Tag Archives: Spain

Investigation: One small step for a few, one giant leap for the rest: how to become a European citizen

This is the first of a three-part investigation I co-reported and co-wrote with María Álvarez del Vayo, Ter Garcia, Carmen Torrecillas, and Adrián Maqueda of Civio with help from some EDJNet partners. Part 2, “Stranger in a native landis here. Part 3, “People of no nation: how being stateless means living without rights” is here. The data visualizations are only visible at the Civio website. También hay una versión en español.

Magali Varela de Torres, who moved from Venezuela to Madrid, Spain, in 2017, is the only member of her nuclear family who is not yet Spanish. Her husband was Spanish and now her daughter, son and granddaughter are Spanish, too. Varela de Torres, a retired social worker who has official recognition of disability due to her Alzheimer’s, has lived in Spain long enough to apply for citizenship, too. But Spain’s Ministry of Justice has not processed her requests for a health exemption from the culture test required for naturalisation. Her daughter Adriana Torres has submitted three requests over the last three years and keeps getting the same robotic reply from the ministry asking for information she has already submitted. After listening to her daughter tell the story, Varela de Torres says, “It’s as if I don’t exist.”

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Feminism moves too fast for football

Spanish women greeted the overdue resignation of Luis Rubiales as head of the Spanish FA with a weary nod of approval. Even women attending a feminist monologue in one of the most progressive neighbourhoods in central Madrid, Lavapiés, were tired of talking about him grabbing and kissing Jennifer Hermoso after last month’s World Cup win. “It’s too bad we’re talking about this instead of the World Cup victory,” says Cristina, 33, a civil servant. She had just been to see a performance of No solo duelen los golpes at the Teatro del Barrio.

The show, whose title means “It’s not just the hitting that hurts,” is a one-hander by the actor Pamela Palenciano about a controlling relationship and the sexist structures across society. One of Cristina’s companions at the show that night, Irene, a 35-year-old architect, told me that the kiss, which Hermoso says was not consensual, was inappropriate, and that “ten years ago, this wouldn’t have been news”. The difference, Irene said, was that Spain’s women have progressed. “The big change hasn’t been in men,” she said.

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Racism: The shame of Spain

In Madrid, a few years ago, two teams of kids were playing football. A young boy scored a goal and set off in celebration, but then something odd happened – the opposing team’s managers asked the referee to stop the game. The boy, they argued, was too old to be on the pitch.

Dolores Galindo, the president of the Dragones de Lavapiés football club, was there. Lavapiés is one of Madrid’s melting-pot neighbourhoods, and it was one of her players who scored the goal. The boy wasn’t too old, she says. He was entitled to play. But on the other hand, she says, he did have darker skin.

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