Estrella Gualda

US/Spanish comparisons on temporary immigrant workers: implications for policy development and community practice Trabajadores inmigrantes temporales en los EEUU y España: implicaciones para el desarrollo de políticas sociales y servicios comunitarios

Issues of immigration policy have recently become a central preoccupation of citizens, policy makers and law enforcement agencies throughout the globe. This paper addresses the commonalities and differences in policy and services experienced by temporary workers in the US and Spain, focusing on the South-western US and Andalusia. Laws and regulations affecting temporary workers in both countries are reviewed. Implications for social service providers are drawn and contrasted. Problemas relacionados a las políticas inmigratorias se han transformado en una preocupación central de los políticos, la policía migratoria y los administradores de programas sociales en muchos países del mundo. Este artículo se enfoca en las similitudes y diferencias en políticas de servicios que afectan a los trabajadores inmigrantes temporales en los EEUU y España, concentrándose principalmente en el Sur-oeste de los EEUU y Andalucía. Se describen las leyes principales que afectan a estos trabajadores en ambos países y se discuten las implicaciones de esta situación para los trabajadores sociales.

Portraying immigrants to the public: Mexican workers in the USA and African workers in Spain: Is there a role for social work?

English This study looks into how US and Spanish regional newspapers convey messages about immigrants to the public and whether the messages present immigrants under favorable or unfavorable lights. The study identifies persistent directional biases and a prevalent negative orientation in covering immigrants in the news. The role of social work in facilitating image changes is discussed. French Cette étude examine d’une part la façon dont des messages concernant les immigrants sont envoyés au grand public par les journaux régionaux Américains et Espagnols et d’autre part si ces messages présentent les immigrants sous un jour favorable ou défavorable. L’étude identifie des biais directionnels persistants et une orientation négative prévalente dans la façon de couvrir les évènements impliquant des immigrants dans les nouvelles. Le rôle du travail social pour favoriser des changements d’image y est discuté. Spanish Esta investigación examina la forma en que periódicos en Estados Unidos y España, presentan a los inmigrantes, evaluando si es de manera favorable o desfavorable. Se identificó un sesgo negativo persistente y una orientación desfavorable. Se discutió el papel del trabajo social en el ámbito de la inmigración.

Latinos in the US and Spain: demographics, designations and political identities

Hispanic, Spanish speaking or Latino residents are a strong force in international migration; the influence in the societies in which they reside is seldom questioned. This article reviews the nature of the Latino group (immigrants and native born) in two countries, Spain and the US, the names through which they are known, their countries of origin, and their individual and group identities. The strength, demographics, and political organization of their collectives are also addressed, as is the citizenship status of the members in the host society. These issues are important for social workers who need to understand the nature of modern Latino or Latin-American immigration to address services to them.

Disclosing the Relational Structure of Institutional Cross-border Cooperation in Two Cross-border Regions in Europe

ABSTRACT Cross-border cooperation (CBC) has evolved as a crucial objective of the European Union and an object of extensive research. As an intrinsically relational process wherein networks and cooperation are integral to understanding the CBC, social capital and social network analysis offer a complementary perspective. Data were gathered through in-depth interviews with experts and secondary sources. This paper contributes using social network analysis to examine and describe the network structure of institutional CBC and Interreg programs in two different cross-border regions. The results address the importance of the visualization of less and more integrated areas and the identification of key institutional actors in CBC.

Reporting a bottom-up political process: Local perceptions of cross-border cooperation in the southern Portugal–Spain region

Beyond the national political-territorial borders in Europe, the cross-regional dimension maintains an experimental democratic character. Entities developed to foster cross-border cooperation, such as working communities and Euroregions, are conceived as mechanisms of democratisation through the decentralisation of regional or/and local governmental bodies. However, scholarly debate suggests that the top-down policy-making process that is characteristic of cross-border programmes seems to cast doubt on the fulfilment of a European participatory democracy. In this respect, the cross-border cooperation process seems to contribute an added value to the dilemma of the European democratic deficit. The objective of this paper is to present a regional contribution to this debate through a study of local experts’ perspectives on the implementation and impact of cross-border cooperation policies in the southern Portugal–Spain border region and the possibilities for local and social participation. This paper utilises data from two related investigations in the southern cross-border area between Portugal and Spain, including qualitative interviews, focus groups and content analysis of secondary data. The results reveal a positive attitude towards the recent regional top-down initiatives of European integration, although local experts question the potential for the inclusion of local perspectives in cross-border initiatives. In addition, during this period of economic crisis, political contradictions may be observed, and political initiatives related to the Spanish–Portuguese border may hamper the existing cross-border flows and dynamics of progressive integration. In this sense, local authorities play an important role as the nexus between transnational institutions of cross-border cooperation and the inhabitants of border regions.