My Last Blog Post and Photos from Istanbul

First, I've posted my photos from my last trip of the year, Istanbul. Aside from having one of the most incredible skylines I've ever seen, it was interesting to see a city where churches were turned into mosques and Christians built mosques in the style of Greek orthodox style churches from the Byzantine era, especially after spending time in numerous Spanish cities where the opposite occurred hundreds of years earlier. History has a strange way of reversing the fortunes of different political-religious groups over time. The pictures are available here.

Now onto the last blog post.

Two years ago I made the decision to follow in the steps of my friend Tiffany and apply for a Fulbright grant to conduct research in Spain while I was working in Washington. I was in the middle of switching jobs and was looking for a way to eventually get out of Washington and spend some time abroad; Fulbright seemed to fit the bill. Since the Fulbright Grant requires a professor to sponsor an applicant's proposal, however, I emailed every single law professor studying immigration issues in Madrid. After all, I had never studied in Spain while I was at Macalester or Northwestern and needed to find someone who might take an interest in my work.

As fate would have it, my adviser, Diego Blázquez-Martín, emailed me back expressing interest in my proposal. Diego had studied at Columbia, NYU, and Brown while getting his PhD at my host institution, la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, so he could related to someone from another country trying to conduct independent research in his country. It was a quality that would serve me well during my time in Spain. With Diego's support as well as the support of my professors at Macalester and a Spanish language professor at the Catholic University of America, I wrote and revised my application and finally turned it in late September 2007.

Although I had high hopes for my application, I did not realize I was about to embark on a two year journey that tested my patience, intuition, intellectual curiosity, and self awareness in a myriad of contexts and situations. All that mattered to me then was developing a sound proposal that would make it past the first round of cuts in February of 2008 before the Spanish Fulbright Commission and the J. William Fulbright Board in Washington, DC would make their final decision on whether I would receive the grant or not. I guess one could not fault me for thinking in short term steps, for the time being; the longer, more profound reflection on the implications of studying in Spain for a year only became a reality after I received word that I was a Fulbright Scholar in April 2008.

The question that emerged over time as I was preparing to leave for Europe revolved around the manner that I would document my experience in Spain and beyond. Naturally, I would post pictures on Facebook and continue to keep in touch with my friends through email, Gchat, and Skype. The idea of keeping a blog about my experiences, another idea that I borrowed from Tiffany, seemed to be a good format to discuss my experiences abroad. So in September 2008, I finally posted my first blog entry, stating that the purpose of the blog was to report and make observations on "Spanish society, politics, life, fashion, etc." with commentaries on "on issues related to my research on the history of immigration law and the rights of undocumented immigrants to join labor unions."

62 blog posts later, I have documented wide swaths of topics related to my time in Spain. Some of my posts have appeared in the forms of mini historical-sociology lessons that accompanied my photo albums on Facebook or my "Views from the City" series on Madrid. Other posts have been commentaries on developments on immigrant rights in Spain, especially on the development of the reform of the LO 8/2000. Finally, some posts have centered on my actual Fulbright experiences in Andorra, Berlin, and the preparation and execution of the Fulbright immigration conference in June. While my blog could have covered a wider range of contemporary topics, I feel that my work was fairly representative of my time in Spain, given that I only added one post per week when I had a free moment between research and travel. In this sense, it has met my goals and hopefully has maintained my readership, however few in number, interested and engaged in my work and life in Spain.

Of course, the blog could never completely communicate the different dimensions of my first experience in Europe. First, the blog could never capture the dynamics of the interviews with a diverse array of individuals from NGOs, labor unions, political parties, and lawyer's associations or the evolution of my knowledge the rights of undocumented immigrants in Spain. To be sure, this process will remain caught on tape or in a variety of notes, presentations, and drafts of my paper. But I believe that no form of communication will express the multifaceted nature of my work or the joy that it brought me over the course of ten months.

Second, no form of communication will reflect the full dynamics of my trips to other European and African cities this year. To say that this year has been nothing less than an adventure would be an understatement in every sense of the word. The task of documenting these journeys clearly fell to my camera, which ironically stopped working midway through my last trip in Istanbul. No photo, however, will be able to capture the moment when I stepped into another city, another country for the first time and felt the burst of excitement with the possibilities that existed within the next few days. Words fail to completely capture these moments as well, though that should never stop one from attempting to bring a little context to the memories captured in photographs of their journeys.

Thirdly, I do not think ten months worth of blogging would allow me to begin making observations of Spaniards and the immigrants who are rapidly changing Spain's social framework. I can say that the Spaniards who I have met have taken me into their work and their lives with joy and excitement without expecting anything in return. It was truly refreshing and invigorating, especially after the networking frenzy of egoism that seemingly drives the social interactions in Washington, DC. Though these people and the wonderful qualities of Spaniards will remain in my memories, I will certainly miss this quality of interaction when I return to the United States.

To be sure, many Spaniards need to come to terms with the changes that accompany the growth of immigrant populations in Spain. Simply blaming immigrants for every social problem, particularly those related to the economic crisis, is not a sound response to a permanent social change. After all, every social context is impermanent, giving way to another one through a process of conflict and/or cooperation between social actors. The question that remains unanswered for the moment is this one: can Spaniards, particularly the Spanish Government, focus on the latter during an economic crisis? I have made several observations on the potential responses to this question. For the moment, however, I will say that it remains to be seen whether a sound response can emerge in response to the challenges of the economic crisis gripping Spain.

Finally, no blog post will never be able to capture the transition between my life in Spain and my life in the United States, especially the feeling that accompany the move from the dizzying heights of the "Fulbright Experience" to those more routine, more familiar. As it stands, I will not blog about my experiences once I return to the States. I will post up a podcast that I recorded with the International Institute of Education in late May when it is available online. Aside from this update, however, I believe that my transition back to the United States will remain a private matter that will allow me to gain a greater understanding of the impact of living abroad on my personal, intellectual, and professional development.

I will say that living abroad has made me appreciate different aspects of American society while developing more insightful criticisms of its shortcomings; one cannot simply emerge from this process without developing a more nuanced perspective of one's own country. At the same time, the experience of living abroad has given me the encouragement to travel around the United States with a stronger sense of curiosity of understanding the different manifestations of the American character. The next few months will also see me bring these realizations into fruition as my search for a new job will take me to another part of the United States to begin my life anew.

And how will I begin this new life? With ten months of wonderful memories that will last a lifetime. Reflecting over these experiences, a few lines from a Czeslaw Milosz poem come to mind:

"That boy, does he already suspect
that beauty is always elsewhere and always delusive?
He sees what I see even now. Oh but he was clever,
Attentive, as if things were instantly changed by memory.
Riding in a cart, he looked back to retain as much as possible.
Which means he knew what was needed for some ultimate moment
When he would compose from fragments a world perfect at last."
- "From the Rising of the Sun"

I will not know the long term consequences of receiving this grant. But, for the time being, I can live with a quiet satisfaction that it has contributed to the creation of my own world perfect, one that will incorporate experiences beyond the boundaries of Spain and the United States as I continue to explore and understand a world that continues to present, in Fitzgerald's words, something commensurate to our capacities for wonder.

Views from my City: Madrid

As my time in Madrid comes to a close, I figure I would post up a few photos from some sites that have been regular haunts of mine over the last ten months:

The view from my window in my new apartment in the neighborhood of Moncloa and Argüelles.

A shot of the neighborhood Moncloa, from a country club due west of the city. The buildings include a the Ejercito de Aire (Airforce) building as well as a view of the park where I go running, el Parque del Oeste (Park of the West). The tall UFO style building was built in honor of the Barcelona 1992 Olympic games and features a panoramic view of the city.

Plaza of España, which has the city's own Cervantez Monument, was my old neighborhood for most of the year. It is a five minute walk from my new apartment and regularly hosts artisan fairs as well as the occasional concert or festival from time to time.

The Plaza also has Madrid's first skyscrapers, which were built in the 50s as Franco's reluctant nod to modern urban planning. Accordingly, these buildings are not that tall, especially in comparison to the major skyscrapers that dot north Madrid's skyline.

The Reina Sofia, Madrid's modern art museum, is my favorite gallery in the city. Picasso's denouncement of the fascist bombing of the town of Guernica -- Guernica -- is the centerpiece of the Museum's collection, which includes work by Miró, Dalí, Robert Capa, and, obviously, Picasso as well as works from 21st century Spanish artists. The museum is named after the current Queen of Spain who is major patron of the arts. Interesting note: the building was the city's first public hospital in the late 19th century.

La Casa de la Cerveza, an international beer house, is hands down one of my favorite bars in the city. Being a bit of a beer snob, there's only so much Spanish lager I can drink before I crave a Belgian Abbey beer. That said, the Spaniards do have a Abbey style beer, Legado de Yuste, which was first for Carlos I by Belgian monks to alleviate the symptoms of a fever that he contracted around 1516. It is very good, although hard to find in many Spanish Bars due to the popularity of other brands such as Cruz Campo and Mahou, which are lagers.

Photos from London and Another Piece from the BBC on Immigration in Spain

First, here are my photos from my second to last trip during my time as a Fulbrighter: London. I visited a few friends there from Northwestern and had the opportunity to check out the traditional tourist sites before wandering around the city to observe the incredible amounts of diversity that exists within its demographics and the composition of its neighborhoods. Given that London has had a longer history of immigration and counter-cultural movements (and an incredible roster of rock musicians, DJs, and grime rappers), it is no suprise that I found myself feeling a little more at home when walking around the city. The photos are available here.

I also have come across another BBC piece about the decreasing number of irregular immigrants coming to Spain. In this case, the article discusses the falling number of Sub Saharan African migrants who come across the Atlantic to Spain's Canary Islands on pateras, small boats with a single engine that should accomodate only a small number of people but frequently transport large numbers of migrants, much to their own peril.

From the interviews that I carried out, I can say that the first patera came to the Canary islands in the mid 1990s; the numbers began to grow slowly over the course of the rest of the decade until the numbers exploded after the year 2002. That said, lawmakers and the Spanish media usually treat this form of migration as the greatest problem facing Spain in regards to the irregular flows of immigrants to Spain.

In reality, the largest number of irregular immigrants come through Barajas airport in Madrid from South America; pateras account for only 10% of irregular immigration. Still the patera and Sub-Saharan immigrant continue to remain the boogey-man in the mainstream discourse on immigration to Spain due to a mix of xenophobia, lack of education, and the lack of effective government policies to address this issue in a manner that respects their human rights while regulating movement into and out of Spanish territory.

The last item deserves some attention. Often times, the immigrants who survive the trip and arrive to the island's shore will receive treatment from NGOs before being transported to detention centers run by the Spanish national police and FRONTEX, the EU's border patrol. In these centers, where detention can last up to 40 days (60 days in the proposed reform of the LO 4/2000), the authorities review the documentation of the immigrants and process their deportation.

The problem arises when the migrant lacks documentation. In these cases, the authorities round up these individuals and ship them out to Madrid with an order of expulsion without a specific destination. The immigrants subsequently remain in Spain without any way to return home. At the same time, the requirements to gain a work contract and residency under the LO 14/2003, which requires irregular immigrants to stay in Spain for three years without being deported to gain access to residency, makes it difficult for these individuals to find viable work in the labor market. Often times, one will see these men selling bootleg copies of DVDs and CDs, fake name brand glasses and purses, or newspapers to make their living; I am unsure where women from these countries work in the underground economy. In short, these individuals have no way of finding a settled existence in Spain or abroad.

The inability of Spanish lawmakers to develop ways to regulate movement into and out of Spain and promote the integration of individuals has compounded the problem, especially due to the fact that they have refused to touch the LO 14/2003. Although the law states that all immigrant's will have a viable work contract even if no such document exists, it has created enormous administrative barriers to entry into the formal labor market as well as obstacles to the access of residency authorizations.

Further, the Spanish Government's decision to send immigrants with an order of expulsion to Madrid clearly demonstrates its refusal to develop a robust means to return immigrants to their countries of origins that respects their human rights and remains effective in regulation of the flows of irregular immigration. Sending immigrants to Madrid is not a longterm solution; neither is keeping them confined within detention centers with questionable humanitarian conditions.

Finally, although lawmakers have begun to create and fund co-development programs with the countries that emit the highest number of immigrants to Spain, these efforts have barely begun to fully address the source of the pateras: poverty and economic and political instability in Africa. Although the poor economic situation has reduced the number of pateras arriving on Spain's shores, only a comprehensive solution that addresses these three issues will truly address the problems of the pateras into Spain in the long term.

Views from the City: Orgullo 2009

First and foremost, happy 4th of July to everyone back at home! Although my 4th of July festivities were centered on another major event here in Madrid that will form the subject of this post. Madrid, like many other Western European capitals, has a vibrant gay scene that serves as a source of community for GLBT individuals and a launching pad for activism over their rights. As an GLBT ally, most of my observations of this community have emerged from my GLBT friends who hang out in the city's gay district, Chueca, as well as the work of my adviser on equality and human rights issues in Spain. Given that I have been mostly focused on the issues of immigrant rights within my volunteer work and research, however, my direct experiences with this community and its efforts to solidify their rights in Spain has been limited.

Fortunately, this past weekend marked the annual gay pride week - Orgullo 2009 - that gave me a chance to attend the city's gay pride parade, the largest in all of Europe. The Parade, which is the climax of the week's festivities in Chueca and other parts of Madrid, is considered the largest outdoor party in Europe after beating out beat out the Berlin Love Parade for that distinction. Having attended the gay pride parade in DC, I was expecting a fun, boisterous event that engaged the audience in minor ways. I clearly underestimate the scope and scale of the event.


Part protest, part carnival, and all spectacle, the Parade went through the heart of Madrid -- from the Puerta de Alcala through Grand Vía before finally ending at Plaza de España -- and laid waste to my conceptions of parades and outdoor festivals. With people drinking and dancing in the streets to the beats blasting out of huge trucks and buses -- included some buses sponsored by Spanish leftist political parties and the nation's two major labor unions -- the parade crept along the streets of downtown Madrid in a spectacular fashion as the decorations and the sheer locura of each bus and float topped each other off. The sheer number of people watching the parade was staggering; the only other time I've seen the city that full was on Noche Vieja, New Year's Eve and that could not compare with the sight of looking down Grand Vía to see masses of people flooding the streets and plazas of the city, cheering on the individuals and performers on the floats and buses.



Of course, the parade had its more sober aspects as well. The theme of the parade was Escuelas Sin Armarios - Schools without Closets - and advocated for the rights of GLBT teachers in Spain. Numerous NGOs that support gay rights spearheaded this component of the parade marched first before the party floats, especially those organizations formed by GLBT teachers as well as organizations that centere on one particular aspect of the struggle for GLBT rights (e.g various lesbian organizations, groups that supported gay families, etc). Throughout this section of the parade one could see the flags of the 17 Communidades Autonomas that represented the unified effort of all Spaniards and non-Spaniards in the efforts to solidify the rights of GLBT individuals throughout all of Spain.


The subject of gay rights in Spain has been a point of friction these recent years. Although the rights of GLBT individuals essentially remained within the boundaries of the Spanish Constitution (freedom of privacy, for instance), the government of Jose Luis Zapatero, took the steps to introduce legislation after the PSOE defeated the PP in 2004 to legalize gay marriage in 2005. That year, the Congreso de Diputados, which was dominated by center left parties, approved Ley 13/2005, de 1 de julio, por la que se modifica el Código Civil en materia de derecho a contraer matrimonio, after overriding the vote in Senate, where center right parties had a plurality, and made Spain the third nations on Earth to recognize same sex marriages and grant these unions the same privileges and benefits as heterosexual couples. (As someone who is studying immigration, I should note that this law recognizes marriage between Spanish nationals and third country/non EU citizens in Spain despite the fact that most countries do not recognize or ban same sex marriage.)


Despite the fact that nearly 66% percent of Spaniards approved of the law before it was introduced into effect (and 61% approved of the law after the fact), however, the Catholic Church and the political right in the country have mobilized against these legislative efforts to recognize same sex marriage and adoption of children. At the social level, it is hard for me to communicate whether Spaniards support gay rights in practice; it appears to me that they are tolerant of GLBT individuals. As one of my friends noted at the parade, however, it did not seem that there were many GLBT families that were participating in the parade compared to the Pride Parade in Brooklyn, New York. The fact that this observation may reflect some sectors of Spanish society's ambivalent feelings about the growing presence of GLBT life in Spain that influences the decisions of GLBT couples remains unclear. The observation does demonstrate the fact that many GLBT couples are beginning to establish their lives within a legal context that will continue to change perceptions and attitudes over the nature of human rights within Spain.

More information is available at the wikipedia page about the topic, including the statistics regarding support for same sex marriage.