Inmigración e Identidad

Abstract

The idea of identity is a confused idea and the use of the word “identity” to refer to individuals’ features such as race, ethnic group, nationality, genre, religion or sexuality is deeply imbued with those social features. In order to prove it two contributions are mentioned. The first one was made by Jane Elliot in 1970 from the emotional learning. The second one was made from the sociological point of view, it is a classical experiment of the social sciences about the social inclusion and exclusion which took place in 1953 on Sans Bois Mountains, at Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma. It was concluded that the identitary groups, far from beeing a primary structure, it is a social construction which is established in front of another group, even from foreign or strange elements to them. Therefore, we have to understand with Appiah, Jean-Loup Amselle, or Donald Horowitz, that the identity is not the cause of the conflicts, but on the contrary, a consequence. Summarizing we can conclude that it is the other one who determines our identity: The immigrant identity is developed by the exclusion, the rejection, the lack of integration or marginalization of the receiving society. The construction of the immigrants identity as such, or as members of national, cultural or religious identities, is made by the societies which receive the immigration. Our legislation, the treatment in the press, the integration and discrimination meassures, the term “sin papeles” (illegal), ...

We have to add that in order that this kind of elemets take place they don’t must be true, nor exclusive, as they move in the level of the tales, with a logic similar to the myth.

Key words: