Reversing the Tide: Galicia Welcomes Its Far-Flung Diaspora

For some countries, the popular imagination has historically revolved around a story of immigration: consider the “melting pot” narrative that long underpinned the American self-conception, or more recently, the ideal of multiculturalism in Canada.

In one Spanish region, however, the national story has long been one about emigration. That story might now be changing.

If you trace your finger across a map of Spain’s 17 autonomous communities, up to the northwesternmost corner of the country, you’ll find Galicia. Perched above Portugal, this overcast, seafaring region is best known for its seafood cuisine, rugged coastline and Celtic heritage. Each year, thousands of visitors flock to Santiago de Compostela, the region’s capital, for an excursion through its cobblestone streets and impressive cathedral. An internationally recognized UNESCO World Heritage Site, the old city marks the endpoint of The Way of St. James, a centuries-old pilgrimage commonly known simply as el camino. Astute followers of Spanish news might also know that the region has drawn popular attention for being in the “wrong” time zone.

Less commonly known today, however, is that Galicia was the source of most of Spain’s out-migration throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Between 1850 and 1960, an estimated two million Galicians set out for the Americas, driven by economic struggles and social marginalization. They settled in countries as varied as Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina, where many of their descendants remain today. In the 1950s, Galicians also began emigrating in larger numbers to the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and to a lesser extent, France and Germany.

Galicians often left a significant mark on the communities in which they settled. Argentina is a case in point, where Spaniards are colloquially referred to as Galicians regardless of their region of origin, a testament to the community’s relative weight amongst Spanish emigres. So many Galicians found their new home in Buenos Aires that the city was nicknamed “Galicia’s fifth province.” Mafalda, the Southern Cone’s most famous comic strip of the sixties and seventies, and which today remains an emblematic symbol of Argentine national culture, notably features a character who is the descendant of Spanish immigrants. He bears the name typical of many Galician men—Manuel, or “Manolito” in the diminutive—and his family’s preoccupation with their local business embodies a well-known trope about Galician migrants, who were perceived as hardworking and preoccupied with saving money to send back home.

Indeed, the pursuit of economic opportunity was historically a major driver of Galician emigration. The region’s rural economy, largely reliant on agriculture, fishing, and the textile industry, remained relatively isolated and unindustrialized into the early 2oth century. Meanwhile, nascent industrialization and the growth of an urban working class in Latin America offered a tempting alternative for Galicians seeking employment and upward social mobility. Upon arrival, they often found work at docks or on the continent’s rapidly expanding railways, as construction workers or domestic staff, or by starting their own restaurants and neighbourhood stores, like Manolito’s family. In the process, they would send wages and news of their relative prosperity to their families, who frequently left home to join them. 

As emigration from Galicia to Latin America grew, so too did the presence of foreign embassies from the region in Galician port cities, who facilitated the 20th-century outpour with their administrative capacities. Transatlantic ocean liners, seeing an opportunity to turn a profit, tailored their advertising to Galicians seeking employment. Spanish trade unions soon caught on to these migratory patterns, creating “emigrant guides” or pamphlets that sought to inform workers about their labour rights, employment conditions, and important industries at their destinations. In the 1940s and 1950s, bilateral treaties between Spain and Latin American host countries facilitated a new wave of immigration to economies seeking specialized workers—particularly Venezuela, which was experiencing a boom in its oil, construction, and service sectors. Similar trends in economic development drew Galicians to Central Europe from the 1960s onwards. 

But the Galician emigration story was not only economic. In tandem with the region’s relative poverty in the 19th and early 20th centuries, there were widespread misconceptions about Galician culture and language, which were popularly viewed as “backwards” and underdeveloped. Social and linguistic inferiorization thus went hand in hand with economic marginalization. These negative stereotypes didn’t always disappear once Galicians moved abroad: Mafalda, for instance, frequently plays on prejudicial tropes about Galicians as ignorant and stingy. Later, the Spanish Civil War and social repression under Franco’s dictatorship would spur a new wave of exiles to Latin America, as well as to nearby Portugal, France and Tunisia. 

As a result of this history, narratives about emigration are deeply embedded in Galician national identity. Many of the region’s most revered writers, including 19th-century poet Rosalía de Castro, have expounded on themes of homeland, nostalgia, and new horizons in their work. “Goodbye rivers, goodbye streams,” Castro famously wrote in her poem by the same name, published in 1863. “I weep as I bid you farewell / From the shoreline of the sea.” This is far from a merely literary phenomenon: A common local saying, which jokes that “you’ll even find a Galician on the moon,” is further testament to the wider population’s recognition of their shared emigratory past. The Galician language even has a special word—morriña—to describe nostalgia or longing, particularly for one’s homeland. 

In recent decades, however, Galicia has seen a curious reversal of its previous immigration trends. As early as the 1970s, Galician descendants in Argentina began fleeing the country’s burgeoning military dictatorship, heading to Spain, as well as Italy and France. In 2001, as Argentina faced a devastating financial crisis, a second wave of Argentine return migration unfolded, which has continued amid the country’s ongoing economic recession. 

More recently, however, a return of diaspora populations from Latin America and Europe is attributable to deliberate government policy aimed at luring Galician descendants back to the region. The Estrategia Galicia Retorna, or Galicia Return Strategy, was initially implemented by the autonomous region in 2020. Since then, the government has invested more than 16 million euros to help approximately 6,500 families of Galician descent settle in the region. 

While the program has been framed by and for recipients as one of promoting economic opportunity, ancestral reconnection, and cultural pride, the regional government also sees it as a way to address Spain’s demographic crisis. In light of the country’s low fertility rates, the strategy offers special incentives to large families and aims to attract young and middle-aged returnees, ultimately seeking to “rejuvenat[e] the Galician population.” 

The plan also provides returnees with benefits, including housing support, job training, and academic bursaries. It especially incentivizes recipients to settle in rural areas, mirroring the federal government’s nationwide initiative to revitalize the Spanish countryside. In tandem, the regional government has been hosting job fairs in countries that previously received significant Galician emigration—such as Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina—to inform attendees about paths to Spanish employment and citizenship. The plan was most recently renewed in a 2023-2026 iteration, with another 2.5 million euros dedicated to the program as of January 2026. 

The Galician return policy is not necessarily unique by Spanish standards. Since the early 2000s, Spain has had a federal policy to facilitate citizenship for descendants of Spanish emigrants. Recent events, however, render the Galician case particularly salient. 

On January 27, Spain’s socialist-led coalition government announced that it would grant legal status to upwards of half a million undocumented immigrants. The response was explosive: Proponents have defended it not only as a humanitarian measure but also as a partial solution to Spain’s economic and demographic challenges. Opponents have invoked concerns over Spain’s costly housing market, overwhelmed public services, and high unemployment rates. In other circles, nationalist sentiments, concern for cultural preservation, and in certain cases xenophobia, have grounded anti-immigration positions—mirroring similar immigration debates consuming much of Europe and North America. Some Galicians, for their part, have rebuked suggestions that the region should close its doors to immigrants, arguing that it would be hypocritical given the region’s history. 

As we look at this and other turbulent immigration debates worldwide, there seems to be no better time than now to take a retrospective look at Galicia’s emigratory past. 

Edited by Adele Torrington 

Featured image: “Monumento aos emigrantes no Porto de Santa Cruz (Oleiros). Deseño de Luís Seoane” by Vilachan is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.