2 - Hotels for the Homeless

Summary

Shifting gears toward a social history of decolonization in the metropole, Chapter 2 looks at the housing provided for the refugee-like groups of returnees that depended on public welfare to put a roof over their heads. Bringing to light both the achievements and the limits of the state’s deliberate policy of integration, the chapter argues that the aid provided to the returnees served as laboratory for building a new welfare state aligned with the Western European model that Portuguese elites wished to espouse. Zooming in on the living conditions of residents, it also shows, however, that a lack of adequate facilities and resources frequently led to considerable hardships for the returnees. What is more, state-fostered integration was starkly unequal and tendentially racialized: Migrants who were non-Portuguese, nonwhite, or both were overrepresented in the housing facilities that offered the most difficult conditions. The success story of integration that dominates some academic and most popular accounts of the returnees’ history so far is in urgent need of qualification.