The Catalan footprint // Cultural identity

Cultural identity

Goosebumps when hearing la “sardana” music
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Spanish blood
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Name calling and feeling different
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Josephine Canals felt like fish out of water
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Forgetting Spanish origins
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I am Spanish Australian
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Catalan welcoming
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Tapiolas Catalaness
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Catalans or Spaniards?
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"When I hear the 'sardana' music I still get goosebumps" Steven Comas.


The first Catalan migrants to arrive in Australia kept a strong sense of belonging to Catalonia. Most of them spoke Catalan, were highly religious, celebrated traditions such as ‘caga tio’ and cultivated products to cook typical Catalan recipes. But once the children went to school and integrated within the Australian society, this sense of Catalan belonging was challenged. Although the new generations of Catalans in Australia do not show most of the signs of a Catalan identity, they still feel quite different to the rest of Australians. Why do you think that is? What makes them Catalan?


"You've been grown up and you've had it hammered into you" Kathleen Vandergriff


"I was the one that felt I was a fish out of water, or was I a fish out of water?" Josephine Canals


"I think mother and her sister were trying to establish themselves away from the Catalan tradition" Josh Xipell


"I just feel with the Catalan welcome it's not unconditional but it's not forced on you" Mary Dalmau


"Maybe it was a sense of arrogance that they were Catalan, they weren't Spanish" Joanne Tapiolas