Belonging to a generation of immigrants from Bilbao, Tomás Rubiolo is aware that no one should be considered ‘illegal’ and that information that exists about some countries stigmatises and generates discriminatory discourse about people who experience very serious realities.
Josefina Viano
Tomas grew up in Sarmiento, a tiny town in the centre of the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. With barely 2,000 inhabitants, surrounded by plains, and an hour away from the next city, this small town, surrounded by fields and tranquillity, was the setting for his childhood.
During his childhood, he remembers how in the quiet naps, his great aunt would tell him about her life in Spain, about the culture and his ancestors, stories about La Arboleda, a mining village, today almost uninhabited, ‘a typically Spanish dream place’. Cousins still live there, daughters of a second cousin of her grandmother, whom he visited when he left Argentina, to get to know the place and connect with the family’s past.
His great-grandmother, grandmother and great-uncles arrived from Bilbao to Argentina in 1950, and his mother, Chabel, took it upon herself to portray ‘the chronicles of the Basque Country’, in the form of a novel in a book called “Sangre Vasca” (Basque blood), which is well worth travelling-reading. This book represents an interweaving of the Spanish civil war, exile, migration and the adventurous life of his ancestors. It is also the result of all those stories about La Arboleda, made novel, landscape and tenderness. Stories that for him meant not only the past, but also the future.
Tomás arrived in Madrid in 2019, with a degree in his hand: Audiovisual Producer. Determined, he set out on his journey with a spirit open to new experiences and the desire to learn more about his origins. For him, it was key to let himself be carried away by whatever came his way:
“Life surprises you. As soon as I set off on my journey, on the outward journey, on the stopover in London, I met a woman, we exchanged contacts, and ended up looking for a flat to share: we lived together until after the pandemic. Today she is still a great friend. I also lived with Romanies, met people from all over Latin America, and made my first friends. I thought I was going to be alone, that I was going to have to get by on my own. But life puts people in your way, people who help you”.
After several interviews, he started working in customer service. It was high season. Months went by and then, during the pandemic, he started working for the Chinese multinational Xiaomi. He is still there and devotes himself to teaching and training. This year he took part in the huge ‘Mobile World Congress’ in Barcelona, sharing with Chinese colleagues from his company. For him, emigrating is about “getting to know people, realities, experiences, life stories”.
As time went by, some reflections became clear to him: “I feel I am in a privileged position, listening to the stories of my Latin American brothers and sisters, whose lives are very hard. The information that comes about Latin America stigmatises and generates discriminatory discourse about people who suffer very serious realities”.
Once through the pandemic, he took the time to go to the town of his grandmothers’ stories, and to find the traces of his own identity: “I came thinking about getting out of my comfort zone, I wanted to know what it meant to live in another country, and I wanted to know my roots”.
With roots and ‘migrant blood’, he expresses his vision after all these years, living the process first-hand: “We often talk about ‘illegal’ immigrants. No one should be considered ‘illegal’. We are in a crazy world, with unfair rules”.
In these years, he dedicated himself to learning and going through experiences which are what allow those who dare to experiment to know what is good and what is bad: “I was recently in Italy, with a friend from Sarmiento. We were lying on the beach at night, sharing a beer and thinking: how crazy that we are here and we came from there. At some point the world becomes very small. I could never have imagined this reality”. For Tomás, migrating is a “highly recommendable” experience, different for each person, which requires the support of the family: “I had it”. He had it, in more than one sense: not only in the present, but also, he had it from an ancestral past, which is the guide and essence of his path, a path from Sarmiento to La Arboleda.
(Translated by Rene Phelvin – Email: renephelvin@gmail.com) – Photos supplied by the interviewee and authorised for publication
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