SYA Spain: Then and Now
SYA Spain, Then and Now
by Tom Peace ES'76
Reprinted from the 40th Anniversary Commemorative
I received a letter notifying me that SYA was planning a 40th anniversary celebration eight time zones away, in the middle of a work week, on a different continent while the exchange rate was skewed near its all-time worst level and, as best I was able to determine, with none of my old classmates signing up to go…. “Sounds great! I’m in!”
At worst it would be an excuse to visit yet another city in Spain and with a little work on the travel itinerary an opportunity to visit Barcelona and stroll Las Ramblas and sip sangria. Yet as the day grew nearer I became curious about the prospects of a reunion without any actual classmates present. So I arrived on the doorsteps of School Year Abroad in Zaragoza surprised to find myself feeling a bit of the same sense of anxiousness that filled my early days as a new SYA student 30 years ago.
This of course proved to be silliness on my part as the current SYA staff, students and fellow alumni quickly made me realize I was among friends. While many of us were strangers to one another, the common bond of the shared place proved strong and the two days together passed too quickly. The affair was fun filled, and I sincerely enjoyed all of the staff and alumni that made the trip. It was also inspiring to meet the very impressive group of students who comprise the class of 2005. Kudos to the recruiting office. And thanks to the pioneering class of 1965 who got it all started.
I must admit I was curious about Zaragoza, SYA’s new host city and for at least this old-time SYAer, comparisons to Barcelona are inescapable. And as always it’s interesting to reflect on the Spain of then and now.
For all its reputation as a tradition-laded culture, Spain has certainly undergone its share of dramatic transformations during SYA’s lifetime. Since the death of Franco during my study year in 1975-76, I have followed with great interest the emergence of Spanish democracy, the weakening of Catholicism’s grip and relaxation of social mores, and Spain’s economic renaissance and its increasing partnering with its European neighbors. All of these have been well documented in the international press, but what really crystallized the extent of change was a late-night Public Service Announcement I happened to see warning Spanish motorists about the dangers of excessive speeding on the freeways. The sponsors of the PSA were the Guardia Civil. The very same folks that had been the icon for Franco’s rule, visibly patrolling the streets and countryside with their distinctive headwear and menacing machine guns and whose modus operandi in the mid-1970’s was “two’s company and three might be the beginning of the next insurrection” were now relegated to traffic patrol.
Clearly, Franco’s death was the catalyst for all this, aided by ETA’s assassination of his handpicked successor—Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco—in 1973 thus ensuring the end of Franquism. Having been suppressed for 40 years during the generalissimo’s reign, the spirited Spanish soul was finally unleashed. And once freed of the yokes of repression, there’s been no turning back.
No where did these transformations seem more dramatic than in Barcelona. The wave of social unrest that was released on November 20, 1975 allowed Barcelona to resume its tradition of social and urban progress. As a city built by artisans and strongly influenced by the professional guilds, freedom from Colomer’s Madrid-imposed governorship allowed the city to reconnect with its historical, social-democratic roots. No small thing considering those roots had led to the adoption of the Usatges more than 100 years before the Magna Carta and its Consell of Cent, which was Spain’s earliest democratic government body and much more open to citizen participation than Florence’s Signoria. The return of socially progressive local officeholders combined with the leverage of economic development provided by the 1992 Olympics and the restoration of the Catalan language all helped restore the city’s pride and sense of meaning.
Despite personally witnessing the street protests in the early months of 1976, at the time I was unable to appreciate the force of coiled spring that would soon be sprung. It has been on periodic visits back to the city that the extent of the transformation and the fundamental social conviction have become apparent to me. Amazingly, it turns out that Spain and Barcelona continue to teach me 30 years after my studies there ended.
Having had the opportunity to meet and talk with the present SYA administrators, it’s also clear that the social transformations in Barcelona made it difficult to run a program that could both provide the culture immersion experience to American teenagers and alleviate the fears of their parents back home. Once decided, the move was done, and done very well. The best argument in favor of the move was the sense of loyalty to their host city expressed by this year’s group of students.
Whatever feelings of abandonment SYA Barcelona alumni may have felt when they heard the announcement of the SYA move out of that city, having now seen the program there it is clear the program fits well in its new home city. Zaragoza proved to be a vibrant, forward moving, and importantly for SYA’s mission, Spanish city.
Populated since pre-Roman days, Zaragoza‘s central location at the cross-roads between Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia made it an ideal trading outpost. It’s pragmatic economic nature today reflects that historical legacy. While it suffered during the Spanish Civil War, it retains architectural examples from all of the major historical eras including several of the Mudejar style reflecting the long over-lapping histories of the Christian and Muslim cultures on the Iberian Peninsula. New economic development projects aimed at expanding Zaragoza’s role as a primary port of entry for international trade coupled with a healthy manufacturing base bode well for the city’s future success.
As the SYA celebrations wound down on the final evening and the last toasts were hoisted, Ángel Vilalta took the floor and delivered a heartfelt soliloquy of his own reaction to SYA’s move to Zaragoza and his retirement from SYA. For those few moments 30 years faded away and I felt transported back to a classroom just off the Plaza de Catalonia, a simple American school kid listening to the venerable Spanish maestro.
On the flight home the next morning I reflected on the magnitude of the changes Spain has undergone away from repressive fundamentalism state towards democratic and personal liberties. It dawned on me that I was returning to my own homeland, which is threatening to do exactly the reverse, sacrificing personal liberties in favor of strict fundamentalism. Should that indeed come to pass, I can only hope that the example of Spain’s emergence from Franco’s shadow casts a guiding light which America finds the wisdom to follow.