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2 - Mapping Migration in Contemporary Galicia

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Summary

Moitos dos emigrantes pasan a ser, cívilmente, cidadáns dos países onde viven, mentres que espiritualmente seguen sendo galegos […]. Hai galegos que son cidadáns arxentinos, ou ianquis, ou cubanos, ou brasileiros ou do que cadre. Todos eles, sexan o que sexan económica e civilmente, seguen pertencendo á comunidade espiritual galega, seguen sendo galego […]. Os que nacen e viven no chan galego, son galegos obrigadamente, pasivamente; os que nacen en Galicia e viven en terras alleas, son galegos voluntariamente, activamente. Uns e mailos outros xuntos, forman a comunidade humana que se chama o pobo galego. O vencello que a todos une, o que identifica a todos por riba de diferenzas e distancias, é o único patrimonio que a todos pertence por igual: a espiritualidade común, ou sexa, o idioma.

(Ramón Piñeiro, ‘Transcendencia social do idioma’ (1953): 76)

Many of the emigrants become, in civil terms, citizens of the countries where they live, while spiritually they remain Galicians […]. There are Galicians who are Argentine citizens, or Yankees, or Cubans, or Brazilians, or whatever. All of them, whatever their economic or civil status, remain part of the Galician spiritual community, remain Galician […] Those who are born and live on Galician soil are Galicians by obligation, passively; those who are born in Galician and live elsewhere, are Galicians voluntarily, actively. Together, they all make up the human community that is called the Galician people. The link that unites them all, which identifies them all beyond differences and distances, is the only heritage that belongs to them all equally: their shared spirituality, that is, their language.

With these words, the philosopher Ramón Piñeiro, writing in 1953 at a moment of pause in Galician overseas migration, strategically deterritorializes the Galician nation, relocating it beyond Franco's reach into an intangible realm where Galician identity is a condition or a choice rather than a burden. Piñeiro's calculated move reframes the bond of Galicia's diaspora communities with a homeland many could never have seen, drawing on the well of associations resonating in the Galician cultural imaginary ever since the flow of transatlantic migration was unleashed exactly a century before.

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Writing Galicia into the World
New Cartographies, New Poetics
, pp. 39 - 68
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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