“If you are a racialized person, you are already a foreigner for life,” says Safia el Aaddam, 27, known on social media under the username @hijadeinmigrantes, adding: “If they ask you where you are from and you answer that you are from here, they immediately need to dig through your family tree to see if they find any ancestors that justify your skin color and your not belonging to this country. You hear a lot of comments like 'just because your ID says you're Spanish doesn't mean you are'”.
According to figures from Funcas from December last year, practically one in six residents in Spain was born in another country. More than half of that migrant population has been living here for ten years or more. However, for Safia el Aaddam, Spain strives to obscure that diversity.
"There are Spaniards of all colors, but when you turn on the television, you only find white people reporting the news, leading political parties, and starring in advertisements, series, and movies," says the communicator, activist, philologist, and author of the book. Daughter of immigrants (Ink Cloud), and adds: "When you are a racialized person, you must make triple to get the same as a white person."
“In addition to being a racist country, the discrimination is even worse with North Africans. We have a serious problem of Morophobia and Islamophobia," says El Aaddam, adding: "All the women I know have suffered Islamophobic attacks on the street." They have made comments to their mother, their aunts and cousins such as “take off that rag” or “go to your country to put on your veil”.
Safia el Aaddam's parents emigrated from Morocco to Segur de Calafell (Catalonia) in the eighties. Born and raised on this land, she had to wait until she was 26 years old to be legally recognized as Spanish. “Even though we were born in Spanish territory, if your parents don't have an ID, you don't have it either. You inherit institutional racism,” she indicates.
When he turned 18, he encountered a series of bureaucratic obstacles to apply for Spanish nationality, from having to take the Instituto Cervantes test on constitutional and socio-cultural knowledge of Spain, to facing "an average wait of five years," he explains. the activist, who works in the social field with immigrant children and adolescents or children of immigrants.
“Those bureaucratic obstacles make your life difficult. If your parents are also poor, are in an irregular situation, do not have a job or are not registered, the burden is accentuated ”, he points out. In the "Who am I" section of his website, he explains: "I grew up in a poor family that had to face institutional racism and mistreatment from institutions whose name on the door was 'social welfare'."
Far from being an instance of reparation, the school deepened those wounds. In one of her featured stories on her Instagram, she says: “Today I want to say hello to my girl self and to all the girls and boys who did not receive gifts from Three Kings and we said yes in class. Mine were based on the toy ads of those days and what the syncypies that spoke before me said." Among her recommendations to educators, she suggests not asking students what gifts they have received or where they have gone on vacation.
On his Instagram profile, you can also find a series of posts from his graduation day at the University of Barcelona, in 2020. “I remember myself at 8 years old. Stealing an English book that my partner had left under the table. I crossed out his name and put mine, ”says the text.
Not having money to buy school materials or books. Not having a computer at home to be able to do homework. “And the migrants and children of immigrants with illiterate parents or without knowing Spanish? Yes, it's not an insult. My parents are. And they couldn't help me with my homework, ”he explains in the text. Having to face scrutiny from teachers. Not receive institutional support, neither from the school nor from social services. That was their reality and the one that many other children and adolescents still have to live today, says Safia el Aaddam in dialogue with the Magazine.
To all those obstacles and those no's, she decided to respond with digital activism campaigns. Her social networks became a complaint platform where, behind each of the stories she shares about her and the hashtags she promotes, many other experiences like hers come together.
“When I decided to make my story public on social networks upon graduating from my degree, I was able to confirm that there were hundreds of people who, like me, were those girls and boys without school supplies, without books, even without a sandwich, and that nobody did. nothing for them. These are not isolated cases”, says El Aaddam and adds: “The fact of meeting other people in my same situation gave me the impetus to continue demanding, denouncing and shouting even more”.
According to a report by Unicef and the Fundació Pere Tarrés, children from immigrant families living in Spain have difficulties accessing fundamental rights such as food, education or health and points out that complications when registering and managing a document identification of these minors affects their ability to access basic services and apply for social assistance.
An analysis by Save the Children and the Por Causa Foundation indicates that one in five migrant boys and girls (20.4%) are in an irregular administrative situation. The study indicates that “the probability of risk of poverty for a household with average characteristics with dependent minors and with Spanish nationality is 14%; if this same household is from outside the community, the probability rises to 48%”.
In 2019, the slogans went viral
Doing activism from social networks is not easy. “It has an emotional cost. Also, you have to juggle to have visibility because Instagram penalizes you when you talk about certain topics”, says El Aaddam, who must write certain words like “racism” with some variation to escape those penalties.
Even if it is a burden, that activism is the only possible option for her. "Racism is responded to by denouncing, not by keeping silent," she says and adds: "One of the great engines that feed me is that the girls and boys who come can have the references that we did not have."
