Argentines with eight Mallorcan lineages: Operation Return

PalmMagdalena Cabrer has lived her entire life in Argentina, in Villa Cañás, but she has eight Mallorcan ancestry, as her godparents and father were born on the island. This is one of the first things she emphasizes when she meets someone. Whenever possible, she visits them and stays at her cousin's house in Port de Pollença. She returns to Mallorca to reconnect with her family, something many of the relatives who emigrated to Argentina were never able to do. "My godmother told us that they had carob trees in their house in Pollença. Before leaving, her brother hammered a nail into the stem of one to see if it would be there when he returned. But it never did," she recounts through tears, sitting on a white swing by the sea.

They left because people were starving in Mallorca. "They boiled the olive pits to eat what came out," she recalls. They emigrated to a land lacking in labor, and the Mallorcans mostly worked in the fields. Juan Gabriel Marelli Manresa, a Mallorcan refugee who has lived in Felanitx for six years, says that between 1880 and 1930 (when Argentina received a large wave of European immigrants), a man from Felanitx would go to the Buenos Aires train station every day, shouting for jobs. "If there were any, he would make them get off the train and give them work and a place to sleep," he adds. Upon arriving in the Argentine capital, the migrants would go to the Immigrants' Hotel, where they were given free nights and food. They were also enrolled in a job bank. But if they couldn't find any, or if they didn't want to stay in the capital, they would take the train and always pass through San Pedro. "And what's more, the Felanitxer would also tell them that there were many Mallorcans working there," he explains.

San Pedro was one of the largest colonies of Mallorcans in Argentina. The city's migrants were primarily from Felanitx. For this reason, they were named sister cities in 1978. In fact, there is a plaque commemorating this fact in San Pedro Town Hall.

Marelli's godmother, Sebastiana, nicknamed Lluenta, was from Felanitx and always told her that the houses there were "very big and made of stone." Andrea Soria's godfather, who was also from Felanitx, told her that "he would go into the sea and, no matter how far he walked, the water would always reach below his knees." While making a mate next to a Mallorcan cistern, she remembers that he also told her there were many starfish. On Sundays in Argentina, her godparents would take her to see "the Mallorcans," who were family acquaintances.

Ensaimada in Argentina?

In addition to remembering and trying to explain to family and friends what the places where they spent their childhood were like, Mallorcans tried to maintain their culinary culture. Soria recounts that in the bakery at Can Pere de Campos they make an ensaimada very similar to the one his godfather used to make in San Pedro. "When I tried it, it was like eating my grandfather's," he says. Some family friends founded the first confectionery in San Pedro where they made and sold ensaimadas, a product that has now become a souvenir of the city, according to Juan Manuel Gomila, president of the Mallorca de San Pedro Association. "People leave here with boxes of ensaimadas," he says. For 20 years, the city has celebrated the ensaimada festival in August, organized by the Association, which also features boat dancing performances, among other activities. Some members of the association have participated in the trip to the island by nearly 40 Argentinians with Mallorcan roots. Sitting in the wine cellar of Joan Rigo, a bell ringer who has family in Argentina, they reconnect with their relatives while eating bread with olive oil and sobrasada and sipping sweet herbs. "I've eaten this all my life," says Cabrer, who has had Mallorcan cuisine integrated into her daily life since she was a child. "My godparents used to hold slaughterhouses, and we would eat sobrasada and fried blood. My godmother often made us pancuit," she says. She tried all of these before the Argentine barbecue. She also remembers eating parsley coca, one of the words she pronounces best in Catalan.

At home, Catalan comes before Spanish.

During the migration waves, Catalan was spoken everywhere in San Pedro, according to some residents of the ARA Baleares. Cabrer's godparents and godparents always spoke Catalan. "At home, it was more common than Spanish. They always used it. They chatted with friends and fellow residents of San Pedro in Spanish, but when they didn't want to be understood, they also spoke Catalan," he explains.

In the Argentinian city, you can still see shards of the Catalan language reflected in signs for photography, plant, and fruit shops. Furthermore, there are still some elderly Mallorcans who remember where they come from more than ever, and even still do so with the language. "My godmother, when she was very old, used to tell her daughter that she didn't know how to speak Spanish and that she should speak to her in Mallorcan," says Marelli. The family never spoke to him. However, in a "return operation" organized by the government to facilitate the reunion of descendants of Mallorcans living in Argentina with their families, he heard his grandfather speak Catalan for the first time in his life with the cousins he had just met. "He spoke Catalan from 100 years ago because it evolved in Mallorca, but in Argentina they spoke to him the same way they had the day they left the island. However, he sang Spanish with a perfect Argentine accent."

Despite never having had close contact with Catalan, at age 15, his godparents took him to a party organized by the Mallorca Association of San Pedro, where the attendees spoke to him. So, he signed up for Catalan classes, almost private, with a teacher from Inca who was married to an Argentinian woman. Today, he speaks the language like a native. He even has a pronounced Felanitx accent. He is also pursuing a degree in Catalan Philology at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) because he wants to be a teacher. His vocation comes from way back. At just 18, he began teaching the language at the Mallorca Association, which held workshops.

The organization was a cultural refuge for migrant Mallorcans. They would go and celebrate that, no matter how far from home they were, the gastronomy, languages, and customs of the land would not be lost. Furthermore, they would share them with the Argentinians who welcomed them in their time of need. In fact, at the headquarters of the Association there was a sign that showed the proximity between the two lands with a clear message: "We are united by blood, we are united by the same feeling."u