Day for Latin America” “

“I was a stranger and you made me welcome” is the theme of the Day for Latin America that the Spanish Church is celebrating on 3 March. On the problems and challenges posed by immigration we interviewed Pilar Samanes , coordinator of the pastoral service for immigrants of the Spanish Episcopal Conference. Sister Pilar is a religious of the Daughters of Charity of St. Anne. A missionary in Equatorial Guinea for eleven years: so you too, depending on point of view, were an emigrant or an immigrant… “I was an ‘immigrant de luxe’, because I was supported a great deal by my community. I didn’t experience a feeling of being uprooted and abandoned. But that experience helped me a great deal in my present work: it helped me to understand the toughness of the life of the emigrant, and the reasons that force him or her to leave his or her homeland. In Guinea people said to me: ‘we live better in a prison in your country than here as free men’. It was also an experience that taught me to understand and respect different cultures, and to seek to discover common values without emphasizing too much what it is that separates us”. What do you think is the right approach to the phenomenon of migration? “Perhaps by acknowledging that this phenomenon is not a problem but a challenge. Immigration can be regulated and controlled by government, but it’s not enough to focus attention merely on the problem of the ‘immigrant quotas’. First, because the needs of the world of work are shown to be higher. Second, because attention is concentrated only on temporary work and no stability of employment is given to the immigrant. And third, because workers are contacted without being known and without them knowing their employers, or the characteristics of the working environment in which they are to be inserted, thus ignoring the human relationship. In practice, the immigrant is seen in a utilitarian way, someone who arrives, does a necessary job and then goes home”. So how can immigration be promoted? “Immigrants have a right to realize their own life in society with equality of rights and duties, including the right to choose the country in which they want to live. That’s why the Church and the NGOs are making an effort to provide them with legal aid, to help their integration in the workforce, and to promote their education and training. Perhaps a lot still needs to be done to raise people’s awareness: people are responsive to our social message, but also full of prejudices and received ideas. We must know each other to understand each other better”. Spain is closer to Latin-American immigration by history and culture. Does this pose challenges? “It poses a challenge to Spain of course, but also to Europe, which has a substantial Latin-American presence. We’re in contact with various Bishops’ Conferences that are tackling the problem. For us this situation is a genuine revolution because Latin America was previously a land of emigration and mission. But now we’re receiving its faithful and even its priests. The diocese of Urgell, for example, has more Latin-American than Spanish priests. The presence of immigrants of other great religions, such as Islam, is also a stimulus for us. That’s why we are drawing up pastoral directives on immigration that may enable us to respond to all these challenges in an appropriate way”.