Whoever was there knows it. Whoever had to leave will never forget it. More than fifty years later, they still remember: “It was early morning, hundreds of us got out of those crowded carriages and, in single file, we entered a room where we were given what was supposed to be a medical examination and, again, , to the train. I remember the unwashed and uncombed faces of the people, the uncertainty, loaded to the duffle coats with everything we could need; For me it was tremendous,” a grape harvest worker in France in the 1970s tells us. After a few hours by train, they had arrived at the border from the province of Albacete.
This testimony contains the reality of thousands of Spaniards for decades: emigration. “These movements were key to the construction of democracy because they helped Spanish citizens who went abroad learn about the freedoms and rights that were experienced in democracy,” explains historian Sergio Molina.
The professional from Castilian-La Mancha is the curator of a traveling exhibition that has just been installed in the transit room of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, on José Abascal Street, 39 in Madrid, from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. . It is about Flee from misery. Spanish seasonal workers in Europe, 1948-1990. After passing through various places such as the Faculty of Humanities of Albacete or Ciudad Real, the exhibition can now be seen until January 31 and in the near future it will arrive in several locations in Castilla-La Mancha.
We listen again to the promoter of the expo: “History always provides keys to understanding the present. Spain has gone from being a country of emigrants to one of immigrants. And, despite the transformation of contexts, there are some patterns of behavior that are repeated. The exhibition shows the difficult working, accommodation and travel conditions that these Spanish men and women suffered when they went to Europe to work temporarily. This situation is repeated today in Spain with part of the circular emigration that comes to Spain to do agricultural work such as grape harvesting, strawberry or asparagus harvesting, among other tasks.”
Sergio Molina is a professor at the Faculty of Communication of Cuenca and a doctor in History from the University of Castilla-La Mancha who has specialized in Franco-Spanish bilateral relations, European construction and Spanish emigration to France.
Molina describes the double motivation for this exhibition. On the one hand, he was born in an agricultural town linked to the vine, Fuente-Álamo (Albacete), from which many left for France for the grape harvest and since he was little he had heard these stories. On the other hand, his professional dedication: “I have lived and consulted numerous historical archives in France (most in Paris). There, almost by chance, I began to find numerous information about the relevance of this population movement, how governments tried to manage it, what the main problems were.” Thus, as he knew the subject for personal reasons, he decided to start working on this issue and “the final result is the exhibition, a collective book and numerous research articles,” details the Albacete historian.
The work is part of the new concept of Democratic Memory. In the exhibition catalogue, which is free to access and free to download, it is stated that “these memory stories must include new angles of study to achieve a better knowledge of our past and, above all, to continue building more tolerant societies.”
The historians Manuel Ortiz Heras and Damián also participate in this volume. A. González Madrid. And Molina advances: “We are focused on emigration issues. In this sense, the works are trying to influence the importance that these movements had in both the societies of origin and those of destination. That is to say, if we want to have a complete x-ray of the most recent history of Spain, this topic has to be incorporated into a large part of the scientific and informative analyzes that deal with Spain.”
The curator of the exhibition asks himself: “Otherwise, how can we understand the economy of the rural areas that subsisted, in part, on the money that these seasonal workers brought in? How can we understand the social advancement of some of these seasonal workers and their families, if there is no reference to the fact that the source of income was temporary jobs in Europe? How can we understand the politicization of the society of small municipalities if we do not analyze the moment in which they acquire these ideas of democracy?
With this historical project the term Democratic Memory is ‘expanded’ and a little-told reality is brought closer to the general public. To do this, they use period photographs and documents and a spirit that leaves no room for doubt. “Contempt for migration is denying ourselves,” they declare in the book.
The exhibition has been organized into four sections taking into account the main temporary movements from Spain to Europe. Especially to France, where the agricultural work of the harvest, the thinning of beets and the planting of rice took precedence. Although these were the best-known tasks, there were other tasks such as cherry, apricot, and strawberry picking, various forestry work, or corn harvesting. These last sectors seem to be the origin, in the fifties, of the massive temporary emigration that would come later and in which, with respect to the provinces that today make up Castilla-La Mancha, Albacete stood out in a relevant way.
“There is still a lot to investigate,” says Sergio Molina and asks another question: “Why are there so many seasonal workers from Albacete and yet there are none from Ciudad Real or Cuenca?” At least, with this exhibition and the catalog that accompanies it, the path to knowledge has already been opened.
This project, financed by the University of Castilla-La Mancha, through FEDER funds, is a first step to debunk certain myths about Spanish emigration in those decades. We attend to the historian for the last time: “It is false that all the temporary workers had their contract.
In fact, many estimates indicate that half of the seasonal workers came illegally; We must not forget that this cyclical population movement appears even before the founding of the Spanish Emigration Institute (1956), so there were no official channels in this country to promote the legality of the movement. Another proof that not everyone had a contract is that, currently, not everyone receives a retirement payment for their work done in France.”
This is confirmed by some temporary workers from that time. They worked piecework, they stayed according to the possibilities and considerations of each employer and, above all, they saved for a better life in our country. As the saying went: “A penny in peace is worth a hundred in war.”
For this reason, in addition to a good handful of francs, the seasonal workers of our land brought rations of democracy. But as happens with almost everything, this story has also been pushed into oblivion. Who remembers that the long journey of Spanish emigration began centuries ago? When the concept of a homeland did not even exist, the citizens of Spain had already thrown themselves into the ocean in search of a better life in the Indies.
He New World It became the destination for the disinherited and the hustlers. For decades and decades, thousands of people will leave Spain. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, this wave reached considerable proportions. “An endless procession of people; workers, peasants, women with children at their breasts,” said a chronicler about the human masses and the misery that filled the ports.
Or as a magazine journalist wrote La Mancha Lifein 1913: “Emigration is a loose drain, through which the energies of the homeland are lost, little by little, but in constant progression.” Another time that also engulfed collective amnesia. However, those who had to leave know it well and will never be able to forget it.
#emigrants
