How much should immigrants contribute to (or interfere with) the life of their new country? Big Mouth as usual, has an opinion. I’m infected with foot-in-mouth, dedicated director of Opinions-R-Us, with vast experience of being the Know-it-All, Smarty-Pants of the Party and qualifications as a Specialist Bar-Bore. So here’s what I think.
What’s the issue? Immigrants, huh? What a nuisance. Should they work and steal the residents’ jobs, or not be allowed to work and live off the residents’ taxes? Should they be allowed a voice? Should they contribute? Should they be allowed a say, an opinion, a voice? Or should they leave damn well alone on pain of being slung out back to where they came from?
Back at home it seemed so simple. Here’s how the commentary ran:
Immigrants are a terrible problem. They come flooding into the country, lazing around on our resources, looked after by the government with our taxes, demanding NHS care and council houses and taking our jobs in supermarkets and hospitals (and sweatshops, brothels and cockle-beds). A good lot of them can’t even speak English properly and then the next thing they actually start expect schools and churches and cafes and clubs for their kind, teaching their religion, eating their food, keeping up their traditions. Disgraceful.
It’s quite clear what they ought to do: integrate fully into British life. They should learn perfect English, preferably speaking with a slight local accent of wherever they’ve landed up. They should support their local football/rugby/cricket teams. They should watch plenty of TV and become media-savvy in regards to popular culture, so that they can discuss celebrities, Little Britain, football and the Royal family at the drop of a hat. They should contribute to the community by doing volunteer charity work, helping the village hall committee and attending parent-teacher meetings. They should be very careful to remain ignorant of world politics and news – or at least, as ignorant as the rest of the population.
On the other hand, they should also be as invisible as possible. I mean, how dare they suggest how we should run our country? They should keep their opinions to themselves; they shouldn’t start showing off their knowledge of all these subjects; they should only speak when spoken too; they should avoid making too many suggestions in the village hall committee and the parent teacher meetings, and concentrate on doing the donkey work that the committees dole out. In fact, apart from agreeing with all of the above, they should try not to have any opinions at all.
The trouble is that’s the view back home. But here in Spain, I am an immigrant; we are immigrants It’s strange, isn’t it? To think of ‘immigrant’ and yourself, in the same phrase?
But, really, there is a difference! It’s not like we were driven out of our country; we aren’t refugees! We are not illegal, either. We came to improve ourselves. Oh, hold on, not like poor Romanians, or Polish, or Irish emigrants, all those ‘economic migrants’…no, no, no, we came to improve our lifestyles. After all, we brought money with us! We enriched Spain by coming; they are lucky to have us, aren’t they?
Ah. Oh dear. I think I need to make a slight adjustment here. There is a problem, as it happens. You, the readers, might have brought money into Spain. But this writer and family spent what dough we had getting over. I, and others I know have looked for work (taking jobs?); claimed benefits (taking resources?); got good healthcare (healthcare tourism?); and, though we try to speak good Spanish, we are perfectly well aware that we are a very long way from fluent as yet, and probably mangle the language up until we sound like the embarrassing pidgin skits of incomers by comedians past and present (‘yes I am-a-liking thatee very much, thanking you’).
But it’s STILL different from us. Of course we don’t remotely count as proper immigrants, real economic migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, illegals, scroungers, scrimpers. Unlike the Polish, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Greeks, Turks, West Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Indians, Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians, Chinese, Japanese, Thais, Filipinos, Nigerians, South Africans, Congolese, Germans, Irish, Normans, Romans and Vikings, who are threatening Britain’s sceptre'd Isle, we CONTRIBUTE. Yes we do: we contribute ideas, culture, language even. I am trained in teaching English, which, as the main international language of the world today, is just what our hosts, the Spaniards need. What would they do without us?
Obviously we try to integrate, to some extent. We make an effort with Spanish; we get to know local people; we partake in some of the parties. Unfortunately, life and work impose limits: we can’t spend every minute mimicking some ideal of Spanishness. That is fortunate because, I note, the Spaniards don’t. All of them vary their lifestyles according to taste and beliefs and, they are largely tolerant of others doing the same. And thank God for that: though we might relish some of the Spanish traditions, (I love the foam fiestas), personal tastes, preferences and beliefs dictate against others: nothing will persuade me to like seafood, convert to Catholicism, or enjoy a bullfight.
Ah yes, the bullfight. Here, you see, we can contribute. We, the British, can offer the Spaniards a new view on the morality, appropriateness or efficiency of their traditions and lifestyles. And we all know the reaction that immigrants to Britain get, when they stick their oar in! But perhaps that’s the fault of the intolerant indigenous Brits. After all, we’re a country built from centuries of immigration: if we hadn’t listened to the ideas of foreigners in the past, we’d still be talking Anglo-Saxon and building Long-Barrows.
What I’m stumbling round to saying is that being British-Only in Spain is a waste, and disrespectful to Spain, but that total emersion is, well, unnecessary, silly and even, perhaps, a bit wasteful too. We might smugly disapprove of those snobbish ex-pats who wrap themselves up so tight in the Union Jack that they can barely say ‘Holá’ and do nothing but whinge about the (noisy or inefficient or corrupt) Spaniards whose country they are living in. But it’s still valid to comment on – and even suggest changes to – the good and the bad stuff that goes on here where we live now. And we’re also not going to give up going to a good shop or an excellent restaurant just because they aren’t run by Spaniards. Come what may, there are some British goods I’m still buying. ¡Viva Marmite!
