It used to be an exclusively labour exporter country and is now becoming a destination spot for international migratory fluxes. Our country has been marked by different migration waves, corresponding to time periods and differentiated immigrant groups, from PALOP African Portuguese Speaking Countries and Brazil, but since , we knew a new wave immigrants, coming from of Eastern Europe particularly, from Ukraine, Moldova, Romania and Russia.
In the institutional discourses is very clearly the tendency for the essencialization of the difference. Los discursos tienen tendencia a esencializar la diferencia. Along this discussion, contrasting positions and articulations will be focused by representatives of the mentioned institutions in what concerns the social representations built around the identities hetero-attributed to the immigrants from Russia and Ukraine. In this context, the discussion will concentrate on the differentiation between immigrants and the major society.
A kind of synchrony between emigration and immigration. In this decade and the following the restrictions to the entrance of economic immigrants increased, in international context and particularly in Europe. The migratory pressures from poor or economically and politically weakened countries, the relations of historical, cultural, political and geographical proximity with Africa and Brazil, the ageing of our demographic structure, conjugated with the needs of workmanship in some specific sectors of activity, constitute some factors which justify the transformation of the statute of our country in the context of international migratory movements β from a sender country into a host country of international migratory waves.
Our country has been marked by different migration waves, corresponding to time periods and differentiated immigrant groups. Between and , the predominant immigrant groups came from Cape Verde and Brazil.
During the 90s, the immigrant communities from PALOP African Portuguese Speaking Countries became bigger and diversified; besides the Cape Verdeans, it is considerable the number of immigrants from Angola and Guinea, though Brazilian immigrants keep the highest rate. In , the number of effective immigrants from Eastern Europe exceeded the authorised entrances permission of stay of African and other European immigrants. And if our country traditionally attracted in a dominant way international immigrants with little qualified workmanship, the new wave of immigrants from the East turned more complex the socio-professional composition of immigrants.
