'Expats', a Catalan tradition
They woke up and the city wasn't there. Many Barcelonians say they've stepped into Barcelona. They go out into the street and don't recognize the apartments, the shops, or the rats doing running. They have a semi-frozen crayfish as a neighbor. Mrs. Paquita's haberdashery is now a brunch of PVC salads sold as Km 0. The language by inhalation of contaminant immersion is English, Italian, Dothraki... Anything that is not Catalan. The natural language is now artificial, a Mexican hat on the Rambla. expats They are not from now: they are a tradition. Since the 20th century in Barcelona, pickpocket They are the most famous in the world. Pickpockets. Stealing wallets. Letting someone steal your wallet. But do you know that there is stolen life beyond Barcelona? Travel a little.
In Hospitalet de Llobregat in 1900 there were less than five thousand people. Now there are 280,000. Ask them if anything has changed. You can also go begging in Esplugues, Cornellà, Badalona, Santa Coloma de Gramenet... You can't stop. Travel further: Sabadell, Terrassa, Lleida, Girona, Tarragona... Thousands ofexpats. Without a homeland, another homeland. A homeland replaced. Because before, no one lived here. You can ask them in the few faces and in the many coffins.
Above ground or underground, there are people who have seen their farmhouses, houses, orchards, streets, shops, skies, language, life, lethally crushed to end up dying. All these people have no epic: they have been robbed. Theirs is a story they have been told doesn't exist. Pispada. It is clear that their life is not important enough. They have been denied existence. Stolen. And they are no longer allowed to live. Deaths. Everything has the appearance of a RIP slab.
The theft of this country is that a cement country has been built over the real country. Catalonia looks like a parking lot with concrete floors and human flesh. Look. Can Rigalt in Hospitalet de Llobregat. On the Collblanc road leading to Pubilla Cases. A unique, original house, a jewel of the 18th century. It was all this: "The many layers of ugliness with which industry has coated the land have failed to destroy the natural nobility of this countryside. Two or three farmhouses—Can Rigalt, Torre Nena Casas—stand out against the sky on neoclassical structures and speak of a stately past, which the factory smoke attempts in vain to erase. If the earth turns red, why does it mysteriously turn black at the mouth of the road that leads to Cavernópolis? The inhabitants of the Can Rigalt Shelters, the official name of this neighborhood, call this road the Black Road.Hundreds of people living in caves. And now Can Rigalt is a collapsed, dead farmhouse, and the human farms have gone from horizontal to vertical. From rock skyscrapers to concrete. Expeditions yesterday, expats of today.
I explained it in 1945 in the report The troglodytes of the black road Miguel del Puerto. It's a pseudonym. A false name. To hide his identity. To protect his family and his past. It was actually written by the Catalan journalist Andreu Avel·lí Artís (Sempronio). He couldn't sign his name or write in Catalan. Now, in 2025, we have to go and hide in the caves. Don't let them see us, don't let them hear us. We are the new expats in our house.