Unconfortable Views 1

It was somewhere in mid july, when the temperatures were reaching the 40C and half of the catalan population was on holidays. The unfortunate were still working, and needed nannys for their children who were still too young to stay on their own. In the past years immigrants have arrived non stop to our country, increasing exponentially yearly. And my town has attracted many of them, specially due to the growth of snobby people who have moved from Barcelona to St.Cugat. Of course they are in need of a man to clean their car, one to cook, one to take care of their children, a housekeeper etc. So now when every spanish person is doing their siesta and all the shops are closed, you walk in the streets and you come across the ecuatorians, colombians,peruvians,bolivians,argentinans,venezuelans etc... Its an enormous change from a few years back when all you could encounter were catalan people who had lived their for ages, not even those snobs from barcelona had moved to st.cugat... now its a mix of immigrants. First there are the snoby barcelona immigrants who decided to move to st.cugat and procrate so that our town becomes the town with the highest natality in catalonia and the immigrants from south america. . . . . Whether i like the situation or not, somewhere in mid July i was confronted with a situation that i wish would have been different.

5pm was the meeting time, infront of the train station of course, our small train station. It was friday! End of the week, for me holidays so of course, no problem...friday, monday, tuesay they all ment party... but for many it was the beggining of the weekend. I forgot that in spain people tend to be a bit late, and i arrived at 4.50. Having nothing to do i just sat in the steps of the stairs and as always started to look around the square infront of me. Its a newly renovated square, which you can reach from 3 different streets, and cars cant pass there. So i sat and observe, and it was then that i started to realize that something was different that day, the weekend for many people was gona become not such a great one.

There was a police car, hidden in a corner of a square. If you were coming from the street in the far left you could not see the car. Barcelona is full of immigrants without legal papers, so of course the last thing you want to do is go near a police car. But this time they had done it right, they had hidden their car. Not only was the car hidden but also the policemen were completley dressed without their uniforms. It was almost 5pm so many people were coming to the station,but because it was holidays only a few were catalans, a great majority were immigrants. They were easily detectable, non chick cloths, darker skin, darker hair, not wearing the typical menorquines that every catlalan wears in the summer. . . Although maybe a few were indistinguishable the majority were.

Everytime there was one of them coming to the station , which they were coming in a constant flow, the policeman in his nice shirt would go up to them and show them the police badge and say "police, i want to see your documents". You would see a few persons geting some documents out of their purses and them and being let to pass, the rest were taken to the car. What happened there i did not have clear, so i took a walk,but i couldnt get too close. However,there were many of them standing by the car while three police men interrogated them. I went back to my sitting place in the stairs, it was so unconfortable to sit there. I had passed from my typical view of seeing people coming and meeting friends, to observing how the police had set a trap for those immigrants. I saw the women and men coming with their smiles in their faces, they were over with their job for that hour, maybe they were going to the next one maybe they were going to enjoy a nice weekend. And then came the man "Police, Documents" in such a rude way. I felt like i could not sit there and observe. I know,actually i knew that immigration has to be controled,i can still not decide which level of controlability must be attained. But i could not bear sitting there and seeing someone pass by and geting checked and taken away. Couldnt i do something? I felt like running two streets down and telling them all to not take that street but to enter the station through the back door.

When my friends came, we took a walk to the monestary and i saw a few people just sitting infront of the shops and not going towards the station. . . they had been warned by their friends or by someone i guess. . .

Sometimes im the one controled, everybody gets their checks and scrutineies, we get retained for reasons for which maybe we shouldnt. We get judged for not looking the right way, we get kicked off places for not having the right requisites. But it was disgusting and unconfortable to sit there and to see how systematically those people were checked, and who knows were they ended up afterwards.


That day i felt that i could connect with those persons somehow, whether they were immigrants or not. I could see them coming towards the station, i saw the policeman approaching them, i knew what was gona happen. Yet,i just sat and observed, they were taken to the hidden car, and then i never saw them again...

I would of have liked to say that next time i would of have stand up and help the persons, but we all know we are not heros. One month later i found myself in the middle of a police assault to the indian shops where i was shopping in the middle of Jaipur. For the first seconds i just stood there, then i had to run i didnt want to be beaten up with the bamboo sticks that the police carried. . . its so easy to dream that one day we will be heros.