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Creating an identity out of cultural diversity

Creating an identity out of cultural diversity
1956. ‘Los Hurones’ football team in their new white strip. Among other players are Luis Prieto, a mechanic, and Enrique Tizón, a draughtsman. Town of Los Hurones (Cádiz). Photograph courtesy of Luis Prieto
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Creating an identity out of cultural diversity

Some of the workers at Los Hurones dam were from Galicia and maintained their culture: they spoke Galician to one another, prepared typical food from Galicia and celebrated their own fiestas. Virgilio Pais (Negreira, A Coruña, 1946), who arrived as a small child to Los Hurones, comments:

«We grew turnip greens and Galician cabbages; we had brought the seeds from Galicia. My father gathered sacks of acorns to raise the pigs; they were slaughtered, the bacon was salted, the meat was put in lard and chorizo and hams were prepared. We made Galician stew and filloas (flour and water or broth pancakes). When there was a fiesta in Los Hurones lots of Gallegos gathered in my house. My father would play the bagpipe he had and would sing muñeiras and rianxeiras».

The families from around the dam went to the fiestas in Algar, if they could. Twice a year the company, Portolés y Compañía S.A. would organise fiestas in the town for their hired workers: on the day of the Virgen del Pilar, patron of Zaragoza, where the main partners in the company came from; and on the 18th July, the day of the coup d´état which led to the war of 1936-1939, and which celebrated what was called Fiesta de Exaltación del Trabajo (Fiesta in exaltation of work).

The company (Portolés y Compañía S.A)’s football team was nicknamed Los Hurones. The pitch was of earth and was made by the players themselves in their free time. A draughtsman, who was also a PE teacher, trained them twice a week, from 6 to 8 in the morning, and matches were on Sundays.

Furthermore, certain traditions arose, which tell us of the human need for and concern about making bonds. The young people made pilgrimage to La Alcaría homestead accompanied by the priest, and in May the fiesta known as Roar los Huevos (Rolling eggs) became institutionalised, a fiesta which is still celebrated in different parts of Spain and which arrived in Los Hurones with some families from Extremadura. Virgilio Pais explains: «We would all process to La Jarda, with food, to spend a day in the countryside. We would take boiled eggs and roll them down the slope. As they rolled, they shelled themselves. We then went down and ate them all!».