Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to run for cover before Roberto gets back. I don’t want to get caught in the crossfire once he arrives. ¡Es broma!

Thank you for publishing my comment (I try to be tolerant too)…anyway:

I think you got the opposite message of what I intended: I do think the US is a better place for “multiculturalism”…but not Spain. In other words, many Spaniards, my compatriots, will say in public “oh we love immigration” but in private you know that’s not true. And I don’t demand anyone to just simply take my word for it: just go out at night in a major city like Madrid. Most of us go out only with other Spaniards (or European “guiris” as they are called in a loving way) but it is very rare to see a group of Spaniards versus South Americans.

Yes Eleena, I am a nationalist…but more than that, a patriot and that is what I love about the US: Most Americans are patriotic and Spaniards are more nationalistic but not patriotic.

Let me also say, please, that I happen to talk to many immigrants and I respect them and they respect me: many of them tell me that they are here in Spain just to save up money and move back…they are NOT happy here and I understand that. I don’t mind immigration as long as it is very limited and doesn’t threaten our culture. But at the same time, just in case anyone is wondering: I am deeply anti fascist and anti Nazi and waste no time with people who hurt immigrants simply because they are not white. That to me is absolutely appalling and there should be no place for that in a democratic society.

So, I hope it makes sense now.

Oh and Eleena: what I meant by saying that NYC didn’t change my outlook one bit was that such a cosmopolitan city didn’t change my “xenophobic” instincts. I say that because some people argue that “exposure” to other people makes you more “international” it may be true but perhaps I am an exception.

I had to respond more to Roberto because here in Spain we call people like him “progre” (progressive) and “guay” (progressive and people who think they’re hip because they live in an immigrant filled area)…like Lavapies or Tetuan.

Roberto: no offense but you are in the minority. Read the polls and see that most of us in Spain do not want more immigration and we think there are already way too many.

Immigration, fine. But invasion? No way José.

Keep up the good work Eleena in the blog…I love talking to Americans (it is one of my favourite countries believe it or not).

I wish we could get to the point where Spaniards weren’t so quickly defensive and reactive with the standard retort “Well you Americans are even worse!” when we have these discussions.

But anyway thank you for providing another perspective, even if it is one I don’t totally agree with. I’m pretty tolerant that way. Saludos.

I am from Lavapies and most people have left the “barrio” because of mass migration. Higher crime in Madrid has resulted from massive non white migration. And please, please, americans, don’t come here to teach us about tolerance. I agree that we are not “tolerant” (most people in Spain love to tell you that we are open but the reality is that we are not “open”) but neither are Americans: you had segregation by force until 1964 and defacto until the present…lines are blurred? I think not. I studied university in New York for five years and “travelling” and living in such an international city like New York didn’t change my outlook one bit. I am a proud nationalist and will continue to denounce mass migration.

Perhaps you should stop comparing Spain with the USA. A better comparison would be France or Italy, for instance.

But anyway, Madrid and Barcelona already are very multicultural and diverse.

Erik, many of the engineers who work with me are black, or asian, or latin american or from eastern europe. Many of my neighbours are black Hispanics. The Spaniards are the minority in my barrio and nobody has the slightest problem with that. Black people in Spain have very different backgrounds and most of them do not sell pirated CDs.

But even in the small cities, like my hometown, there are lots of newcomers from everywhere.

During the last 10 years the face of Spain has changed for ever.

I’m sorry but that’s totally wrong, just come to Madrid, to my neighborhood, for instance, and see what’s going on here. African? no elderly? no children????? Come on, no black children????

Perhaps it’s because I’m optimistic by nature, perhaps it is because I live and work in a multinational environment, whatever it is, I just don’t see the apocalyctic racial outlook you are describing. Quite the opposite. I see Spain moving in the right direction very quickly. Yes, there will be problems, of course. It won’t be easy, it never is. We are still trying to educate ourselves, but I’m quite confident it won’t take us more than one generation to totally embrace diversity.

In Spain, almost all black people are first-generation African immigrants and are very black. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an elderly black person in Spain. And I’ve seen maybe two black children. So I must conclude that this African immigration is really very, very recent.

After living for a few years in Spain, where the racial difference between whites and blacks is so stark, when I visit the States, it amazes me how blurred the line is. From inside the US culture, you don’t notice it. You have to leave and come back to see it. There are suntanned “white” Spaniards that are darker than a lot of “African Americans”.

This blurring is a good thing and, I hope, inevitable in Spain as well. But it won’t be easy. It never is. Now if we could only blur religion….

Spain is still an extremely homogeneous society. Xenophobia is a perfectly normal human response to the dilution of one’s society. I applaud articles like this that bring these issues to the forefront. The only solution to xenophobia is raising awareness.

Yes, the U.S. has serious problems when it comes to race, but as a society we are aware of what our defects are and there are laws in place to make discrimination harder to get away with. Also, when all else fails, the power of being publicly outed as a neanderthal combined with the stigma of being possibly labeled as racist usually has a self-policing effect on many people in the U.S. Many think before they act. Are there still ignorant people making ignorant remarks? Of course, but there’s also more likely somebody around who is going to call them out on it.

In Spain, there’s still the societal tendency to try to explain things away or to rationalize bad behavior when sometimes there’s no good reason to do so. Prime example: The treatment of race car driver Lewis Hamilton and the collective “so, what?” shrug from Spanish society over the disgraceful way he was treated in Barcelona last spring. There was more outrage among the Spanish about the way the British were reacting to the situation than the actual situation itself. A similar incident in the U.S. or the U.K. (people dressed up in blackface and chanting racist comments) and major heads would’ve rolled.

One depressing thing I’ve personally witnessed in Spain in my teaching job are kids who aren’t white denying their ethnic background in a desire to fit in. To me that’s very sad and I don’t think children should grow up thinking that they have to choose. It is possible to be both Spanish and Moroccan, both Spanish and Filipino, Spanish and Muslim. . .

In my dealings outside and inside the USA with people who are not American I have been accused up and down of being a racist just because I am Caucasian and American. A few moments later, my accusers often have made racist comments about their own minorities, totally oblivious of their hypocrisy. Likewise, I always considered my family to be pretty color blind and yet in several recent conversations with a few of my relatives I’ve heard some clearly bigoted things come out of their mouths. They too consider themselves open minded and non-discriminatory.

I imagine that a bunch of these Spaniards consider themselves to be liberal and open minded. Hopeful this article will help some of them see that they have some adjustments to make.