The grandmothers of Albacete

Catalonia, like any other country, is full of clichés that, through repetition, celebration, and rejoicing in them, have become meaningless, have lost their functionality, and have even been forgotten. One notable one is the recognition of Catalonia as a "land of welcome," as if the native population prior to the arrival of a mass migratory movement had had any decision-making power and awaited the newcomers with open arms. They didn't have that power at any point in the twentieth century, just as they don't have it now.

In the past, there were political figures deeply concerned with marking territory and demanding Catalan purity, as there are now. There were also social agents, political parties, and politicians concerned with building a following from the very beginning. In 1931, for example, Sevillian Antonio Jiménez, father of Roger Jiménez, who was a correspondent in London and Rome and the first ombudsman for this newspaper, participated in the founding of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia), representing the Republicans of Terra Alta and Ribera d'Ebre. His presence is anecdotal, but also significant.

The welcome is not the result of a miraculous Catalan differential fact

In the 1960s and 1970s, welcome—when it occurred—took place primarily in the neighborhoods, literally. Then and now, the likelihood of success of this process depends, essentially, on the number of people arriving, the length of time they arrive, and whether the culture of origin is significantly different from the native one. In some neighborhoods, job opportunities and an improving economy allowed descendants to ascend to the social ladder, and today they find themselves in positions of responsibility that would have been unthinkable for their parents.

Mixed marriages also did their part and contributed to forging communities. This is why this week, for example, listeners with a distinctly Catalan accent could recommend dishes from their grandmothers in Albacete, Logroño, or Murcia on the RAC105 program Ja tardes! (Ja afternoons! ). These grandchildren are the result of a slow but natural, far from easy process, which begins with suspicion, progresses through coexistence, and ends with acceptance of the other. And in the past, it relied on the will of Catalans, many of them anonymous and working-class, who set out to prevent the lives of the newcomers from being torn from their own. And they did so proactively and outside of a self-government they didn't have.

In recent times, this proactivity seems lost and, at the same time, silenced. In the May issue of Serra d'Or magazine, journalist Cristina Gil explained in an interesting report the still limited presence of new immigrants in the human tower groups . The country has these and many other ideal tools to bring people together and eliminate the fear of difference, but it should actively put them to work. Welcoming people is not the result of a miraculous Catalan differential, but of the understanding that the vital improvement of immigration will benefit everyone.