Friday, July 01, 2011

“In Spain, I would still be living off scholarships.”


Spaniards expatriated by the economic meltdown finally discover the new world.

"In Mexico, the world of work has nothing in common with Spain,” Juan Arteaga goes on. “You work really hard, and there is less time off. But hard work is rewarded. Someone who works well moves up fast. I landed here with no money, no network, and five years later I’m handling communications for Coca-Cola in its second global market. And all that by the age of 30.” It’s a career that’s unthinkable for most young people in Spain. Juan sums it up succinctly: “In Spain, I would still be living off scholarships.”
...noted one interviewee. From the perch of the delusions where opinion are broadly taken as fact, reality strikes. It strikes hard.
“In Spain, Latin America is seen as a little child who is still growing up,” Juan Arteaga explains. “But when you get here, you realise that the kid is really, really big. Mexico is a much larger market than Spain, thanks to its resources, its oil, energy, the size of the country, its 110 million people... It's a monster.”
Going about their lives, I’m not sure they quite care ‘how they’re seen’, but I know why it is that many Latin Americans generally don’t get along with Argentinians.

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