Columbus meets the natives of Hispaniola: The phenomenon of
immigration
to and through the America's is not new, as historian Carlos Marichal Salinas
points out in this look as the history of Spanish migration to
the Americas.
Five Hundred Years of Immigration to America (El Pais, Spain)
"Every great financial collapse leads not only to a series
of bank and business bankruptcies, but a string of social catastrophes expressed in the loss of jobs, drops in family income for the most affected,
and psychological, individual, and collective pain. That is just what happened
after the global crisis that broke out in September 2008, which has taken a
dangerous path ever since. One of the consequences in Spain was increased migration,
especially to other European countries, but also to America. ... The migration
of Spaniards to America is by no means new. On the contrary, it is part of a
five century history of flows."
Every great
financial collapse leads not only to a series of bank and business
bankruptcies, but a string of social catastrophes expressed in the
loss of jobs, drops in family income for the most affected, and psychological,
individual, and collective pain. That is just what happened after the global
crisis that broke out in September 2008, which has taken a dangerous path ever since.
One of the consequences in Spain was increased migration, especially to other
European countries, but also to America.
How
many Spaniards have migrated since the end of 2008? Despite official agencies
minimizing the magnitude of the new migration, recent studies show that the
phenomenon of tremendous magnitude.
A
study by the FundaçãoAlternativasEconômicas [Economic Alternatives Foundation] states
that since the crisis began, the migration of Spaniards abroad (up to the end
of 2013) exceeded 700,000 people, a figure far higher than the 225,000 accounted
for by sources published by Spain’s InstitutoNacional de Estatística [Institute
of National Statistics]. Due to the difficulty of registering every person who enters
and leaves other countries for professional reasons, the study's author, AmparoGonzález-Ferrer, a
researcher at the Conselho Superior de PesquisasCientíficas [Higher Council on Scientific Research,orINE], compared the
official records from other countries in relation to the entry of Spaniards, and
discovered something surprising: in recent times, the traditional destinations -
France and Germany - were displaced by the United Kingdom as the favored destination
of Spanish immigrants.
After
the European destinations, in recent years one has to highlight the increase in
Spanish migrants to Latin America, especially Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and
Mexico, although there are few reliable and accurate records for these
movements. In the case of Mexico, for example, official records indicate that over
8,000 Spaniards have entered since the 2008 crisis, allows us to estimate that
the number of Spanish residents in the country is currently 95,000. In Brazil,
between 2008 and 2013, the number of Spaniards registered in the country rose
41.5 percent according to the INE, and officially
there are more than permanent 100,000 residents, although this is a downward
estimate.
However,
the migration of Spaniards to America is by no means new. On the contrary, it is
part of a five century history of flows, of comings and goings, that constitute
a fundamental axis in the history of transatlantic Spain and the countries that
receive its people. Historians have established that between the beginning of
the 16th century and the end of the 18th, about half a million Spaniards reached
American soil, the vast majority on the legendary naval fleets that left
Seville and then Cadiz every year.
The
passengers were merchants, civil servants, military and religious men, and miners,
but also artisans and sailors, to say nothing of the tens of thousands of women
who also made the voyage. In the 16th century, more than half of the total were
from Andalusia and Extremadura, while about 30 percent came from Castilla. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the number from
the Basque Country and Cantabria rose, which is apparent from the mining of silver
and trade throughout Spanish America. However, for political reasons, there
were tight restrictions on the migration of Catalans and Aragonese
- a situation that would only change in the last decades of the 18th century.
With
the wars of independence (1810-1825), America produced a return of thousands of
Spaniards, which wouldn't be reversed for several decades, except in the case
of Cuba, which attracted many immigrants, especially those from the Canary
Islands and Catalan. This was due to the extraordinary peak of the sugar,
tobacco, and mercantile era that occurred on the island during a good portion
of the 19th century.
However,
the greatest flood of Spanish immigration occurred at the end of the 19th century,
when a large number of Spaniards arrived in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil, during
an extraordinary economic bonanza in the Southern Cone. It was
a time when the wages of workers in Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and São Paulo,
greatly exceeded those of Spain and Portugal. This continued during the first
third of the 20th century, which explains the exit of an average of 40,000
Spaniards every year between 1880 and 1900, when it rose to an average of
almost 100,000 per year until the global financial crisis of 1929 and the
subsequent Great Depression. In all, there were several million migrants,
though less than a third returned to Spain because, although many had left for
seasonal work, they remained to take advantage of the higher salaries in the
Southern Cone, including in the south of Brazil. This story has long been told in
a great collection of 16 volumes, edited by JordiMaluquer de Motes and published by the FundaçãoArquivo de Indianos
[Indian Archives Foundation] in Colombres. Because it
is of such great interest, it should be digitalized and made available online.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
The
Spanish Civil War
[1936-1939] produced a new mass migration, forced this time, that compelled the
departure of more than 400,000 Spanish Republicans to France, of which only
about 40,000 were able to migrate to America. Most of the exiles that arrived
to America had excellent educational and professional backgrounds: their
contributions to the culture and higher education, as well as to the business
sector in Mexico and Argentina, is well known, but they were also important in
many other countries. It can be said that a good portion of the Spanish
university system migrated to American during this time.
Spanish
migration gained momentum after the end of World War II, but in this case it
was due to the economic depression which characterized the first 20 years of
the Franco Government
[1936-1975]. To escape starvation, rationing, and low salaries, it once again
became attractive to migrate, especially to Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil,
Uruguay, and Cuba. Between 1950 and 1960, more than a million immigrants left,
of which close to a third returned to Spain after several years. Over the two
subsequent decades, Spanish migration changed course and was directed almost entirely
toward Europe, specifically France, Great Britain, and Germany, while departures
to Latin America fell sharply. With the entry of Spain into the European Union,
the migration of Spaniards fell markedly, and only after the economic debacle
of recent years has it returned to being an important phenomenon.
Nowadays,
there is no doubt that Spanish migrants going to America have a new profile,
since the majority have professional backgrounds valued by companies in Mexico,
Brazil, Argentina, and other countries in the region. It is estimated that in
the case of Mexico, half have a university degree and 27 percent have Bachelors
or post-graduate degrees. However, despite their great technical and
professional qualifications, the arrival of Spaniards does not guarantee their
easy insertion into the economies of Latin American countries. This is due both
to competition with the many local professionals as well as the official
requirements for migrants, which are complicated and, in many cases, time
consuming. Nevertheless, it is likely that the situation for Spanish
professionals will continue to push more to seek jobs in other lands and to
cross the Atlantic, like so many of their ancestors.
*Carlos Marichal Salinas is a professor of history at El Colegio de México.
