Covid-19 has removed the anonymity of immigrant communities living on the Costa Vicentina, people who are mostly dedicated to picking fruit and vegetables in the region’s greenhouses.
They tell a story of success and failure. Success comes from the growth of companies that contribute to national wealth, increase exports and modernize agriculture, which is now much more efficient. Jobs were created, GDP increased, dynamism was introduced into the local economy and revenue collected by the State increased.
Immigration rejuvenated demographics and brought new businesses, ranging from supermarkets to convenience stores, including small service companies. More jobs, more revenue, more dynamism.
Businesses worthy of national commendation were opened. Know, dear reader, that the best Thai restaurant in Portugal is located in a very small town on the Alentejo coast, so small that it isn’t even a village. The space, simple and traditional, is run by a family that has sympathy in its blood and guarantees, year after year, homemade and honest food – the pad thai it is irreproachable, free from the unbearable gastronomic pyrotechnics of city restaurants made with Instagram in mind.
But the medal has a reverse. Many of the new businesses opened in spaces where there were previously cafes, taverns and recreational clubs where the indigenous population – largely elderly, with little education and even less income – lived together. The Thai restaurant is an example of this.
Places to socialize are disappearing, depriving many people of the reason to leave the house. This is not the mere closure of places where people played cards, remembered the glories of their youth and discussed the passing of time, but the abrupt extinction of places essential to the social cohesion of these towns.
A similar phenomenon occurs in public space. By definition, immigrants are of working age, they are people who commute between home and work. They’re on the street. When work is done, they take advantage of the gardens and other outdoor spaces to interact with colleagues and play with their children. In some rural areas of Alentejo and Algarve, they have a hegemonic presence in public space. Yet another incentive for the indigenous population to go into exile at home.
Cultural barriers make it difficult to bridge the gap between new and old residents. The language, religion and customs are different. The urbanite elites who see this as a sign of xenophobia only attest to their profound alienation from the Portugal that exists outside the big cities.
The concept of guilt is useless. Immigrants do what we Portuguese did in France, Luxembourg and Belgium: live among patricians and open businesses using products from their homeland that help alleviate homesickness.
In turn, a certain resentment on the part of those who have lived there for decades is legitimate. Their land, which is also that of their parents and grandparents, shrank considerably and was occupied by foreign people with whom they have little or nothing in common. Furthermore, there is work for low-skilled and low-paid immigration, but not for the children of the land, who studied in the hope of living better than the generations that preceded them. It is normal for them to feel like foreigners in their own country. Passos Coelho is right.
The problem must be solved by those who created it: the State – central and local – failed in border policies, failed in the integration of those who enter and ignored the concerns of those who welcome. The biggest failure is in the way in which the territory was (not) thought of. If there is one thing that immigration has demonstrated in recent years, it is that ignoring reality inevitably ends up making problems worse.
Politologist. Write without applying the new Orthographic Agreement.
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