Andalusians

Andalusians
Andalucíans
Total population
c. 17.5 million
Regions with significant populations

 Spain:

 Andalusia: 7.561.298 (2013)[1]
 Catalonia: 754,174 (2006)[2]
 Madrid: 285,164 (2006)[3]
 Valencia: 218,440 (2006)[3]
 Basque Country: 46,441 (1991)[4]
 Balearic Islands: 71,940 (1991)[5]
 Murcia: 36,278 (1991)[5]

Rest of Spain: 162,333 (1991)[5]

 Brazil: 923,775 (2006)[6]
 France: 31,516 (2006)[6]
 Cuba: 23,185 (2006)[6]
 Germany: 22,784 (2006)[6]
 Puerto Rico: 15,253 (2006)[6]
 Argentina: 20,385 (2006)[6]

Rest of the world: 50,000 (est)[7]
Languages
Modern vernacular:
Andalusian Spanish
Historical:
Arabic, Berber, Mozarabic, Latin
Religion
Roman Catholicism (predominantly), Agnosticism, Atheism

The Andalusians (Spanish: Andaluces) are the people of the southern region in Spain approximated by what is now called Andalusia. They are a genetically distinct ethnic group of the Spanish people and the Spanish Language Academy recognizes Andalusian Spanish as a distinct dialect.[8][9] The Andalusians have a rich culture which includes the Semana Santa (see Holy Week in Spain) and the famous flamenco style of music and dance. Andalusia's own statute of autonomy identifies the region as an "historic nationality" and grants it a high level of devolved political power. The people of Ceuta and Melilla are considered to be Andalusian people, since they have characteristics similar to that of Andalusia, as Andalusian dialect and related traditions. Nevertheless from the Spanish transition, Ceuta and Melilla were separated from Andalusia.

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.[10] 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 to 1975, over 1.7 million Andalusian people emigrated out of Andalusia to other areas of Spain.[11] 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.[12]

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.[13] 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 discovery 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 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 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 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

Leaders and politicians

Philosophers and theologians

Historians, philologists and writers

Military commanders

Poets, Novelists and playwrights

Catholic saints and martyrs

Explorers, navigators and missionaries

Scientists and physicians

Classical composers and opera singers

Painters and sculptors

Artisans

Bullfighters

Actors, comedians and entertainers

Film directors

Journalists

Footballers and football coaches

Other athletes

Singers and musicians

See also

References

  1. ↑ Instituto Nacional de Estadística (2013). Población residente por fecha, sexo. Resultados por comunidades y ciudades autónomas. Retrieved from http://www.ine.es/jaxi/tabla.do?path=/t20/p321/serie/l0/&file=02005.px&type=pcaxis&L=0#nogo
  2. ↑ http://www.diariocordoba.com/noticias/noticia.asp?pkid=270253 Source: Consejería de Gobernación, Junta de Andalucía (Andalusian Autonomous Government)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Ibid
  4. ↑ http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/economiayhacienda/economia/estudios/bea/descarga/TOMO_24/BEA24_119.pdf Recaño Valverde , Joaquín (1998): "La emigración andaluza en España" in Boletín Económico de Andalucía, issue 24
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Recaño Valverde , Joaquín: Ibid
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Consejería de Gobernación
  7. ↑ http://andaluciajunta.es/CCVV_FDComu_CAE/0,19057,5263732_17010963,00.html?fpChannel=17010963 Dirección General de Andaluces en el Exterior, Junta de Andalucía
  8. ↑ Goedde H.W., Hirth L., Benkmann H.G., Pellicer A., Pellicer T., Stahn M., and Singh S. (1972). Population Genetic Studies of Red Cell Enzyme Polymorphisms in Four Spanish Populations. Human Heredity, 22(5-6): 552-560. DOI:10.1159/000152537
  9. ↑ Ambrosio, B., Dugoujon, J.M., Hernandez, C., De La Fuente, D., Gonzalez-Matin, A., Fortes-Lima, C.A., Novelletto, A., Rodriguez, J.N., & Calderon, R. (2010). The Andalusian population from Huelva reveals a high diversification of Y-DNA paternal lineages from haplogroup E: Identifying human male movements within the Mediterranean space. Annals of Human Biology, 37(1): 86-107. DOI: 1 0.3109/03014460903229155
  10. ↑ http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/iea/dtbas/dtb06/dtb2006.pdf INSTITUTO DE ESTADÍSTICA DE ANDALUCÍA (2006): Andalucía. Datos básicos 2006. Consejería de Economía y Hacienda, Junta de Andalucía. Page 13
  11. ↑ Recaño Valverde, Joaquín: Ibid
  12. ↑ http://www.ahimsav.com/149-nov_archivos/page0006.htm "El boom migratorio exterior"
  13. ↑ De Mateo Aviles, Elias (1993): La Emigración Andaluza a América (1850–1936). Editorial Arguval. Málaga, Spain
  14. ↑ Albert, Manuel J. (11-7-2011). "El pintor amigo de Flash Gordon" [The painter friend of Flash Gordon]. El País. Retrieved 2014-06-07. Check date values in: |date= (help)