From 'the Spaniard is the odd one out' to multicultural classrooms: 40 years

From one foreigner per school to classrooms where 'the Spaniard is the odd one out': four decades

There was a time when a single foreign child was enough to define an entire school. "He was the Chilean," recalls a man who studied in the 1980s at a public center. He was not in his class: he was the only foreigner in the whole school. Another testimony from the same era mentions two Guinean brothers in an orphanage and, finally, two Argentine brothers. That was the entire migration map of an institute with a thousand students.

The conversation, sparked by a question about an increasingly harsh sentence, paints a Spain that no longer exists. Those born in the 1970s and 80s describe monochromatic classrooms where diversity was an anomaly. The younger generation tells a different story. Responses regarding students of Latin American origin range from absolute zero to testimonies of classrooms where, according to one forum user, "the Spaniard is the odd one out."

The 80s: the exotic exception

In the testimonies from that decade, the presence of foreign students is counted on one hand. One participant recalls a Uruguayan, son of a doctor, who carried his mate everywhere. Another evokes an Englishman from Australia, whose father was hired by the university. And a third mentions an "American" with surnames Garcia and Fernandez, born in New York, who insisted on being called Mike. Diversity was so scarce that it became identity: the Chilean, the Englishman, the American.

The general trend was absence. "In the whole Institute, which would be 1,000 children, there was not a single student of Latin American origin," writes one participant. Another sums it up with irony: "Spain 1984. Nordic whiteness." The exception, when it appeared, generated fascination. One testimony describes the curiosity sparked by two brothers from New Guinea: their hair, skin, and the contrast of the palms of their hands. "The exoticism," he calls it.

The 90s: the silent transition

The 1990s maintained the pattern, although with nuances. One participant did not see any foreign students until the 2000s, and when they arrived, there were few. Another recalls a Peruvian woman and a classmate of Pakistani origin in his class. In Galicia, the story was different: schools linked to Opus Dei had "Mexicans" and returned Venezuelans, families who had emigrated to the Americas and returned with money.

In the 90s, the trend remained the same. One participant recalls that his school had a Roma girl whom her classmates identified by her origin and who hardly attended class. Another mentioned a Bolivian and an Armenian as the entire foreign representation of his graduating class. According to the testimonies, immigration was still a marginal phenomenon.

The turning point arrives with the new century. One participant places the arrival of the first Latin American students in his class in 2010. Another, younger, describes the transition: in primary school they were "something exotic," in high school they started to be seen more, and in university he already felt "foreign in my own country."

University as a mirror of change

Several testimonies agree in pointing to university as the place where demographic change became evident. "It was not until I reached university that I saw Hispanics in Spanish classrooms," writes one participant. Another had not seen any black, Chinese, or Muslim person until he went to study his degree in Zaragoza. For several, university was the first real contact with migrant Spain.

The Galician case: the returnees

Galicia deserves a separate chapter. Emigration to the Americas left a deep mark, and the schools in the autonomous community received for decades the children and grandchildren of Galicians who returned. One participant describes an Opus Dei school with "many Mexicans and some Venezuelans returned from the third or fourth generation, loaded." In many cases, these were families who had returned or had Galician ancestry. Non-Galician immigration took longer to arrive.

The debate: replacement or normalization?

The conversation shifts to the present. "Today there are classes where the Spaniard is the odd one out," claims one participant. Another compares it with Real Madrid. Against this reading, some recall that Hispanics share language and religion, and that the alternative, in the words of a hostile message, is the left and LGTBI people.

What is disconcerting is the estimulante ilegal. In less than two generations, Spain went from having one foreigner per school to a forum user claiming that "the Spaniard is the odd one out." The conversation does not reach a consensus. It remains in the anecdote, the memory, and the realization that the country described by the older generation no longer exists.

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