Andalusians

The Andalusians (Spanish: andaluces) are the citizens of Andalusia, an autonomous community in southern Spain. Andalusia's statute of autonomy defines Andalusians as the Spanish citizens who reside in any of the municipalities of Andalusia, as well as those Spaniards who reside abroad and had their last Spanish residence in Andalusia, and their descendants.^[9] Since the 2007 reform, the statute also identifies the region as a "historic nationality" but this statement is in the preamble and thus has no legal value. The Spanish Language Academy recognizes Andalusian Spanish as a distinct dialect.

The genesis of modern Andalusian culture can be traced to the last phase of the Reconquista and the two centuries that followed (13th to 17th century) which brought about a greater adoption of Catholicism and, more specifically various Marian cults, as other religions which had been found in the region during the prior seven or eight centuries declined (notably Sunni Islam and Sephardic Judaism). It also coincides with the arrival of the Romani people in the mid 15th century, who also contributed to the culture of modern Andalusia. The degree to which the region's particularly long Islamic history is central to Andalusia's modern singularity is controversial and largely a matter of ideology, particularly considering Andalusia was heavily re-settled by Castilians, Leonese and others from central and northern regions of Spain.

Blas Infante, the creator of Andalusian regionalism and nationalism, drew heavily from Islamic, Latin and Jewish heritage as defining elements of the Andalusian identity. Nevertheless, local Catholic cults act as the primary vehicle of Andalusian cultural cohesion and identity. ^[10] Paradoxically, religious fervor in Andalusia seems not to clash with the region being among the most left-leaning and anti-clerical in the entire country, with below average levels of mass attendance and very little interest in orthodox Catholic doctrine.^[11] The peculiar form and role of religion in Andalusia has been subject to significant ethnographic and anthropological study.

A cultural divide exists between what is known as "high Andalusia" (what used to be the Kingdom of Granada) and Low or Western Andalusia (the heavily populated Guadalquivir valley). Significant differences exist between the culture and the accents of all of eight provinces of Andalusia, but the widest difference is between these two regions. Some Andalusians of High Andalusia (notably Granada and Almería) complain that since the beginning of democracy and Andalusia's autonomy in 1981, Andalusian political power has been heavily centered around Seville and, as a result, Andalusian culture and identity has been built around this region, ignoring the unique culture and traditions of other parts of Andalusia. Calls for a separate Autonomy for eastern Andalusia have been made since the advent of democracy, yet have never attracted enough support to endanger Andalusia's integrity.^[12]

The Andalusians have a rich culture which includes the Semana Santa (see Holy Week in Spain) and flamenco style of music and dance.

Geographical location and population

Andalusian people live mainly in Spain's eight southernmost provinces: Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga, and Sevilla, which all are part of the region and modern Autonomous Community of Andalucía. In January 2006 the total population of this region stood at 7,849,799; Andalucía is the most populous region of Spain.^[13] In comparison with the rest of Spain, Andalusia population growth has been slower and it continues to be sparsely populated in some rural areas (averaging just 84 inh. per km²). Since 1960, the region's share of total population has declined, despite birth rates being about 40 percent higher than the Spanish average during past decades (currently it is only a 13% higher^[3]). Between 1951 and 1975, over 1.7 million Andalusian people emigrated out of Andalusia to other areas of Spain.^[14] This figure was approximately a 24% of the population of Andalusia as a whole, mostly hitting the countryside areas. The main recipients of this migration were Catalonia (989,256 people of Andalusian origin in 1975), Madrid (330,479) and Valencia (217,636), and to a lesser level, the Basque Country and Balearics.

During 1962 to 1974, around 700,000 Andalusians —almost all of them male— moved abroad for economic reasons, mainly originating from the provinces of Granada, Jaén and Córdoba. Their preferred destination were France, West Germany and Switzerland, followed by the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Belgium. There are no official recorded figures for previous decades.^[15]

In South America in the last twenty years of 19th century, over 150,000 Andalusians emigrated to the Americas as a result of crop failures caused by the Phylloxera plague.^[16] Many Andalusian peasants moved to Brazil to work in the coffee plantations, mainly in rural areas of São Paulo State. Spanish immigrants to Hawai'i who were solicited to work in the sugar industry, arrived in October 1898, numbering 7,735 men, women and children by 1913. Most of them came from Andalusia, home of Don Marin. However, unlike other plantation immigrant groups, the Spanish moved on, and by 1930 only 1,219 remained, including a scant eight children born in Hawai'i. Most Spanish left for the promising fields of California to make higher wages and live among relatives and friends who had settled in greater numbers there.

Additionally, Andalusians formed the major component of Spanish colonial immigration to certain parts of Spain's American and Asian empire and the largest group to participate in the colonisation of the Canary Islands. Principally, Andalusians and their descendants predominate in the Canary Islands(Spain), the Caribbean islands (Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Cuba), and the circum-Caribbean area (Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, the Caribbean coast of Colombia, and in Venezuela). They were also predominant in the Rio de la Plata region of Argentina and Uruguay and in the coastal areas of Chile, Peru, and Ecuador. In Asia, Andalusians predominated in the Spanish population of the Philippines as evidenced by the strong Andalusian character of the former Spanish in the Philippines and Spanish-based creoles, despite the fact that the Philippines were under the colonial supervision of the Vice-royalty of New Spain (Mexico).

Rationale

Most descriptions of Andalusia begin with the landownership system, as the most powerful forces in the region have for centuries been the owners of the large estates, called latifundios. These wide expanses of land have their origins in landowning patterns that stretch back to Roman times; in grants of land made to the nobility, to the military orders, and to the church during the Reconquest (Reconquista); and in laws of the nineteenth century by which church and common lands were sold in large tracts to the urban upper middle class. The workers of this land, called jornaleros (peasants without land), were themselves landless.

This economic and cultural system produced a distinctive perspective, involving class consciousness and class conflicts as well as significant emigration. In contrast to the much smaller farm towns and villages of northern Spain, where the land was worked by its owners, class distinctions in the agro-towns of Andalusia stood out. The families of the landless farmers lived at, or near, the poverty level, and their relations with the landed gentry were marked by conflict, aggression, and hostility. The two main forces that kept Andalusia's rural society from flying apart were external. The first was the coercive power of the state, as exemplified by Spain's rural constabulary, the Civil Guard (Guardia Civil). The second was the opportunities to migrate to other parts of Spain, or to other countries in Western Europe. Some of this migration was seasonal; in 1972, for example, 80,000 farmers, mostly Andalusians, migrated to France for the wine harvest. Part of the migration consisted of entire families who intended to remain in their new home for longer periods, once the head of the family group had settled down.

Economic growth and social mobility, although dispersed and not homogeneous in the region, fundamentally start in the nineteen seventies, coincides with the arrival of the democracy, and are intensified by the development of agroindustrial, tourism, and services sectors. In 1981 the Statute of Autonomy is approved after the Andalusian movement of autonomy. Since 1990 Andalusia follows a dynamic convergence process and is moving closer in development to the most advanced regions in Europe; more and more it comes closer to overcome the average of European living standards.

Notable Andalusians

See also

• Andalusian cuisine
• Andalusian nationalism
• List of Andalusians
• Music of Andalusia
• Nationalities in Spain
• Spanish people

References

•  This article incorporates public domain material from the Library of Congress Country Studies website http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/.

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