Tourists and foreign residents (the famous expat, of expatriates ) are in the spotlight of many people in a Barcelona that, like other cities, mourns its dizzying loss of identity.
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A linguistic acrobatics has overturned the initial use of the term. If an expatriate was once a person exiled or banished who deserved our compassion, today’s expat is seen as someone who banishes the neighbors from the neighborhoods where they land with their good purchasing power, their non-negotiable English, and an insatiable hunger for cupcakes. This is the case in Barcelona, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Milan, or any other attractive city with a decent airport.
In certain contexts, the term expat has ended up having a pejorative charge as strong as that of guiri , another disrespectful way of referring to those who are not from here . This use goes back a long way and is quite assimilated: there are even foreigners who assume that guiri condition without complexes.
Still, one should worry about the dangerous connotations that the widespread use of these terms can have in societies where the far right focuses on the foreigner, on the other, on the one who must cease to be a priority, if it ever was one.
If we reject tourism and everything that requires foreign talent, we will only have to move towards degrowth
Generalizing can be misguided and sometimes even unfair. The foreigner who arrived 20 years ago, took root, and today is just another Barcelonian cannot be equated with the executive of a multinational who lands with no intention of relating to the local population and who, in a newcomers’ chat, boasts of having gotten a great apartment for “only” 5,000 euros a month.
At heart, a recurring problem emerges: the bubbles or fishbowls where the lives of different social groups take place are increasingly impenetrable. There are foreigners who can afford to live two or three years in Barcelona without needing to learn Catalan or Spanish, encapsulated in family associations of elite foreign schools, corporate headquarters where only English is spoken, and dinners with other expatriates.
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It is possible, however, that they also do not have to reject many invitations from local colleagues, since Barcelonians find it hard to open their doors to strangers. And so we are. Each exploring the confines of their own fishbowl.
And yet the context invites us to think that the contribution of these newcomers is more necessary than ever. With very worthy exceptions, the local bourgeoisie that supported civil society, with particular dedication to culture, is in frank retreat. This detachment intensified with the procés; with the consolidation of Madrid’s fiscal exceptionality or with the majority entry of foreign capital into Catalan companies. A process, in short, of Barcelona’s decapitalization.
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In this scenario, it seems absurd to turn our backs on a community that – who knows – may be the one to support the social or cultural projects of the future. Instead of belittling them, they should be seduced, helped to find the right path outside the bars opened by and for them. Show them, without impositions or bad manners, that understanding the local language is a form of respect for their new neighbors.
Organizations like Barcelona Global have been doing that seduction work door to door, office desk to office desk, research lab to research lab for years, but it is not enough.
In short, if tourism is questioned for being an extractive activity and it is argued, on the contrary, that Barcelona has to be a city where technology, science, or culture is innovated and researched, it must be assumed that this sector is widely globalized and that no local priority is possible: foreign talent will always be needed. Another thing is that, out of conviction or ignorance, what is actually being demanded is degrowth. An alternative that perhaps one day must be put on the table, but for which we are now very unprepared.
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