My choice to study abroad in Barcelona was driven by language. While I didn’t quite reach my goal of fluency, my comprehension of Spanish and comfortability using it have undoubtedly improved. Barcelona is a Spanish-speaking city, but historically the primary language has always been Catalan. The multilingualism at every level of society here was unlike any linguistic landscape I had come across in the United States, and I was so excited to be immersed in it. After spending a year living in the capital of Catalonia and studying Catalan, I can say that the presence of Catalan language and culture is far more ubiquitous than I had imagined going in.
Today, Barcelona does have ties to the broader national identity of Spain, but Catalonia’s independence movement does have significant support in the region’s capital. And the movement isn’t baseless – in my classes here, I learned about the long history of the suppression of Catalan language and culture in Spain, in addition to Catalonia’s long history of being self-sustaining and autonomous. Nowadays it’s a multicultural and Spanish city, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that Barcelona is also deeply and distinctly Catalan, and that you need to understand Catalan history in order to understand Barcelona.
I came to Barcelona as a student who wanted to immerse myself in the language and culture of this city, taking it all in with an open mind. I got the experience of getting to know both locals and foreigners in my university classes, as well as in my internship helping native Spanish speakers improve their English conversation skills. In addition to hearing perspectives from students who came from all around the world, I got to know a lot of people who had lived in or around Barcelona for their whole lives. I learned all sorts of things from these people, like how they view their own cultural identities and where they fit in. However, as I was listening to what the people around me were saying – be it my neighbors, my classmates, or the graffiti around the city – I also got a message that the city was under stress.
While the Catalan people that I met were nothing but kind and welcoming to me, observing the political climate and hearing discourse from the locals made me question how I, as a short-term resident of the city, could be part of this larger puzzle of over-tourism. The movement against tourism in Barcelona has captured worldwide attention, and living there made me see the housing crisis and negative effects of tourism in a different light. The sentiments accompanying slogans like “Tourists Go Home” have captured the attention of news outlets, but in all honesty, it wasn’t something that I had thought much about before moving to Barcelona.
I don’t have a solution to the issues of over-tourism and gentrification in Barcelona, and I don’t have a way to perfectly defend every angle of the ethics of my being a long-term tourist. What I can say is that studying abroad was my first time living in a major city of this scale, and it set the tone for how I want to carry myself in communities that I’m a guest in. As a student abroad, I wanted to engage with my environment in an intentional way, holding respect for the people who were there before me. I love Barcelona, and I deeply respect it. I learned so much from this city during the short time that it was my home.