Relationships

Immigrants from the past and nowadays in The Basque Country.

An important point in our project was to investigate and learn about relationships.  And here we wanted to focus in immigrants and refugees.

In the last years, here in our school, it is more and more often to have students coming from other countries among us.

We see them every day close to us but rarely do we ask ourselves for the reason they or they families had to come to live to our town. We don’t normally know about the problems they have to face in their daily lives to come to school.

In fact we don’t even realize that a lot of our families were also immigrants some years ago. Our parents or grandparents came from other communities in Spain and now we consider ourselves Basques, exactly the same as those ones whose families have been living here for generations.

We don’t know if the problems that the immigrants coming nowadays and the problems our relatives had some years ago are similar or if they also suffered from discrimination and racism.

Between the 50s and the 80s a lot of people, mainly coming from other communities in Spain, arrived to the Basque Country seeking for a better or easier life for themselves and their families.

  

People left rural and poor areas like Andalusia and Extremadura towards richer and more industrial zones like Madrid, Catalonia or the Basque Country.

In Spain, the Civil War induced a revival of rural activity, with the number of people working in agriculture increasing between 1930 and 1940. However, this meant a surplus of badly paid people in agriculture which would lead eventually to a massive exodus from the rural areas during the 1940's and continuing through the 1950's and 1960's.

The period 1960-1973 is known as a very intensive period for internal migration as well as for emigration abroad. It was a period of strong economic growth but with very substantial regional differentials. People left rural and poor areas towards the richer industrial towns.

But what happens over recent years? Most immigration to the Basque country now comes from abroad, chiefly from South America or northern Africa. And we wanted to know if the reasons are similar and if the conditions that these new immigrants face every day can be comparable along the years.

We have prepared a video with interviews to people who came to our town in the 50s and 60s and also to people who have recently come to live among us.

We have asked them the same questions because we wanted to know their reasons to come to Laudio and also if their conditions, and problems could be comparable. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LktS6xhu__4&feature=youtu.be

Aorai High School students' video about the Chinese community in Tahiti

Aorai High School students' video about our activity school garden

Our project on Tahiti Nui television, our mobility in Basque Country and the end of our Erasmus+project in the newspaper " La Dépêche de Tahiti"

Erasmus + "It's my life, it's my choice" at Aorai High School 

A chinese day at school with the Erasmus group

A Special Day at School to Understand the Chinese Culture

Last Friday,  Aorai High School celebrated the Chinese New Year. 

Before the morning break, a show was presented by the  class studying drama as an optional subject. It was followed by the speech delivered by the  well-known Chinese writer, Jimmy Ly. Then, the students could go to the school library and discover the exhibition about the Chinese family trees. 

In the meantime, workshops had opened for those who wanted to learn how to make some Chinese ravioli, how to count with an abacus or how to play mah-jong. The art of handwriting, making Chinese knots and  red paper decorations were the other activities proposed after the morning break.

" This year we were happy to greet some representatives of the Wen Fa and Hei Taina associations as well as the director of the Confucius Institute, " Mrs Catherine Ganaye, Aorai High School Headmistress, explained. « Thirty-eight pupils who study Chinese as a second language were invited to join our students who study Chinese as a second or third language, «  she added.

The students took a great interest in the film dealing with  the importance of maintaining the Chinese traditions in French Polynesia. They were also fascinated by  the  history of the Chinese families in Tahiti, presented by Mrs Catherine Lusseau, a history and geography teacher in charge of coordinating the programme Erasmus. 

Mrs Lusseau had previously worked on that same topic with the Tenth  and  Twelfth graders who presented their work on that occasion.

That very special day was initiated by Mrs Fabienne Li, Mr Alphonse Chene and Mr Maxime Venturin, a Chinese teacher in agreement with Mrs Ganaye.

                                    Translated in English by Terminale GF students and Mrs. Macouin, their teacher

Welcoming ceremony at IES LAUDIO BHI