16.01.2014 - 23:46
Spanish is the mother tongue of about half of the people in Catalonia, thanks to two large waves of immigration. The first from the early 1900’s until the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and the second, as Andreu Domingo describes in ‘What’s up with Catalonia?’ that ‘began in the 50’s, peaked in the sixties, and tapered off after the oil crisis of the mid 1970s’ practically doubling Catalonia’s population at the time.
Reyes is a child of this second wave of immigration, arriving in Catalonia in 1950 from Córdoba in southern Spain at the age of 9. His parents were looking for work and a better future. In 1950, Catalan was not only not taught in school, but was legally excluded from many parts of life. Eduardo grew up speaking Spanish. In a recent interview said he had never been in favor of independence until very recently.
Today, however, frustrated with the economic crisis and the failure of politicians in Madrid to make good decisions about allocating resources—he cites the failure to build a decent rail system between the largest cities on the Mediterranean as an example—Eduardo began Súmate, a pro-indepedence group created specifically for Spanish-speakers.
We had a chance to speak to him on Jan 16, on #CatalanTalk. Here’s a transcript.
