Hi Fernando,
I am sorry, Fernando, I was not questioning you, I am sorry if I sounded as though I was, I was just curious. Thank you for sharing the article on El Mundo, I see that the stat they quoted: Rajoy afirmó que la población reclusa extranjera en España comprende el 24,46% del total" Rajoy confirmed that the immigrant encarcerated population in Spain comprises 24.46 % of the total incarcerated population. Do you know the total immigrant population in Spain? So one out of every four prisoners in Spain was an immigrant in 2002.

What is fascinating, Fernando, is the statistic on juvenile crime, if you look at the 1995 Interpol figures and the 2001 they seemed to have gone up tremendously.

Never mind Booklady! I didn't thought you were questioning me, and even if that was the case it is ok! If you think I have given an incorrect or incomplete statistic I ask you to correct me

I may be wrong in this one too because it is changing everyday and I don't have at hand the data, but I think inmigrants are around 1-2 million over 41 million spaniards. That is between 2% and 5%.

Fernando

I think the moros, gitanos and sudacas (pej. that's what lots of españoles call Latinos) become criminals because they are discriminated against. They cannot get jobs because of their background. Sounds simplistic but I think it's somewhat true. Spain is not a melting pot like the US. There is a lot of racism. Nobody wants to live in the barrio of Aluche in Madrid for example because there are too many Colombianos. . The PP better start some kind of social sensibilitation (sp.?) program soon or it's going to get really bad. Le Pen in France for example. The PSOE will be probably get stuck with the problem anyway.

Jlramos,
You certainly are correct jlramos, when you said: "They cannot get jobs because of their background." As a matter of fact in another thread, I believe the Gypsy thread? maybe Fernando remembers, anyway a grocery store in Madrid had thrown out the personnel records, which were found and reported in the newspaper. The H.R. person denigrated all the gypsies, or Rom as they are correctly known, and would not give them jobs because of their ethnic background!

That is so sad.

While it is true that crime is more common in poorer neighborhoods, is is also true that a poor person is just as responsible for his action as a rich person. I do not excuse criminals based on their income level. We shouldn't tolerate street thugs because of their income levels, marginalized people know the difference between right and wrong. The poor people I know are not mugging strangers, they are working hard the legal way to improve their lives. I can't pardon the Gypsies and some recent immigrants of thier indiscretions.

As for employment opportunities for Gypsies, as I have written in a previous thread, most Gypsies regect societal norms and are also not truly interested in working for a "payo". I spent the better part of a year in a Spanish university environment and I never meet a gitano university student, despite the fact that tuition is very cheap. Why should we be suprised that they are not well integrated in the workforce, they don't value education and they tend to resent mainstream cultural values.

Cheers

why do we even bother getting into pissing matches with these trolls...
the racists will ALWAYS blame society's ills on immigrants...it's so much easier than actually looking for the root of the problems.
personally i don't care where you are from, if i catch you with your hand in my stuff...i'm keeping it!

We shouldn't use old conceptions of how groups are seen as. Viewing things as they stand, you will see that the gitanos, as an example, are starting to enter into mainstream education institutions including universities. And, actually their community promote and offer help to those who wish to do so. This is good, in the long term patience and a positive attitude from all serves everybody.

Gypsies are a very special ethnic group (as I have posted before). Their culture is as it is, they (generally) don't want to work, nor to live in a house or pay taxes.

There are obviously exceptions, but they are a minority. I have nothing against them, but I could write more than twenty anechdotes in my life that would ilustrate how they are (in general I know!). Just to put an example: I had near my home a "poblado de chabolas" (which means houses made of light materials in an ilegal soil). The council built some good buildings nearby, giving free flats to every gypsie family and then bulldozing their illegal, dangerous (easily burnt), and unhealthy "chabolas". After a year all the gypsies had sold their flats (after taking the pumps, the wires, switches, W.C.s,... and selling them) and build nearby again new "chabolas"...

When a cultural group has been in a country for centuries and still has not integrated itself, and when this same problem happens in dozens of countries at the same time, then it is not racism, nor blame on those countries, but on the cultural group itself.

Yes, I know that speaking against a marginalized ethnic minority is very politically incorrect under an american perspective, but I can assure you that I am not a racist.

In Spain we have polish (and other eastern europeans), moroccians, central-africans, and southamericans. All these groups are integrated into our society in some degree. Most of them have already their children in the schools, work normally (for example picking up vegetables or fruits) and are rarely subject of racism. These people have arrived to Spain in the last 5-10 years. Gypsies have been here for centuries...

Fernando

The gitanos ARE Spanish aren't they?!!
Not all gitanos live in chabolas and rob and go round with tamaborines and sing and dance flamenco.
Could one go so far to say that the majority of gitanos live and function as any other Spaniard still maintaining their gitano culture? I think so.
Joaquin Cortes, Lola/Antonio Flores and family are all entertainers and actors and what about those who are quietly successful in their own right as normal you and me type of people.
....

I've yet to know one Miche. That day I will change my opinion on them.

They are spaniards, and as such, have the same rights (free education and health care, access to a home,...) but also the same obligations: respect the law, attend school until they are 16,...

Anyway, I think this topic was broadly discussed in another thread...

Fernando