Paco Candel re-emerges as a leading figure on immigration for the Catalan left.

BarcelonaIn the first session of the course in Parliament, the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, made a recommendation to Vox: that they read the work of the writer Paco Candel. Breaking all the taboos of his time, the author ofThe other Catalans (1964) gave voice to the immigrants who had arrived in Catalonia during the post-war period, explaining how they lived (often in slums and very precarious conditions) and how they understood their identity. This is not the first time that Illa has mentioned the figure of the Valencian-born writer, but he has not been the only one to do so in recent weeks. In the wake of the celebration of the Candel Year, which commemorates the centenary of his birth, Comuns has also revived him in an attempt to overturn the framework in which the far right is framing the immigration debate. in Catalonia of eight million.

But why Candel? Born in the Spanish-speaking village of Cases Altes, Valencia, Candel moved with his parents to the Montjuïc shanties in Barcelona at the age of two—they would later settle in the Casas Baratas de Can Tunis. "Remembering Candel is allowing us to bring to the table the need to talk about immigration, and to do so as an opportunity to jointly build the Catalonia of the 21st century," explains Gala Cortadellas, president of the Candel Foundation, to the ARA. As a writer and journalist, she emphasizes, he put forward a different (and alternative) narrative to that of populisms on immigration: that a country is "what its citizens want it to be" and emerges from the daily lives of those who live there, whether they have always lived there or because they have migrated to it. This is the narrative that the Catalanist left wants to deploy in the face of political forces that want to stretch the immigration debate toward the framework of security or the clash of cultures.

Candel claimed the "Catalanness" of the newcomers, even in those cases in which they hesitated to call themselves Catalans or were reluctant to speak Catalan, a language that in a large number of cases their children, raised in Catalonia, did assume as their own. Regarding the immigrants from Murcia, Andalusia, Extremadura or Galicia, he wrote, in The other Catalans (1964): "They don't take anything away from Catalonia, they water it with their sweat. This is making it bigger. The land is for working, for building, for constructing. They do it. The hardest jobs are for them. They don't come looking for a bargain." Journalist Genís Sinca, author of the biography Candle (Comanegra), celebrates that the political parties are finally beginning to vindicate Candel's work—more than 50 books—and describes in three words what it represents: "Empathy, respect, and dignity."

Sinca's biography ended up in Isla's hands this Sant Jordi (Saint George's Day), because the editor gave it to him during the president's walk around the stalls on Passeig de Gràcia. However, sources from the Presidency report that Isla "has always kept in mind the figure and legacy" of the writer, especially his vision of the new immigration, which he made clear in The other Catalans of the 21st century, Published in 2001. Isla has welcomed the writer's daughter, Maria Candel, and participated in the central event of the Candel Year at the Museum of the History of Immigration of Catalonia, in Sant Adrià de Besòs. She hasn't gotten unstuck yet. the project to make a house museum on the floor where he wrote The other Catalans, in Marina del Port, but family sources say they're still working.

Class reading

Already in his time, Candel's figure transcended political acronyms, to the point that former president Jordi Pujol singled him out as one of the "ten" most important figures of the 20th century for the country. Pujol embraced his idea of "one people," despite the fact that the writer—who eventually became a senator and councilor in L'Hospitalet—was linked to a political tradition far removed from the Convergent Party (PSUC). Both in terms of their discourse and their political affiliation, the Comuns claim to be the heirs and regret that Junts has not followed, in this regard, the same path as Pujol, who believed that advocating for a "strict" Catalan identity, based on origin, would lead the country to its demise.

"But Candel's speech can be interpreted not only as national, but also as class," explain sources from the Comuns. Because the other Catalans Candel spoke of were workers with precarious wages, who contributed to national construction through their work; that's why Pujol didn't hesitate to proclaim that a Catalan is "one who lives and works in Catalonia." This, these same sources point out, allows for highlighting the "shared struggles" of the working classes and, at the same time, reaching out to migrant citizens who, even now, have lower wages than native Catalans despite having similar educational levels. Taking this discourse to the neighborhoods is now one of the party's priorities, to dispel the idea that the "blame" for social problems lies with the latest arrivals and not the "inequalities" that threaten social cohesion.

The idea of putting Candeliano's legacy at the center was Josep Vendrell's, a member of the Comuns leadership and veteran former leader of ICV, to the point that the event that the party organized for the Diada revolved around his figure, One people, many voicesThere, the party spoke of a "mixed" Catalonia, a concept that aligns with the fact that three out of four Catalans have some experience of migration in their family.

The Catalan identity, permeable

Beyond the political parties, Òmnium is one of the entities that, along with the Candel Foundation, has done the most to vindicate his figure from the perspective of language. as an element of cohesionThe organization even has what they call the Candel Line, created to update the writer's story in today's "diverse Catalonia," amid rising inequalities and the rise of the far right, explains Òmnium's president, Xavier Antich. This idea led to the creation of Vincles, a space for conversation and learning Catalan that, for many newcomers, is also a "gateway to Catalan identity."

"One of the most outstanding and current things aboutThe other Catalans is the explanation of how the Catalan identity is permeable," says Antich. This means promoting a way of understanding belonging to the nation that is "open and inclusive," which relates the improvement of material living conditions, equality and social rights with the identification of newcomers as full members of the nation. Or, as nothing the 'The other Catalans: "It could be good, I comment with a good friend, that in the course of the next two generations—perhaps more will be needed—Catalan identity will pass into the hands of these "other Catalans" [...] They will be called upon to a curious task: the singularization of the very new Catalonia."