1.3 The emmigration of foreign workers to spain: a new and relevant

This manuscript has been peer-reviewed, accepted, and endorsed by the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA) as a significant contribution to the scholarship and practice of education administration. In addition to publication in the Connexions Content Commons, this module is published in the International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation , Volume 5, Number 1 (January – March 2010). Formatted and edited in Connexions by Julia Stanka, Texas A&M University.

The emmigration of foreign workers to spain: a new and relevant phenomenon in the history of spain

Tomás Calvo-Buezas

Since American colonization, Spain has traditionally been an emitting country of emigrants until the 1970s. At that time Spain became, for the first time, a receiving country of immigrants. The immigrants arrive to rich and developed Europe and are seen as cheap manual labor in search of the promised land that flows with milk and honey. Unfortunately, they are eventually hit with others’ lack of understanding and racism.

Increasing immigration in Spain by people of different cultures, religions, and nationalities constitutes a challenge and defies Spanish society, not only in its economic, social, and cultural aspects, but also in the ethical and moral aspects. If Spaniards do not learn to coexist together as natives and immigrants, an increase of racism and xenophobia is sociologically foreseeable, bringing about interethnic conflicts.

The history of civilizations is the history of human immigration. Humans are likely the most migratory beings on the planet. In previous evolutionary phases, there was the domestication of plants and animals, the creation of hierarchies and imperial military societies bringing about conquests, the control of other towns, and consequent migrations, which have created more and more multiethnic spaces.

European conquest and colonialism, related to industrial and commercial development, consistently opened byways between different towns and cultures, increasing the capitalist market and mass media which result in today’s massive tourism, international migration (200 million people), and the 50 million refugees because of wars and starvation. The Europe of the 21 ^st Century will be an even more multiracial mosaic, a Europe fertilized with immigrants and ethnic groups of the Third World with very different ways of life from those of western culture. Spain also walks the way of multiculturalism and ethnic-racial pluralism. Spanish society is no longer a traditional, ethnic, and culturally homogenous society regarding uniform values and beliefs.