IMMIGRATION

Twenty years ago an English friend of mine jokingly suggested that the trouble with Spain was that there were too many Spanish people in it. At that time you would probably go for weeks without seeing a coloured person; the few Arabs there were would generally keep themselves to themselves and on the street you would only ever hear Spanish being spoken. The South American community was so small that it was unnoticeable. The culture shock after living in multi-racial Britain was quite tremendous. The rapid change from those days to the new modern multi racial Spain has, unfortunately, managed to create reactions varying from fear to indignation among born and bred Spaniards which, in certain areas is creating a social unrest in which real violence could break out at any time.
One of the main factors for this social unrest is the lack of integration. Moslems, in general, will not integrate with non muslems either here or in any other part of the world. Oh yes you can work alongside them and occasionally share a joke with them but the barriers are always there.
Contrary to popular opinion they are not hard workers who are here to do the hard dirty work that the nouveau rich Spanish disdain In fact most of the ones with whom I have worked are skivers and their disdainful attitude towards western women is disgraceful.
The South American communities are generally not inclined to integrate with the Spanish people either which, if we take into account the fact that the language is shared, is surprising. Here the lack of integration is mutual as the typical Spaniard is not particularly interested in opening his heart to them and so LatinAmericans generally bunch together. They are not hard to find at weekends around a football field for example or in a particular favourite meeting place where they will congregate in large numbers( often hundreds or more) where they resemble a flock of particularly vociferous starlings. Look among them. You won't find any Spaniards. Many families have arrived with young children wh, resenting having been taken away from their homeland and friends and usually ostracised by Spanish kids, find it extremely difficult to achieve at school,
and, as school failures, organise themselves into gangs such as the well known Latin Kings...... Shades of West side story without the music and with a lot more violence.
The dark skinned African immigration is, for obvios reasons, the most notice-able of all immigrant group. Many have arrived illegallyand live in a clandestine world of their own, usually sharing a flat between about twenty in order to make survival possible and work as itinerant sellers or seasonal field workers. Unlike the previously mentioned groups most Africans are open and friendly and only too pleased to integrate with the Spanish as much as the Spanish themselves will allow.
The Chinese community, which is dedicated to doing business with their shops,restaurants and clothing businesses has to integrate superficially in order to do business with everyone else but they are still like chalk and cheese on the personal level and only befriend their own kind.
The ex communist block north europaean countries contribute greatly to Spain's immigrant community. While the majority are hard working and honest they themselves suffer from the bad press that a certain number of their countrymen cause them as there seems to be an elevated amount of crime, often violent crime, associated with these nations,which logically makes Spanish people reluctant to integrate with them. Give a dog a bad name..........
The last group of immigrants is us. The Brits, French, Deutches, Holanders etc. etc. who did not come here to escape from poverty. I often wonder why many of us are here. So now I come to the Big Prize question. Are you integrated?. Are your parties attended by your Spanish friends? Do they invite you to their parties? And do you really speak Spanish? Do you know what is being talked about? Do you know who Fraga is? or Paquirrin? Have you got any c.ds of Spanish groups in your collection? If the answer to any of these questions is NO, then it's time YOU started to INTEGRATE. The Spanish will accept you warmly if you try and understand them, This blog hopes to provide you with some insight on the topics of the day which will help you in the right direction.
BUT Remember, as my old friend Paco el fontanero once said..." You can be whatever you want in España. What you can't be is an hijo de puta.