Barrio Venecia: memory, labor, and the fight for space in Santander

Between the end of the Civil War and 1962, Santander’s Barrio Venecia—an enclave that captivates Erwin Schrödinger even as it seems to exist only in memory—stood as a cliff where impoverished families erected precarious wooden homes that never received official recognition. In the words of Alberto Santamaría, it was a place defined by hazard and invisibility, a neighborhood built on the edge of legality.

The paradox deepens when considering that Barrio Venecia must have existed in some form before it could be legalized. A Candina factory and modest worker homes arose to legitimize the area, with the neighborhood expanding around the factory and replacing the old wooden structures. All of this occurred amid pervasive corruption within the Francoist elite, as Santamaría observes.

Both the initial unofficial settlement and the later legalized district around Candina were repeatedly submerged whenever the Bay of Biscay rose. Consequently, Barrio Venecia was not the official name of the place but a popular sobriquet that carried humor, bitterness, and a sense of defeat, because, in the background, capitalism was viewed as swallowing the neighborhood, notes Santamaría.

socialist family

Santamaría spent his childhood and part of his youth in Barrio Venecia, a community forged by Candina, a company focused on oil derivatives. Its industrial landscape, junkyards, and urban decay largely influenced the philosopher, poet, and prose writer’s body of work, including his most recent novel. The Venice quarter is presented as part of a broader collection that Del Lengua de Trapo editorial group uses to explore pivotal moments in Spanish history from the transitional era to the present.

According to Santamaría, none of his books dodge these questions and images; instead, he sought a deliberate order for a history that had been scattered for years. The starting point was the realization that he was older than his father, a turning point that propelled him to begin writing. It became clear that he was placing himself into the narrative and making it his own.

Although Barrio Venecia is a novel that carries the author’s autobiography, it is also a tale about the closure of the Candina factory and the disintegration of the nation’s industrial fabric under different socialist governments. The text examines the decisions that led to unemployment and insecurity for the working class in the area, who, despite fighting to defend their livelihoods, ultimately faced defeat.

The Candina plant, the seed of Santander’s Barrio Venecia. PAUL PLATES

In conversation, Santamaría recalls Rosa Luxemburg’s words: the mistakes made by the working class in its attempts to change hold greater value than the infallibility of any central committee. He describes writing as an act of both recording defeat and keeping an open door, insisting that, in defeat and error, progress remains possible. His parents, steadfast socialist voters for years, left a lasting imprint on his worldview.

There was a palpable sense of belonging to the PSOE within his home, a sense that the family was part of a socialist lineage. His grandfather served as general secretary of the PSOE in Torrelavega and held a position at UGT, and the author accompanied him to rallies as a child. Yet, over time, that sentiment faded. His mother’s experiences grew difficult, and she ultimately stopped voting for the PSOE, disillusioned by corruption and collusion with the ruling class. Now, she leans further left than she did decades ago, a shift Santamaría sees as a late realization of the great deception endured by Spanish socialism and its anesthetic tendencies, a point he raises in future interviews about Barrio Venecia.

One character in the novel notes: “The problem is that the working class shaped the left, but now the left appears to shape the working class.” Has a gap formed between the working class and its representatives?

The author reflects that the statement resonates deeply. While there are canonical works and Marxist analyses on class, the emphasis today must be on the concept of struggle. The idea is to expand the notion of struggle to reflect contemporary transformations. He cites Lukács, who argued that the working class does not possess a fixed ideal but must forge its own forms of struggle and aims. Thus, a radical shift in solidarity and representation is necessary, as the modern populace must take control to shape its own future.

Something terrible was created or promoted: street fright

Another reflection in the novel states that neighborhood children spend their days on the streets with minimal adult oversight, yet every family knows they are cared for, even if no single adult looks after them. Was part of the working class defeat the erosion of intimate networks and mutual support?

The change is telling. Community has shifted from a tightly knit network to one driven by consumerism, with leisure equated to consumption. Fear of outsiders, amplified by capitalism through surveillance and insecurity, erodes collective life. The state of fear, sometimes labeled street fright, becomes a tool for promoting individualism while undermining solidarity that once held communities together.

What role do labor relations play in this idea of capitalist freedom?

A central thread of the novel is a critique of work itself, viewed as self-exploitation within a system that claims to offer freedom through labor. The narrator questions how working can bring true liberty when real independence is scarce. This critique highlights a society suffocated by earnings and productivity, and it urges a rethinking of the meaning of work as a social construct rather than a personal salvation.

The landscape, the place, the rusting trees, the stacked wheels, the abandoned metal barrels…

Growing up in a working-class neighborhood does not romanticize Barrio Venecia; instead, it offers a nuanced, affectionate critique.

The author maintains a love-hate relationship with the area, striving not to idealize it. The landscape, the weathered trees, the rusted machines, and the remnants of industry provide a vivid backdrop for the story. They reflect not only the worker’s struggle but also a curiosity about science fiction rather than purely social literature.

The narrator’s journey includes leaving the neighborhood through public schooling, one of the few legitimate paths toward social advancement for the working class, a path that is increasingly under threat.

The author grew up in a public-sector family and benefited from a generation where college became a foreseeable reality for working-class youth. Though not initially prioritizing higher education, a government-supported scholarship helped him pursue studies after his father’s passing. He stresses the need to safeguard public education from deliberate erosion, since its absence would deepen social inequality.

How can one understand that those who left the neighborhood still support political options that seem to hinder future social mobility?

The author knows people who equate leaving the neighborhood with rejection of the working class as a whole. He believes that success should not be defined by external status alone. The neighborhood’s reality included both the powerful and those with limited resources, revealing that no simple inside/outside dichotomy exists. The market shapes desires and needs, often preventing the working class from recognizing itself in those desires, which limits the potential for collective action.

Spain’s history is frequently narrated through a centralist lens. Are there truths that Barrio Venecia helps illuminate or distort?

The broader environment has often been overlooked in memory, and it is gradually being acknowledged as essential to reform. The author argues that meaningful political change in Spain is unlikely to arise solely from Madrid or Barcelona; any transformation requires attention to the surrounding environment and local contexts that shape social life.