Yesterday we met with a Sociologist of immigration from the Complutense University in Madrid, who I had heard speak at a conference on "the challenge of big cities in the context of crisis: present and future of the children of immigration." We talked with him at length about the differences in the contexts of immigration in Spain and the
U.S. Most interesting to me was the issue of ethnic barrios. A major narrative
here in Madrid (that was prevalent at the conference) is that there are
no ghettos/ethnic barrios here, and therefore there are fewer conflicts and
immigrants are better integrated. I am naturally skeptical of this argument
from my U.S. context, both because of the insinuation that ethnic barrios are
inherently negative and the suggestion (that seems too rosy to me) that immigrants
are well integrated here. I am more inclined to believe that the absence of
ethnic barrios leads to a weakening of ethnic identity and solidarity, which is
ultimately detrimental to positive
integration. Without ethnic barrios, where would rights-based activism and social
movements come from? So I pressed our friend on this issue, asking him whether the
absence of ethnic barrios wasn’t simply a question of time and the newness of
immigration here (still in the first generation). He answered, “We’re never
going to have ethnic barrios like the kind you have in the U.S. here in
Spain.” He went on to give the example of Pakistani immigrants in Barcelona.
There is a big concentration of Pakistanis in El Raval, but that does not make El
Raval a Pakistani neighborhood. It is a tourist center with popular restaurants
of all kinds. Like El Raval, most city centers in Spain have mixed
neighborhoods, filled with young people at night, tourists, artists, immigrants
and bohemians. “There is no ‘white flight’ here,” he explained. And that’s when
it dawned on me. No white flight! The absence of ethnic ghettos is not the
absence of ethnic concentration; it is the absence of white flight. Immigrants
are concentrated in central city neighborhoods, but Spaniards have not
abandoned these neighborhoods; nor will they ever, Spaniards insist. Lavapiés
and Malasaña, where we live, are two great examples in Madrid. They are points
of reception and concentration of immigrants, but they continue to be populated
and visited by Spaniards of all kinds, for their vibrant night life (Malasaña)
and ‘exotic’ ethnic restaurants of all kinds (Lavapiés). Having spent countless
hours on the plazas and sidewalk terrazas of Malasaña, it does seem hard to
believe that Spaniards would give this up any time soon. City street life, or “la
vida en la calle” as our friends like to say, is simply too integral to the
Madrileño identity to be abandoned at the first wave of ethnic migration. So
maybe the historical use, and cultural premium, of urban public space—crowded,
mixed, noisy, vibrant—the proud tradition of rubbing shoulders—guards against
the abandonment and isolation that have created the American ghetto. Is this too rosy a view?
