When Spain suffered an economic meltdown about two years ago, it set off shock waves that are currently pounding Mexico. A wave of young Spanish immigrants and changes in the business landscape are two of the most evident aftereffects here.
Julián Ferrero and Paula Abril are two twenty-something Spaniards who have been in Mexico for just three and six months respectively. The general unemployment rate in Spain is about 25 percent, with a total of five million unemployed (between the ages of 18 and 24, nearly one in two are out of work or education), they say, and this sad fact sparked their desire to come to Mexico. But, once here, the Mexican climate and better prospects turned their dispositions sunny.
Abril finished her university studies in environmental sciences in 2011 and spent about a year unemployed before she came here. In Guadalajara, she found work in a higher-end restaurant.
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“I’m satisfied with my job. It’s not what I studied, but I’m making enough to live comfortably.” Abril explained that she has a “roomie” in Guadalajara and that she is earning less than she might have in Spain — if there were any work — but that the cost of living here is less than in Spain.
Other Spanish expatriates report very good comparative earnings in Latin America. Santiago Roncagliolo, a Spaniard living in Peru, reports in the newspaper El Pais that, “an educated professional [in Spain] earns less than in Peru.”
“My brother works as a journalist in my hometown, Jaen,” said Ferrero, “and he earns 300 euros a month. But at such jobs, beginners used to earn 1,000 a month.”
After arriving in Guadalajara, Ferrero worked a short time at an upscale bakery — a “trampoline,” he calls it — and is now organizing a food business with a Mexican partner. “We want to start a business that uses real Spanish ingredients.”
With talk of food, both Ferrero and Abril becomes nostalgic for Spain and begin listing ingredients that cannot be found here. On the other hand, Abril emphasizes that she is happy in Guadalajara. “Everything is perfect. The only thing is that Spain is far away and it’s expensive to go there.
“I miss my family, friends and the food. But that’s all!” she emphasizes.
The young people recount how the Spanish crisis was sparked by a real estate boom and the bad politics of banks.
“We’re angry about that,” says Ferrero. In 2011, in all large Spanish cities, he says, there were massive demonstrations by people of all ages.
“Now all of my friends have left Spain,” says Abril.
“Unemployment among young people in Spain is very high — around 50 percent,” says Spaniard Manuel Barra, who helps manage the Spanish restaurant Riscal on Lopez Cotilla. “So they come to Latin America because the language is the same.”
Barra sees parallels between the current exodus and the one that occurred after the Spanish Civil War. “Most of our customers at Riscal are older people who came here in the 1940s because of the civil war,” he explained. “They were grateful that Mexico opened its arms. They came without anything, so they had to work hard. A lot of them were intellectuals — teachers, professors, writers. They taught Mexicans a lot.”
Barra also pointed out that many big businesses in Guadalajara are Spanish and have or had major ties with Spain. He ticked off a list: The cellular company Movistar, the hotels Riu and Portobelo, the banks Santander and Bancomer, the stores Bodega Aurrera, Palacio de Hierro and Liverpool.
And, due to such ties, it appears there will be more Spaniards coming to Mexico soon.
“In November, they closed the branch where I worked,” said a young female teller in Guadalajara, referring to a branch of BBVA Bancomer, a Mexican-Spanish bank. “They’re closing other branches and replacing some Mexican workers with 1,500 Spanish people who are coming here. I’m afraid of losing my job.”
The dynamics the teller cites are precisely the reason that Mexican immigration policies toward Spaniards have recently toughened, say the young Spaniards Ferrero and Abril.
“Working visas are getting more difficult to aquire,” said Ferrero. “I read that four years ago, 11,000 Spanish people were working legally in Mexico. But in 2012, that had increased to 55,000!”
“And up until last November, we could come here with a tourist visa and change it to a working visa. But now you have to receive the offer of work in Spain and return here,” said Abril.
“Of course, for a long time, it’s been extremely hard for Mexicans to go to Spain,” she added parenthetically.
“I associate mostly with Mexicans, so I don’t see a lot of Spanish people here,” she said. “But my Mexican friends say there are a lot more here now than there were before.”