Tag Archives: immigration

in english

Recommended movie: District 9

Sci-fi with a strong social commentary and immigration undertones is right up my alley.  The fact that it’s set in South Africa, has great special effects and is set in a very rich and intelligent universe is of course a plus. What’s not to like? 😉 I won’t spoil the movie in the first paragraph of this blog post (you are more than able to read about it online), so go and see it. Now.

That it’s become an absolute classic of our time already 2 weeks after release doesn’t hurt. The social critique of the movie was driven home for me in a post by Inti of Alt1040 (quoted and translated below):

It is no secret that ignorance and fear easily make us racists.  The lack of knowledge of the lifestyles of people of different races and nationalities, together with the fear that we might feel for “possible” aggressions are the best nurture for intolerance […] outside of all logic and humanity.  Ignorance and fear that are themselves based in prejudice and distorted values.  When we know more about other people and find a reflection of ourselves, this fear should disappear together with any racist or xenophobic attitude.  What happens when ignorance and fear have a justification and there is no way to clear these obstacles?

in english

Adaptation / Integration / Assimilation

Lately I’ve been meditating quite a lot on why some of my friends have not been able to fit here in Finland and left, while I am still here, going on with my life and generally happy with it.  Since some of them actually had a Finnish (or half-Finnish background) but spend their formative years abroad, I think we can safely assume that in their cases it was not due to lack of exposure to the language and culture.

I’ve also been thinking about the immigration debate in Finland, and how the desired state of all commentators (and I’d assume more than a few immigrants) is that newcomers should successfully integrate to Finnish society.  However, the question then becomes  what does integration actually mean, and how is it achieved.  With that in mind, I started to go over my own process while living here, and I have sketched a model for it with 3 different (and grossly oversimplified) stages.

  • Adaptation: The process of making terms with your new surroundings, including first contact and ways of working with the location, language, culture…
  • Integration: Now this becomes more of a two-way street.  You acquire more traits of your host society, but at the same time are accepted as part of it as well.
  • Assimilation: When there is no important difference between yourself and the society you live in.  Probably you won’t achieve it, but your kids might.

Based purely on my own observations (and taking into consideration that I am no social scientist) I am starting to believe that the biggest challenge is making the leap between adaptation and integration.  Letting go of your expectations while at the same time holding a grip on your possibilities while understanding your environment better seems to be quite hard.  Coming to terms with a language that might be very different, and values and behaviours that might not always correspond to your own, and both learn from and accept such differences requires a certain strength and a support network that not all of us have.

This is of course not helped by the fact that the phenomenon is quite new for the host society as well, which is still coming to terms with it itself.

in english

“I’m young and want to move abroad, but don’t know how”

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During the past few years recent college graduates have been asking me what to do if they want to move abroad.  This is not a comprehensive guide, but can give you good ideas if you have that kind of wanderlust.

  • Understand it’s not going to be easy. Many others are planning to do the same thing, and there’s no more difficult people than those who work for any country’s immigration authority.
  • Decide what you want to do: study or work?
  • Check were you want to go, what is the study/labour market like and what are the requirements.
  • Contact the embassies of such places to get more information.
  • Check what are your options and your budget (if for studies, scholarships are always a good option, if for work or a traineeship, associations like AIESEC can also help)
  • Map your strenghts and weaknesses vs. what is required of you.
  • Try to understand what are the cultural & language challenges.
  • Keep an open mind and an optimistic spirit.  Will take you places.
in english

National values and adaptation of an immigrant in Europe

One of the topics I was discussing with friends is how while in the New World being American, Canadian or even Mexican is more than anything else an ideal that can be aspired to and achieved, being Finnish, German or Italian requires you to be born into it.

If this is true, then for the sake of argument we could assume that the current debate about the need for immigrants to adapt and blend into society (what I sometimes jokingly call soppauttaminen, a play on the Finnish words for soup and adapt) is asking for the impossible, simply because the only way for them to be regarded as to be fully part of society is to be born there, which at least their first generation cannot do.  Further down the road it might happen, but is not automatic.

One could argue that this is exactly what happened to Turks in Germany, where until the change of the citizenship laws this decade, the children and grandchildren of immigrants were not allowed to become citizens of the country where they were born.  It is documented that even today they live in very tightly knit communities with little contact with the outside world.

In France, on the other hand  you have the values of liberty, equality and fraternity that are cherished by all and ensure that everybody who adapts the French language and values will be deemed as French at least in theory, but in practice it might be a little bit more complicated, as the situation in the banlieues shows.

Trying to apply this to my experiences, I have been trying to understand if there is an idea of Finnishness that I can make my own, that would also be accepted by society and followed through. If the perunasuomalaiset and other Finnish politicians really want to take the situation of immigration head on, they should ask that question. A person who has no investment in and no part in society will not be interested in his development within it.

in english

Maybe people are getting used to “the different”?

Last week something interesting happened.  I was walking to the store and in quick succession two unrelated strangers spoke to me in Finnish, like any other person, asking questions about the neighbourhood or directions.

Why is this significant?  Because I don’t have the stereotypical Finnish complexion nor facial features and dress in a very particular way (jeans, black jacket and texano cowboy hat this time), so more often than not people will address me in English or refrain to do so.

As said in the title, maybe people around here are getting used to “the different”, as they have in other places like Brussels or Stockholm.

in english

Shall I write a book?

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Some friends have mentioned in completely unrelated settings that I should probably consider writing a book.  I’ve been actually thinking about writing one either of my experiences as a foreigner/expat/immigrant/whatchamacallit on one hand or a sci-fi novella on the other.  Of course I’d have to find some time to do it as currently I don’t have much, butmight be something worth considering.

Dear readers, what would you think?  What would you like to read more about, in analog form?

in english

The case for migration

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I read this article and this book and of course they got me thinking.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my biggest problems with the Finnish immigration debate are twofold:

  • on one hand there is very little differentiation in what we see, hear and read in the media between people who came here for work, family or asylum and on what their adaptation process to society has been and,
  • on the other there seems to be no clear path in which a newcomer can eventually become a Finn, even if he/she (hän) is able to become a citizen at some point,
  • which of course means that newcomers are depicted as dangerous or at the very least lazy.

Furthermore, I watched the presidential debate of a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say I’m somewhere in between what current President Halonen and ex-President Ahtisaari mentioned: yes, people should be welcomed to come here and immigrants are a resource, but we shouldn’t make the same mistake Germany and Belgium did with their Gastarbeiter programmes of the 60’s.  Instead, we should be aware that first and foremost an immigrant is a person, and should strive to continue building our society(ies) together (after all, some of them might have invested a lot of themselves into their new place of residence after living there for some time, right?).

Therefore, it was very interesting to read Mr. Legrain’s book (for a good overview of his ideas, you can check out this interview at the Freakonomics blog).  Even though I wouldn’t go so far as propose to open all borders indiscriminately, he does touch into quite a few interesting points regarding why the current system doesn’t work, what the current situation is and what do countries and immigrants need to do to adapt to each other, rightly pointing it’s a two-way street.

Let’s see how the situation develops with the precarious economic situation.

in english

Foreigner or local?

Every once in a while I meet someone new (who doesn’t?).  As a foreigner in Finland that means first disbelief of why would anyone move to this country followed by either suspicion or only a request to know the whole set of decisions bringing you here, how do you like it here and how is your life here.  As I’ve lived in the Helsinki area for most of my adult life, explaining why and how I came to this point has become a longer story than I might be comfortable sharing on a first meeting, so depending on the person the exchange might go something like this:

“Mut, mistä sä oot kotoisin? (But, where are you from?)”

“Täältä (Here).”

Problem solved 😉