I am a Portuguese migrant.
But to say this is
not enough. Let me try again. I am a Portuguese migrant who lives in a pretty
comfortable situation in the UK. I am not a jobless migrant. I have a stable
job that can’t be performed by someone who does not speak Portuguese, which
means that I am not seen as a direct threat either to England’s self-defined
identity or to most jobless British people. I have never been a victim of explicit
racial abuse, mainly because I am white enough, wealthy and healthy enough, heterosexual
enough, young enough, and I don’t stand out too much from the crowd, or speak
too differently. People don’t stop me in the street to ask if they can touch my
hair or where I come from, and whenever I search for a new place to rent, I am
looked upon favourably by the landlord simply because of my university email
account.
To say that I am a
Portuguese migrant is, therefore, not enough to explain my situation of
privilege. As a trilingual, highly educated white woman, working, playing and
paying her taxes in this country, I am what some call a “wanted migrant.” My
body is not entirely out of place. This needs to be said, because a migrant is
rarely thought of as white, and white people tend not to be seen as migrants.
They can be expatriates, guests, tourists, or professionals who fancied a
change of scenery, but not migrants. Migrants are defined by skin colour,
discrimination, and, to be sure,
I did not die or
drown at the border, trying to get in.
Instead, I woke up
one fine morning in 1986, to find out that I was already inside the barbed-wire
fence. I was 6 when Portugal, without the help of a national referendum, became
a EU member. This allowed me to arrive in this island by plane, and under the
life-changing, eye-opening, wonderful European Erasmus Exchange Programme, back
in 2000. I didn’t know it at the time, but that year spent in Manchester,
funded partly by the EU, and mostly by the Bank of Mum and Dad, would change my
life dramatically. Although I had studied English in Portugal for two years, I
spent the first three months of my Erasmus life unable to understand a word of
Mancunian, and wondering why bus drivers loved me so much, with their “Hello,
luv” greetings. I came back to Portugal at the end of 2001 to finish my Coimbra
degree, and I eventually found a job as a teacher. I enjoyed teaching, but I was
restless and I wanted to carry on studying, so by 2004 I was back in
Manchester, this time with the emotional/professional support of my supervisor
and friend Hilary Owen, and the financial help of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, the national funding agency
under the responsibility of the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and
Higher Education, who would pay for my MA and PhD fees, accommodation and
travel expenses in the next five years. The Foundation’s budget encompasses
funds from the Portuguese state budget and from European structural funds, so
once again I found myself living in the UK because of Portugal’s EU membership.
Although I am the
embodiment of a generation of ambitious, cosmopolitan Portuguese who grew up flirting
with the idea that we were all European, I do not think that the EU is perfect.
Portugal exited its bailout programme in May 2014, but the country will
continue to face the consequences of aggressive austerity measures imposed
by Europe for years to come. Angela Merkel’s official response to the migrant
crisis is for EU members to pull together and provide shelter for people
fleeing war or persecution, but most
members have failed to do this, building anti-immigrant fences instead.
Having said that, even
Portuguese film director Miguel Gomes latest film trilogy, Arabian Nights, which was produced as a response to the austerity
measures forced on Portugal by the EU, even that trilogy is a European
co-production, with money supplied by France and Germany!
So, in my
experience, the advantages of standing together truly exceed the disadvantages.
I have benefitted tremendously from living in this country, and that is the
reason why I am still here and not elsewhere. I cannot stress enough the
importance of the kind of support I have received in England in terms of
education and training, career advancement opportunities, and above all, emotional
bonds, all of which have allowed me to grow and thrive in a foreign country.
But I also like to
think that the UK has benefitted, if only modestly, from my partly
Portuguese-funded, partly EU-funded immigrant life. As a university lecturer I am
committed to making diversity a priority, not only in terms of the courses I
offer, but also in terms of going out of my way to pass on to my mostly British
students the notion that striving for inclusion and balance will lead to
empowering and real changes in their lives. As a researcher, I spend an
increasing number of days thinking about how to connect with the local
communities, how to democratise access to knowledge, how to bring diverse
voices and experiences into my research.
Brexit is not the
result that universities hoped for. I am particularly concerned about what it
will mean in terms of:
- Racial abuse: the referendum has given the minority an excuse to voice hatred and anti-immigration discontent. We have just heard of an increase in ugly incidents such as the case of Fátima Lourenço, a Portuguese migrant living in South London, who has suddenly become a target for racist attacks in the wake of Brexit (http://portugalresident.com/post-referendum-racism-sees-portuguese-woman-in-uk-spat-at-and-told-to-go-home)
- What will Brexit mean for migrants less privileged than myself? How will this impact on the number of students interested in learning languages?
- In terms of free movement for students currently on, or preparing for, their year abroad, and especially those on the Erasmus programme and other educational exchange programmes
Im worried about
what Brexit will mean:
- In terms of free movement for EU colleagues and students: will EU staff and students be able to continue studying at British universities?
- EU student fees
- the future of EU research grants
Even though we all
know that nothing will change overnight, there is a lot of uncertainty and
anxiety. Brexit provides a real challenge for Modern Languages in particular,
since this is an area that logically benefits from a healthy and open
relationship between the UK and European countries, from collaboration and the
free travelling of people and ideas. Pulling out of the EU is not going to make
any of this any easier.
But right now, I
think it is time that we stand together, take a deep breath and get ready to
start re-shaping our relationship with Europe. I want to speak out for
responding well and engaging fully. Other
readings are possible that resist the impulse to be hateful, ungenerous and
bitter. We need to find a new language to deconstruct our privilege and
start crossing borders. This referendum has given us the opportunity of a
lifetime: to think of new ways of opening up to Europe, opening up to the
other, and ultimately to ourselves. And what better way to prepare for this than
start learning a new language?
I want to end by
quoting a book that I discovered when I first moved to Manchester 16 years ago,
when I first experienced the life of a migrant. The book is by Gloria
Anzaldua’s book, Borderlands/La Frontera:
The New Mestiza, about her life growing up on the Mexican-Texas border:
“The world is not a safe place to live in. We shiver
in separate cells in enclosed cities, shoulders hunched,
barely keeping the panic below the surface of
the skin, daily drinking shock along with our morning coffee,
fearing the torches being set to our buildings, the attacks in the streets.
Shutting down. (...)
Alienated from her
mother culture, ‘alien” in the dominant culture, the woman of color does not
feel safe within the inner life of her Self. Petrified, she can’t respond, her
face caught between los intersticios, the spaces between the different
worlds she inhabits.
The ability to
respond is what is meant by responsibility.”
Thank you for listening.
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