The battle for Hispanic heritage opens a debate about Spanish nationalism: Is it 48 million or 600 million?

BarcelonaHispanic heritage has sparked a fundamental debate on the Spanish right. In the fight over immigration, the People's Party (PP) wants to prioritize Latin America to welcome newcomers, to the detriment of African nations or those with an Islamic origin. It has devised the points-based visa, which rewards "cultural proximity", and has done so claimed Alberto Núñez Feijóo and the president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who has said that "Hispanic immigration is not immigration"The offensive raises questions such as what Hispanic heritage entails and how it can impact the demos. That is, what does it mean to be Spanish? Spanish nationalism looks toward the 48 million inhabitants of Spain or the 600 million it claims to include. Hispanic heritageImmigration policies are just the first link in a rumor that hides linguistic and religious reasons behind the product of colonization. Thus, the Spanish intelligentsia is speaking out, as is the case of an academic with a long career in Latin America: the philosopher and educator Gregorio Luri supported Ayuso's approach and, in conversation with ARA, maintains that "Hispanic immigration is not immigration." He says he has lived in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia, etc. and that he has "never" felt "foreign," but "much closer than with France." Hispanic identity, with the Castilian cultural and linguistic thread, has consequences, which is why history has placed "in the hands" of Spain "a tool" and it can be "used as a throwing weapon or as a tool to build the future."

With the goal of creating "a plural and united people" at the same time, he believes that "it is easier to strengthen it with Hispanic Americans than with Moroccans." "This does not mean closing our doors to anyone, but not everything we welcome helps us strengthen that unity," he specifies. Luri emphasizes that "it does not mean being tied to a past," but rather that "it is easier" to build a future "with affinity than with divergences" to strengthen the sense of community. He says, for example, that these South American countries "opened their doors to republican immigration" with good integration and that "it should be reciprocated."

Fracture

But many Latin Americans oppose Hispanic identity. Coinciding with their visit to Barcelona for the Indifest Indigenous Film Festival, organized by AlterNativa, an organization that promotes the rights of Indigenous peoples, ARA spoke with researcher Miguel Melin Pehuen, from the Mapuche nation in Chile, and filmmaker Frida Muenala, from the Quitxua community. Melin, who speaks Mapudungun—which is not taught in school—and learned Spanish at the age of fifteen, rejects the Spanish motherland: "The discourse of Hispanic identity is protected by the doctrine of discovery, which never existed, but was an invasion of Spanish colonialism." He sees Hispanic identity as a "homogenizing, Eurocentric idea, of an apparent hegemonic dispute of the language between Spanish and English, which serves to whitewash the monarchy" and warns that Castilian "is a language of colonization, imposed with blood and discrimination based on a gene.

While praising the indigenous uprising, he laments that "the Latin American elite has adopted the discourse" of Hispanic identity "denying the people, mostly mestizo." For his part, Muenala, the concept of Hispanic identity being "distant" and assures that it "has not allowed the development" of the territories. He emphasizes the "resistance" of indigenous communities in Hispanic identity. "It is evident how violent it was in our territories and how it has influenced the forms of government resulting from colonialism, which make indigenous peoples invisible, imposing a thought, a structure and a foreign language," he explains. He regrets that although there are those in Spain who "cling to This is to build a sense of nationhood" and denounce the situation in Ecuador, where "racial differences" have emerged and the indigenous movement is protesting against a hostile conservative government.

Luri differs on the subject of language: "At the time of the independence of the American countries, the number of people who spoke Spanish was around 15% because there had not been a determined desire to Hispanize linguistically. It was when they gained independence that they wanted to create cultural unity and national identity," he points out.

Strategy

Ivan Serrano Balaguer, a professor of political science at the UOC, asserts that "other cases that had empires have found the same way of confronting their past." There are the French and English cases, with points in common. He points out that "immigration from contemporary societies comes from countries with colonial relations, and in the Spanish case, there is an attempt to cultivate relations with the rhetoric of Hispanic identity." "In the context of the emergence of the far right," he explains, "with the linguistic and religious proximity of Latin America," it is reinterpreted to prioritize immigration.

Although Vox vindicates Hispanic identity and the ties between Spaniards and Latin Americans through language and history, it has distanced itself from the PP regarding immigration because, although they want to prioritize legal immigration, they say that in Spain "there is no room for anyone else." Serrano comments that the PP's outcry must also be understood in terms of its "nuances" with respect to Vox, which may be more "forceful." He adds that establishing Madrid as the "Latin American capital of Europe" also serves Ayuso's plan, which "seeks to attract capital from Venezuelan economic exiles." He also recalls that the idea of Hispanic identity "works more in Spain than in Latin America because the countries that are gaining independence try to create their own narratives of emancipation" from a Spain that was "a resource extractor."