Introduction

The migratory trend in Spain changed from the end of the 20th century due to, among other factors, the economic growth driven by a return to democracy, which increased the number of immigrants who decided to settle in the country seeking to improve their socio-economic conditions. According to the National Institute of Statistics (^{Instituto Nacional de Estadística}), in 1996 there were 637,085 foreigners registered in Spain, and over 5 million, by 2019. Madrid, being the capital, became the gateway in terms of immigrant reception (^{Alcolea Moratilla, 2000}). In this context of population change, numerous lines of research have been developed that analyze the discursive construction both by immigrants and by the Spanish society from interdisciplinary perspectives, to better assess the presentation and representation of said international migration phenomena.

Studies on the perception of the host society —mostly linked to the discourse conveyed by the media— tend to portray negative perspectives, despite the socioeconomic benefits that international migrants bring to Spanish society (^{van Dijk, 2010}; ^{Saiz de Lobado, 2018}). Although, on the other hand, what has been called the “ethnic press” (^{Sanders & Zorogastua, 2017}, p. 379) of Madrid also allowed migrant access to the public sphere: “in 2007, 85 Latino media outlets were counted only in the Community of Madrid” (Sanders & Zorogastua, 2017, p. 382). Yet in 2012, two of the most representative newspapers, Latino and Sí, se puede, “the most widely circulating newspapers nationwide and with the largest number of readers in the Community of Madrid” (^{Martínez Pastor & Santín, 2009}, p. 130) ceased operations due to the economic crisis (^{Saiz de Lobado, 2015}).

A second line pertains to the discursive construction by immigrants themselves, which addresses the creation of their own identity and that of negotiation with their context, or the level of participation in the public sphere by the ethnic and linguistic groups that are new in the territory. These are groups that reflect the new discursive construction through the traces of interculturality present in the urban space, where “new discursive and communicative practices” have been developed and reproduced (^{Moustaoui-Srhir, 2019}, p. 11). Thus, the linguistic landscape (LL) is understood as a process of “spatial resemiotization” (^{Moustaoui-Srhir, 2018},

p. 199) reflecting the “appropriation of urban spaces by means of new linguistic practices that make up new landscapes resistant to the hegemonic sociolinguistic regimes and the models of governance and resource management” (^{Martín Rojo, 2014} in ^{Moustaoui-Srhir, 2019}, p. 17).

By means of the interdisciplinary methodological approach of the LL analysis, the purpose of this work is to comparatively study two areas of Madrid: Lavapiés, in the neighborhood of Embajadores (Central District), and the neighborhood of San Diego (Vallecas District). We aim to analyze the identity construction of minority ethnic and linguistic groups, otherwise understood as the process of resemiotization, in two of the areas with the highest percentage of immigration within the Spanish capital, at the level of linguistic and symbolic plurality. Both cartographies, which reflect an ethnographic journey bringing together samples of interculturality, are supported, substantiated, and contrasted with previous studies on Madrid’s LL (^{Castillo Lluch & Sáez Rivera, 2011}; ^{Moustaoui-Srhir, 2013}; ^{Moustaoui-Srhir, 2018}; ^{Moustaoui-Srhir, 2019}; ^{Sáez Rivera & Castillo Lluch, 2012}; ^{Sáez Rivera, 2015}; ^{Saiz de Lobado & Revilla, 2019}). When it comes to Lavapiés, the samples have also evidenced the gentrification process, since multiculturalism is used as an advertising strategy (^{Slater, 2011}; ^{Grier & Perry, 2018}; ^{Saiz de Lobado & Revilla, 2019}).

Before delving into the analysis of linguistic and cultural diversity, it is necessary to contextualize the territory (or territories) to be studied (^{Moustaoui-Srhir, 2019}), to identify what is common, typical or folkish, that which “appears as a condition and result of social production, which becomes a school of co-decision” (^{Saidel, 2019}, p. 21), and its different levels and possible evolution, subject matter that will be developed in the first section of the work. Thereafter, the LL will be reviewed before undertaking the descriptive and comparative analysis between both cartographies, to determine the identity creation and negotiation strategies developed by immigrants when negotiating their presence in the public sphere or space; lastly, our closing remarks will be presented.

The originality of this research lies in the fact that the symbology and the underlying discourse parallel to the analysis of the languages found in these territories, such as flags and images, have also been included. In addition, all the samples have been archived in two infographics or cartographies that will allow the reader to walk through both territories, virtually. This work can be considered a second part or extension of the study carried out by ^{Saiz de Lobado and Revilla (2019}); it is nonetheless important to clarify that the information contained in this article has not been published elsewhere before.

Territorial context: lavapiés and San Diego (Vallecas)

Lavapiés and El Rastro are two areas within the neighborhood of Embajadores, in the Central District of Madrid. Lavapiés is not a neighborhood at the administrative level, and so the data extracted from official sources will reflect the statistics of Embajadores overall. Although the origin of this territory is uncertain, most studies note that this neighborhood housed the Madrid Jewish quarter during the last phase of the Reconquista period (^{Gómez, 2006}; ^{García & Sequera, 2013}), and thus Lavapiés can be understood as a characteristically “diasporic” territory (^{Moustaoui-Srhir, 2018}, p. 206) since its origin.

Vallecas, Vallekas, or Valle del Kas, as this old municipality is popularly known, located in the southeast of Madrid, was annexed to the capital as a district in 1950 (^{Fernández, 2007}; ^{Rodríguez Leal, 2017}). The name Vallecas appeared for the first time referring to a population center in 1406 (^{Fernández Montes, 2007}). The district is divided into several neighborhoods: Entrevías, San Diego, Palomeras Bajas, Palomeras Sureste, Portazgo and Numancia. The neighborhood object of this analysis is in San Diego, although at the level of identity creation reference is popularly made to the entire Vallecas district. The fact that identity construction rarely matches administrative divisions is quite particular: both Lavapiés and Vallecas are considered neighborhoods, although neither of them falls under that administrative category.

As will be seen below, there are parallels to both territories, such as their development from the second half of the 20th century due to internal migration flows from the countryside to the city (^{Fernández Montes, 2007}; ^{Peñalta Catalán, 2010}; ^{Rodríguez Leal, 2017}). In the case of Vallecas, the expansion process of Madrid’s urban area was also influential, due to the arrival of new inhabitants and the “transformation of urban life and the organization of the city” (^{Otero Carvajal, 2016}, p. 260). During the eighties, drug use, particularly that of heroin, became an endemic problem in both territories, resulting in high levels of civilian insecurity (^{Peñalta Catalán, 2010}; ^{Rodríguez Leal, 2017}). Contrastingly and as will be noted below, the proliferation of neighborhood associations resulted in a favorable environment for those outside the system.

According to data from ^{Madrid City Council (2019)}, in 2018 the neighborhood of Embajadores was home to 56 neighborhood associations and San Diego to 42. These organizations are key when it comes to creating identities outside the system in specific territories, through the development of an inclusive social fabric that promotes the sense of community and the exercise of democratic rights by citizens (^{Cabrerizo, Klett, & García- Bachiller, 2015}). In the case of Lavapiés, a large part of the neighborhood associative groups works in developing neighborhood networks aimed at countering the processes of tourism and gentrification already ongoing in the territory² (^{Torres, Vega, & Ortega, 2018}; ^{Gil & Sequera, 2018}).

One of the most representative associative activities in Vallecas, held every July since 1982, is the Naval Battle (Batalla Naval): an example of postmodern folk identity or the new typical; through a citizen resistance initiative that arose in the framework of the environmental bookstore El Bulevar, and that in 2019 celebrated its 27th edition, currently organized by the Vallekas Naval Brotherhood (Cofradía Marinera de Vallekas). This activity consists of a water war open to anyone who wants to participate, which arose in response to the disagreement with Spain’s adherence to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The group symbolically and ironically proclaimed as a seaport the independence of Vallecas from the rest of the country (^{Fernández, 2007}; ^{Rodríguez Leal, 2017}), to the point of becoming one of the most typical celebrations of the Spanish capital. Another example of the reappropriation and creation of postmodern folk identity is the Villana de Vallekas social center, which takes its name from the almost homonymous 17th-century work by Tirso de Molina.

Madrilenian folk identity

As explained earlier, no sociological approximation to the current dynamics of these territories can be made without addressing Madrilean folk identity, something seen as pure, genuine and faithful to traditions: “such gesture, such attitude, where the secret of one’s own identity is kept” (^{Galán, 2003}, p. 354), or everything pertaining popular customs and practice (^{Haidt, 2011}). Although this particular folk identity (casticismo) dates back to the 18th century (before Vallecas was the population center that it is today) a postmodern folk identity has also been forged in this territory through new construction of the typical and the common, as will be seen throughout this work. At the same time, it is ironic for Lavapiés to be the “quintessence of Madrilean folk identity” (^{Gómez, 2006}, p. 2) since from its origins the neighborhood has been shaped by different migration processes. Therefore, in both territories, there is an identity creation that leads to a new typical, or a new layer of the multiple levels of folk identity, inevitably related to the new cultural groups inhabiting both territories.

The most traditional Madrilean folk identity is reflected in the lexicography relative to some of the demonym ascribed to the inhabitants of the Spanish capital from the 18th century, such as the case of the manolos and the majos. Manolos/as or manueles/as, whose origin is the name Manuel, are explained as follows in the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (^{RAE, 2014}): “from the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, a person from the popular classes of Madrid who was distinguished by his dress and ease.” This name is linked to the families of Jewish converts who called their eldest son Manuel, to make it known that they had abandoned Judaism. Ramón de la Cruz also uses this antihero figure of the Manolo in his 18th sainete “Manolo, a tragedy to laugh, a comedy to cry.” It became a very common name in Lavapiés during that period, and therefore manueles and manolos remained as a local demonym (^{Répide, 1995}, p. 343). This is yet another reason why historians believe this to be the location of the Jewish quarter in Madrid, thus confirming its character as a diasporic territory. The Merchants Association of Lavapiés (Asociación de Comerciantes de Lavapiés) undertook a new initiative: the Manueles Market (Mercado de los Manueles), referencing the converted Jews who inhabited the area centuries ago (^{Farmacia de Lavapiés, 2018}).

As for majo/a, “in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries [was a] person of the popular classes of Madrid that in their bearing, actions and dressing style affected freedom and beauty” (^{RAE, 2014}). In 1874’s El barberillo de Lavapiés, the zarzuela by Luis Mariano de Larra, the author makes use of a particular term “the traditional way of speaking,” to replicate the popular language of the time:

Cheli is another example of postmodern traditional language, this time very popular in Vallecas (^{Rodríguez Leal, 2017}, pp. 197-200). This jargon was born in Madrid at the end of the 20th century, along with Spanish democracy and the cultural phenomenon of the Madrilenian scene (^{Gherman, 2013}). This jargon is one in which “old popular speech was interwoven with new idioms, some of which passed into the general language and withstood the passing time” (^{Molina Martos, 2015}, p. 9). Cheli is “a linguistic phenomenon whose appearance is due to sociolinguistic and contextual factors” (^{Gherman, 2013, p. 20}). For example, the expressions “being there like a parrot, ‘staying alert,’ molar heavily, ‘liking very much’” (^{Molina Martos, 2015, p. 9}); or “bag,” which stands for prison and is already included in the dictionary of the Spanish language (DLE), which considers this jargon a linguistic variant.

Vallekas and Valle del Kas, as the district where the neighborhood of San Diego is located is popularly known, are two denominations that fit into this postmodern folk identity. The use of the letter k instead of the letter c in Spanish has become ideologically loaded, even to a greater extent than the letter ñ, despite presenting a lower number of iterations in the lexicon (^{Fernández Montes, 2007}; ^{Fuentes, 2017}; ^{Rodríguez Leal, 2017}). During the Spanish Transition, the letter k, so common in Basque, came to be considered a symbol of Basque separatism, and generally of everything that could break the order established during the dictatorship period (^{Fuentes, 2017}). Valle del Kas displays the same symbolic and identity traits as Vallekas: it takes its name from the Kas Alternative (^{Rodríguez Leal, 2017}), a political program associated with the terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, an acronym in Basque for Basque Country and Freedom), dissolved in 2018. Thus, Vallekas and Valle del Kas represent an area associated with political and social protest movements, while Vallecas stands for the administrative name of a district of the capital.

Linguistic Landscape (LL)

The main function of LL is to map the linguistic diversity of a territory to analyze the presence of minority linguistic (^{Barni & Bagna, 2015}) and ethnic groups. ^{Landry & Bourhis (1997}), pioneers in LL studies, defined it as:

[…] the language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings combine to form the Linguistic Landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration (^{Landry & Bourhis, 1997}, p.25).

This definition emphasizes the importance of linguistic signs in official buildings (top-down communication), characterized by being issued by local authorities. ^{Shohamy and Gorter (2008},

p. 1) proposed a broader definition: “language in the environment, words, and images displayed and exposed in public spaces, that is the center of attention in this rapidly growing area referred to as Linguistic Landscape.”

Bottom-up communication is included in this latter version, underlining its unofficial nature. The authors also bring in sound, images, and graffiti into this new definition (^{Shohamy & Gorter, 2008}). ^{Jaworsky and Thurlow (2010)} expanded the concept of LL by referring to semiotic landscaping in which written discourse interacts with other discursive modalities, such as graphics, non-verbal communication, and the architecture of the environment, to include a greater contextualization and historical explanation in the analysis, thus allowing one to analyze and understand why certain symbols or semiotic traces appear in certain physical places.

It should be noted that the English language functions as a lingua franca in LL studies, associated as it is with the processes of globalization and the obtainment of economic resources (^{Shohamy E., 2007}; ^{Maly, 2016}). The interdisciplinary nature of this methodology should be noted as well, as it makes it an easy one to employ together with a wide range of disciplines, such as urban studies or sociology, as in this case (^{Blommaert, 2013}; ^{Barni & Bagna, 2015}; ^{Moustaoui-Srhir, 2019}; ^{Leeman & Modan, 2009}).

It is important to clarify that both cartographies will not exclusively take into account words in foreign languages. Due to the linguistic and cultural relationship and proximity with Latin American migrants, the range of intercultural samples has been expanded to include words in different variants of the Spanish language (^{Sáez Rivera & Castillo Lluch, 2012}; ^{Sáez Rivera, 2015}) used for typical Latin American products, or symbols representing this diversity, and therefore, the negotiation of identities within the territory. A construct closely linked to this identity creation is the display of symbols, for example (although not exclusively) flags from the places of origin, which transform the cultural LL of a territory through a semiotic strategy of identity negotiation that increases the degree of visibility of a certain group (^{Hanauer, 2012}). The multicultural constructions of public space, in this case of Lavapiés and San Diego, meet the concept of diasporic territory, in which members of the same cultural group socialize in part due to goods and services directed to these specific communities (^{Moustaoui-Srhir, 2019}; Moustaoui-Srhir, 2018; ^{Riesco Sanz, 2008}), this also helps to establish and preserve group identity (^{Pappenhagen, Scarvaglieri, & Redder, 2016}).

Likewise, one must remember that the expressions of multiculturality in certain territories do not only indicate the degree of ethnolinguistic vitality, since multiculturality has become a source of socio-economic development (^{Rath, 2017}) in the globalized world, and is emerging as a relevant commercial strategy within the tourism and gentrification processes of a given territory (^{Grier & Perry, 2018}; ^{Blockland & van Eijk, 2010}). In the case of Lavapiés, these trends have been confirmed through LL (^{Moustaoui-Srhir, 2018}; ^{Saiz de Lobado & Revilla, 2019}) and sociological (^{Torres, Vega, & Ortega, 2018}; ^{Gil & Sequera, 2018}) studies.

Notes on methodology

Both cartographies have been created using the free access software StoryMap, developed by Knightlab, an interdisciplinary research group bringing together journalists and computer scientists from Northwestern University. This program allows users to store images and audio files that can be shared, along with their geographical location. It also allows editing and updating the created cartographies, a very useful function to carry out diachronic studies (^{Barni & Bagna, 2015}), also easy to replicate.

For the creation of both resources, the traces of interculturality displayed in both territories were recorded with smartphones, excluding pedestrians. These traces include foreign languages and spellings, Latin American variants of Spanish, as well as symbols of interculturality and ethnic diversity. All samples are numbered in each cartography and the reader is strongly encouraged to access both resources while consulting the following section. The original Lavapiés’ Cartography (see https://tinyurl.com/y77fclw2) contains 141 images collected during November-December 2016 by a group of Intercultural Communication students from the European University of Madrid, as part of an activity on diversity.

The territory has been revisited for this paper, yet no significant changes have been found in the categories included in our analysis. On a sociological level, it is important to remember that between 2016, the year in which Lavapiés’ LL was compiled, and 2019, San Diego’s LL year of compilation, the migrant population of Embajadores only grew one point and a half according to data from the Madrid City Council (^{Madrid City Council, 2019}). It must be clarified that this study will only take into account those images of Lavapiés belonging to matching categories in San Diego’s Cartography (see https://tinyurl.com/ycohebzw).

This methodological adjustment has resulted in the creation of the Phone booths category (stores with several phone booths to make international calls) and in the omission of the Graffiti, Posters and Craft Stores categories since no samples of these were found in San Diego categories (see ^{Saiz de Lobado & Revilla, 2019}). The final number of samples that will be used in the descriptive analysis of the LL to establish similarities and differences between both territories in Lavapiés’ Cartography is 111 images, and 60 for San Diego’s Cartography.

Analysis and discussion

As pointed out by Güel, Parella, and Valenzuela (^{2015, p. 45}), globalization has radically changed the “cartography of the global city,” as well as how its space is understood. In this case, this translates into a substantial increase in the incoming flows of international migrants in both territories during the last few decades. Since San Diego’s LL does not include graffiti or posters as has already been noted, all samples will come from ethnic economies or businesses, a concept first emerged in the United States in the 1970s (^{Güell, Parella, & Valenzuela, 2015}; ^{Garcés, 2011}) that analyzes “the diversity of forms that business takes in urban spaces energized by the presence of immigrants” (^{Garcés, 2011, p. 3}). Migrants not only revitalize stagnant areas, but also “reproduce the sociocultural models of their places of origin” (^{Güell, Parella, & Valenzuela, 2015, p. 39}).

These minority businesses established by immigrants are characterized by the foreign origin of their employers, workers, clients, and products (^{Light, Sabagh, Bozorgmehr, & Der- Martirosian, 1994}). They develop when the “general economy” does not satisfy the needs of new groups, being as such “bazaars, phone booths, halal butchers, grocery stores, etc.” (^{Güell, Parella & Valenzuela, 2015}, p. 39). In this context, a type of business also emerges that despite having a strong ethnic component (products, owners, or workers) is still aimed at the general public, not only at specific ethnic or cultural groups. These establishments are known as inter-ethnic businesses, and present the highest number of iterations in the studies of both territories, as is usually the general trend (^{Calvi, 2018}; ^{Güell, Parella, & Valenzuela, 2015}; ^{Riesco Sanz, 2008}).

As previously stated, even though various studies point to the ongoing gentrification of Lavapiés related to its multicultural nature, it is important to remember that such a process is circular, rather than two-sided. Table 1 includes the six categories into which the samples of both cartographies have been divided.

Although the difference in the number of samples that each cartography includes can be perceived as an impediment to carrying out a comparative study, it is important to note that the number of total businesses recorded in Embajadores -2,813- almost doubles the number of those in San Diego -1,611- according to the latest available data from the 2018 Madrid City Council local census (^{Madrid City Council, 2019}). Therefore, the sample data is in line with the distribution of general businesses in each territory, within which ethnic and inter-ethnic ones are also included.

All samples are numbered in two virtual cartographies that have not been included in this paper due to technological reasons. The reader is strongly encouraged to access both resources in ^{Saiz de Lobado (2016}) and ^{Saiz de Lobado (2019)} to consult upon reading the following section.

Hairstyling and Beauty Supply Stores

In the case of Lavapiés,⁵ the languages with the highest number of repetitions in the corpus of images are Spanish, English, Arabic, Bengali, and French. Except for sample 4, in Bengali; the remaining samples contain Spanish. In the case of San Diego⁶ the languages Spanish, Chinese, and English, although the use of the latter does not fulfill any function at the level of space construction by immigrants, as explained before.

Another striking feature in both corpora of images, when analyzing the semantics and semiotics of space construction, is the inclusion of racialized models in commercial posters. Until the beginning of the 21st century, there was no demand in Spain for specific products targeted at other ethnicities, nor was there a need to advertise such, given the almost non-existent population of foreign origin. These establishments modify the ethnographic construction of the urban space and reflect characteristics particular to these ethnic groups, as can be seen in image

The use of the English language is interesting in this merely symbolic context, contrasting with its use in phone booths, wherein English functions as a lingua franca.

Source: Lavapiés’ Cartography (^{Saiz de Lobado, 2016}).

Image 1 Sample 133 

In this sample, several traits identify both establishments as ethnic businesses: the origin of the hair type with which extensions are made, India; also, the samples show the ethnic group explicitly, that of Afro-Latinos, represented by the portrayal of racialized models. Although it is true that these posters call for and reflect active participation in the public space by raising minority groups to visibility, the previous examples are of symbolic relevance related to xenophobia. The natural hair used in these establishments is usually dark and very straight, which contrasts diametrically with the characteristics of the main clientele of this type of establishment, which is of African descent and whose hair has different characteristics in terms of density and frizz (^{Kringen & Novich, 2018}).

Unfortunately, beauty standards in the United States and Europe are widely associated with fair skin and straighter hair, attributes shared by those at the top of the social pyramid, which influences the fact that black women try to meet Caucasian beauty standards, a behavior known as the Lily Complex (Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2004, cited in ^{Kringen & Novich, 2018}, p. 201). This search to systematically alter physical appearance to conform to white ideals of beauty, translates into a type of structural and ideological racism, in terms of white supremacy that associates negative values (^{Johnson & Bankhead, 2014}; ^{Joseph-Salisbury & Connelly, 2018}) not only to the skin color but also the hair type of black women, the latter being the second biggest stigma for them (^{Joseph-Salisbury & Connelly, 2018}).

Restaurants

In the case of Lavapiés, this category presents more than twice as many iterations as in San Diego’s Cartography (^{Saiz de Lobado, 2019}) (see Table 1), data that matches that of ^{Madrid’s City Council (2019)}, which in 2018 recorded 488 hospitality businesses related to food and beverages in Lavapiés, compared to 219 samples recorded in San Diego. The languages present within this category are, according to the linguistic cartography of Lavapiés¹¹: Spanish, Bengali, English, Italian, Arabic, Chinese and Turkish. It is important to remember that according to ^{Torres, Vega, and Ortega (2018}), establishments related to hospitality are a factor directly related to the gentrification and touristification rates of a given area, as is the case of Lavapiés.

Through this work we would like to document an inter-ethnic business, the Baobab (shown in image 2), which was the first Senegalese restaurant established in Lavapiés and that took its name from one of the most representative trees on the African continent. This establishment closed its doors at the beginning of 2020, as related by the newspaper El País: “Baobab, a symbol of a multicultural Lavapiés, hacked down. The well-known African food restaurant located in an increasingly gentrified neighborhood will cease operations this Sunday, as the property will be put on sale” (^{Ezquiaga Fernández, 2020}, n/n).

Source: Lavapiés’ Cartography (^{Saiz de Lobado, 2016}).

Image 2 Sample 102 

In the case of San Diego,¹² the samples recorded the following languages: Spanish, Turkish, English, Chinese, Quechua, Italian, and Urdu. Image 3 shows a multilingual poster in Quechua, English, and Spanish. The word Inka, otherwise transcribed with a c in Spanish and English, is a nod to the pre-Columbian Peruvian people. In this case, the advertising poster also references the legend of El Dorado by using the English word gold.

Source: San Diego’s Cartography (^{Saiz de Lobado, 2019}).

Image 3 Sample 29 

For instance, in samples 31 and 35 of San Diego’s Cartography, the negotiation at the level of identity creation can be seen in the use of the flags of Ecuador and Peru, as in previous categories.

In San Diego’s sample 36, a kebaps ¹³ restaurant makes use of an inclusive strategy by bringing together seemingly disparate language and cultural references, thus presenting a high semiotic load, as it makes a direct nod to the fans of the Rayo Vallecano football team through its commercial posters: Rayo Doner Kebap. This strategy is very similar to that of the Lavapiés pharmacy (Lavapiés pharmacy, 2018), the main difference being that in this case, it is a construction by the immigrant community itself, not a legitimization of their presence by the natives.

Sample 57 of San Diego’s Cartography, El Sanguchón pub, is highly relevant at the lexical level. The word sanguchón is an augmentative of the word sangucho (snack), coming from the Peruvian dialect variant. It is a naturalized loanword adapted to the Spanish spelling (^{Mestre- Mestre & Molés-Cases, 2019}), originally from the English word sandwich, thus another example of culture-specific vocabulary. Although sangucho does not appear in the Dictionary of Americanisms, the words sánguiche and sanduche do.

Final notes

The analysis of both cartographies or virtual ethnographic parcours has revealed that the languages with the highest number of iterations recorded in Lavapiés are Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Bengali, and English. In the case of San Diego, these are Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and English. The languages present in both territories match the most highly represented groups of nationals in the territory, according to official sources. It must be stressed that according to the sources above mentioned, over 95% of the total cases recorded in both cartographies include Spanish, which is the most common strategy to expand the consumer range and shows the expected hierarchical construction of space from majority to minority languages Also, in most cases, English functions as a lingua franca in this context.

The categories into which the samples of both cartographies have been divided also yielded interesting data. As can be seen in Table 1, the Food Stores category shows a percentage of iterations within the total of each cartography, which in the case of San Diego’s is higher (almost 16%). The main reason for this difference is the fact that Lavapiés is immersed in a gentrification process, therefore having more businesses focused on leisure, as can be seen in the samples that include the Restaurants category, also showing a higher percentage of iterations in Lavapiés.

On the other hand, the Hairstyling category does not show too marked differences, since it is precisely these territories where the new ethnic and cultural groups build the new concept of typical by means of inter-ethnic businesses. The Phone Booths category also shows a significant percentage difference between the two territories, as already explained due to the fact that in the case of Lavapiés many phone booths also share location with other types of businesses, which are the main activity. The Fashion and Accessories category shows the most disparate data between both categories, due to the number of wholesale businesses found in Lavapiés. Finally, the category Other recorded very eclectic samples, including associations and expressions of cultural groups developed through colonialism, as in the case of Santería.

Closing remarks

The neighborhoods of Lavapiés and San Diego have undergone very relevant sociodemographic changes in recent decades. A process of change about what is understood as typical has begun in both territories: a reinvention and readjustment of Madrid’s casticismo, which has become intercultural and reflects this new identity, one that goes beyond the mix between what is traditionally typical and the new typical. In this context, LL has made it possible to approach the study of the urban space configuration process by the immigrant population, which encompasses all the semiotic traces that convey interculturality, as well as those that speak of the subsequent process of gentrification. Ethnolinguistic cartographies have also shown that 16% of the total samples evidence strategies for the construction and negotiation of identity-based on graphic symbols that bring back to the countries of origin.

In the case of the samples in Spanish, for instance, several strategies show the presence of immigrants of Latin American origin: not only by means of the use of idiomatic variants but also through symbols, flags, geolocations, or popular characters. In the cases of countries with a colonial past, although the variants and exoticisms may be stimulating at an ethnographic level, the samples included in the LL also reveal traces of that past.

On the other hand, advertising the geographical origin of the establishment’s management, staff, and clientele, especially when it comes to products, is a strategy displayed in 32.8% of the samples. At the lexicographic level, and as a future line of research, it would be interesting to analyze the inclusion by the DLE of words related to gastronomy from other languages that are culturally more distant from Spain, such as the case of the integrated loanwords halal or kebab, as well as the non-inclusion of lexicon from other Spanish variants by the DLE, but conversely included in the Dictionary of Americanisms, as in the case of the Dominican word coconetes. Let us not forget that for this new folk identity to be implemented, the Spanish society would have to adopt otherness as part of the common and typical, and lexicography is a clear reflection of inclusion at the linguistic level. In fact, it would be very interesting to analyze the underlying ideologies that prioritize the inclusion of certain words over others in normative dictionaries.

Although the gentrification and touristification phenomenon appears to be an undeniable fact in Lavapiés, it remains true that multiculturality as a commercial strategy coexists with de facto multiculturality, and with a new perception of the typical or traditional space: these develop in a mutual cyclical process, even if the gentrification level and all its social implications are still low in San Diego. Thus, the LL has emerged as a tool to reveal different layers of parallel and interrelated realities —interculturality, new folk identity, colonialism, gentrification— oftentimes related to power imbalances and a critical analysis of the territory.

As future lines of research within the national project INMIGRA3-CM H2019/HUM-5772 [Community of Madrid] in which this study is framed, we plan to assess the presence of the English language in signs, businesses, or advertising strategies, as well as in the choice of the lexicon used or translated, for example, in restaurant menus, as a variable to analyze the gentrification degree of the territory. The presence of Spanish-American lexicon in contexts not related to migration, such as in menus from restaurants not owned by ethnic minorities, which in turn refers to the acculturation of the typical dishes of migrant communities, is a phenomenon that evidences the interplay between the culture of origin and that of destination, in which both are defined and reinterpreted through negotiation, as is the case curry in UK pubs (^{Jamal, 1996}). It would also be interesting to expand the territories to other neighborhoods and even to neighboring towns, this way getting a complete overview of the Community of Madrid’s LL.

Translation: Fernando Llanas