Catalans very Catalan

How many Catalans are children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren of immigrants? The data says that 75% –three out of four– are immigrants or have a direct family member, parents or grandparents, who were born outside the country. Catalonia has been, for many decades, in fact, for more than a century, a country that has entrusted its demographic vitality to newcomers. Without them, the collective progress we have experienced would not have been possible. We would be many millions fewer people, we would be poorer, we would be much less dynamic. Of course: the massive incorporation of immigrants in different waves has brought a strong cultural hybridization, a normal phenomenon in advanced societies. Globalization is planetary.

The challenge of integration, which was already very relevant in the 20th century, then with the arrival of people from different parts of Spanish geography, has today become more complex and intense due to the plurality of origins, a low-wage economic model, the rapid and massive arrival of many people, and the structural crisis of Catalan society, stifled for decades by the lack of State investment and by totally insufficient funding for the Generalitat (as well as for city councils).

If back then, starting in the 1960s, the Candeli model worked, with the Pujol motto "Anyone who lives and works in Catalonia and wants to be is Catalan," now the challenge is to renew it, to update it. From Catalanism, we are working –we have never stopped working– so that the Catalan language continues to be a key factor for rooting and welcoming. In fact, it is. The immigrant who, alongside Spanish, also adopts Catalan, has more opportunities in every sense: labor, social, educational, and cultural. But undoubtedly, it is not easy for them to join in. Neither does the legislation push for it forcefully (in addition to being constantly questioned through judicial channels), nor are public policies committed enough, nor is the Catalan school system going through its best moment as a factor of integration and equal opportunities, nor is the citizenry sufficiently committed (how many of us automatically switch to Spanish when facing a supposed immigrant?), nor does civil society have the capacity for influence it would like, nor do we, the Catalan-language media, reach everywhere.

This is the context of difficulties in which integration must be carried out. But how do those affected, the integrable ones, see it? Their point of view is very interesting. In today's ARA, we have taken the case of young people born here, racialized, children of global immigrants. Examples that put us in contradiction because they explain that, even in the case (as is theirs) that they speak Catalan and have been able to progress (studies, work, etc.), they are often still considered more from outside than from here. Skin color, religion, and other cultural traits cause many people to place more or less visible barriers in their way.

Full acceptance of diversity is a pending subject. In fact, a xenophobic involution has occurred, as demonstrated by the rise of political options such as Vox and Aliança Catalana, a party absolutely alien to the integrating spirit of Catalanism. But there is a future. And the formula is simple: provide opportunities, offer the language, and foster talent, wherever it comes from. The most universal and popular Catalans today are the footballer Lamine Yamal and the singer Rosalía, also born here and children of immigrants.