A place furthest from home: A story of immigration

Photo by Omer Unlu from pexel

The 2021 census states out of the 59.6 million people living in England and Wales, 10.0 million weren't born in the UK. That is one in every six people.

Each had reasons for leaving their home country and moving to the UK, whether for work or family. The Migration Observatory states that for non-EU migrants, their family was the most common reason for moving to the UK. However, in comparison, for EU migrants, the most common motivation was work.

Photo by Vlada Karpovich from pexel

Many times for these migrants, life in the UK is better than the life they had back in their country, but that does not take away from the fact that they are here in the UK completely alone, with no family and nothing that remotely resembles home. Countless of them can never go back, even if they want or try, as there is nothing they can even return to, with many of their homes being destroyed. The country may also be too dangerous to return to, leaving them with no choice.

Joseba Achotegui, a Spanish psychiatrist, coined the term migratory mourning, a state of vulnerability and stress where the migrants battle with loneliness, exclusion, and fear of being in a foreign and unknown country. He further states that losing family and friends, native tongue, culture, landscape, and social status characterises migratory mourning. However, when all this is left behind, the migrants start entirely anew, like newborn babies entering the world.

Photo by Ahmed akacha from Pexel

Most people don't ever see that side of immigration. The belief is that the migrants are happier and have a better chance at life here, but there will always be a level of grief to it, no matter how safe and happy they are. They had to renounce everything they had known, everything that was recognisable, the comfortable environment, leave it behind, and start from the beginning. They left the food and flavour they had grown up with and replaced it with unfamiliar tastes. The roads they painted with memories are out of reach from them, only a faint recollection in their head, because now they must memorise the streets here, the road that leads to work, to an unknown destination rather than a route that led to home.

They all have different stories, but no matter who they are and how far they have come, they all share the same melancholy sentiment. So you can hear the voice of many immigrants with just one person's story.

Ajita is a 48-year-old NHS nurse who moved from Nepal to the UK when she was 31, leaving behind her 8-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter. She makes up 16% of the non-British NHS staff in England, and she, like many like her, started fresh in the UK and built a new foundation for life from scratch to allow her children to have a better life than she did.

Taken from Ajita's Facebook

It wasn't part of her plan. She never dreamed that she would leave her country, but here she is, 17 years later, calling England her permanent home.

Whilst learning about Great Britain in high school, she recalls her fascination with it, treating it almost like a faraway fantasy land, a country that she never imagined would ever visit, let alone migrate here. Although she believes she was lucky to be able to come and work in the UK, the journey was difficult. On top of leaving her small children behind with what she describes as a "wounded heart", she also found it challenging to settle in when she first arrived.

Taken from Ajita's Facebook

She felt insecure and scared. She didn't feel like she belonged here.

There was a massive cultural shock for her, especially moving from a developing nation to a developed one where the technology is much more advanced. Ajita said, "Coming to a developed country, I had a cultural shock, language, technology. So many things that it was tough to settle in the UK. At the same time, trying to get a nurse's PIN was a tough job". The language specifically was super challenging, as back in Nepal, English wasn't prominently taught, and she only learnt to write basic phrases.

Taken from Ajita's Facebook

However, the worst day for her was when her 4-year-old daughter called crying and begged her to come back home. Ajita's heart broke into tiny pieces after hearing the heart-breaking sobs of her daughter, who was thousands of miles away without a mother. On days like that, she wondered whether she should go back, whether it was a fruitless effort to stay here, whether trying to start a new life in a better country was worth her daughter's tears.

Yet after 17 years, many weeks spent working 70 hours, and many cold lonely nights, Ajita proudly calls England home. After a long and painful journey, she proudly calls herself British and wears it like a badge of honour.