4 N O . I 8 7 V O L . I U H Q
The Shared History of Jabaloyas, Spain, and Utah BY R AÚ L I B Á Ñ E Z H E RVÁS , T RA N S L AT E D BY A N G É LI C A R E A L SE R R A N O
304 Jabaloyas is a small village located in the province of Teruel, Spain. It lies at 1,405 meters (4,609 feet) above sea level in the mountainous region of the Sierra de Albarracín. For years the population of the small town has declined, primarily due to migration. At present, the number of inhabitants is sixty-five, compared to 719 in 1920. The people of Jabaloyas, or Jabaloyanos, have long known that many of their relatives left their homes and moved to America at the beginning of the twentieth century. At least 125 men and women born in this village packed their bags to cross the ocean between 1907 and 1931; a great many of them came to the state of Utah. A few of these people settled down abroad, but most of them returned to Spain. They came back not only with money but also with traditions that have been kept alive till now. Their descendents, even today, treasure objects brought home as a remembrance of their stay in the United States. The village of Jabaloyas would like to thank Utah for giving its people the opportunity to
improve their lives by working there, at a time when the hope of progress was very restricted in their home. It would be a great pleasure and honor for Jabaloyas and Utah to become sister communities, as thanks for and acknowledgment of our shared history. Even though contemporary Jabaloyanos knew of their ancestors’ sojourn in the United States, they possesed few details about that experience. Some time ago, I decided to learn more about the exodus.1 The first written documentation I found appeared in the 1920 census of Jabaloyas, which established that an outsized number of townspeople left for America.2 Persuaded by this information—and, mainly, because of my interest in the subject—I began to research in earnest in early 2017. I appealed first to the descendents of the migrants and then returned again to the 1920 town census. The oral sources opened two lines of research. On the one hand, on several occassions, the interviewees referred to the existence of a mine, which confirmed that these immigrants were
