Story by Katy George
Illustration by Charlotte Cheng
On an unforgivingly hot day in early June, it’s not quite 6 p.m. and the city is sluggishly waking from an afternoon siesta. The only thing to do is to take refuge in the air-conditioned mall. Nervión Plaza shopping center, located just outside the old walled city in Seville, Spain, is bustling with business. Just 130 miles north of Ceuta, a Spanish outpost on the African continent, Nervión is a perfect image of the prosperous life many would-be immigrants envision. Those who are trapped in Ceuta’s Centro de Estancia Temporal de Inmigrantes, or Center for Temporary Stay of Immigrants (CETI) await the day they, too, can stroll through the urban markets of what some refer to as “Big Spain.”
Inside the cavernous shopping center, Spaniards idly browse the racks of chain clothing stores like Zara and Mango. Pop music, mostly American, bumps from hidden speakers. Cashiers work their way through long lines, ringing up purchases as satisfied customers make their way out into the late afternoon sun.
But the sales pitch doesn’t end at the door. Blindingly white sheets covered with rows of counterfeit goods dot the sidewalk around Nervión.
“Sunglasses?” offers Ousmane Sarr, a tall 34-year-old Senegalese man attending one of the cardboard stands by the mall entrance. His Spanish is heavily tinged with French. “Ray-Bans?” The brightly colored sunglasses attached to the makeshift table are stamped with the words “Rey-Bari” in an attempt to pass them off as the designer brand. “Ten euro!”
Every few feet along the block, young Africans pitch their wares to passers-by—pirated DVDs, faux designer handbags, wallets, soccer jerseys, and bracelets. Between potential customers, the vendors chat among themselves, mostly in French. Occasionally, they throw glances back to the street behind them, keeping a lookout.
Suddenly, a cry goes up. “Policía!” someone shouts, and instantly the block is a hive of adrenaline-fueled activity. The men grab the corners of the sheets and bundle their goods up in seconds, then take off running. By the time the two police motorcycles pull up, nothing remains of the impromptu street market.
“You always have to run,” Sarr says. Tall and athletic, he has a ready smile and an open demeanor. His hair is styled in short twists and he wears a blue zip-up jacket, emblazoned with a Porsche logo. Matching blue sunglasses—one of his own products—cover his eyes. “I even go running when I’m not working to stay fit!”
Sarr is one of more than 72,000 immigrants living in the province of Seville. The capital of Andalusia, a self-governed Spanish territory, Seville’s size and proximity to the coast made it a popular destination for new arrivals from Africa during the spike in immigration in 2006, and the city continues to receive a good portion of the residents from CETI in Ceuta. But for many new immigrants, the idealized image of a better life in Spain has been crushed by the ever-worsening economic crisis.
As Spain plunges further into recession, services for immigrants—both those in the European Union legally and the undocumented—are being slashed, leaving large holes in the social safety net. And as Andalusia’s unemployment rate soars to more than 33 percent, social mobility is nearly impossible. Many African immigrants, who often struggle with acquiring work permits in the first place, must turn to less-than-legal means of making money to survive.
Illegal stands like Sarr’s are a fixture of life in Seville. While no official figures exist on the number of people who sell items on the street, it’s impossible to walk around the city without spotting at least a dozen such operations.
“Before people get here, they think, ‘Oh, it’ll be so much better in Europe. I’ll get a job and make money.’ But what do you do when you can’t get a job?” Sarr asks.
The answer is written on the streets. Immigrants aren’t just taking to selling goods on the sidewalk. At every stoplight in Seville, they knock on car windows to hawk packets of tissues. Others guide cars to free parking spaces in exchange for a few euros. While none of these activities are necessarily illegal, most of the immigrants—Sarr included—don’t have work permits, and thus are often stopped by the police and fined. Serious infractions of Andalusia’s Street Trading Law can result in fines of up to 18,000 euros, nearly $23,000 American dollars, though Sarr says 1,500 euros is the norm.
“It’s not ideal,” Sarr says of his job. “But to be honest, I don’t care so much if I’m making money. As long as I’m not selling drugs or something, it doesn’t matter.”
Before leaving his family in Khomble, Senegal, Sarr was lucky enough to secure a 90-day Schengen visa that allowed him to travel throughout 25 European countries under one permit—although he says the processing the visa took the better part of a year and quite a bit of money. “I wanted to come to Spain so I could make some money and better my life,” he says with a chuckle. “But you have to have money to come!”
With an uncle already living in Spain, Sarr was able to navigate the legal system with a little more ease than others hoping to leave the African continent. “They make it very hard for Senegalese,” he says—the Spanish government doesn’t allow people from Senegal (along with many other countries) to enter Spain without a visa, even for short stays. US passport holders, in contrast, are automatically allowed 90 days in Spain. But since he had family who had already gone through the process, Sarr wasn’t completely in the dark.
“In 2005 I flew to Spain,” Sarr says. Initially, he went to Jaén, a mid-sized city in northern Andalusia. “It wasn’t so good. Not as many people, so it was hard to sell enough.” Eventually, he made the decision to join his uncle in Seville.
“I thought, ‘At least if I’m with family, I’ll be all right,’” Sarr says. He moved in with his uncle and his family in 2007. The five of them live together in an apartment in the Macarena district of Seville, some 30 to 40 minutes by bike from where Sarr sets up his goods outside Nervión.
“It’s not bad, but it’s not home,” Sarr says. “Senegal is beautiful. The beaches, the landscape, the way of life. Things were good there.”
Still, he hasn’t been back to Senegal since he boarded the plane six years ago. “I worry they won’t let me back in [to Spain],” he admits, shrugging. His initial visa expired long ago, and if he were to leave the area covered by the Schengen Treaty, he would most certainly be unable to return. “I don’t want to apply for the visa again.”
Documentation aside, Sarr is certainly breaking the law with his business. The Spanish police are well aware of illegal street vendors in Seville and Sarr and his friends are raided at least twice a day.
“We show up around 11 a.m. usually,” he says. “Earlier, if you’re very brave—but if you’re alone, it’s easier for the police to catch you.” The vendors stick around until lunchtime, around 3 p.m. in Seville, unless a persistent cop breaks them up early. “Then we go back to sell more at 6:30 or 7 p.m.”
As Sarr describes his daily routine, a smile grows on his lips. “You know, there’s definitely a rhythm to it. I get up, I go to my corner, I sell, I run.” He chuckles. “I like having a habit. I can’t go to any other corner—I’ve been selling in the same spot for so long. Maybe I’m superstitious.”
What Sarr sells depends on the week. “Whatever I can buy and I think I can sell, I get that,” he says. Recently, sunglasses have been his game, but like others, he’s also had belts, bracelets, and wallets on his table. Now that he has some cash stored up, Sarr buys goods in bulk from wholesalers, but initially much of what he sold came from the garbage.
“You must be resourceful,” Sarr says. “You can’t wait for opportunity to come, because it won’t.” As he speaks, a group of five teenage girls drifts over to his table, chattering in thick Andalusian accents. One idly touches a pair of neon-yellow sunglasses, and Sarr turns on his inner salesman.
“You like?” he asks, grinning. “Authentic Ray-Bans, only ten euro!”
The girl shrugs noncommittally, affecting disinterest.
“They’re really designer?” one of her friends asks suspiciously.
“Yes, yes,” Sarr assures her, pulling the pair in question from the cardboard. “Here, try them on!” He hands the potential buyer the fluorescent frames and holds up a hand mirror for her.
“Five euro,” the girl offers as she examines her reflection. “That’s all I have.”
Sarr laughs heartily. “I’ll go broke!” he protests. “Eight euro, no less.”
The teens confer briefly, and finally the girl pulls out a wallet. “Do you have change?” she asks, handing over a ten-euro note.
Sarr nods enthusiastically and hands her two shiny coins.
“A sale is good,” he confides as the group continues down the street. “Some days I sell five things, other days 30. I can never predict it.” This is the third pair he’s sold this afternoon, all for between five and ten euro. It’s been a slow week.
The worst part about selling on the street is the instability, Sarr says. “I would love to work with my hands. Be a mechanic, a carpenter—something like that. But how can I?” Sarr has experience working with machines—he often repaired his family’s vehicles in Senegal as a young man, he says—but without the proper qualifications he can’t get a job in that field. “Maybe someday,” he says with a smile.
Sarr is also well educated—his mother is a teacher and his father was an officer in the Senegalese military, so school was a priority. Under different circumstances, he would have had plenty of skills to fall back on before selling knockoff goods in the street. “I speak Romanian, French, Spanish, and I used to speak English, before I came to Spain. Spanish eats everything.” A grin splits Sarr’s face. “Now, I speak English smally,” he says in careful English, then laughs before switching back to Spanish. “I love languages, and I could be useful, but things like that don’t matter here.”
Sarr pauses for a moment to gather his thoughts. “I thought Spain would be this perfect place,” he says finally, “but it’s not. I’m here now, so I’ll stay. But if I had known what it was like to live here, to try and make a living, I wouldn’t have come.
