Gastarbeiter: When Spaniards suffered from stigma and housing discrimination

From labor exile to xenophobia: the European mirror

During the 1960s, nearly 3.5 million Spaniards emigrated to the heart of Europe. Under the status of Gastarbeiter or "guest worker," they were key players in the industrial reconstruction of Germany, Switzerland, and France. However, this migratory flow was marked by rejection. Media outlets of the time, such as Der Spiegel, propagated clichés that resonate with unsettling familiarity today: they were labeled "dirty," their morality was questioned, and they were pointed to as a threat to local safety and employment.

The housing crisis as a weapon

The integration of these workers was precarious, especially regarding housing. Many were confined to barracks or dilapidated buildings where accessing a rental was an odyssey marked by discrimination. Just as it happens today in Spain, where the lack of an effective housing policy fuels hate speech, Spaniards at the time suffered rejection from landlords who refused to rent them properties based on xenophobic prejudices. This social tension, which today manifests in the difficulty of accessing a mortgage or decent lease, has historically been a breeding ground for exclusion.

"They were seen as dark-skinned, noisy... There was resentment and a certain de facto segregation, in housing but also in social spaces," explains Carlos Sanz, a historian at the Complutense University.

"National priority" and selective memory

Today, political groups like Vox and sectors of the PP have revived the concept of "national priority," linking immigration to the degradation of public services and security. This rhetoric ignores that, in the 1960s, it was Spaniards who occupied that position of the "unwanted foreigner" in Europe. The current difference lies in the speed with which social media spreads fake news; in the first ten months of 2025, the agency Oberaxe detected more than 740,000 hate messages.

The 1973 oil crisis was the turning point where European tolerance broke down, similar to the tensions currently surrounding the historic demonstration in Valencia: the education and housing crisis. Economic precariousness, far from being caused by migrants, is a symptom of structural failures in political management.

Conclusion: have we learned from the past?

The history of the Gastarbeiter should not just be a chapter in textbooks, but a mirror for today's society. As Spain moves toward an urgent need for labor in sectors like hospitality, the political debate seems stuck in the stigmatization of the newcomer. As experts like Joaquín Riera point out, past discrimination was based on the idea of "job theft," a myth that today, in a labor market demanding workers, has transformed into a direct attack on the basic social rights of those arriving in our country.