Keywords
Iberia, global community, Spain, Latin America, fragmentation, immigration, sameness, otherness, Spanish culture, African immigrants, ethics, Mikel Azurmendi, Estampas del Ejido, Antonio Elorza, El País, Básel Ramsis, El otro lado: un acercamiento a Lavapiés, JoséLuis Guerín, En construcción, national identity
Abstract
The commonly heard statement "Spain is different" contains a series of contradictions, paradoxes, and questions concerning Iberia's place within the global community, a community that is itself deeply contradictory—more and more the same and yet more and more fragmented. Immigration highlights the sameness/otherness dichotomy in Spanish culture, and the situation of African immigrants has especially caused the Spanish national consciousness an ethical quandary. Here I examine four recent cultural representations of African immigration in Spain—two journalistic works: Mikel Azurmendi's Estampas del Ejido and Antonio Elorza's articles in El País; and two documentary films: Básel Ramsis's El otro lado: un acercamiento a Lavapiés and José Luis Guerín's En construcción in order to assess the ways in which Spaniards are projecting their sense of national identity in the face of large-scale immigration, a most revealing mirror.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Ugarte, Michael
(2006)
""Soy tú. Soy él": African Immigration and Otherness in the Spanish Collective Conscience,"
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature:
Vol. 30:
Iss.
1, Article 10.
https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1620
