Children of the Motherland: The Otherization of Latin American Immigrants in Contemporary Spain

Since the end of the twentieth century, Ramiro de Maetzu’s concept of Hispanidad has been tested by the experience of many Latin Americans who have immigrated to Spain. These immigrants, especially those who belong to ethnic or racial minorities, have faced social rejection. In other words, neither Spaniards nor Latin Americans feel the fraternity that Maetzu and others had preached. And, contrary to Hispanidad, Spain and its former colonies have an Others-versus-Us relationship, one that is complicated further by the intersection of factors such as race and ethnicity, which have profoundly shaped their immigration experience in the “Motherland.”