The document discusses immigration to Asturias, Spain. It finds that Ecuador, Colombia, Portugal, Brazil, Romania, Argentina and Morocco are the top countries of origin for immigrants to Asturias. Many immigrants come for economic opportunities, as conditions and wages are often better in Spain. Through interviews, the students found that immigrants leave their families behind due to lack of money, and face rejection and difficulties in Spain, but feel they have no choice due to their situations in their home countries. The students conclude that immigration is a complex issue and that both immigrants and locals would benefit from greater cultural understanding and acceptance of differences.

1. * I m M I G R A T I O N i n A S T U R I A S * By Alberto Bernal and Vanesa Bordallo

2. THE PROCESS - 1 Before analyzing specific aspects about the immigration, we tried to understand better the concept and some aspects about it. For that we looked for general information of it. We tried to answer some general questions to organize our project and make it clearer.

3. How many immigrants live in Spain? Many of the immigrants come to Spain illegaly and for that it’s difficult to know the real number of that live here at the moment. When they come, they don’t need any document and they can stay here around 90days. After, they must have a ‘visa’ to stay living for a long time if they want. Investigators try to know every year how many immigrants request the visa and where they want to live then. In 2005 Cataluña (112.842) and Madrid (135.876) were the communities where more people asked for it.

4. Where are the immigrants from? All the immigrants who live at the moment in Spain come from different countries. We will see them ordered from highest to lowest according to the volume that they represent.

5. FROM DIFFERENT PLACES ... South America (37%) [Ecuator (14.6%) and Colombia (9%)] - in 12 years it has increased in large numbers. European Community (22.5%) [British origin (6%) and German (5%)] - their presence is biggerthan others and in recent years it has doubled. African Continent (19.6%) [ Morocco (14%), the second largest group of foreigners after the Ecuatorian people] - it also has grown a lot but not as South America. Eastern Europe (13%) (among Pole people, Romanian people and Bulgarian people) - it is very recent and it is still small in number. Asian Continent [mainly from China (2%)] - it has quadrupled in the last decade.

6. How do they come to Spain? Why? There are many differences between all the countries and its level of development. Economy and politics are the basic aspects that make people move to better places. In some cases when they come, they arrive in bad conditions and they are tired and weak because they have travelled during hours in a small boat with a lot of immigrants. They usually must come back to their countries. In other cases they travel by plane but they have to work a lot before to can pay the trip.

7. What characteristics do they have? The immigrants that come to Spain are young people about 25-29 years old. Obviously there are also people from other ages but are less common. There aren’t many differences between the sex of the people who arrive, only that men represent the majority with 55,05%. They usually work in the construction of buildings or services.

8. In some countries for example they must work when they’re children, and for that reason, they can’t acquire a suitable education. A map which represents the level of illiteracy around the world

9. How do they live here? They always try to find here a job to earn some money to live or to send it to their families in their countries. Some of them haven’t studied and for that they have to choose the jobs that the Spanish people don’t want There are lots of examples: working hardly like workers, constructing buildings, taking care of old people or children during long hours... All of this in very bad conditions, without a contract and with low wages. There are also other few cases in which they are able to find a job with a temporary contract. This case affects more to the immigrants than to Spanish people. When they come to Spain they also have got other problems. The most important is to find a house where they could live. Sometimes there are people who don’t want to rent their buildings to immigrants or they request much money for them. There are couples that come to Spain with their children. The children can have problems with their partners of school and that supposes another possible problem for them.

10. THE PROCESS - 2 Then we tried to specify a bit more explaining the situation that there is in Asturias. We found out some information about Gijón too.

11. Ecuator, Colombia, Portugal, Brazil, Romania, Argentina and Morocco are the countries of origin of most of the 29,656 immigrants residing in Spain. Of these, 15,985 are women and 24,779 have a residence permit. At February 28, 12,615 were affiliated to the Social Security, which makes up 0.67 percent of the national total, amount to 1,876,401 immigrants.

12. Asturias is the third autonomous region with the smallest number of immigrants. Only computed less foreign people Extremadura, with 10. 789 (the 0.57 percent of the national total), and Cantabria, with 11,435 (0.61 percent). The situation in which they live many of the immigrants residing in the Principality was denounced yesterday by the secretary of UGT Asturias, coinciding with the celebration today, "Day against racism and xenophobia".

13. The district of El Llano is the largest of Gijon and have the most immigrants another district is Arena and it has a lot of immigrants. Somió receives more than half of the immigrant population. According to the municipal study, most of these citizens have a level of education comparable with the Spanish Secondary Education Certificate. On the other hand, the numbers of illiterate immigrants or without any kind of training are high. Up to 1,781 people from other countries have not academic studies.

14. THE PROCESS - 3 INVESTIGATION IN THE STREET… In order to continue with the investigation we made some interviews to different immigrants to be able to know some more things. Alberto made the interviews to three young boys (of similar age to ours) and Vanesa to three adult people. In this way we wanted to know all cases that could be in the different ages.

15. The questions that we made... What´s your name? How old are you? Where are you from? When did you come to Spain? Why did you decide to come? Do you feel good here? Why/why not? Have you been rejected any time? In what way? Can you explain how was your life there? What is the main difference between your country and Spain?

16. CONCLUSIONS FROM THE INTERVIEWS All of them come to Spain to earn some money because they really need it. When they travel to other country they leave all their families in their own country because they haven’t got enough money to come all together. Many want them to come in the future. In some cases they’re rejected by the people and for that they feel bad and uncomfortable. If they find a job they don’t usually receive much money. In their countries they don’t have enough money or food and these are main causes that make them come to Spain. Ecuator is the country from which most people come. All think that the main difference is the economical situation that there is between their countries and Spain. They don’t mind the posibble differences in the religion or the culture.

17. OUR OPINION ABOUT IMMIGRATION We often talk about this subject but I think that in fact we don’t know as much as we think. Doing this project we could know some things that maybe we hadn’t previously realised. Now I know real cases of people who are immigrants and they all said that it wasn’t easy for them. For that in my opinion knowing the situation and trying to put into their shoes we could change our point of view. It’s difficult to imagine in what conditions they live for deciding to move to other country and change all their life. In the media we can read or listen a lot of information about it but in my opinion it only really speaks about it like a problem, to receive immigrants to Spain could be a good aspect in some ways. Individualy we can think about it seriously to have a reasonable opinion. We may also try to make people aware about the importance of accepting differences between all people and learn to live with them.

18. To sump up... think about it! We are all different and we have to learn to accept these differences. It doesn’t matter where they’re from. The immigrants are common people like us who usually come to Spain to find a job. When they live in Spain they acquire the same rights and duties as us.

19. THE CHALLENGES OF GLOBALIZATION: IMMIGRATION AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY A PRESENTATION MADE FOR THE ETWINNING PROJECT ABOUT IMMIGRATION AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY I.E.S. ROSARIO DE ACUÑA VANESA BORDALLO ALBERTO BERNAL 1º BACHILLERATO B