by Rose Conrad

Created on: November 27, 2007

It always makes me smile when I read about America and it's "immigration problem". We here in the small country of England have a bigger immigration problem (both legal and illegal), than any other country in the world. But if you ask me how immigration has affected the UK, I would say that on the whole we tend to embrace it, not make it into some monster and run in the opposite direction.

There is a great thing to be said for cultural diversity and what we here call multi-culturalism. The world is a small place and becoming smaller every day both with cheap air travel and the amazing Internet which enables us to speak anytime to anyone, anywhere in the World, and I personally think that is a great thing. A mix of cultures, colours, and religions, nationalities and various ethnic backgrounds, make a country more vibrant and interesting. Being inward looking and frightened of anything slightly different is no way to move forward into the 21st century.

I love to walk down my local High Street here in London. There are restaurants, shops, and banks from every part of the globe here. Halal butchers, next to Kosher foodstores, Polish delicatessens next to good old British Marks and Spencers, a Muslim Bank next to a Church, and both a Synagogue and a Mosque on the same street. I find it vibrant, and life enhancing to be in such a multi-cultural environment. In some schools in London, English is a minority language in the playgound, as most of the children speak in Urdu, Punjabi, Latvian, Lithuanian, or whichever language their parents speak at home. They can all speak English too though, sometimes much more fluently than people born here, and their knoweldge and experiences of life outside this island are great for the other children to learn from.

Perhaps it is my own background that makes me feel this way. My Father is English born and bred, but my Mother was a refugee from Russia who crossed many borders and suffered many hardships to find the freedom of living here in England. I was bought up bi-lingual in a family background that told me to be proud of being English but never to forget my Russian roots or heritage. I was taught that the two together made a stronger force than either one of them individually. My partner is Hispanic. He lived for some while in the States, and always says that he felt "unwelcome" and "foreign" there, whereas here he just feels like a person and his native language and ethnic origin has never been a problem. No one questioned him or my Mother about where they came from, or what their motives were for being here, - they just accepted them, and that is what this country is generally like.

So when people ask how immigration has affected the UK, I say generally in a positive way. It has brought a colour and a culture that adds to this great country I am proud to be a citizen of.

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