Emigration of the Limia people: from the 1950s diaspora to personal itineraries

How the Limia people emigrated: destinations and phases (America from 1920, Venezuela, Brazil, the Basque Country and Catalonia in the 1950s, Europe from the 1960s), child recruitment by religious orders and two documented itineraries.

First documented wave: America (New York, Cuba), 1920s
1950s: Venezuela, Brazil, Vigo, Basque Country and Catalonia
From the 1960s: Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France
Documented case: José Ramón Pérez Cid (Piñeira Seca, 1901 – Xinzo, 1961)

Galician emigration to America between the late 19th century and the mid-20th was one of the country’s great social phenomena, driven by poverty, the economic crisis after the First World War and lack of opportunities. In A Limia, a land of subsistence agriculture, there were also successive waves of departure, which the researcher Edelmiro Martínez Cerredelo documents through concrete cases in his works for Historia de Xinzo ^[1]^[2]. This page summarises the known phases and two itineraries, meant as examples.

Phases and destinations

1920s and 1930s: America. The usual destinations were New York, Cuba, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. Emigrants were mostly farmers and unskilled workers who sent remittances to their families ^[1].
1950s: the local diaspora. According to Cerredelo’s testimony, who was a child then, whole families left Xinzo for Venezuela, Brazil, Vigo, the Basque Country and Catalonia, in a town of rationing and need: there were no opportunities to study and work ^[2].
From the 1960s: Europe. Limia people begin to emigrate to Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France ^[2].

Religious orders and childhood

In the 1950s several orders of friars and nuns toured towns and villages looking for boys and girls to take to their convents, and many families saw in them the possibility of an education and a better future. Not all those recruited remained definitively in religious life; some, on finishing their training, changed course. Such is the case of a neighbour of Xinzo born in 1941 who entered the friars as a young child and, at 20, the Navy: he served on three ships, fell ill with tuberculosis, spent almost three years in a naval hospital and then made a career at the Navy’s Communications and Electricity School in Vigo, until moving to the reserve in 1996; aboard the cruiser Canarias he attended the wedding of Princes Juan Carlos and Sofía in Greece in May 1962. He died in Vigo in 2021 and his descendants keep an interest in the family’s homeland ^[2].

A documented itinerary: Pérez Cid

José Ramón Pérez Cid (Piñeira Seca, 1901 – Xinzo, 1961) left documents that allow his 15 years of emigration to be reconstructed ^[1]:

4 December 1920. Aged 18, he buys in Vigo an emigrant ticket, for 600.10 pesetas, to travel to New York on the steamer Henry R. Mallory; his father authorised the embarkation.
27 August 1927. A safe-conduct from the Spanish vice-consul in Brownsville (Texas) states that he returns "by the authorities of the U.S.A."; he lands at Le Havre on 18 September and crosses the border at Irún on the 19th.
October 1927 – 1935. Cuba. He appears as a canteen worker on the steamer Eusebio Coterillo of the Cuban Shipping Company; in 1932 he registered in Havana’s Register of Foreigners and obtained a seaman’s card; in 1934 he appears as a member of a woodworkers’ union and applies for Cuban citizenship.
May 1935. The Havana consulate issues his passport and the visa indicates the journey on the steamer Cristóbal Colón. He returns to Xinzo aged 33, after 15 years as an emigrant.

On his return, he opened a mixed grocery and tavern on Progreso street, in a premises sharing a building with the post office; at the back he had stables where farmers left their animals while in town. The business ended in the hands of a niece, who moved to the ground floor of the old Sindical building on Lepanto street when a developer bought the house to build a new block and open streets. During the dictatorship he was a councillor and first deputy mayor for over twelve years, which documents the process of "hand-picked" appointments by civil governors; in 1954, as an ex officio member of the Municipal Library Board, he took part in creating the concello’s library. He died on 1 March 1961, aged 60 ^[1].

What these cases teach

The two itineraries show that emigration was not always definitive: some returned and set up businesses in the village; others, like the diaspora’s second generation, kept the link through their descendants. Social media have helped in recent years descendants in America and elsewhere in Spain to reconnect with A Limia ^[2]. See also Xinzo: people and businesses in the 20th century.

Frequently asked questions

What were the main destinations of the Limia people? America (New York, Cuba) in the 1920s and 1930s; Venezuela, Brazil, Vigo, the Basque Country and Catalonia in the 1950s; and Europe from the 1960s ^[1]^[2].

Who was José Ramón Pérez Cid? An emigrant from Piñeira Seca who lived in New York and Cuba and returned to Xinzo in 1935, where he opened a shop and was a councillor ^[1].