Yong Li: 'I feel more Chinese than Spanish'

Yong Li: born in Madrid, raised in the Basque Country, and he feels Chinese

Integration is not decided by place of birth, but by the identity each person embraces. Yong Li, a reality show contestant born in Madrid and raised in the Basque Country, made that clear in an interview with El Deluxe aired on 13 June 2014: after a lifetime in Spain, he feels more Chinese than Spanish. The confession, first met with applause and then with long faces, raised an uncomfortable question that still has no single answer.

The second generation doesn't feel Spanish: the data

The Longitudinal Study on the Second Generation in Spain, conducted by the Instituto Universitario Ortega y Gasset and Princeton University, had already measured that detachment: in 2008 only 28.7% of children of immigrants felt integrated; by 2012, 48.3%. The study also found that young people of Bolivian and Chinese origin were the least likely to consider themselves Spanish. This is not an impression: it is a consistent statistical series.

The Chinese factor: nationality and culture

In the specific case of the Chinese community, there is a legal constraint that is rarely mentioned: Chinese law requires renouncing one's own nationality in order to acquire another. That explains why many Chinese born in Spain hold a NIE (foreigner's ID number) instead of a DNI (Spanish national ID), even though Spain is the only country they have ever really known. On top of that comes a culture with strong civilizational pride and family structures that preserve their own customs. Yong Li himself mentioned on set that his community holds gatherings of the Chinese community every three months. Some read this as self-segregation; others as simply having a social life.

The test that laid bare the cracks in integration

The most memorable moment was the Spanish culture quiz: whether tortilla has onion or not, completing "the Pinta, the Niña and the Santa María", the colour of Santiago's horse. The answers, amid nervous laughter, gradually dimmed the initial enthusiasm until an uncomfortable silence set in. For some, Yong Li was displaying his lack of roots; for others, the test proved that anyone with Asian antiestéticatures is required to prove their Spanishness through an exam.

As long as Chinese law keeps forcing people to choose between passports and public discourse keeps demanding that anyone different justify their belonging, cases like Yong Li's will happen again. Perhaps with a different conclusion, but with the same underlying unease.