Integrate, welcome, include

What should happen with immigration, especially when there are rapid processes of "population growth and renewal" and the change –quite rightly– perceived as "dazzling", as What did Dr. Andreu Domingo say in this newspaper last Sunday? It should beintegrate by assimilate it to the host society? Should it bewelcome he newcomer In a gesture of generous benevolence? Policies need to be made inclusive that respect, and even protect, cultural particularities?

In just over 700 words, I don't intend to answer the substance of the question. My intention is limited, modestly, to showing the changes in language with which we speak about immigration to accommodate it to the ethical and ideological sensibilities of each moment. In Catalonia, even if only in hushed voices, migratory processes are endemic. That is to say, they are our own and define us in many more social and cultural traits than we imagine. And that is why we are experts at finding new words to talk about it at any given moment.

Something else, beyond the words, are the objective conditions of the reception of this population. And although they are increasingly better, social sensitivity is growing even more rapidly, and therefore the perception is more critical. The circumstances of arrival—housing, work, health, school...—of 20th-century migrations (not to go any further back) could be shocking. But these days, whether because we have more information or because there's more social awareness, paradoxically, reactions are also more extreme. Both those who are scared and exaggerate their threats, and those who conceal their adversities and senselessly applaud them. And it's because of these changes in sensitivity that we speak with new words. Words often change faster than reality itself, and it's easier to adapt language to how we would like the world to be than to make the world how we would like it to be.

Specifically, in Catalonia we can observe the timeline that has brought us to talk aboutintegration, passing through reception until ending in inclusion. Although for many years the word integration It had been the usual way to describe the immigrant's accommodation process, but in more expert circles it is a cursed term. It suggests a one-way process where the outsider is the one who has integrate in the native society. However, moral considerations aside, it is based on a blind reductionism. On the one hand, it does not take into account the fact that all integration in the place of arrival also implies a painful disintegration of the point of departure. On the other hand, there can only be integration if the place of arrival is homogeneous and recognizable, which, while it could be imagined fifty years ago, is made unthinkable by today's diversity. The dilemma that the immigrant now faces is: disintegrate... but to integrate into what?

Later came the idea ofreception, which was interesting because it cracked the unilateral nature of the acculturation process and shared the effort with a benevolent recipient. A parallel idea to that of newcomer, that fostered the notion of immigrant. The Catalonia, land of welcome, A proposal somewhere between Candeliano and Pujolian, it had no sociological pretensions, but rather political ones. It was about softening the internal conflict, but also fostering a more friendly perception of Catalan reality in the Spanish emigration territories. It was a condescending discourse in the face of a much harsher reality, yes, but it wasn't intended to be descriptive but rather performative.

However, already in times of ideology woke, the journey has ended up taking a 180-degree turn. Now the politically correct discourse places all responsibility for the success of the migration process on the recipient and their ability to include the outsider, without making him uncomfortable. A perspective that again falls into a couple of reductionisms. One, it homogenizes the immigrant condition due to a supposed universal vulnerability, as if everything responded to the same model. And two, it ignores that an inclusion process without conditions implies the disintegration of the community that should include it. Obviously, the first and last perspectives feed off each other.

It is understandable that the implications of the unilateral nature of the integration and theassimilation. And it is also true that given the magnitude and diverse profile of current migratory movements, the terms reception and newcomers make short. But the inclusion It justifies a new unilateral approach that fails to appreciate the effort that the recipient must also make and fosters distrust of policies that call themselves that. So we're back at the top of the list. Perhaps we need new words to match the new circumstances.