End of Sequence: Yuseph

"We hoped for manual labor, human beings arrived." -- Max Frisch

Yuseph was my guide to the mosques of El Ejido, which are discrete and defended. The Moroccan mosque is also the new site of El Ejido´s ACOGE office.

Spanish mobs destroyed the old ACOGE office, along with a progressive Muslim woman NGO office and many Moroccan homes and businesses, in the riots of 2000. This wave of violence began with the murders of three Spanish citizens at the hands of two Moroccan immigrants.

Behind Yuseph are the greenhouses or "invernaderos." This picture was taken less than a block from a residential park.

"At the same time, this emerged from a municipality in which the urban and the rural are frequently interspersed, where you can find greenhouses right in the middle of urban El Ejido and apartments amongst the greenhouses, which suggests that many people, when they return to their houses, pass through zones which are very unsettling, especially at night, and where the presence of an immigrant might unleash a great deal of fear." from Checa, 111, my translation.

Aside: The U.S.

A Heritage Foundation advocate for energetic assimilation. Though most of the argument is along the lines of Samuel Huntington, a notable quote from Woodrow Wilson:
"You cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group has not yet become an American."

Aside: Norway

This week one of Europe´s most traditionally "tough on immigration" countries is coming to grips with its own shortage of both skilled and unskilled labor.

Transition to Immigrant Labor

From Checa:
"Until the mid-80´s the labor market was satisfied by a pioneer population, farmers from the Mediterranean mountains... however, in the last decade of the 20th century... the reduced availability of family laborers, together with an increase in the scale of production... created a scarcity of manual labor, also evident in other sectors of the economy. This was alleviated almost entirely through the means of immigrant labor." (82-84)

The Almerian Revolution

One farmer´s response to the suggestion that Moroccan workers have fueled the "Almerian Miracle" -- a revolution in intensive farming involving the "green gold" of plastic roofing to increase temperatures. From Ian Gibson´s forward to El Ejido: la ciudad-cortijo
(my translation) (Alpujarra - a region of Spain South of Granada. Poniente -- district including El Ejido and a few other small cities).

"´You´re going to tell me that what I have I owe to the the Moors? Come on hombre, after everything I suffered?... Where were the Moors then? Come on hombre, and with us, the majority.´

This is true. If the self-exploitation of the Alpujarrian families 30 years ago has become exploitation of foreign manual labor, if misery and an economy of subsistence have now turned to riches, if from being a peon many have gone on to be the owners of corporations, something massive must have occured in the entire Almerian region of Poniente." (p. 16)

"But the Poniente can only be understood with regards to the first immigration of (Spanish) alpujarreños, mountain farmers who descended to the coasts of the sea; these were the farmers who, with their effort and sacrifice, with virtually no outside support, began to construct over the course of years the "sea of plastic" which today characterizes the region (with the greatest concentration of greenhouses in all of Europe)." (p.21)

Excerpt from Interview On Regularization

K, re: another round of regularization:

It’s what everybody wants now. It’s what we all want. Every immigrant, even in Germany, France, America – we want every immigrant to get paper. Because – the importance of paper what it changes your job rights, it also means ability of movement, and even helps the government, because every month I pay the government. Anyway I believe this because when, I get paper, I have to find a job, and when I’m working, I pay taxes, and I can buy a car, I pay taxes to the government, I buy a house, I pay taxes, it’s an interest to the government there are many many many many many interests to the government- things that benefit me, too, as I develop myself. But if I don’t have a paper – no no no. If I don’t have a paper, if I can’t find a job, it is a very bad situation. Secondly, the government gets nothing for me. The small savings I have, they will get nothing from me. I will send it all to my country. But if I have the paper, I want to give something to this country. 09.07.2005

Collaborative Spanish Moroccan NGO-site

In Spanish. La red de dos Orillas: the network between two shores.

El Ejido Apartment 3

A similar picture from a flat in the same building where mostly Gambians live. On the wall behind us, a poster for the English rock group Queen. In the halls some vintage English advertisement.

And on the tele? Horse-jumping.

El Eljido Apartment 2

One of the exotic customs in El Ejido: watching the tele on a Sunday afternoon.

I did notice an interesting difference, though I would not wish to generalize too much. This picture is from an apartment where most of the people are Malians. On the wall I noticed craftwork from Africa, and you can see that the clothes are very much a statement of African identity.

We watched a kind of MTV-Mali. A woman was singing while men danced around her, in more of a matriarchal and respectful way than the kind of male-dancing you might see in a Janet Jackson video. When I asked M. what she was singing about, he answered "poverty."

By comparison...

El Ejido Apartment Building 1

Though his parents and family are from Mali, M. grew up and was educated in English-speaking former colony Gambia. He is my first and best friend in El Ejido.

The following pictures are from an apartment building inhabited entirely by men -- workiers in the invernaderos or green-houses. The Gambian community is tight-knit, with a formal group that meets on the first Sunday of every month. However in these living spaces, where every couch is also a bed and "lunch" is shared from a single platter between the 8 to 12 men who share the flat, people from many African nations coexist with visible solidarity. For example, those who succeeded in getting their papers in the recent round of regularizations are now very energetic in seeking out opportunities for their less-lucky friends to get them.

They share one common sentiment: "Moroccans no good." Some relate robberies they experienced passing through Morocco to get to Spain, others have had bad experiences in the greenhouses or on the streets of El Ejido here in Spain. In any case, as an African worker, "you don´t get Moroccan friends. No no no."

Andalucia Acoge

I´m arranging an interview and will add comments later. Very interesting NGO project (with English and German translations). http://www.acoge.org/index_i.php

Immigration News

The papers here have Spain spearheading the drive to eliminate illegal immigration, though this article emphasizes the role of France in the imminent tightening of borders (giving plenty of air-time to Chirac´s nemesis Sarkozy). Sarkozy immigration quote of note: "We want the world's best students in our countries, not those people nobody wants."

Also an interesting article on dual-citizenship in America.

Morocco

"New openness"or photo-op for investors (article gone)? And a bust of would-immigrants to Canary Islands passing through Morocco. This is becoming a very common story, and raises the question of Morocco´s role in a secure immigration policy, motives (i.e. also a gesture towards closer economic cooperation with Europe), fairness and HR conduct, and effectiveness.

Africa

Interestingly, Africa was a major theme in the Lisbon agenda. This article re-enforces my sense that Europe is taking this continent more seriously.

Big 5 Clampdown

Spain will join France, Germany, England and Italy in a summit in Evian concerning new "tough on immigration" measures, including fingerprinting and id-cards. In the case of Spain, this may represent the follow-through of the classic "one-two" regularization then clampdown policy approach. See Hollifield´s criticism of this policy (I´ll dig up a quote later in the comment section).

Interior Vs. Labor

Here are the websites of the two ministerios which vie for control over immigration policy in Spain:
www.mir.es (Ministerio del Interior)
www.mtas.es (Ministerio de Trabajo)

El Ejido

Taking a bus along Spain´s Southern coast, you´ll see on one side coastlines, umbrellas and resorts. On the other side of the highway, your first impression: endless snow covered mountains. But the snow is only the plastic cover of the invernaderos or greenhouses which have fueled an agricultural boom in the South of Spain, growing berries beans and other products.

El Ejido is a town made for the people who work in the invernaderos. The work depends on the rain, and there are long periods of unpaid unemployment. I spoke to M. from Mali in El Ejido, who says that the temperature varies between 50 and 53 degrees C. during the work season. M. has applied for regularized status but is still waiting a response.

El Ejido witnessed one of the most dramatic episodes of Spanish ethnic violence in the February of 2004.