From traders to workers : Indian immigration in Spain

Abstract

The Indian community currently residing in Spain is the result of various differentiated migration currents in two very different stages of migration. The first, which began at the end of the 19th Century and reached its peak in the 1970s, was sparked by investment opportunities in the Canary Islands and the Spanish enclaves in northern Africa for the commercial activities of the Sindhis settled in other areas of the Maghreb and the Mediterranean. Over the decades this flow has created a small, distinctive community of common Indian descent that includes very diverse national and legal affiliations, and also an involvement in business activities. This community is highly visible in the business sectors of the locations in which it settled and enjoys a good reputation and strong institutional relations, despite maintaining weak social ties with the host society. At the end of the 1980s a new flow began to arrive from northern India, especially Punjab and Haryana producing a growing internal diversification of the Indians community in Spain, a traditionally homogenous group. In addition to religious and geographic diversity, there are also differences in migration plans and expectations and legal status, caused by factors such as date of arrival, migration expectations and opportunity to enter the Spanish labor market.