Xeno is a suffix and means foreign or strange and, on the other hand, filia is also another suffix that means love or sympathy. Thus, the word xenophilia refers to the feeling of sympathy for the foreigner. The opposite manifestation would be xenophobia. Normally, both emotions refer to the people who inhabit or visit a country but who come from another.
In many nations there are broad layers of society that come from other territories. Foreigners produce a certain social impact, since their customs, values and beliefs draw the attention of the natives.
It can be said that communities of foreign origin are perceived in two different ways: as another part of society or as a threat. In the first case, we would speak of xenophilia and in the second of xenophobia.
A general profile of the xenophile
Whoever has this mentality does not consider foreigners to be a problem. On the contrary, he understands that other people of different origins enrich social relationships in many ways. The outsider is welcome because he cooks with other ingredients, brings new ideas and traditions and, ultimately, integrates with cultural novelties. All of this is synonymous with enrichment and cultural diversity.
Some people are xenophilous because they believe that what is foreign is better than what is national for some reason (some nineteenth-century Spaniards proclaimed themselves French, since for them French had a higher category than Spanish).
As a general guideline, xenophilia occurs in a society as a whole when foreigners have the will to integrate into their new community or when outsiders form a group that generates wealth (in the case of tourists, it is a collective which is valued positively because thanks to it there is greater economic activity).
Xenophobia and the phenomenon of tourismophobia
As a general criterion, the xenophobe considers that the presence of foreigners in their territory is threatening and problematic. Understand that their traditions and customs are being invaded and attacked. In other words, the xenophobe believes that the outside is bad and his is better. If we take the aforementioned issue of the afrancesados as a reference, for some Spaniards the word afrancesado was an insult.
In some cities of the world the presence of tourists is so massive that there is an ambivalent effect. On the one hand, tourists are welcome because they generate wealth and well-being. On the other hand, in some cases their presence generates a rejection in some social sectors. This last phenomenon is known as tourismophobia.
Photos: Fotolia - Nataliaderiabina
