Page 67 - BBC History - September 2017

Immigrants arrive at Victoria Station,
1956. “West Indians usually left
for Britain amid an atmosphere
of celebration,” says Wills. “They
believed the imperial rhetoric”

Meanwhile, most economic migrants home finds out, and things get very dramat- “Much of the
arriving at the beginning of the postwar ic. Ram wrote his Qissa over about 12 years
period didn’t imagine they were going to and used to perform it in the local pub. language used about
stay for long at all. They generally intended Another was the writing of the Jamaican-
to come to Britain for just a few years before born sociologist Stuart Hall. He moved from immigration now is
returning home with the money they’d London to the West Midlands in the
made. For that reason, there was less mid-1960s, and spoke about encountering an exactly the same as
emphasis on integration. appalling, openly racist atmosphere there
Things changed in 1962, however, when that he hadn’t come across elsewhere in that used throughout
the Commonwealth Immigrants Act capped Britain. Hall’s experiences highlight how
migration by ‘unskilled’ workers. While the many indigenous Britons found it hard to the 40s and 50s”
act was intended to slash immigration levels, open up to difference presented by immi-
in fact it had directly the opposite effect. As grants, and one response to that was racism.
large numbers of Indian and Pakistani men Part of the story of immigration in this Why do you think the experiences
could no longer come over alone to work for period is one of increasing racism, as what of postwar immigrants are still
a few years and send money home, these began in the 1940s as xenophobia about important in 2017?
men decided to bring their families over and outsiders, narrowed and became more As the Brexit referendum highlighted,
settle more permanently. In 1962, before the particularly focused on colour. In the West immigration is a major topic of debate in
act, around 1,000 women and children Midlands, Hall encountered a disenfran- Britain, so it’s really important that we know
moved to Britain, whereas after, in 1963, this chised community that felt it had been left about its history. Much of the language still
number boomed to around 20,000. Integra- behind. He described discovering “a used about immigration – about lack of
tion was much smoother for people who got historical resentment that latched on to race”, resources, for example – is the same as that
married or had families. Once you had and I think that’s really true of this period. used in the 40s and 50s. I don’t think it can
children in the school system, you were hurt for us to recognise that. If we are still
required to interact with a much more Where can we still see the impact of using the same rhetoric under very different
varied section of British society. postwar immigration today? circumstances, then perhaps there’s
From pizza and ice cream to swing music, something wrong with the rhetoric.
What were the most fascinating Indian curry and Italian clothing, there are
sources you came across? many brilliant things. But the most impor- Lovers and Strangers:
I came across a wonderful epic poem, called tant thing the British have gained is a sense An Immigrant History
a Qissa, by Madho Ram, a Punjabi migrant of their own difference. Many people found of Post-War Britain
it hard to open up to alternative cultural
GETTY IMAGES who arrived in Wolverhampton to work in a mores and ways of living. But whether they 464 pages, £25)
by Clair Wills (Allen Lane,
foundry in 1958. It describes being taken to
wanted to or not, the indigenous Britons
the pub for the first time, living in over-
who found immigrants moving into their
crowded lodgings and having a relationship
areas learnt about difference.
with a white woman. Then his wife back
BBC History Magazine 67