Keywords

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

1 Introduction

The movement across space and across cultural and socio-economic boundaries is intrinsic to all forms of migration. The concept mobility, therefore, is central to our understanding of the processes and the discourses that relate to them. This chapter considers the concept of mobility within the context of the debates about internal migration in Francoist Spain. It examines migration into the greater Madrid area starting in the early 1950s, concentrating specifically on those newcomers who settled in the massive triangle of squatters’ neighborhoods (barrios chabolistas) that formed on the south-eastern outskirts of the capital.

My claim is that different notions of mobility greatly conditioned the outlook of both the authorities and the migrants on the process of internal migration as a social phenomenon. Such notions interacted with more general discourses on modernization, economic progress, and morality in Francoist Spain . The regime viewed mobility (whether spatial or social) as a destabilizing force that could easily escape its control. These perceptions influenced its outlook on the migrants themselves, and conditioned the policies towards them. Many migrants, on the other hand, perceived spatial mobility as a way of escaping a limiting environment. This view helped them to proceed with a project that during its initial phases often worsened their living conditions. By examining the different interpretations and values assigned to the concept of mobility , this paper attempts to better understand the politics of location undertaken by the migrants themselves and the ways in which the authorities reacted to them.

Between the years 1960–1973 15 % of the general Spanish population changed its place of residence. While rural Spain bled demographically, the major urban centers gained more than 3 million new inhabitants. Sociologist Miguel Siguán wrote in 1966:

Emigration is the most important social phenomenon we are witnessing nowdays in the Spanish countryside. This is made clear by the wealth of statistics that are being published in relation to demographic changes […]. Its importance can also be seen on a subjective level. Immigration has turned into an issue of major public concern and is referred to in every conversation. (Siguán 1966, p. 533, author’s transl.)

And yet, despite its great volume and the long-term effects it had on the structure of the Spanish society this internal exodus received little attention from historians. Until recently it was referred to as a mere footnote in another history—that of external migration. If it was analyzed at all it was mostly in economic terms (De la Torre and Sanz Lafuente 2008). And it was rarely integrated into the narratives that attempted to explain the massive changes undergone by Spanish society throughout the second half of the twentieth centuryFootnote 1. My own research focuses on the three barrios of Orcasitas in Madrid (Meseta, Poblado Dirigido, and Orcasur). By examining family-life, patterns of sociability and of work of the newly arrived emigrants I try to understand the ways in which modernization and urbanization were experienced.

2 Immigration and the Immigrant in Francoist Rhetoric: The Fear of Unsupervised Movement

An examination of Francoist legislation reveals that references to external migration were most often linked to debates about labor and foreign affair policies. Since the late 1940s external migration was perceived by the regime as a useful tool in the battle to improve the dictatorship’s image in the outside world. In a decree published in 1960 it was stated that during the early part of the twentieth century migration of Spaniards abroad was often viewed in negative terms since it threatened to diminish the number of qualified laborers in the prime years of their productivity. But soon this view changed:

Public policy has been extended […] viewing immigration as process filled with new opportunities encored in individual liberties. At the same time emigration is also viewed as providing powerful connections between countries and enhancing socio-economic and other benefits. Not only for the emigrant and his family, but also for the countries of origin and reception. (Ley 93/1960, author’s transl.)

This change of opinion had, of course, much to do with the socio-economic profile of those who migrated abroad in two decades following the Spanish Civil War. Over two thirds of those who left Spain during that period were unqualified laborers who did so in search of work in the field of construction or domestic service. From the regime’s perspective, the emigration of unqualified male laborers at this stage had several advantages. It would decrease the level of national unemployment and ease social unrest. Since in the initial stages most men traveled alone, the regime hoped to be left with a supposedly less subversive population of women and children, who would be spending in the Spanish market money earned abroad.

Moreover, in July 1956 the regime founded the Spanish Institute of Immigration, which has to regulate migration into and from Spain. The Institute’s decreed aim was: “to provide employment and property to the immigrants and enhance their utility as far as the receiving country was concerned”. The text went on to warn: “Nor can one forget the grave problems that result from the need to guide and provide for the immigrant’s family until such a time in which they are united” (Ley de 17 de julio de 1956). In order to resolve this problem the Institute had to organize a special service that stimulated the immigrants’ tendency for saving and ease the transfer of money to their families living in Spain” (Decreto 1354/1959).

From the first moments following the Civil War it was clear—as far as the Franco regime was concerned that internal migration did not exhibit the advantages attribute to external migration. It did not maximize the buying power of the Spanish population, although it did decrease the overall levels of unemployment. Statistics show that in the year 1950 the city of Madrid alone generated 21,454 official job offers. By 1960 the number more than doubled itself. The authorities viewed the newly arrived migrants at the same time as a much needed work force and as disorderly and potentially subversive masses. In referring to the inhabitants of the shanty-towns that formed around the city of Bilbao, for example, a decree that was published by the Ministry of Housing in 1958 stated:

The hillsides surrounding the city of Bilbao [are covered with constructions] lacking municipal authorization. Nor do they provide [appropriate] living conditions or basic sanitary services. These [constructions] are unhealthy. They defy morality, esthetics and the existing urban plans for the capital of Vizcaya. The immigrants construct unhygienic buildings and divide their living space until they have turned the sacred home, where morality should be forged, into a place of the worst learning. (Decreto de 5 de septiembre de 1958)

This text, and many others like it, reflected the regime’s view that unsupervised movement of population contributed directly to spatial crowdedness in certain urban center. The regime’s obsession with the movement of population was best expressed in a document of the Spanish Home Ministry, which stated:

The intense demographic and industrial development of Madrid, and of other urban centers, was enhanced first and foremost by the immigration of those arriving from rural areas into the big cities. This process can cause grave imbalances in the division of the population. (Decreto de 12 de diciembre de 1958 por el que se crea una Comisión Interministerial para estudiar y proponer los núcleos urbanos de descongestión de Madrid y demás comarcas de inmigración interna)

And what was true for Madrid was true, of course, for the rest of Spain . Keeping certain segments of the population in their designated places enabled the regime to maintain better control over them. This was done in two ways: first by keeping what was perceived as a reasonable ratio of civilians per security forces. But tying people to their community of origin in the countryside, the authority could also make use of more indirect (and yet highly affective) forms of social control. In this manner priests, teachers and the community of neighbors itself were used in order to monitor individuals and their families. Spatial mobility, then, constituted a real threat to the mechanisms of social control created by the regime.

In order to solve the tensions arising from the growing demand for laborers in Spain’s urban centers, on the one hand, and the fears of social unrest, on the other, the authorities distinguished between legal and illegal migrants. In order to belong to the first group, newcomers had to show that they possessed an income sufficient to maintain themselves –and anyone else who joined them– in the city. They needed to prove they had adequate housing and stable employment or present documentation that could otherwise explain their change of residence (such as the need in specific medical services or educational facilities for their children). A certain number of migrants tried to adhere to such requisites by sending first one member of the family to Madrid (usually the husband), while all the others joined him only after he found employment and a place to live. But in reality only a minority of the newcomers could fulfill such conditions prior to arriving at the capital. As far as the regime was concerned, therefore, internal migrants were almost a priori allocated the position of criminals. Once they had settled in self-constructed neighborhoods at the outskirts of the major urban centers, the lack of infrastructures and services created real deprivation, dirt and antagonism, reinforcing their constitution as dangerous “others”. And yet, as we shall see, through their interactions with each other and vis-à-vis local authorities, the newly arrived were also working to position themselves both socially and culturally.

3 The Who and How of Migration: Private Lives between Social Capital and Social Networks

In order to understand these politics of location let us first look at the socio-economic profile of those who settled in the self-constructed periphery of Madrid. In a census that was conducted in 1954–1955 migrants into the Madrid area were divided along the following lines: 49 % women and 51 % men. 49 % defined themselves as actively employed in their former place of residence. 71 % as day laborers and 11 % as employed in domestic service. Of the newly arrived, 60 % settled in the self-constructed barrios on the Southern outskirts of town and the rest within the working class barrios of Madrid’s center. A survey conducted by the FOESSA Foundation (Fomento de Estudios Sociales y de Sociologia Aplicada) in 1960 provides a more nuanced reflection on the shantytowns’ population. Shantytowns such as Orcasitas or Palomeras had a much lower percentage of female population than the city of Madrid (50.5 % as opposed to 55 %). The average age of the population was 27, 3 years younger than in the capital. The number of children under the age of 15 was higher in the shantytowns and the number of those over 45 was much lower than in Madrid (FOESSA 1967).

While statistical information indicates that the majority of the people who settled in the district of Villaverde (of which Orcasitas is part) were day-laborers, life stories recounted in interviews show that many families had a more complex socio-economic history than the one reflected by their current status. The interviews expose certain motivations behind the migratory projects that go beyond the purely economic pull and push factors. The decision to migrate is no doubt affected by the expectations for improved socio-economic conditions. However, research has shown that as the indicators of economic growth in the country of origin increase, so does the flow of migrants (Martinez 2000, p. 14). Research conducted in Ireland, Southern Europe and Latin America indicates that the poorest of the poor, those supposedly most influenced by the economic push factors do not tend to emigrate (Massey 1999; O’Gráda and O’Rourke 1997). This is perhaps not so surprising since migration is a project that necessitates certain levels of social capital. But what exactly is social capital? Ángela was born in Madrid. Her parents arrived to Orcasitas from La Roda in Albacete. Ángela recounts:

My father’s family owned meat shops. After the war the Franco Regime confiscated their business for having provisioned the Republican Army. Since he was unable to find work in La Roda my [father] got into business with someone from his hometown. They founded a paint factory close to the Poblado Dirigido de Orcasitas. (Interview with the author, 21/4/2011, Orcasitas, author’s transl.)

Ángela tells a typical story of Francoist economic repression. Her grandfather was not a known republican militant. He therefore did not lose his freedom, only his business. Founding a new business was a difficult task, but it was within the family’s realm of possibilities. However, migrating away from the town where they were well known was the only way to go.

Jesus, originally from the Toledo countryside, settled in the district of Villaverde in 1955. In his interview with historian Julio Fernández Gómez he recounted another typical story of migration in search of anonymity:

This guy who was in charge of everything back there [in Toledo] started a sausage factory […]. Many of us worked there, but the guy did not pay us social security, he didn’t make the most basic payments. I denounced him in 1954. And what a surprise! Since everyone in the village worked with him I was left without work. (Fernández Gómez 2007, p. 261, author’s transl.)

Jesus did not come from a background of political activism, and it is important to note that his actions were not framed within an oppositional discourse. He did, however, come from an area where agrarian reform planes were put into place between the years 1934–1936. This period, which he experienced as a very young child, was described by him as “a time of social security”. It had clearly shaped his conceptions of right and wrong and his expectations for communal collaboration. Acting on such expectations he soon found himself unemployed. Migration was his only choice.

I would like to stop for a moment and consider these stories in relation to the concept of social capital. Social capital is the capacity of individuals to control and make use of certain resources as a result of their insertion into a network of relationships or other social structures. This capacity clearly results from one’s socio-economic status. But what about the corpus of life histories and past experiences of the migrant (and his/her family)? Such stories and past experiences often frame the migrant’s early memories without affecting his/her actual socio-economic status. And yet they may offer further clues as to who is willing to accept certain living conditions and who would chose to uproot and re-start life elsewhere. Within the context of Francoist repression more elaborated life histories also aid us in differentiating between different categories of “defeated” (vencidos). Although most migrant families suffered different degrees of repression by the regime (lack of work, confiscation of land or family business, etc.), they were not targeted as active republican militants. These individuals and families represented the bulk of migrant population.

Another factor that clearly affected the willingness of individuals to consider migration was the amount and accuracy of the information they possessed about the place in which they wished to settle. Against the background of the accelerated processes of urbanization and modernization undergone by many European societies from the second half of the Ninetinth century, it s clear that one cannot view urban and non-urban communities as two mutually exclusive forms of existence. Studies concerned with the different forms of rural-urban migration provide ample evidence of the existence of varied social networks that tie urban and rural communities, providing migrants with extensive, and yet at times also conflictive information about their future place of residence. Social networks can be based on different affiliations: blood relations, professional ties, personal friendships or common geographical origins. My research in the case of Orcasitas has demonstrated that geographical affiliations played a central role not only in the decision to migrate to Madrid, but also in the decision of where to settle in the city. For the purpose of my research I am compiling a database containing information about over 1000 families that settled in this neighborhood between the years 1950–1961Footnote 2. There is no doubt that for some people the decision to settle in Orcasitas was arbitrary, the neighborhood was simply the last cheap, unsupervised frontier before the actual capital. But the fact that some streets –and later on entire buildings– were populated by different households belonging to one extended family or arriving from the same village indicates that many migrants purposefully made their way into the neighborhood where they already had acquaintances.

A similar phenomenon was noted by historians Jose Babiano and Julio Fernández Gómez regarding the migrants’ initial decision regarding their work-place in the city (Babiano 1995; Fernández Gómez 2007, p. 289). In the factory constructed by Standard Electrica in Villaverde, for example, more than half of the employees came from the same village in Leon. At the factory Euskalduma installed in the same district a third of all the workers in the early 1960s came from Urda in Toledo—the hometown of the company’s chief engineer. Once the first migrants settled in the Orcasitas-Villaverde area what historians and anthropologists refer to as the effect of relatives and friends gained weight. Relatives and friends provided information for future migrants, functioning as the first point of contact in the city to those arriving after them. Before moving on, I would just like to point out that social networks functioned as a tool that was meant to aid migrants in their adaptation to and acceptance into city life. And yet, by their very nature such networks at times also functioned to exclude and discipline the newcomers. Or in the word of one interviewee:

The owners of the business liked this situation. There was always a chance that one of the guys [that you helped bring in] was more rebellious than the others. But they could count on you to [help them] control the situation. You had more seniority and the guys would come to you with their problems. And you would say to them: “it’s not important, let it go”. They would ask for your opinion because they held you in high esteem since you arranged the job for them. (Fernández Gómez 2007, p. 288, author’s transl.)

It is not my intention to analyze here the long-term effects the extensive role of geographically based social networks had on the structure and social relations within a barrio such as Orcasitas. However, it is important to note that such effects lasted well beyond the first months or even years. Felicitas, aged 91, arrived at Orcasitas from Albacete. In her interview, she explained the way in which the presence of her husband’s friends from La Roda dominated the couple’s social lives in Madrid as well:

Look, since my husband came from Albacete he kept in touch with some friends that also got away and lived here. Some intimate friends. We celebrated birthdays together, we all got together and each year we celebrated Christmas in a different home. It was wonderful. (Interview with the author, 3/2/2011, Orcasitas, author’s transl.)

Daniel, aged 61, arrived to Orcasitas at the age of 17 from Belmez, near Cordoba. He too explained the ways in which the known geographic characteristics of the barrio helped in preserving his own sense of identity:

One of the most important things for me is the fact that I was never uprooted from the old land. After forty something years here [in Madrid], I still keep my accent and I have no intention of loosing it. I come from a miners’ village in the province of Cordoba and when my final moment comes I will say “here lies a man from the village of Belmez”. (Interview with the author, 17/3/2011, Orcasitas, author’s transl.)

Immigration, then, while creating new forms of social relations did not undermine completely the old sense of belonging . For those who wished to maintain such identifications, the existence of village ties within city life had clear material and emotional implications.

But the interviews conducted with migrants also point to other networks though which information about Madrid was collected. Paradoxically it seems that some of the most useful networks were put in place by the regime itself. In 1959 sociologist Miguel Siguán interviewed 200 migrant families who settled that same year in Madrid. 5 % of the men interviewed stated that they contemplated the idea of moving to the capital during their military service. It was in Madrid that they received their first professional training. As young, unmarried men, who were fed and housed by the state, they were able to make use of their small salaries in order to enjoy the city’s cinemas and bars. In both cultural and economic terms, life in the city seemed to offer advancement. However, it is significant that none stayed on after their service. It was only after they were married that the final move to the city was made. Study periods, student exchange schemes and sporting events sponsored by the Falangist Youth Movement also provided an excellent opportunity to get to know the capital.

4 The Why of Migration: Subjective Aspects of Moving Towards a Better Life

All migrants reached Madrid hoping to better their lives. And yet, looking at the photos taken in shantytowns such as Orcasitas in the 1960s, one is left to wonder what exactly the newcomers’ definitions of progress were. Prior to leaving the countryside most migrants already constructed a vision of urban life based on notions of modernity, comfort, and the city’s image as a place full of new opportunities. Reality of course was more complex. Earnings in the city were higher. And yet, primary products were often cheaper in the countryside. So was purchasing a plot of land for cultivation. Some pastime activities (such as swimming in the river) did not cost anything in the countryside, while other more modern diversions such going to the cinema or musical events were accessible only in the city. As far as education was concerned primary school placements were harder to secure in the city, where some peripheral neighborhoods had no classes at all. Secondary education, on the other hand, was more diversified and more easily financed through scholarships.

In view of this, it is important to understand how migrants prioritized and evaluated the different aspects of their new lives. Work-wise upward mobility could mean several things: it could mean better pay, more possibilities for professional training, and advancement and different working conditions. In a study conducted in Orcasitas 190 migrant families were interviewed by sociologist Isidro Alonso Hinojal. Over half of the men interviewed found work in Madrid as non-qualified laborers. Of those, 40 % indicated that they would be interested in finding better jobs – that is jobs that necessitated further professional training. The rest stressed that they were happy with their current employment (Alonso Hinojal 1969, p. 33–34). From the interviews I conducted it is clear that employment stability and the predictability of working hours were valued above anything else in city jobs. Possibilities for professional training and advancement came in a third place. A man, who migrated to Madrid in 1954, explained in an interview he gave years later:

In the countryside we worked endlessly. Between the middle of June and the middle of September, for example, I could not take a single day off. […] When we got to the factories [in the city] of course we had to work hard. But at half past 7 you would go home. This was unthinkable [in the countryside] where we worked like slaves. (Fernández Gómez 2007, p. 265, author’s transl.)

This, of course, does not mean that all men worked 8 h per day. By the mid 1960s 31 % of the men in Orcasitas reported they worked between 8.5–10.5 h a day and 22 % reported working over 10 hours. A major difference for those who did so was the fact that they now earned extra pay for their overtime work.

References to the temporary nature of work in the countryside also abound. Work in the Spanish countryside was always characterized by high levels of instability, especially within those communities that relied on agriculture for their livelihood. Throughout the decade of the 1950s, however, it is possible to discern a change in the attitudes towards work that was paid for by the day or even by the week. A carpenter, who immigrated to Madrid in 1952, at the age of 28 from a village of the Toledo countryside recounts:

In the countryside we worked more and lived under worst conditions. I was made aware of that when I arrived in Madrid [1946] to complete my military service. I was one of those with a permanent job. I worked all year around. […] But I did my math and it came out I was earning 7 pesetas a day in the countryside in 1951. It was then that I decided I couldn’t go on. And the worst thing is that I worked day and night, no holidays. This is why I came to Madrid. (Fernández Gómez 2007, p. 255, author’s transl.)

In order to understand the refusal to accept working conditions that prevailed –almost uncontested– for centuries, one must take into account the deep changes that took place in the economic and social conditions during the decade of the 1950s. With the admittance of Spain to the United Nations and the renewal of diplomatic relations with the USA, the brute repression of the immediate post war years was giving way to more nuanced forms of social surveillance and control. Following the initial stages of reconstruction in post World War II Europe, external migration of Spanish citizens had picked up again and internal migration (which never ceased) intensifiedFootnote 3. The flow of information made many day laborers in the countryside more and more aware of the possibilities offered by the construction boom in the cities and those opened by the intensification of industrialization, which took place even prior to the publication of the Stabilization Plan in 1959. Under such conditions the prospects of a different form of work, a city job became more tangible.

In terms of housing too, defining progress was a complex task. A survey conducted in the district of Villaverde in 1956 indicated that 60 % of the dwellings in the area were made of wood and cardboard. By 1976, 12 % of the houses did not yet have a toilet, bath or shower and only 35 % had access to electricity. Despite the district’s appearances about a third of the families who settled there in the 1960s did so after spending a period of time living at the center of the capital. What had precipitated their move into self-constructed barrios such as Orcasitas?

Part of the answer, at least, lays in the migrants’ definition of home. Of the 200 migrant families who were interviewed in 1959 by sociologist Miguel Siguán almost a half stated that they experienced a sense of losing their independence upon arrival to the capital. While in the countryside many young couples shared a house with their extended family doing so in the city was perceived as a failure of the migratory project. Having an independent house (even if a chabola) –not sharing– that was the hallmark of a functioning family and adaptation to city life. In the words of Felicitas, who settled in Orcasitas in 1958: “This is the point in which my life changed. I had a home” .

While the internal and the external appearance of the chabolas constructed in Orcasitas differed according to the economic status of their owners, all homes had one characteristic in common: in Orcasitas, just as in the other squatter settlements around Madrid’s southern belt, most dwellings were divided into a surprisingly large number of bedrooms with lower priority given to the construction of a kitchen and only in some cases to the construction of a bathroom or a living room. The average chabola in Orcasitas of the 1950s comprised of 3 to 4 bedrooms, with some reaching up to 7 bedrooms. The average family comprised of 2–3 children with 30 % of the families having an additional member of the extended family living in (usually an unmarried brother or sister of one of the parents). While the number of family members might explain the need for more than one bedroom the decision to construct a large number of bedrooms within a relatively small space at the expense of both living room and bathroom merits some explaining.

Close human proximity and the chaotic mixing of men and women of different ages were the hallmarks of the “deprivation” associated by the authorities with the losers of the Spanish Civil War (Ofer 2008). Indeed, spatial crowdedness was an undisputed condition in many working-class barrios of Madrid. The lack of privacy and of personal space, translated in everyday life into a lack of toilets, shared bathing and sleeping space, undermined people’s sense of respectability and at times even humanity. Many of the testimonies I collected reflected the feeling that keeping men and women of different age groups spatially separated was a precondition for maintaining a “moral family” and a “moral community”. As a result, the majority of Orcasitas’ dwellers worked even harder than their middle-class neighbors in order to create spatial distinctions within a tightly packed environment. One consequence, as can been seen from the chabolas’ building plans, was the creation of several minuscule bedrooms where not even a bed could fit, all for the sake of separating adults and children of different sexes and ages.

The initial appearance of the barrio frightened and depressed many new comers. Ángela, who moved to Orcasitas from the center of Madrid in search of larger house, confessed: “I wanted to die. I came from a college run by nuns, everything was squeaky clean. We had all the comforts you could think of. And then they brought me here and I saw the mud” (Interview with the autor, 5.4.2011, Orcasitas, author’s transl). But these feelings were soon mitigated by an evolving sense of community. Paradoxically this sense of community was enhanced by the chabolas themselves. María, who grew up in Orcasitas, explained:

Here everything was shared. The houses were all open there were no doors, only curtains. You didn’t have to ring. You simply entered and what you saw was there for the taking. It was for everyone – neighbors, friends, family. (Interview with the author, 21/4/2011, Orcasitas , author’s transl.)

Jesus, who moved to Orcasitas from the center of Madrid recounts: “There were many shanty homes. Some were made of wood, others made of exposed brick. They looked like tiny vacation homes. Life was good then, we all knew each other. Now everything is different, we each live in his or her apartment and it’s not the same” (Interview with the author, 17/3/2011, Orcasitas, author’s transl.).

As researchers we must guard against idealizing an everyday reality that was extremely difficult both materially and emotionally. At the same time we have to acknowledge the fact that settling at the periphery of the capital was at least partially a choice that served specific ends. Jesus’ words call to mind the phrases used by the Ministry of Housing quoted above. Both descriptions emphasize the makeshift nature of the chabolas, the mud, the use of wood and exposed bricks. And yet a parallel reading also fleshes out the ways in which material reality, supposedly objective, can be manipulated in order to generate subjective images of good/bad, moral/immoral.

Breaking down the different elements that define concepts such as mobility or progress, and understanding how they are being understood and prioritized by individuals is important for several reasons: on the most basic level, it may provide us with a “thicker” view of migratory projects and the reasons behind them. Moreover, it can help us in seeing urban and non-urban life as a continuum of experiences and expectations rather than a dichotomy. And finally, by highlighting the ways in which the material gains subjective value may help us to discern the ways in which historical actors locate themselves and are being located within different narratives.