Dominican or Brazilian?

That’s what a group of women yelled to me on our last walk around Sevilla. They were a group of Dominican women working as contracted maids in Spain. The Dominican and Spainish government have had this deal going for years where both governments in the spirit of international cooperation facilitate the exploitation of female Dominican labor by middle-class Spainish families. As immigration schemes go, this one is not that bad. As they explained after two years of near slavery they get that much-coveted visa and are “free” to work elsewhere for shit wages. Talking to them, even if ever so briefly was a nice trip back down to Earth. After being a white man in Senegal for four months and spending a week in Spain, doing the hostel circuit hanging with other privileged young people from North America, Australia and Western Europe I had forgotten that I am Dominican and we have it rough in this world.

The irony of all of this is that not until too long ago, Spain was a net exporter of people. And now they are all pissed about immigration with right-wing idiots holding protests claiming that Spain is Catholic, not Muslim (never mind that the Muslims in Spain achieved heights of civilization never matched by the Catholics, and that they built most of the impressive shit which drives Spain’s tourism industry). In 1933, political upheaval brought a new government to Cuba which rescinded the imperialist Platt Amendment and also passed a new law restricting how many foreign workers could be employed by Cuban companies. The law targeted the numerous Spainish who had immigrated to Cuba, and now just a lifetime later Cubans pray, beg and hustle to make it to Spain. Spain is actually one of the few countries that has become a First World, certified-developed country under neoliberal hegemony (mostly through tons of EU development aid, none of that free trade and foreign development non-sense they preach to non-white countries, and it’s still not as rich as the EU15 average). It’s prize? It now has its own seat in the global exploitation game.