Conclusions of the Project

After interviewing Cristina´s grandparents, we have got some conclusions about emigration during 1960- 1970s, focusing on emigration to Brussels.

First of all, we asked them about their expectations when going to the other country. As most of the amount of people that decided to emigrate to other countries during this period (others left the country because of political reasons), they wanted to improve their live conditions, find a job well considerate and better paid, get better education for their children, etc.

However, we found out, that the difficult decision of emigrating was not only made because of necessity but also because there was a sort of cultural trend. This was the result of the increasing number of people emigrating. When Cristina´s grandparents decided to move to another country, some of their family’s relatives and friends, who had moved to Brussels previously, supported them.

All their expectations were reached, so despite some difficulties such as the language and that emigration was not well considered in Spain, they stayed in Brussels for eleven years, even though at first they thought about just one or two years working there. We must also take into account that after all, they came back to Spain, as a result of some health problems and the feeling of missing their family, for example Felisa’s the mother, didn’t want them to leave Spain.

Afterwards, we wanted to know if they went with their work contracts in order or just the passport. When we started the research for some information to define our interview topics we discovered that although at this moment there were agreements between countries about emigration and immigration, many people emigrated out of these agreements. A high percentage of the Spanish emigrants just travelled with their passports, as a tourist, willing to find a job outside the Francoist regime.

In the case of our narrator and as previously said, emigrated to Brussels as tourists, just with the passport. This means that they did not move under the international agreement between Spain and Belgium.

Man with his bags waiting in a train station

Finally, we think that, nowadays and mainly in the last years there has been a lot of immigration in Spain as well as emigration to other countries. We must keep in mind that Spanish people were also emigrants, and this emigration even was favoured because of the agreements and in general there was no problem between emigrants and the citizens as Cristina´s grandparents told us.

Besides, more and more, after obtaining their degree, because of the crisis, Spanish students decide to look for a job in foreign countries.