The “Conguito”, the “Moro” and the “Gitano” : Multiraciality and the Pervasive Stigmatisation of Racialised Youth in Spain

Maghrebi Muslims, Black Africans, and Spanish Roma people are possibly the most stigma-tised, racialised and discriminated against groups in contemporary Spain, a country with astrong legacy of colonialism and a problematic relationship with diversity. Because mixednessis a crucial test for evaluating the persistence of societal ethnoracial divisions, in this article weanalyse the narratives of children and youth of Maghrebi Muslim, Black Afro-descendant andRoma mixed ancestry, looking at how their specific mixed heritage shapes their experiences ofdiscrimination and agency. The qualitative information presented here draws on various recent research projects in Spain on intermarriage, multiraciality and multiethnicity. We showthat despite the fact that the mixed-ancestry participants were born and socialised in Spainand have one parent who is an ethnic Spaniard, they nonetheless are perceived as foreignersand are subjected to everyday “othering.” That is, their mixedness does not make the stigma offoreignness disappear. The inclusion in our analysis of participants of Roma (Gitano) ancestry, which is the largest national ethnic minority group in Spain, allows us to uncover differentaspects of minority/majority dynamics in Spain and to show how patterns of social exclusionencompass racism, Islamophobia and antigypsyism.