The resistance of four women from Barceloneta: "We recognize expats by the way they hang their laundry on their balconies."

BarcelonetaLa Barceloneta is a hake stew or pickled anchovies. La Barceloneta is in four-story apartments, that is, a two-story house divided into twenty-eight-square-meter apartments. La Barceloneta is life on the street, with meals delivered to your doorstep. La Barceloneta is where Alba Aguilera (Barcelona, 2001), Montse Catalán (Barcelona, 1975), Esther Jorquera (Barcelona, 1987), and Marina Monsonís (Barcelona, 1979) work or live. They explain how they fight against the paellas and frozen sea bream sold on Passeig Joan de Borbó (a name they don't like), against the macha tea and chicken shops. teriyaki And above all, against monoculture tourism. La Barceloneta is where the four women have become friends, tied together by many ropes from a single net they weave with strength: they want to preserve the essence of a fishing neighborhood.

We met on a Friday at the Pescadors wharf in Barceloneta, where the Clock Tower is located. Its four dials don't seem to indicate exactly the same time: one shows 4:00 p.m., and the others, 4:00 p.m. The first to arrive is Marina Monsonís, followed by Esther Jorquera. They've known each other since they were little, and their mutual trust is evident. So much so that Marina Monsonís, in the multi-award-winning book Mother Sea (Now Books) that he has written, he often quotes herEsther, her sister Suzanne, and their father, Pedro, are among the characters who most endear themselves to us throughout the story. "Specifically, we became friends at the now-defunct Club Natació Barceloneta, which was located next to the Hospital del Mar," they say. It no longer exists; it was demolished, and the current Club Atlético Barceloneta is a merger of the two clubs.

"When we were little, there was a sense of neighborhood, because we saw each other constantly; life was lived on the streets," says Esther. Marina's grandfather had been Suzanne's swimming coach, and her father had qualified twice as an Olympic swimmer. Swimming clubs were social spaces, as were the streets and rooftops. Parenting was collective; families knew each other well and looked out for the children's well-being. "Today, there are very few of us who go out onto the street to eat and play," explains Esther, who remembers with Marina how large families managed to live in a room in an apartment: the same space where they ate was also where they slept, so depending on the time of day it transformed into a dining room or a bedroom. And despite the smallness of the space, there was always room for someone arriving from outside, for a relative who had come from the village (when migration was internal, from farming towns like Lleida to fishing villages like Barcelona, or who came from southern Spain, especially Andalusia).

The beach as nature

As children, they also had more contact with nature, with the sea. "Look, right here, where we're sitting, on the Fisherman's Wharf, they've put up some concrete benches that look like they're from the MACBA, and they've closed off the space with iron bars so no one can get into the box," says Marina. And Esther, who has already seen how one change has brought many others that have disfigured the neighborhood, already imagines what will happen in the future: "First they close off the space with iron bars so no one can get in, but then it will end up disappearing because no one will miss it anymore; like what happened with the old fish market, which they also demolished." More changes than they've seen, and that they don't like: the Hotel Vela. "A buñuelo (a small beach bar) that has eaten up space on the beach, a space that was pristine, gorgeous, and that, look where it turns out, has managed to break the coastal law," Marina points out. The beach used to be a recreational space, and also a place where fishermen dried fish, such as sardines, to pulverize and enhance the flavors of their dishes.

We walk along the Pescadors wharf, and it has a smell that Esther says takes her back to her childhood (the smell of fish, salt, and a hint of sweetness, like cake). Alba, the youngest shipowner in Catalonia, and Montse, the fishmonger, who has already bought all the fish from the llot, arrive. They're both very energetic, even though they've worked all morning: one on the boat; the other at the stall, which she says is known as La Montse or La Platgeta. The next day, she's back at the stall, happy nonetheless. "Marina, look at the hakes you like so much; I've got a box for myself," she says. She likes being a fishmonger, even though she used to be a butcher, in another neighborhood and at another market. "I'd even like to have the stall open in the afternoons, but for a long time I was alone at the market, and there was one day I was scared because they could have robbed me and no one would have noticed; that's why I'm only here in the mornings."

Alba joins us, well dressed, because it's Friday afternoon, and she's already moored her boat in the harbor next to her father's. "I'll pick up the monkfish and tell you how to do it so it doesn't fall, but I didn't want to touch the fish, as I'd already changed my clothes," she says, laughing and complaining. As she says this, she's stuck her index and middle fingers into the eyes of the giant monkfish, one finger inside each eye, and then lifted it up. "If we grab the monkfish by the tail, it'll slip off, but by the eyes, using a clamp, it'll never slip off," says Alba, who, due to her age (24) and her bravery as a boat owner, has made a name for herself in the neighborhood. "I worked at the Opium nightclub and earned 2,500 euros a month. A lot of money, but I got tired of it because I like fishing, the sea, doing what I've always seen my father do," says the Barcelona-born shipowner, who now lives in Canet de Mar, where she has found a more affordable apartment. "I travel back and forth every day from Canet to Barceloneta, traveling a lot of miles, up and down, but it is what it is," she says.

From the walkway of the Fishermen's Wharf, Alba points out her boat. She does artisanal fishing. Now, it's finally understood that it's sustainable fishing that must be preserved, because the trammel net—the fishing technique Alba uses—doesn't damage the seabed. "I want to put the name of the fisherman on my boat." My gypsy; and if they don't accept my name as captain, then I have an alternative, Tresmalera"she explains. She has a salty voice, is friendly, and makes everyone laugh with her expressions, half Catalan and half Spanish. She switches languages depending on who she's talking to, and always with great grace.

In the neighborhood, there are now tourists and expats (foreigners who work from Barcelona to their countries), and some pay 1,300 euros a month for their rooms in the apartments. "We recognize them by the way they hang their clothes on the balconies, wrinkled, without drying them properly, and also, of course, because they don't live in the neighborhood," says Esther, who adds: "They don't eat brótola suquets but brunch; they don't shop at the Barceloneta Market, but in supermarkets; they don't make connections." At this point, Marina comments that "the capitalist dynamic is what has allowed this new way of making a city," which means that there are people who have certain privileges that override others, such as the young people in the neighborhood who have to move away because they can't afford such high rents, and also migrants, the Africans known as blanket top, and who were fishermen in their own countries. If migration used to be internal, for years now migration has been from African countries to our country. "Many Senegalese fishermen have had to leave their country because they didn't have fish to catch, because we Europeans have gone to destroy their coasts with fishing systems with bombs; and we also send them our electronic waste," explains Marina, who points to a very graphic image of the neighborhood: on the same Paseo Joan de Borbó, a blanket top selling in front of the large moored yachts.

And now that the name of the Paseo Joan de Borbó has come up again, Esther and Marina say that everyone in the neighborhood calls it Paseo Nacional. "Why should we have a Juan de Borbón in Barceloneta? We've petitioned to have his name removed; in the same way that everyone still calls Calle Ample Calle Pepe Rubianes. We loved Pepe very much, but there are many of us in the neighborhood who think that if Calle Ample should be renamed, then it should be called Calle d'Emília Llorca, which was a symbol of struggle in Barceloneta."

The four women lack a romantic vision of Barceloneta. They don't believe that things were better before. The Barceloneta of the 1980s, affected by heroin, was very tough, and many believed the neighborhood was an unsafe place, full of stains. This isn't about romanticism, but rather about remembering that Barceloneta lived off the sea, ate local fish, not frozen fish, salmon, or avocados; they ate sandwiches of pickled anchovies or plastered fish for breakfast; people lived in small apartments to own a boat; and the streets and swimming clubs were alive and bustling. And this is what the four women want to endure, with their words and their work. Alba, as a fisherwoman; Montse, as a fishmonger; Esther, as a philologist; Marina, with her books, in which she recounts the experiences of all of them.

Anchovies in vinegar (recipe by Esther Jorquera's father, Pedro)

First, I make a brine with a liter of water (more or less) and three handfuls of salt, just by eye. Once it's ready, I mix a glass of vinegar and a glass of brine in another bowl, then a glass of vinegar and a glass of brine, and so on. To finish, I prepare a lunchbox with a glass of the brine and vinegar mixture and add a layer of well-cleaned, boneless, and gutted anchovies, placing them face down. I add another glass of the brine and vinegar mixture and another layer of anchovies face up, and so on.