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Colombians in Barcelona
By Margarita I. Gotay
The reality of migration as we’ve
discussed in
class doesn’t comply with the myth about just the poor people leaving
their countries for better opportunities. Yes, there are a few but
migrants also include those of the middle class and upper class. In
their discussion of “Latin America and the Caribbean: transition from
immigration to emigration regions” in Stephen Castles &Mark
Miller’s book The Age of Migration the authors state that colonizers
once came into the lands of us Latins trying to get our profits, but
now we are the ones leaving to find more opportunities,
While n Spain my friend Jennifer and I met up with
a friend of hers named Alex. Alex is Colombian; he is a twenty four
year old man. Originally from Bogotá, Alex moved to the US for
two years and now he is currently living in Spain. In Alex’s hometown
he was well known and wealthy.
On the other hand when he started trying to
find a job in Spain luck wasn’t in his favor. When he would call for an
interview the employer would notice his Colombian accent and wouldn’t
give him an interview. Other employers would hang up the phone after
they’d ask him where he was from. And one time he got an interview and
they were going to hire him until he said he was Colombian.
The only job he could find was handing out
flyers, which pays twenty-five euros a day. He told us that when he
gets his EU work papers, there will be more possibilities for him to
get a good job having to do with what he studied, computer engineering.
In the Plaza Catalunya in Barcelona I met another Colombian who told me
he was having the same problem as Alex and many others.
I ask myself if the Spanish rejection of these
Latin immigrants has something to do with the first stages of
migration, when the Spanish conquistadors conquered Latin America. Do
Spanish people still have an air of superiority towards Latins because
we were the conquered, the mistreated? They can conquer our
lands, kill our people but when we go to theirs looking for jobs they
shut the doors at Latins.
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