The world is globalizing. We find ourselves in a broad changing process that includes not only the areas of economy, business, and entertainment, but also the daily lives of people as citizens of a country as well as individuals. Society demands more flexibility and movement, and the world turns a more open place, each day with more opportunities to find what is best for ourselves. In the face of difficulties, that we will observe, each day more people decide to leave their homeland for a new beginning in a new country.

In this essay we will specially observe the situation of a group in a position even more disadvantageous than the immigrants, these are the women immigrants. They confront a situation quite different from the men, they deal with different problems and dilemmas Women in general struggle with the double shift, being at work during the day and working for the family when they get home, this in addition to all the complications that being an immigrant involves, counting with less opportunities and possibilities of professional and personal growth.

The National Statistics Institute stated 44.000.000 people live in Spain, and 3.500.000 are immigrants, representing 8% of the population. Maybe this number does not surprise us when comparing it to the numbers of other countries, but it definitely surprises us when comparing it to the numbers in Spain ten years ago, when it was much more lower.

In the face of so many demographic facts, it seems impossible not to study these immigration cycles statisticly. How many immigrants? How many are illegal? How many children do they have? How many are American and how many African? These numbers are calculated annually, maybe forgetting that these are not numbers, but persons. The question should not be, how many immigrants?, but why do they migrate? Or instead of, how many children they have?, how can we integrate these children in the Spanish schools? We have to make a greater effort to understand the different problems and situations an immigrant confronts.

First of all we have to make a distinction between the two main immigrant groups, so that it can be clear who we are refering to.

The first group is comprised of women who come to Spain at certain time in their life although nothing obligates them to leave their country. Most of the time they come for business purposes, for example their company transfers them to Spain for a specific period of time. This group of women are well educated and already employed, they understand that moving to a foreign country is a natural part of the business world in the XXI century. Another group of women come to determined parts of Spain for their retirement, for example the Mediterranean coast or the Balearic Islands, usually accompanied by their husbands. In both cases, most often they come from other countries of the European Union where they lived economically stable and they continue to live the same way in Spain. For both groups of women, that constitute a large part of the foreign population, it is more convenient the name foreigners.

The second group is comprised of women which the worst circumstances made them leave their country. They come from under-developed or Third World Countries. For them, immigration is the only or the most promising possibility to resolve their problems. Nevertheless, when they arrive in Spain they encounter more problems because of their economic situation, the lack of education, and their legal state, just to mention some examples. These are the immigrant women which situation we will observe.

No one wakes up one morning and decides to leave behind the country where one was born and raised to move to Spain. There are interests, doubts, and wishes that slowly accumulate and finally culminate with immigration. For it to take place, certain factors are necessary to push a person out of the country, socially defined as 'push', as well as factors that attract immigrants to Spain known as 'pull'. Without the combination of both, immigration would not take place. By nature, human beings look forward to a better future, for this reason he will seek for a better quality of life. For some, immigration is the opportunity to escape a social political oppressive country. For others, it is the promise, or even the possibility of better health, better housing, good education for their children, a better quality of life, what will shake them from their sedentary life.

Some sociologists have described the immigrant's life as a one lived between two cultures. People migrate from their country running away from internal situations and conditions, not running away from their homeland. For this reason, when they get to Spain it is difficult for them to break with the person inside of them that still has not migrated. It is impossible to expect a complete and perfect assimiliation from the immigrants to the Spanish lifestyle, but because of their strong sense of culture, the minimum assimilation takes place.

The immigrants find themselves in the middle of two countries, in the middle of two cultures, and divided by two languages. They use their first language for their personal life, with family in Spain and with others in their social circle, which most of the time are other immigrants of the same nationality. On the other hand, they speak Spanish just for work purposes. The two lives do not mix. The language is just another barrier making resistance to assimilation, in addition to other cultural differences.

The acculturation problem worsens with a new immigration tendency that is only attached to the economic situation. Some immigrants consider themselves temporary immigrants because their goal is to stay a specified amount of time in Spain, make money, to then return to their country. The majority does not achieve this and find themselves constantly entering and leaving Spain. Whether they achieve their goal or not, the temporary immigrants find the idea of assimilation as even less necessary.

If it is true that the immigration process is a difficult one, for women immigrants it can be even more complicated. But the truth is that for many of them, specially the ones that come from Islamic cultures, this is the first trip outside their community or family. In Spain, the women's emigration cycle has suffered a great increase; before the 1980's women only represented 8% of the immigrants. It is fair to say that immigration in Spain has feminized. A lot of women play the double role of working outside as well as inside the house, having thus double load of work. It cannot only be talked about a single family organization model, therefore we will discuss the different forms of family organization.

In the first case women arrive to Spain leaving their family (husband and /or children) in their country. One plan might be for them to come after, when her life conditions in Spain are more stable, or the other is for the women to earn and save enough money, and after a certain amount of time return to their country and family. This group of women that migrate alone, become working women, but for most of them family is still the first priority. A better quality of life is what moves them, for this reason they send a big part of their income to their family.

In the second case, the entire family moves to Spain. Sometimes they arrive after their husband has settled in and arranged the most important; housing, work, or sometimes they move simultaneously with their husband making the children come after. In the majority of the cases these families want to move to Spain permanently, thus requiring even more preparation and organization.

In many of the cases they already know other immigrants before establishing in Spain, they have contacts with the immigrant community. These contacts are so broad that they are commonly referred to as the relation chain, it is usually comprised of immigrants of the same nationality or sometimes even family. The value chains have for women cannot be neglected; friends, useful advice, financial help; but on the other hand it becomes a barrier for connecting more with the Spanish society, with their surroundings. For example, most of the times immigrant marriages are monoethnic and groups of the same nationalities are very closed.

Without a doubt, integration is a key in order to lead a "normal" life - a Spanish life without neglecting or forgetting their own roots. Parents are the best example for their children, it is very important that parents, specially mothers who in most cases spend more time with the children, offer them the possibility of completely submerging into the new country. The knowledge of the Spanish language is essential to carry an active life in Spain. Fortunately, some immigrant groups already possess this skill because they come from Spanish speaking countries. This being precisely the reason why Spain is so attractive for Latinamerican citizens. Nevertheless, language becomes a true problem for others. The labour market is very competitive, so without the adequate knowledge, an immigrant will not get a good job and therefore will not be able to take advantage of all the new opportunities Spain can offer. This is precisely one area that the Spanish government will have to intervene in, offering free of cost Spanish courses for immigrants. It is evident that there are open issues and interventions to help immigrants that the state has to attend. Spain is still not a very experienced country as a receiver for so many immigrants.

The life of the immigrant woman has been described as one unstable, and one in which they can feel loneliness and insecurity. Women that come from the most traditional cultures are not use to receiving salary for their work. If they do not speak Spanish it is hard to find help centers or social workers who speak their language. If they immigrate with children, the problem of finding a school who teaches Spanish will arise. All these circumstances affect the mother as well as the child. His personal identity will also become trapped between two persons. The development of security, self-esteem, and language will be delayed in comparison with other Spanish children his age. Naturally, these circumstances, in addition to the cultural differences will make the child feel unadapted and his schoolmates see him as 'different'.

Even though complete cultural assimilation of the second generation may seem the ideal goal, this can also present a problem. For example the case can be of a Northafrican girl raised in Spain with contrasting lifestyle models. Will she copy her mother's model which represents who she is and where she comes from, or does she copy her friend's model which represents who she wants to become in the future? These are not easy decisions for a fifteen-year old girl to make, and as well, are not comfortable topics for a traditional mother to discuss. It is not only economic or housing problems that immigrants have to go through, there are many other psychological and social complications immigrants confront that we have to take into account.

Spain is portrayed as a very open and tolerant society, but the citizens' real opinion about economic immigrants depends on many other factors such as age, social class, and education level. In general, Spanish public opinion is in favour of limiting immigration of less industrialized countries to some extent. As one goes deeper into this generalized opinion, specific patterns are found. The younger the person, the higher the social class, and the more inclined to left side politics, the person will be less in favor of limiting immigration.

Although public opinion is divided by these social factors, in general terms, citizens want some type of limit for immigration, but they are also in favor of integration. The fact that they favour limits should not be seen as something negative, thus it does not mean they want to exclude immigrants, it is simply that controlling their entrance can assure more attention and services for immigrants, and consecuently a higher level of acculturation and integration.

Sometimes the opinion of those in favour of limiting immigration is influenced by false perceptions. It is possible that they reject immigrants because of the unemployment situation in Spain. Some Spaniards have the mentality that immigrants will literally steal their jobs. This conception is completely wrong, and in fact immigration is necessary for Spain's economy because the population gets older, the elasticity in the labour market, and thirdly because competitive demands are higher every day. The immigrants presence today is still seen as an anomaly or a temporal state, and this increases xenophoby and rejection towards the immigrants. Although the world is more transnationalized in the XXI century, that might be understood as a global or European society, people tend to defend or protect their national surroundings.

The majority of immigrants have one characteristic in common: they left their country in search of a better life, specifically in economic terms, this affirmation is supported by the 54%. However, in Spain they encounter an equally complicated situation. In Spain it is indispensable to work, not only for food and housing, but also to be able to legalize their statute as immigrants. Finding a job is not an easy task, not even for Spanish citizens. A huge obstacle is the lack of education and professional formation as it is understood in Spain. The majority of immigrants come from a low social class, which unfortunately implies a basic education, and in most of the cases women immigrants are even less educated. It is very common for problems to arise at the moment of revalidating education, including university education. For this reason women find themselves with no other option than to look for jobs in any other sector. Being employed is the priority as soon as they arrive in Spain.

Economic immigrants, the ones that are being discussed in this case, work primarily in the construction, domestic service, and commerce sectors. Construction, in the majority of cases is related to men. As the traditional role of Spanish women, as well as in other societies of the world, is the one of a mother and housewife, immigrant women look for jobs in this sector. A big majority of them, 23%, versus 1% of men, have some kind of domestic service job. In spain there is a great demand for these jobs, consequently women immigrants work as nannies, cooks, and cleaning ladies. Spanish women rarely accept this type of work anymore. They possess of a better education and have an image of themselves as more modern women. Home employees that work as interns are most exclusively immigrant women. It is a hard job and not that worthy, but as immigrants feel a great pressure and necessity to work, they have no other option than to accept this job. Furthermore, the two biggest immigrant centers, the cities of Madrid and Barcelona have a urban character that offers more possibilities in this sector. In this cities in which there exists a huge demand for home auxiliaries, working in this sector results an obvious solution to the problem of finding a job, even when they possess of a better education. The third sector where immigrant labor concentrates is in commerce, this refering to both street vendors and fixed businesses. Another sector in which unfortunately there is a numerous amount of immigrant women is in prostitution. It is not very common to hear prostitutes in Madrid speaking Spanish, and it is because in this city, 90% of them are immigrants. The majority of the cases turn to this profession when they find themselves without other options, under the difficulty of finding a worthy and good job, and with the necessity of feeding mouths at home, including their own.

It can be said that there are two labour markets in Spain. The superior market includes for example information and economy sectors. The second market consists of inferior jobs as crop recolection, hotel assistance, construction, and domestic service. This market is characterized by low salaries, lack of social value, and a high percentage of immigrant workers. Most of the time they work without contract, so in addition to low salary, they do not have any kind of accident insurance. These labour areas are informal sectors and thus contribute for the economic immigrants not to insert formally in Spain.

The difference between typical Spaniard's neighborhoods and immigrant's neighborhoods is easily noticed. The main reason for this is the immigrant's precarious economic situation. As a result of their lack of economic resources they are able to afford housing only in the cheapest areas, that are usually farther and offer less public services. Furthermore, as they cannot obtain housing in certain neighborhoods, immigrants chose to look for zones with a high foreign population because the adaptation process to the new country is easier.

After, some try looking for another place to live, they even cotemplate the possibiliy of buying an apartment. However, immigrants encounter many obstacles when looking for housing and the corresponding financing just because of the fact of being an immigrant. For Spaniards this is difficult as well, but for immigrants is much more complicated. They are not very much trusted because of their legal statute (even when is it perfectly in order), their unstable or temporal job, and for some unexplainable doubt and fear towards immigrants. For this reason, they find housing only in determined zones of a common nationality, a perfect example of this are the African of Hispanic neighborhoods.

From a sociological point of view, it is perfectly natural for there to be different housing zones. However, what is alarming is that there is a distinction by nationality. This 'two-world society' also exists in other sectors as work or social services. There is still a long way to go for immigrants to become a natural part of Spanish society.

The high immigration rate is a relatively new phenomenon for Spain, for this reason new programs must be designed to conduct immigration towards a positive direction. It is a priority. One approach to successfully ahieve this could be to study the phenomenon from a more sociological point of view and a less numeric one.

Lorraine Negroni,
Yvonne Waldeck.

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