already stated, the recent growth of Latin American migration has found one of
its major defining factors in the feminization of flows (Parren
˜as 2001,
Hondagneu-Sotelo 2003, Herrera 2006).
At the point of origin it is possible to observe (Martı´net al. 2008, Cuberos
2008) Latin American economies that are incapable of guaranteeing minimally
stable expectations for an increasingly larger number of families. At
destination, the necessary incorporation of Spanish women into formal
employment was in no way supported by social policies, and much less so
by the exercise of the redefinition of gender roles in relation with household
tasks. This resulted in a Spanish society in need of domestic work, which found
in Latin American women an exploitable source generated by the need to
provide for their families and guaranteed by migratory policies which
supported their precarious situations, and which enabled the appearance of
new types of servitude (Sassen 1998).
Thus, Latin American women are integrated into a secondary position
within a structure where the employment exploitation they suffer is not
mitigated by their supposed cultural compatibility. Spanish employers,
including the women who tend to deal directly with female domestic work
staff, usually focus their work relationship on extracting maximum benefit to
the detriment of the female migrant worker, while the supposed cultural
compatibility in no way encourages attitudes of solidarity (Martı´n and Sabuco
2006). The precarious situation in employment is also strengthened by
8 3 0 CULTURAL STUDIES
immigration policies which hinder legal regularity and which, according to the
needs of the sector, ensure periodic ethnic replacement that guarantees a
surplus of cheap and vulnerable labour.
Something similar happens with Latin American males, whose access to
work in Spain has taken place mainly in specific sectors such as agriculture and
construction. The relevant needs of these sectors, desperate for exploitable
labour, have fed on these workers to support increasing precarization
strategies. The cultural compatibility discourse has only been a veneer to
cover the ethnic replacement policies necessary to perpetuate this insecurity. It
is worth remembering the aforementioned episode of racist attacks in El Ejido.
In that case, xenophobic violence, justified with a discourse of cultural
incompatibility was actually a response to the deterioration of a situation
characterized by exploitation and precarization. The fact that the subsequent
mass incorporation of Latin American labour has not resulted in an
improvement of work conditions in agriculture is symptomatic of this. Quite
the opposite, this labour and the specific conditions under which its social and
labour insertion have taken place, have contributed towards maintaining the
production models facing a serious reproduction crisis because of the
unstoppable ascent of the ‘inputs’and the freezing of prices at point of
origin, but not at destination (Martı´n 2002).
Therefore, when speaking of Latin American migration in Spain we are
referring to a reality conditioned by the needs of globalized work markets where
the logic of extracting benefits takes precedence over some debatable cultural
compatibility criteria. It is in the context of this inequality, and in no other, that
Latin American migrant workers are incorporated into Spanish society, hence
the importance of the availability of social networks for these Latin American
migrants to cushion their emotional and social vulnerability. Over and above the
necessary task of mutual support and recreation of shared identity, the available
ethnographic data (Martı´net al. 2008, Cuberos 2008) show the importance of
networks in strategies for accessing work and social promotion. In the case of
domestic work we have observed clearly feminized forms of formal
associationism. The use of certain spaces of informal sociability parks, phone
booth establishments, squares ... is a determining factor for accessing into a
sector where personal and direct contact with employers is of vital importance.
A similar situation can be found in sectors such as construction, agriculture or
the hotel and catering industry. But associationism, both formal and informal,
tends to focus on improving the possibilities for access to individual employ-
ment, rather than on an organized fight against the insecurity inherent to the
socio-economic context in which it occurs.
There are currently over 20 Latin American associations working per-
manently in the city of Seville. Most of them are cultural or sporting bodies,
although a large number of them are not legally-constituted associations and
therefore operate on an informal level. The associations that have been
formally constituted offer job-hunting services. Their purpose is basically to act
LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN 831
as a point of contact between Latin American jobseekers and local employers.
These associations do not carry out constant monitoring of the labour conditions
of workers and they barely inform the parties involved of the legally-established
minimum wages in sectors such as construction, hotels and catering, and
domestic service. In practice, all the positions handled by the associations are
aimed at precarious labour sectors in which migrants are already present.
Therefore, associations channel low quality jobs, directed at those migrants who
are in a particularly vulnerable situation. This can be observed in the following
words where the coordinator for an employment service in a Latin American
migrants’association explained how the profile of its users evolves in accordance
with their varying degrees of vulnerability. The crisis in the construction sector
has provoked an upturn in male unemployment, as well as a greater
precariousness of employment among the collectives which have more recently
arrived in the city, such as Bolivians.
The employment service is vital: the problem is that there is no decent,
quality employment ... Most come in search of work and jobs because, of
course, ‘jobs are like gold dust’, but afterwards I think the association
mainly acts as a meeting point ... The Bolivians use it more because there
are many more who have not got their papers in order, which means that
they visited the center more often because it was harder for them to find a
job. They come here a lot more. That is to say, it is not that more people
come here, just that they come more often. Because there are many more
Bolivians without papers, than Ecuadorians. ... At first a lot more women
would come: many more women looking for jobs. The thing is that there
are a lot more men coming now, because of construction. And without
papers, lots of men without papers.
Ana. (Cotacachi Cultural Association)
The networks set up by Latin American workers for social and employment
purposes can satisfactorily fulfil a series of functions, most notably those tied to
mutual support, advice, preservation of identity and organized defence of
sectoral interests. Although the social and professional incorporation of these
people takes place within the context of a structural subordinate position, this
has not prevented the deployment of organizational strategies seeking to
counteract this secondary position in a coherent manner. Today it is possible to
observe the existence of a solid associative fabric among Latin American
migrants, which, in fact, has attracted the attention of numerous researchers.
In Spain there is already considerable research on the activity of formalized
associations created gradually by Latin Americans. Other scholars can attest to
the organizational capacity of local and transnational networks built up by these
migrants (Sole´et al. 2007), and even their potential applicability to the
management of development policies (Corte´s 2006). However, we do not
8 3 2 CULTURAL STUDIES
have to emphasize the assessment of the transforming potential of these
networks and to understand the context of strong structural inequalities in
which they are embedded.
6. The evolution of cultural compatibility and the migrants’
strategies in times of crisis
This paper shows how the concept of cultural compatibility has changed
throughout the history of contemporary migratory processes between Latin
America and Spain.
In the first place, when we examined the experience of Latin American
political exiles in Spain during the post-Franco era, we observed how, at that
time, cultural compatibility was constructed on the basis of political resistance,
which was well-developed thanks to the shared experience of dictatorships.
However, even as far back as the 1980s the representation of Latin American
intellectuals as culturally similar could not be disassociated from their
belonging to an intellectual middle class. We also pointed out that behind
this interpretation lay a feeling of distrust towards these exiles, contrasting
with the narration of cultural compatibility and remaining hidden from the
public-media discourse.
In our interpretation of history we have witnessed the progressive changes
in the structural conditions which formed the foundations for the ‘myth’of
cultural closeness. This eventually led to a type of Latin American profile
different to that of the early economic boom in Spain. Since the mid 1990s, in
a time of advanced globalization which is characterized by precarious labour
markets, there has been a growing irregularization of international migration.
This has given rise to the loss of rights of some migrant collectives and has
affected the culturally-close Latin American migrants, mostly female, with few
qualifications and in a socially vulnerable position because of bureaucratic
irregularities.
The text has emphasized the key role of growing Islamophobia in the 2000s
which viewed migrants from North Africa as culturally distant, and therefore
rejected as a source of cheap labour, unprotected and answering to the needs
of the market. In fact, following this ‘discourse’, as postulated by Hall
(1996b), Moroccan workers at the bottom end of the labour market were
replaced by other collectives, particularly Latin American and Eastern
European. Subsequently, this situation continued thanks to the policies
involving visa restrictions, which enabled the gradual replacement of different
national collectives. It can thus be stated that the discourse representing Latin
American migrants as culturally compatible has served as a tool for the ethnic
stratification of the Spanish labour market.
LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN 833
In the last quarter of 2011, over 20 percent of the Spanish active
population was unemployed, a situation which mostly affects social sectors in
more precarious situations, namely young people and migrants. The employ-
ment crisis in Spain heightens the insecurity and ethnic segmentation of the
labour markets and has a double effect on Latin American migrants living in
Spain. In terms of the receiving society, there are return policies being
implemented, increasing restrictions on migration in general and family
reunification in particular, and these represent major obstacles to the strategies
of many Latin American migrants. These policies show that the perception of
Latin Americans as culturally compatible during the years of the economic
boom could not be detached from their status as economic agents, and that
they are no longer of use to society once they leave the market sphere
following job losses (Sayad 1999).
In contrast, the strategy of Latin American migrants in the context of the
current employment crisis is undergoing a radical shift from circulation of
capital to that of persons. Paradoxically, this operates in opposition to the
restrictions promoted in terms of migratory policies. However, it is made
possible by the continuing existence of the historical ties with their Spanish
colonial roots. In fact, Spanish law contemplates privileged treatment for
migrants from former Spanish colonies who may wish to apply for Spanish
nationality.
7
As can be seen, this is yet another case of the representation of the
other as culturally close which intervenes in conditioning the strategies of
agents from specific collectives, redefining the relationships of power. As
shown by recent statistics, there has been an exponential increase in the
number of Latin Americans applying for Spanish nationality: in 2010 they made
up 84 percent of the total of foreigners applying who had been granted Spanish
nationality (OPAM 2011). This has brought about a strengthening of
transnational practices of Latin American migrants between the countries of
origin, Spain and other countries in the Schengen area. As observed from our
ethnographic analysis these strategies give rise to readjustments of the
dynamics of extended family networks. For instance, these may involve
unemployed members, usually young single males, returning to the country of
origin temporarily or relocating in other European countries, without having
to relinquish the option of returning to Spain, since they are now Spanish
nationals.
Notes
1Inflamenco, the term ‘return’songs is used to describe all the styles born
from popular Latin American music. The term ‘return’presupposes that
Spanish emigrants took these styles to America, where they were influenced
by American rhythms and that these took their current form when returning
8 3 4 CULTURAL STUDIES
to Spain. Experts currently consider this to be a clearly ethnocentric
interpretation and believe them to have originated in the ‘New World’.
2 When author Emma Martı´n was carrying out the fieldwork for her doctoral
thesis in Barcelona, in 1985 and 1986 she witnessed xenophobic comments
relating to the visibility of Latin American migrants in public spaces. It was
then that the pejorative expression ‘sudaca’became popular as a way to
stigmatize this collective.
3 Not only did the law establish the exemption of visas for Latin Americans
entering as tourists, but it also favoured nationals from former colonies in
certain ways like access to employment in Spain (Art.23 Organic Law 7/1985
on the Rights and Freedom of Foreigners).
4 The lack of reliable statistical sources prevents us from stating an exact figure
for the total number of migrants who arrived in the 1980s. It was only in the
late 1990s that specific data on immigration was made available and compiled
annually in the Anuarios Estadı´sticos de Extranjerı´a published by the Ministry of
Labor. In addition, this entry as tourists and the lack of specific means to
legalize residence made it difficult to produce exact figures. The first
extraordinary process for regularization took place in 1986 as a response to
the implementation of the LOEx, and from 1991 extraordinary regularization
processes were used as a formula to solve the problems of illegal migrant
population. To date six extraordinary regularization processes have been
carried out under different governments, irrespective of the political party in
power: in 1986, 1991, 1996, 2000, 2001 and 2005.
5 The bold lettering is ours.
6 There are six different Regimes in the social security. The General Regime
includes the wage earning workers of most sectors: industry, construction or
services. The other five are Special Regimes: self-employed workers, and
those who work in agriculture, the sea, mining or domestic work.
7 Current legislation establishes that citizens from Latin American countries are
eligible for Spanish nationality following a two-year period of permanent legal
residence, as opposed to the 10 years required for citizens from other
countries (Law 36/2002, of 8 October, modifying the Civil Code with regard
to nationality).
Notes on contributors
Emma Martı´n Dı´az is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of
Seville. She is specialized in Migration, Ethnic Relationships and Public Policies.
She obtained her MA Anthropology at the University of Seville in 1985, with a
thesis on migrants returning from Western Europe to rural Andalusia. Her PhD
thesis (1988) focused on Andalusian immigrants in Catalun
˜a, interethnic
relationships and integration policies, and won the prize ‘Blas Infante’for the
LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION TO SPAIN 835
best original research on Social Studies in Andalusia in 1991. Since 1995 she has
been carrying out research on ‘New Immigration’in Spain. The topics include
immigration, agriculture and labour markets in Mediterranean Spain (1999,
2001), immigration and citizenship (1999, 2003), immigration and domestic
services (2002), immigration and prostitution (2004) and immigration and
transnational social networks (2007).
She participates in several masters and doctorates on migration, ethnicity,
gender, development, citizenship and Human Rights at different Universities
from Europe and Latin America.
Recent publications:
Liliana Sua´rez, Emma Martı´n y Rosalva Aı´da Herna´ndez (Coords.) (2008)
Feminismos en la antropologı´a: nuevas propuestas crı´ticas, San Sebastia´n, Ankulegi
elkartea.
Emma Martı´n (2008) ‘Mujeres, derechos y migraciones: cro´nica de una
injusticia (ma´s o menos) legal’,inLa Igualdad no es una Utopı´a, ed. Thomson-
Aranzadi, Nuevas Fronteras, Avances y desafı´os, Conferencias Plenarias.
Emma Martı´n (2008) ‘El impacto del ge´nero en las migraciones de la
globalizacio´n: mujeres, trabajos y relaciones interculturales’,Scripta Nova.
Revista Electro´nica de Geografı´a y Ciencias Sociales, vol. XII, nu´m. 270 (133), 1 de
Agosto de 2008.
Emma Martı´n y Assumpta Sabuco (2007) ‘Las Mujeres en la Globalizacio´n:
el nuevo tra´fico de alianzas y de mercancı´as’,Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios
Avanzados,n824, ‘Cultura y Transformaciones sociales’, pp. 65106.
Francisco Cuberos Gallardo is a researcher in the Department of Social
Anthropology at the University of Seville. Recently he defended his PhD
thesis, which is entitled ‘Ethnic Relations and democratic participation.
Associative strategies of the Latin-American resident population in Seville’.
During the last five years he has studied the Latin-American migrations
towards Spain, attending to the associative strategies of the migrants and to the
analysis of their migratory networks from a gender perspective. He was visiting
fellow at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of
California at San Diego (2009), at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana,
Mexico (2008) and at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales
FLACSO in Quito, Ecuador (2007, 2006).
8 3 6 CULTURAL STUDIES
Recent publications:
Francisco Jose´Cuberos (2009) ‘Redes sociales e integracio´n de los
inmigrantes. El caso de las mujeres ecuatorianas residentes en Sevilla’,
Remhu Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana.An
˜o XVII, Nu´m. 32,
pp. 6180.
Francisco Jose´Cuberos (2008) ‘El movimiento como mecanismo de
renegociacio´n de la identidad: el caso de las mujeres ecuatorianas en Sevilla’,in
Ame´rica Latina migrante: Estado, familia, identidades, eds. G. Herrera y
J. Ramı´rez, Quito, Flacso-Ecuador, pp. 377392.
Simone Castellani is PhD scholar at the department of Social Anthropology,
University of Seville. He obtained his MA en Communication Sciences at the
University of Padua in 2006 with a thesis on university students’access to the
labour market. He collaborated as a researcher in a project about the role of
the local agencies in the perception of security in a northern area of Italy with a
low rate crime (2007). Since 2008 he has been carrying out his thesis project
on the construction of identities of the Ecuadorians’migrant children in Seville
(Spain) and Genoa (Italy). He was visiting fellow at the Sussex Centre of
Migration Research, University of Sussex (2009) and at the Department of
Anthropological Science, University of Genoa (2010).
Recent publications:
Simone Castellani (2009) ‘Seguimos llama´ndolos inmigrantes. Etiquetamiento
y construccio´n de las identidades de los hijos de padres marroquı´es y
ecuatorianos en los institutos de E.S.O. del Barrio de La Macarena (Sevilla)’,in
Actas del VI Congreso sobre Migraciones en Espan
˜a: A Corun
˜a, del 17 a 19 de
septiembre de 2009. 15971609.
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