There is a generation of young people in Switzerland—the children of Spaniards who arrived here fifteen or twenty years ago—who have grown up here since they were little, went to school here, have their friends here, and speak German or French without a foreign accent. And yet, every time they return to Spain to visit their grandparents or their summer village, at some point in the conversation the same thing comes up: “Of course, you Swiss.” And they pause for a moment, trying to work out if that’s meant seriously.
This isn’t a criticism; it’s simply a description of how things are. These boys and girls have grown up with two worlds coexisting within them. Their parents speak to them in Spanish at home, put on the national team’s matches when there’s a game on, and take them to village festivals during the holidays. But day-to-day life, the real points of reference, their school friends, the jokes they understand without anyone having to explain them – all that is Swiss. And there comes a time, usually when they’re about fifteen or sixteen, when they’re no longer quite sure which box to tick.
The interesting thing is that the second generation, generally speaking, doesn’t see it as a big deal. They get used to it quite quickly. They feel more Swiss than their parents, and also more Spanish than their classmates who have never set foot in another country. It’s not a contradiction; it’s simply being from here and there at the same time. The thing is, nobody has given them a manual for this, and sometimes they have to explain this dual sense of belonging in contexts where nobody really understands what they’re talking about.
According to the OFS, more than 80,000 people born in Spain currently live in Switzerland. A significant number of them have been here for over fifteen years. Their children are now between ten and thirty years old. It is a silent generation that is no longer going to ‘return to Spain’ because, for many of them, Spain is simply the place they go on holiday.