By: ildefonso gutiérrez azopardo & José martín buenadicha  (Page 39/5)

This manuscript has been peer-reviewed, accepted, and endorsed by the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA) as a significant contribution to the scholarship and practice of education administration. In addition to publication in the Connexions Content Commons, this module is published in the International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation , Volume 5, Number 1 (January – March 2010). Formatted and edited in Connexions by Julia Stanka, Texas A&M University.

A reflection: the other faces of immigration

Ildefonso Gutiérrez Azopardo&José Martín Buenadicha

More than making commentaries, I would like to contribute some reflections about this theme knowing that it is impossible to generalize something as complex as immigration is becoming: diversity of people, diverse circumstances, diversity of causes, diversity of countries of origin and destiny, etc. All of this makes me be cautious, but I won’t let that prevent me from giving my modest, personal and professional experience on the subject.

When speaking of immigration I refer to the one in Spain, where throughout its history there has been all types of immigration and much of it now comes from Latin America and Africa. I leave aside the immigration of foreigners who have chosen our country as a place to rest, well-being, businesses or culture, and what we call "forced emigration" that occurred in history with the million slaves taken mainly from Africa and, even continue today by the illegal traffic of human beings. I am going to talk about we could describe as "caused emigration," which takes place when the circumstances of a country make their inhabitants leave in search of a better life and sometimes to be able to conserve what they have. For that reason I believe that first and foremost right of this class of immigrants is “to not be forced to leave their native country against their will.”

Generally we insist on immigration as a cultural phenomenon; in numbers and statistics, in the laws of foreignism, the immigrant’s integration, in the problems that children/adolescent education states, and in xenophobia and racism. With the object to extend and deepen in the phenomenon of immigration, I believe that it would be good to take a glance to the countries of origin of the immigrants to see what is happening there. This I dare to call "the other faces of immigration.”

You only have to glean here and there into immigrant’s personal testimonials and in the news.

These countries are usually referred to as “Third World Countries.” Perhaps it would be necessary to specify this concept. With the exception of a few nations in which the nature has not been so bountiful or in which continued natural disasters have caused long term damages, the majority of these countries are rich not only for their potential resources, but also because of the few resources that have been exploited allowed them to satisfy their living necessities and to reach an economic and social level with a growth of well-being and a higher cultural level of its citizens. Although we classified them as countries in "development routes," they are in progress reaching higher goals and ambitious perspectives of the future. Recently, many have found new energetic resources: petroleum and the discovery of minerals essential for the development of new technologies.