Islamic Immigrants and Multiculturalism in Barcelona – Revisited
After living in Barcelona for almost one year my original insights as to the perception and integration of Islamic immigrants in this city has changed little. Firstly, it must be said, however, that I myself am an immigrant to Spain and as such my interpretation of the integration and perception of Islamic immigrants in Barcelona is affected by my own cultural bias and this may lead to some misunderstandings on my part. Also, one year of living in Barcelona has not been ample enough time to effectively assess any marked changes in my area of focus and many of my previous insights appear to remain valid. The role, integration and perception of the Islamic community here, however, still remains a topical point of discussion and definitely a current issue as the numbers of new immigrants continues to rise (generalitat) and will potentially continue to keep on rising into the unforeseen future. To varying degrees, the citizens of Barcelona are still concerned with the integration process of new immigrants and Barcelona’s changing multicultural structure. This change in demographic and cultural structure has increased significantly in the last ten years in Barcelona and Catalonia, with an added 346 865 new international immigrants entering Barcelona since the year 2000, reportedly 18.6% of the population (Genral.Cat Census). With the top three main ethnic groups being Ecuadorian, Morrocan and Pakistani, two of which are of Islamic origin. Spain has only recently become a net country of immigration, and according to Stoddard (2010) has yet to develop “discourses or policies in relation to cultural pluralism” (Stoddard 2010, para. 28). This underdevelopment has been evident when observing the way society here functions in contrast to other societies such as my own or in the United Kingdom for example. Admittedly, my further observations of the integration and perception of the Islamic immigrants here...