The journalist published a book about the Spanish who went to Holland in the 60
The Cadiz Antonio Rios ate dog meat for weeks for not understanding the language
ELSA GARCÍA DE BLAS
"I was illiterate . The first few weeks in Amsterdam in 1964 ate corned beef to save money. And I liked it. Until one day the butcher asked me how was my dog. Wow , wow, man said . No dog, I replied. So cans of meat who are ? Insisted . Mother! All that time had eaten dog meat ! . " The Cadiz Antonio Rios emigrated to Holland in the sixties to work in Ford with little more than a cardboard suitcase . Steven Adolf , Dutch journalist (The Hague, 1959) has collected her story and that of other Spanish emigrants of those years in the book Mi casa, su casa . A table with Spanish emigrants from Holland, presented today in Madrid, along with an exhibition of photographs and objects of the protagonists. Adolf reviews your book to find the data: " Some 80,000 Spaniards then worked in the Netherlands ." The grandparents of young emigrants today also had to leave the country to make a living . And they did so without languages. No Ryanair. No smartphone.
"It was people who in many cases had never left her village," says the reporter between the first and second cut coffee drunk in the historic Commercial Café Madrid, with its marble tables and mirrored walls. "Antonio Rios, for example, thought that Spanish was spoken in the Netherlands, because he knew that King Philip II had ruled there." The gastarbeiders (outside workers) Spanish arrived in a cold country, with timetables and customs very different from those of Franco's Spain. "In 1963 a wildcat strike broke out between the Spanish miners Heerlen (southeastern Netherlands) because after finishing the working day in the camp, rather than the fiance got them ham sausage, and considered unacceptable." The early years living in camps many businesses, sometimes crammed into small apartments without shower. Adolf hurries and has coffee with background noise gatherings, how migration to the Netherlands was organized: "In 1961, the two countries signed a retainer agreement Spaniards. They were recruited directly from Spain to work in the burgeoning Dutch industry, hungry for cheap labor. "
The morning of the interview is cold in Madrid and there are still remnants of garbage in the streets after the strike of street cleaning, in a sort of metaphor for the state of things. The journalist, correspondent in Spain the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant , came to the capital to be installed for the first time in 1993 . " They started the boom years . As the Dutch say , it seemed that the trees grew to the sky , "recalls . From the country that is now surprised that even continue to keep the savoir vivre , despite the difficulties , and that citizens , says , " do not demand political responsibilities ."
In Spain 20 years later, 16,700 people have fled to the Netherlands in search of a job. Adolf also feels somehow an immigrant because his house correspondent has spent much time away from their land. " The place where you were born is just one more aspect of your personality ," he says . And traveling , concludes , we learn : " Immigrating forces you to think about the country you arrive, but also about your own origins "
The Cadiz Antonio Rios ate dog meat for weeks for not understanding the language
ELSA GARCÍA DE BLAS
"I was illiterate . The first few weeks in Amsterdam in 1964 ate corned beef to save money. And I liked it. Until one day the butcher asked me how was my dog. Wow , wow, man said . No dog, I replied. So cans of meat who are ? Insisted . Mother! All that time had eaten dog meat ! . " The Cadiz Antonio Rios emigrated to Holland in the sixties to work in Ford with little more than a cardboard suitcase . Steven Adolf , Dutch journalist (The Hague, 1959) has collected her story and that of other Spanish emigrants of those years in the book Mi casa, su casa . A table with Spanish emigrants from Holland, presented today in Madrid, along with an exhibition of photographs and objects of the protagonists. Adolf reviews your book to find the data: " Some 80,000 Spaniards then worked in the Netherlands ." The grandparents of young emigrants today also had to leave the country to make a living . And they did so without languages. No Ryanair. No smartphone.
"It was people who in many cases had never left her village," says the reporter between the first and second cut coffee drunk in the historic Commercial Café Madrid, with its marble tables and mirrored walls. "Antonio Rios, for example, thought that Spanish was spoken in the Netherlands, because he knew that King Philip II had ruled there." The gastarbeiders (outside workers) Spanish arrived in a cold country, with timetables and customs very different from those of Franco's Spain. "In 1963 a wildcat strike broke out between the Spanish miners Heerlen (southeastern Netherlands) because after finishing the working day in the camp, rather than the fiance got them ham sausage, and considered unacceptable." The early years living in camps many businesses, sometimes crammed into small apartments without shower. Adolf hurries and has coffee with background noise gatherings, how migration to the Netherlands was organized: "In 1961, the two countries signed a retainer agreement Spaniards. They were recruited directly from Spain to work in the burgeoning Dutch industry, hungry for cheap labor. "
The morning of the interview is cold in Madrid and there are still remnants of garbage in the streets after the strike of street cleaning, in a sort of metaphor for the state of things. The journalist, correspondent in Spain the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant , came to the capital to be installed for the first time in 1993 . " They started the boom years . As the Dutch say , it seemed that the trees grew to the sky , "recalls . From the country that is now surprised that even continue to keep the savoir vivre , despite the difficulties , and that citizens , says , " do not demand political responsibilities ."
In Spain 20 years later, 16,700 people have fled to the Netherlands in search of a job. Adolf also feels somehow an immigrant because his house correspondent has spent much time away from their land. " The place where you were born is just one more aspect of your personality ," he says . And traveling , concludes , we learn : " Immigrating forces you to think about the country you arrive, but also about your own origins "
