ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by offering an account of multiculturalism and its meaning within the Spanish context followed by a description of how the Extranjeras offers the tension between consensus and dissensus. Extranjeras is a seventy-five-minute documentary made in 2002 by Spanish film director Helena Taberna. Taberna avoids the historical, multicultural past of Lavapies, as it was the Jewish quarter of Madrid until Muslims and Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 and the Moriscos in 1609. She offered, for the first time in Spanish documentary film, an account of female migration, since at the time of its release most films and documentaries had focused on male migrants. The film reinforces the idea of multiculturalism as a principle that seeks to celebrate difference only when the difference does not endanger Western principles of femininity. The film also tries to establish a harmonious identification between the foreign women and their new space.
