AÍda Quinatoa is an indigenous Ecuadorian economic migrant in Spain, where she has been the leader of the mobilization of migrants against the so-called “real estate scam”, against banks and real estate companies. This same fight made Ada Colau known and led her to the Mayor of Barcelona (2015-2019).

The history of Aída is intertwined with that of the Ecuadorians who emigrated en masse in the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s. During the mandate of Rafael Correa (2007-2017), this migration process was accompanied by the will to develop certain political awareness of migrants (the possibility to vote has been in practice since 2006; migrants can elect deputies to represent them in the international constituency; the “right to migration” was inscribed in the Constitution). However, the mobilization referred to the "real estate scam" was exclusively carried out by a sector of these migrants.

In this interview, Aída details the role of the National Coordinator of Ecuadorians in Spain, conadee, an organization that he led between 2006 and 2013. This mobilization became visible beyond the circles that work with migrants as of mid-2011, due to their presence in evictions. Through social networks and with the intermediation of the Madrid Platform for People Affected by the Mortgage, pah, massive mobilizations were coordinated to stop the evictions. Since the first day of massive and public opposition to an eviction, in 2011 in the Tetuán neighborhood, a neighborhood with a significant proportion of the population of migrant origin, the presence on the street of possible future evictions and many migrants was massive in those years. However, the role of the conadee In this struggle it was long before the year 2011, the year of the immense mobilization that led, among others, to the occupation of the Plaza del Sol by the indignant.

On your agenda, conadee it demanded not only stopping evictions. In addition, he worked to propose a change in the real estate law1 and vehemently denounced "the fraud of the banking system." Regarding the first, it demanded a retroactive law of "dation in payment", that is, a law that would cancel the debt contracted previously at the time the bank confiscated the home. With regard to the latter, it demanded answers on the legal and political levels. Specifically, a civil part of some lawsuits for fraud against real estate agencies has been constituted.

In this interview, conducted at the end of 2018, Aída Quinatoa narrates the central episodes of her life, her political training, her migrations, her job placement, the formed alliances and, in general terms, her struggle. His trajectory in seeking justice against the great powers illustrates what William Gamson calls a "career of rebellion."

Family and life in the country

Aida Quinatoa: My name is Aída, I was born in a small community called Santa Teresita, San José de Guayabal parish in the province of Bolívar, Cantón Chillanes, Ecuador. I was born in 1964. My community is in the Sierra, in the Andean part, in the center of Ecuador; It borders the province of Chimborazo, from there it is necessary to drive about three hours by road and there is my town. Today we are six hours by bus from Quito. The townspeople speak Spanish, but Quichua is still spoken. I spoke more Quichua than Spanish. They say "Quichua" in Ecuador because we put the "u" and the "i" a lot into our language, the closed vowels, on the other hand, in Peru and Bolivia Quechua is spoken because many put the "o" or the " and". I grew up there, until I was twelve years old. As a child I lived around my family, but in the community. We supported each other, although with many shortcomings, but there was always that solidarity, that mutual support.

Olga Gonzalez: What did your parents do?

AQ: They were peasants, they worked the land, raising domestic animals. That is what we lived on.

OG: How many children were there?

AQ: Seven: Gumersindo, Rodrigo, Alejandro, Judith, Gustavo, Rocío and me.

OG: And you are what number?

AQ: First. Well… there were two previous ones. They died because there were no conditions, they practically died in and from poverty. The little sister seems to me to have died at about three years old and the child seems to me to be six months old.

OG: And you did survive.

AQ: Yes, I survived and they just named me after my little sister who died. My sister's name was Etelvina María and my name is Aída María.

OG: And why did they call you Aida?

AQ: Because they have seen in the calendar that there was that name.

OG: You like your name? It is the name of an opera.

AQ: Yes, I like it. And yes, I have been told here that it is an opera. I liked it because everything my mother has done, her life, the time she spent with us, I loved it.

OG: What was your mother's name?

AQ: Lucinda Irene Quinatoa. It's there [points to a portrait on the wall]. That photo is when he came to the city, he changed his clothes. My brothers had taken a photo of him but with [traditional] clothing, we no longer have it.

OG: You had a peasant childhood, in contact with animals.

AQ: The most beautiful thing was that, that you have a relationship with the little birds, with the birds, with everything that surrounds you in the field. I remember walking with bare feet, I loved going to school with bare feet and for me it was torture when they forced me to put shoes on and supposedly I went to school with shoes and returned them in my hand why not I got used to it and cried when they put them on, they forced me on special days and I liked to go barefoot, because you get used to it and you have a direct relationship with the land. I loved it.

OG: And your little brothers? As you are the oldest girl, did you have to take responsibility for them?

AQ: That I was going to tell you, because for me it has been in a certain way, very nice, nice, being the first. For my parents, for my grandparents, for my uncles, I was the protégé, the one who had to take care of my brothers. On the one hand it is precious, but on the other hand it is also a responsibility to my brothers, I had to take care of them. My mother worked all day in the fields. I remember little about my father because he used to go out a lot and in the end when we were nineteen we were left without a father, and then we were many brothers and my mother worked all day, always in the fields.

OG: Always in the field?

AQ: Always. And when I finished school I had to go help them, that is, I went to school in the morning, it was to walk two hours to get to school, I left at six in the morning to start classes at eight. and then back home at four in the afternoon and went with my little brothers and there were two other children who followed me, I had to take care of them, that is, it was a lot of responsibility to walk with them, with my brothers, but also help with homework, then in the afternoon take care of the animals and change the stakes to the animals that we had.

OG: The stakes, for what?

AQ: They put some stakes to the cattle to tie it, so that it is not loose. It was time to move them from one place to another so that they could eat. We did that every afternoon and well, at night to do homework, help around the house, and sometimes do other things as well. For example, helping to carry from the field, helping to carry beans and everything that was produced. Sometimes we had to do that too and at night. Already when we were exhausted we began to do homework. So it has been a lot of work and a lot of responsibility as a child, but also very nice what that generated. That made me happy with my uncles, for example, at parties when we rest, the first children have to help make the music. I learned from my uncles and my family to sing the guitar, to play the drum, to set the pace, I loved it. That is why he was with them. I remember that from my childhood.

OG: You left the community young. Did you need to earn money?

AQ: Earning money and changing your life, that is, it wasn't so much earning money, because we didn't have it. In the community, my mother would take some dried beans and exchange them for potatoes, as long as a change is made, a barter, we had hen, we would go and exchange for some tortillas, that is, we already had to eat. In other words, there was no money, but the living conditions were bad! We did not have roads in good condition. I had to go two hours away, which was uphill and down for school, that was very far, it was horrible. So I said: "this has to be changed", I always said "this has to be changed". And we had no home. My mother lived on my grandparents' land and house. They got that land from a hacienda, that hacienda was called huasipungueros. Huasipungo is the one who gives you a piece of land in exchange for you working for that landowner for the rest of your life, and your children and your other children are left behind, and so on, just like the debts that bankers leave you, like that similar, then I saw that fatal situation.

OG: Your grandparents never owned?

AQ: Later they did give deeds, my grandparents were given deeds of those lands, but since it was so little and my uncle, my mother's brother, had put it on a mortgage to borrow money and buy livestock and plant a lot of grains and then pay back the money… Then the bank took the land. My mother never had land.

OG: And your father either?

AQ: I do not remember my father, I do not have in my mind, because my father on top of drinking, drinking alcohol, he also had many women ... That image I have, that is ... unpleasant. I couldn't bear it, I couldn't, and well, I didn't want to know anything about my father, he would go somewhere, I would stay, I don't know how many days, well ... I rather had a beautiful image of my grandfather, my mother's father , of some uncles, of two uncles above all, a very beautiful image. For me, they were my parents, in fact my uncles until very old, always teaching me music. Well, I always remember that my uncle wanted me to study. He took me away, too, for a little girl, to walk hours, that is, I was very tired and my uncles carried me on their shoulders, loaded down, to the Coast, so that I could study, and I remember crying until they gave me back, but my uncle, it was for that purpose that I study.

OG: He wanted to leave you there, so you could stay on the coast?

AQ: Of course, he wanted me to stay with my cousins and to study and finish school there, because where my mother was, the school was very far away. In his house, because he had a small house, it was very close to school.

OG: That would have meant you had to live there.

AQ: Sure, and actually it took me six months, but those six months were torture for them because I cried all day, my uncle didn't want to see me cry. He wanted something nice, to finish school, to finish school. He dreamed and said that I was intelligent, and that was the beauty, since I was little they always trusted me.

Leaving the community and first meeting with the city

OG: Why did you leave the community?

AQ: For my studies, for school, university and most of all because I had to help my family and that is why I had no choice but to leave that commune. At thirteen I went out to the city. I went out with my brother, the one who followed me. He was nine years old. We went to the city because they offered us work and that we could possibly study at school. That is why we went to Quito from that community to the capital.

OG: What job did they offer you?

AQ: I had to work in a house. To my brother in a warehouse. But he was small, he didn't get used to it, they said he cried all day, and since I worked, I didn't see him. My brother did not sleep with me, he slept in the business that that family had, because they took him to sleep with them. But he did not get used to living in an environment where there was no one from the family, they say he cried night and day and that is why they have returned him.

OG: And you, on the other hand, did stay in that house ...

AQ: I did stay working. I thought I would see him again after a few days. I thought I could see my brother if someone told me where he was. But no one could communicate with him, it was only until the years had passed that my mother looked for me and arrived where I was and there I found out that my brother was no longer in Quito.

OG: And meanwhile, are you adapting to that new life?

AQ: Yes to that new life, and it was horrible, it cost me a lot; I adapted but did not get used to it, everything is horrible, I remember that way of life very hard. I spent some horrible nights, crying anyway, but I only remember that I offered my grandparents, my mother, that I was going to support my family.

OG: So, after two years your mother looks for you and tells you that your little brother is no longer there. And what are you doing?

AQ: That's when I decide to go back to see my mother and my brothers. And I met him and the other brothers. The little sister who was left and who was already grown up, did not want to see me. He said he did not know me. Of course, it was two years! It wasn't that she didn't want to see me, she was just hiding. But I always dreamed of my brothers, growing up together, we always played… ugh! A lot of games, after doing homework, we stayed until midnight, jumping rope and with a dog that we had and the dog also played and it was a beautiful life with my brothers and I dreamed of continuing with them. But all that was left behind, and when you come to the city, it stays there, it cuts out.

OG: And the little sister doesn't recognize you and that makes you sad.

AQ: Of course! And the dog didn't recognize me either, it almost bit me! So I said: "Everyone here does not know me." So, I stayed living in the city, but from that, every year I came back, I was closer. And in that I was already 18 years old and I decided that my mother could not be separated from me any longer. Things were still bad in the community and it was decided then that my mother would come to Quito, and I looked for a place and got her to come with all the six siblings, my grandmother too, my grandmother was still living. At that time my grandfather had died, I never saw how he died, that hurt a lot ... But hey, my grandmother came, my mother came and my brothers came ... I don't know how I got it but I managed to get them all ...

The family reunited in Quito. Work and difficulties of the family economic unit. Discovery of social work in the parish

OG: What sector did they live in?

AQ: South of Quito.

OG: And were you still working in a house?

AQ: No, I was working during the day. I got a job in a bakery, over the counter. He worked in the bakery during the day and studied at night. It was my job. On the other hand, for my mother we did not get a job. Since she was three months pregnant with my little sister, she couldn't work. So we had to put my brothers to work. One went to work helping to collect money in a transport and the other to work in construction and we, the three, to support the house. Good weather we endured like this, until my other brother decided to get a girlfriend and the family has already fallen apart. What we had thought was that the little brothers had to continue studying while the others worked during the day and studied at night, until we finished. But one decided to get out of the ring, well ...

OG: When he gets a girlfriend, he goes with her ...

AQ: Well yes, later with his girlfriend he had a girl.

OG: Then it no longer contributes to the family unit.

AQ: It already gave me courage. And then I was still with my other brother, we kept going, we did what we could. But hey, it did cost us that, when one leaves the family.

OG: And for your mother, how was the arrival in the city? How old was she?

AQ: I was like forty. It was difficult, but I think the poor thing had to get used to it. Difficult, in fact I sometimes saw her cry, because she wanted to go back. But at the same time he said: "Where to?"

OG: And you had to work ...

AQ: Yes. I was still doing my thing. I had to study, I had meetings, because that too, in Quito I was always looking for a social environment. And I approached the parish. There was another community social space where you could meet, for example, I saw a lot of small groups like gangs, doing things in the city, children of many migrant people who came from the countryside to the city but were dedicated to doing things that I do not understand, that I do not understand. they liked. I saw strange things and did not get used to it. But when I was fourteen or fifteen, I went to the parish, to a church where young people met supposedly to study God for I don't know what. I went there on weekends. And I dedicated myself to teaching there, in that parish, and what a surprise! Later I found out that this church was part of the pastoral team of the south of Quito, and that they had lines with movements of Liberation Theology. I got to know closely the works and life of Monsignor Óscar Arnulfo Romero, Leónidas Proaño, that is, those who later became famous in terms of Liberation Theology. There were many meetings, many people from Latin America, fighters for peace met in that church, it was called The little ship, which was like a ship, in fact very young was the one who is now president of Nicaragua.

OG: Daniel Ortega.

AQ: Well, I met him as a young man and I fell in love with his social struggle, his commitment to his people, I liked what he talked about. It was a great way of expressing himself. There were many Cubans, that is, people from the left, the real left. That was a surprise. Then I grew up, I saw that I liked social work, I saw that not only with children you can work but also with the elderly. Then I also dedicated myself to working with radio stations, with the Fe y Alegría Radio Institute, I was there for about five years.

OG: Was he also from the church?

AQ: Yes, but in fact it was a Spaniard who was directing that. I had a huge house, I had an entire infrastructure for that work, I was there and I was in the parish also collaborating with the base communities there; As I was doing a lot of work on the weekends and as I knew how to sing the guitar, the father of the parish also took me to sing and we did a music group with a colleague named Margarita, who was leading at that time. There we won the first Don Bosco prize in Ecuador.

OG: With the music group.

AQ: Yes, then I did the bass ...

OG: What songs did you play with the group?

AQ: We made a hymn, a hymn to Saint Paul, but Saint Paul the Liberator, a different Paul, and I remember that he gave us the night studying and practicing that. The idea was to propose beautiful music and something new. And it was left for history, because the photos that were made remained for the parish. Already at eighteen, that is, I was delighted. I remember that I was happy because I worked, studied, was with my family, and everyone was there, I was calmer.

University studies and activism

AQ: After I was in that parish, I became the secretary of a group of priests who followed Monsignor Proaño, the Bishop of the Indians, who is well known in Ecuador.

OG: I don't know Monsignor Proaño.

AQ: He was at the height of Monsignor Óscar Romero. The difference is that they killed him and Monsignor Proaño was imprisoned in the military dictatorship five times. So these priests took me from there to here as a secretary and, well, I learned many things, I learned to handle documents and with them also strategies, they advised me on how to study, they made it easier for me to study leadership on weekends.

OG: At their university?

AQ: That's right, but with Monsignor Proaño a plan was made so that the laity could study theology but within the Church, instead of going outside. I did not finish because he died just in that year. I continued from Monday to Friday and like everything, working the day and studying at night.

OG: In witch university?

AQ: In the Central.

OG: And did you have to pay or was it free?

AQ: Free! I had no where. He could hardly. We did not make it to the end of the month and on top of that you had electricity, water ... We didn't have a telephone at that time. Those who did have a chance, my bosses for example, when I work as an intern, they had a landline at home. We do not. So, of course, there was no money. So my brothers, the two of them did not manage to finish high school, the others have finished, and of the little ones, the last one did not want to study but we are pushing her.

OG: And how many have gone to university?

AQ: We have been three.

OG: So, you choose to go to Central. And there you sign up for what?

AQ: First in sociology. I wanted to finish my degree, graduate, but I didn't finish. I retired because I was delegated from the Base Ecclesial Communities, ceb, as a delegate to a meeting of more than 250 organizations in the country to form a committee with conaie to gather research throughout Latin America on the genocide and ethnocide that they committed more than 500 years ago.

OG: Sure, this was all in the nineties.

AQ: It was prior to the indigenous uprising, in 1992. So I participated there, they appointed me executive secretary of the Committee and well, I spent a good time with them there.

OG: Can you tell me what it is conaie?

AQ: Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador. And I was there for a long time. I had to study at the university or finish my term. And I said "Like this one, there won't be another chance." I finished my term and then I continued studying. I go back to studying but I no longer want to pursue sociology. I like psychology too, because with that I will help myself and better, I think. My brothers told me: "That is to solve your problem that you have, continue sociology, finish that." And the others, who did not want to study, said: "You go on." It is that it is a debate with my brothers and we are always like that.

Marital life. Political work and the decision to emigrate to Spain

OG: Did you know your partner at that time?

AQ: Yes, I think I already knew him but he was not in my plan. I saw him, he was never in my plans, but he said that I was in his. The thing is that I also had a boyfriend, but since I was involved in jobs, studying, my family, the organization ... I forgot about appointments, so we always ended up fighting because some of them always told me that I was a "staff", that is, I stand people up ...

OG: In those years when you left psychology, did you hang out with your partner?

AQ: Yes, I went to live in your town, Echeandía. It was the same province of Bolívar where I was born, what happens is that he is from the Costa part and I am from the Sierra, from the Andean part, but it is three hours away, it is close. But I met him in Quito.

OG: What activity did he have at that time?

AQ: Social activism and radio technician.

OG: There you spend time in Echeandía.

AQ: Yes. Five years before coming here.

OG: And at five years do you come?

AQ: Yes, and we've been here for 18 years.

OG: And how is the decision to come here?

AQLet's see: Gerardo, my partner, had a business, in Echeandía it was going badly for him… On the other hand, it was not so bad for me, I had a permanent job.

OG: What did you work on in Echeandía?

AQ: I was a secretary in the legal department of the municipality. I was there for several years, they paid more or less, not so well but not too bad, it gave me to live. Instead, he had to set up a business in the East, far away, twelve hours away. He went there and it didn't go so well. And then, well, they launched me as a candidate for councilor of that municipality.

OG: For Echeandía?

AQ: Yes. I had to make expenses, I had to invest and yet, after where would I have to pay? Because the logic of the parties is to spend a lot of money to win and then squeeze the municipality, and then the debt goes to the people. What good is that to people? I'm not in those plans and I said: "No, I have to pay that debt." But at that time the country was dollarized. Debt went up, you can imagine. Then one day I said: "I'm going to Europe for a while, pay those debts and go back to work."

OG: Did they ask you to be a councilor for which party?

AQ: Pachakutik, of the indigenous peoples, a wing of the indigenous movement to participate in elections.

OG: And you didn't stay?

AQ: No, I did not remain as a councilor. I didn't earn anything, but I could go back to work there in the municipality. But I say: "No, I better pay separately and then I'll come back."

OG: Yes, and it has to do with dollarization ...

AQ: Effectively. In order to survive, the life that awaited us would be more precarious, more complex.

OG: And it is a time when many Ecuadorians came out.

AQ: A lot of. So we decided that it would surely be better for both of us to work here and then come back.

OG: Did they arrive in Madrid?

AQ: Yes. We got to where a friend was waiting for us. She gave us shelter for the first eight or fifteen days, then we both got an internship.

OG: What did his and yours work consist of?

AQ: Me in the kitchen and he cleaning, because it was a big house. Cleaning and helping serve. It was in the same house. We were staying right there, we had a room for both of us.

OG: And how did it go there?

AQ: We did… well, well. We managed to pay the debts, with respect to that there was no problem. But of course, it was a lot of work. One person who was disabled had to be cared for, another person who could not move much either but walked with two people, and the rest had to be cared for five. We were there for two years. We got papers. After a year and a half we already had papers. Gerardo got papers with the electricity job and I got home help.

From the dream of owning to the discovery of the real estate scam

AQ: That's why my little sister came, she wanted to be here. He was seventeen years old. When she came, we had to rent a room. It was a mess. My sister had to go live in one room, we in another, and that is also why we had to search. That's why it was the rush to find a flat, rent and there was no way and I had to buy.

OG: Was it easier to buy than to rent?

AQ: It was easier to buy than to rent because they themselves told you that instead of spending the money on rent, you are saving. They said that when your day to return comes, you sell this apartment, that prices never go down. So, of course, I could supposedly sell that apartment and then go back to my land with money, that's what they sold us in the beginning.

OG: And you believe it and get into debt, and buy this apartment.

AQ: Yes, this apartment where we are.

OG: This is what year?

AQ: In 2004 we bought this apartment, we arrived in 2001 and then after three years my sister came. Well, because this floor was not habitable

OG: Wasn't it habitable?

AQ: In other words, they supposedly sold us a furnished apartment, but it wasn't like that. We didn't have a kitchen, there were cables that were all rotten, they short-circuited every so often, and so… We cleaned everything to be able to live.

OG: Who sold this apartment to you?

AQ: A real estate, an agency, in fact this is the case chi, Central Hipotecaria del Inmigrante, that is the real estate agency that recruited us to buy this apartment.

OG: What is the deception and what does the struggle consist of?

AQ: Everything was organized here, planned by the bank. They had their advisers, they had people who were highly trained so that the victims, in this case out of necessity and because they induced you to do so, would realize that the best thing was to buy a house. To bring our families, even within the requirements, you had to have a flat. So, here the State was really involved in this of inducing to get a flat, a house. We came, many Latin Americans, in the years 2000 to 2004, we embarked here because in our countries our conditions were going to be worse. In our countries there was the corralito, the economic debacle occurred, the banks were also responsible there, because they did not solve the problem, what they did was throw us out. And here, well we find everything the same, what happens is that we did not know. Likewise, if we had known, I don't know what we would have done.

For me, the social struggle has been… It is not that I like it, it is that with it we were born and we have grown and we have achieved important changes in our countries. And I also had that faith that I shouldn't lose that here. I was in many groups, joining, but none told me that here there may be a scam or that you see the fine print well, nobody told me anything ...

OG: And there were many who fell ...

AQ Thousands ... We have no idea what this brutal scam of people has been. We have been victims in our country of origin and now here we have also come to fall. We needed the support of personalities who have knowledge. For example, what has been investigated in Ecuador about what the United States did to bring about dollarization and for the banks to keep the money of many people ... That would have helped us, so that here we would be prepared. It is that they are things that are repeated, only some content changes, but the scam is repeated. And the victims are still the same. We have only changed places. The battle here has been very tough, very tough.

The fight with the conadee and the difficulty of achieving visibility

OG: When did the battle start?

AQ: In 2007. In 2006 I assumed the presidency of the conadee.

OG: Tell me about the National Coordinator of Ecuadorians in Spain, conadee.

AQ: The conadee It was created in 2000, but with the aim of spreading culture, making music and dancing. I arrived later. When I arrived there were conflicts, because some wanted only to dedicate themselves to culture and sports, but I was not there for that. The work plan that I presented to be president was to make visible not only the cultural part, but also other fundamental things. Young people and women gave me the vote. That was a tough fight. Even one night before the elections, the wife of one of the men who was running for the presidency came to tell me: "I get a plate of food from you and you have never told me in exchange for what." It says: "From you I have received advice, solidarity support ..." Or rather, the speech that was launched. "On the other hand, from my husband," she said, or rather, even blows I can endure. I realized that they are enemies even at home, these macho men. She told me: "Get ready for tomorrow, he is going to bring people, Ecuadorians who are going to join the organization, and he does it to win votes." I said: "No problem for me." What yes, when I knew that, I said: “There has to be means of communication. It does not matter that I am not president, but that there is at least one photo left ”. We call some people. There were journalists recording everything. His wife voted for me. It was beautiful. Because when other people I danced with found out, they called in more people. The room was full, there were like 200 people. Twelve voted for these two, one had 8 votes and the other 4. Of the rest, all for me. I won for women and young people, and some men, who are also good.

OG: What happens when you are chosen?

AQ: That was nice. We were working on immigration proposals, explaining that immigrants do not come here to take anyone's job, but to build, and to build we have to know the reality here, and the history, that there are also good things. And also, the good that we have brought is to share. You have to debate, you have to reach consensus. We were working on it and preparing materials when in 2007 my husband lost his job, and so did the husbands of my colleagues and my friends. First it was the migrants, those who worked in construction. When we ran out of work, the first thing I did was go to the bank. Because when I took out the mortgage, they told me that the first years I was going to pay so much, and then I was going to pay less. And from said to fact, it was all different.

OG: What did the bank tell you?

AQ: They told me that this was not the case: “You have signed a variable mortgage, and therefore the Euribor2 it changes and that is your problem ”. I say, "How is this?" And we started with the meetings in conadee, with the questions, to find out what this was about. I told the lawyer who advises us to help us see a professional, to see if what the lady from the bank was telling me was true. He read the mortgage and said: "I don't know what you have signed, but here is a big thing." A team of lawyers was hired, as well as another group of women lawyers. And the two teams almost coincided. One said "There has been fraud here" and another said "There is scam here." With other colleagues in the accounting area we have been analyzing how much I have been paying and how the interest and capital are distributed. But for capital it is nothing! Just for interest! Initially this analysis was done with my writing. Then, what I did was share with people, so that this information was not only for me, but also for those who were suffering the same as me. Workshops were held. I asked twenty people to come, not many, and 40 or 60 would come. I invited 40 or 60 and 300 people would come.

OG: Is this already in the year 2008?

AQ: Yes, in 2008. We were immigrants. In fact, most of the mortgages were signed by immigrants. Because we had resources back then. We never said no to what the banks put on the table for us. They are the ones who have induced us and prepared the package for us to fall for that. Those responsible are them, but at the time of the hour they have never assumed their responsibility.

OG: Tell me about the fight, how it was organized and what your role was.

AQ: For me it was a fundamental role to endure, resist, not sleep, until it became visible. In 2006 I was elected president. In 2007 I was delighted, doing things, and I had to leave them, because I already discovered the subject of mortgages. So this has been for me ... My life has gone ... In principle, I said "If there are many of us, we will not be long, we will get out of this soon." But it has not been that way.

OG: What were the stages?

AQ: In 2007 the investigation was carried out, the meeting was held to inform the migrants. We organize ourselves to, first, enter to speak with the authorities. We organize ourselves by commissions, in total as eight groups. We were just migrants, almost all Ecuadorians, with conadee. I was in the commission that spoke with the authorities. I went to talk to Zapatero, three times he received us. Then he sent us to where the head of the Bank of Spain and the representative of the psoe in the economic field. With those in charge of the bank bbva, Bankia, from Banco Santander, we also sat down with them to talk. We have talked to half the world. In 2008 it was this, and they blamed us. They told us: "You have decided to buy." And all I had was the hope of making people see reality. ngo, or for example to the ugt, Workers Commissions, and I saw that they… nothing! They said that we had signed. And they told us that each one had to resolve with the bank. That is the position of the government and the banks: capture the affected person and make people sign what the bank wants. In that situation I said: "Here, either we mobilize, or they eat us." I attended a meeting at the psoe where they asked me to prove that there was a scam, to bring the deeds. I chose about 200 writings, where we are all chained. In each deed there are four or five people, owners or co-owners, who do not have a permanent job and who serve as guarantors. But this is illegal, having mortgages like this, bypassing the risk controls of the Bank of Spain. I took evidence. And the representatives of the psoe: “If you are clear that this has been a scam, that's what the authorities, the courts are for. Second, don't make noise, because what you want is to bring down the system ”. When they tell me that, I thought: “I will assume my mistake, I will have to assume certain issues there, but it cannot be that I have to assume everything. If this is called a system, bad business, they will have to assume.

OG: How is this of the cross guarantors?

AQ: For example, the person to whom I signed the guarantee in 2004 called me in 2008 to tell me that he had stopped paying the apartment. And that it seemed to him that the floor was on trial. Eight days later the bank called me to tell me: "You have to pay because you have a payroll, we are going to get your payroll because you were the guarantor for this person." I was shocked. I thought: "I'm going to run out of that salary," since I was the one who was still paying for the apartment that we had bought with my husband, who was unemployed. I was the only one who was paying. So I ran to that bank, Caja del Mediterráneo, and told them that I was going to sing this scam to all of Spain. I don't know what happened, after that they never called me again. I only knew that the apartment was clean and that there would be no problems. I was free of that. But others have not. Right now I have a friend who was a guarantor for another, and they are charging her from her payroll with a court ruling. This was in 2008, and I didn't know what was going to happen in my future.

OG: They are already ten years of struggle.

AQ: Yes, it is already ten years. In 2008, after meetings with the ugt [General Union of Workers], with the government, with the bankers, we saw that they were not going to help us. We understood that we had to move, although we did not go far, but with clear ideas.

OG: Were there alliances with Spanish sectors?

AQ: We were only received by the Federation of Neighbors of Madrid, fravm. Nacho Murgui was president. Meanwhile, in 2008 we created a platform for those affected by mortgages. There were our deeds, which were the mortgages. We created a platform, because there were like eight or ten Ecuadorian associations. But then we were like borage water. Nobody echoed, not even the Latin American press, and worse the Spanish press. In the first mobilization we were four thousand migrants, it was on December 20, 2008. We went from the Ecuadorian Embassy to the Bank of Spain. In 2009, our colleague Ada Colau, with her work at the Observatory, came to the conadee, because he wanted to know what we were doing. I gave him papers and information about what we were doing. Then, I went to five of the largest provinces, Catalonia, Navarra, Murcia, Andalusia and another, in two weekends, to organize workshops and prepare people to find out what was coming: no they are going to have a job, they are thrown out of the house and on top of that, they are going to lose their papers, because they are migrants. I was going to give the talks and make contacts and then Iván Cisneros and Rafa Mayoral, professionals of the conadee, and they were going to tell what had been investigated. The Ada Colau thing was Stop Evictions, in Barcelona.

OG: So she gets a lot of inspiration from what is done here.

AQ: In fact, there is a book that I am going to show you, where it says “Before Ada is Aida”. Ada told the reporter from The country who wrote the book that she was inspired by this. Hers was Stop Evictions. Meanwhile, we were tied hand and foot, there was no way, they did not allow us to make visible. There were already evictions, any amount. But we think that if from Barcelona she managed to stop evictions, it would be great. We have started the platform for those affected by mortgages, but we did not legalize the organization. So she took that void that there was and legalized as pah, Platform for People Affected by Mortgages. Then she went to Congress, she said what she said and I already said, for me, I have achieved what I wanted. We managed to make visible, we collected signatures to change the law, there was a lot of movement and we managed to reach the top.

OG: Did the Ecuadorian government support you in those years?

AQ: Not at all. In fact, in 2010 the Ecuadorian Banco Pichincha had bought Bankia's mortgage debt, and we had documents. When we saw this, and that President Correa was around, they told him: "This is happening, what's the truth?" and he said no, this is false. A few months later, the debts against Ecuadorians in Ecuador began. So that's when he just changed his chancellor, I managed to talk to him. Then with Ivan3 We and a team prepared a project for Correa to defend from within the government in 2012; We managed to introduce this proposal, but Correa did not sign it, he was not on our side.

OG: It was a very lonely fight.

AQ: And in fact, this recent class action lawsuit has been done with our resources. We are sixty families.

OG: Still in 2018 there are sixty families seeking justice. How was that process?

AQ: In 2008 we were five families. In other words, in that year, all Ecuadorians said “We are going to prosecute the bank; in Ecuador we have thrown governments, we are going to show that we can ”. Well, but at the hour of the hour, out of 500 who signed up, five showed up with papers, as always. But hey, those cases were entered into the judicial system, the Plaza Castilla 42 court, in 2010. In 2012 there was an arrest warrant for the director of this financial bar that belongs to the Central Hipotecaria. He declared many things: he said what we have already said, what we know. What he declares is recorded on video. With all these elements, we have continued to expand more complaints, but they have kept us going around all the courts. For seven years they had us in the courts of Plaza Castilla, until we reached the provincial, Constitutional court, and finally we have already arrived, at eight years old, at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. That is the latest.

OG: What has resulted from all this?

AQ: The court has said that there is no crime here. They have been filing everything. They don't want to investigate. They do not want to touch the directors of financial institutions. They did touch the director of the real estate, in fact they gave him an arrest warrant, the one from the chiringuito. He said that he is a bank prescriber, he said that the bank advised him, that he said "You do this" and he complied with what the bank told him. The chiringuito says that he would be willing to pay those affected, but the bank does not want that. The courts keep their backs to the directors of financial institutions. And there is evidence, there are videos where the directors of the banks say what their plan is. We have moved hard to get where we have come. As our lawyers say, "We have arrived with dignity."

The last legal recourse of those affected, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, was pronounced on June 18, 2018. In its opinion, it affirms that a formation of a single judge has decided to reject the reference application and that the decision, final , can not be subject to any appeal.

Aída continues to work as an assistant to the elderly and in cleaning tasks. He currently has two people in his care. At the same time, he studied law, at a distance, with the Private Technical University of Loja (Ecuador).

In 2018 Aída was elected in the Podemos primary elections. He was the first migrant person on his whitelist. In 2019 he aspires to the Diputación del Congreso with United We Can, in position 12 on the list.