Jordi Pujol said that whoever lived and worked in Catalonia was a Catalan, but time is showing us that this reality is much more complex. And if with Catalonia it is complicated, with its capital it could not be less so. Barcelona has a complicated identity:capital of Catalonia, second city of Spain, Mediterranean vocation, border with Europe, home to dozens of different nationalities?
Half of Barcelona’s inhabitants were not born in Barcelona. However, they live here, so they are Barcelonians. In Barcelona, the largest immigrant community is Italian, but a large part of it is made up of Argentines who have taken advantage of the facilities to obtain community papers given to them by their Italian heritage. Then there are the classic clichés, which say that one can be from Barcelona but never end up being Catalan… in short.
That’s why we have taken to the streets of Barcelona to ask what you have to do in Barcelona to be a Barcelonian. Or at least, how long to live.
Some answers told us, for example, that it is “one to adapt, two to make friends (because sometimes it’s hard for us Catalans) and three to feel full of Barcelona”.
There are those who find it harder. “Ten years”, some say. And there are those who take less: “In one year you already feel the city as your own”.
And of course, there are also fundamentalists: “You can try to be Catalan in about 10 years, to learn the language, to apply the culture…”, but not to be Barcelonian, that “is innate, you have to have your eight Barcelonian surnames”.
And you, how much time do you consider necessary?