Written by: Jamie Paterson
For most people, home is an important concept, with many individual interpretations – home is not just a roof over one’s head, but a place which offers a sense of belonging. Home can be the street on which we grew up or the house we are raising our children in today. For migrants, home can be the country they are from or the country they have chosen to live in. People who have left their countries of origin, either through choice or to flee conflict and persecution, can struggle to find a sense of belonging in the country they end up in, whether this is because they struggle with the language and/or the dominant host culture. The feeling of longing for the country of origin, for home, might never go away. Thus, migrants can get caught between geographic spaces. It can be a challenge to find a way of reconciling the two spaces and acquiring a sense of belonging in the here and now. Human Bridge spoke with some of its own who are migrants about the concept of home and how it factors into the experience of migration.
Profiles
Styliana was born in Cyprus but moved to the UK to pursue higher education. Finding it difficult to integrate into British society and culture, she eventually decided to return to Cyprus.
Olesia is one of the many Ukrainians displaced by the ongoing conflict with Russia. She is living in the UK until it is safe for her to return to her “homeland” and join reconstruction efforts.
Magda is a Polish native. She emigrated to the UK due to better job opportunities and has since found friends and built a new life in her host country. She has no plans to make a permanent return to Poland.
Wing relocated to the UK from Hong Kong after the introduction of censorship laws, which threatened his safety. While he would consider returning to visit Hong Kong, he is apprehensive about the risks.
Sukhman is a Canadian citizen who was originally born in India. She moved to Canada at a young age to be with her mother’s family. Like Styliana, she went to the UK for education purposes, and she is currently thinking about returning to India to apply the skills she has gained abroad to benefit Indian society.
Nisha is Maldivian and moved to Turkey to receive higher education. She and her partner emigrated to the UK, where they still live, to pursue professional opportunities.
Oscar originally left Peru to “explore the world”. He lived in various locations, such as New York and Madrid, before settling with his girlfriend in the UK, thinking that the professional opportunities would be better there.
Foreign culture
Living in a foreign country can challenge a person’s sense of home. Culture, language, and longing for the homeland can all prove barriers to migrants seeking integration. The difference in values, social hierarchies, and cultural norms can sometimes come as a shock to migrants, who can feel very isolated.
Styliana, who moved to the UK from Cyprus to pursue higher education, says she found the difference in the two ways of life difficult to adjust to. She says that the historical ties between the two countries made certain aspects familiar, and she appreciated the “multicultural environment” of urban centres, but the differences were more pronounced in “smaller cities and communities.” She says she struggled in particular to adapt to “British social norms,” including the smaller role family and community play in daily life compared to Cyprus. Her sense of “isolation” was exacerbated by the feeling that there were few close-knit communities that shared her Cypriot culture. Though she did have connections with the Cypriot community of the UK, where she was able to find support and advice, she “missed the sense of community and social networks” that she knew from Cyprus.
For Oscar, British culture was also an obstacle to his feeling at home in the UK. Though he had grown up in a household in Peru that looked toward the West, particularly the US and the UK, he said that once he started living in the latter he felt “more alienated” than in many other countries. This also meant that forming social bonds with other migrants was easier sometimes than with the UK-born population.
Magda, for her part, immersed herself in the “British way of life” and found this to be a “remarkable experience” due to the opportunities for personal and professional development she gained as well as the new friendships she developed. Olesia, too said that she was glad she had been able to come to the UK to experience a new culture and meet people from a diverse range of backgrounds, which had not been possible for her in her home country Ukraine.
Language
Language is one of the cornerstones of cultural identity, and so naturally, for those migrating from countries that have no shared linguistic ties with the host country, a language barrier can prevent the creation of a sense of home. While English is widely spoken as a first, second and third language globally, many foreigners in Britain struggle with regional accents and dialects. Magda recalls being “not aware of the different accents and dialects” of English and was thus taken aback, despite considering herself skilled in the language. She was living in Birmingham, and the strong accents of certain locals illustrated a need to “revise” her skills, she says, which meant it was difficult for her to talk to some native Britons.
For Olesia, language has been “a significant barrier … making it harder to communicate and integrate compared to those who are fluent”. This has posed problems in areas such as employment, daily life, and socialising. Similarly, Wing found that moving to the UK from Hong Kong was challenging due to the language barrier. While his local authority provides English-language courses to bolster migrants’ skills in speaking and understanding English, he says that language still proves to be an obstacle to communication and entering the labour market. While local administrations receive funding to provide language development courses for migrants, this policy often falls short of the needs of migrants. The uneven implementation of the mandate of local councils to upskill migrants such as Olesia and Wing, who have been resettled in the UK, leads to discrepancies. Language acquisition can, for some, be a difficult process that is anxiety-riddled.
For those who speak English fluently, language skills are a valuable asset. Styliana says that it was an important factor when she decided to migrate to the UK. Her strong grasp of English made it “easier to adapt and communicate,” she remembers. Without the means to communicate fluently with native speakers in a country, many migrants experience a disconnect from the wider host society. This is one reason why some prefer to remain within their national community or form social groups with others who share similar experiences. This can alienate them further from the dominant culture and be another barrier to feeling at home in the host country.
Attachment to country of origin/family
For many migrants in a host country, the concept of home remains rooted in their country of origin for years or decades, as it is often the place where loved ones still live. They say that it is difficult to feel completely “at home” since they miss people in their countries of origin.
After completing her education in the UK, Styliana returned to Cyprus, despite having strong language skills. “I wanted to be closer to my family and friends, as maintaining strong family connections is important to me,” she says, adding that she also missed the shared sense of community among native Cypriots. Styliana’s feeling of not belonging in Britain is echoed by Olesia, who yearns for her homeland Ukraine. She describes the “emotional challenge” of being away from her loved ones. She says that she plans to return to Ukraine as soon as it is safe. The main factors driving this desire are the prospect of reuniting with her family and friends and being able to participate in efforts to rebuild her war-torn country.
In contrast to Styliana, who came to Britain because she had the opportunity to study, Olesia’s status as a migrant was born from necessity. She was effectively torn away from her home and has no real desire to belong in the UK permanently. “My heart remains with my homeland,” she says. Wing, on the other hand, does not want to return to Hong Kong because he fears the legal repercussions he might face because of recent clampdowns on free speech and political activity implemented in the former British colony. However, he is very close to his parents, and this is why he might return eventually. For Wing, it is people who are more crucial to the concept of home than geographical location.
Nisha has complicated feelings towards her country of origin, and she says this is shaped by the “mixed bag” of her migration experience. She explains that she has “migration guilt” because her family does not entirely understand her decision. There are two reasons for this: First, family bonds are important in her native culture. Second, the UK is perceived to be hostile to migrants, so why would anybody choose to live there? Nisha is also uneasy about the “advantages” she enjoys because she is a Commonwealth citizen, such as voting rights. She is aware that not everybody has these and also wonders what the “actual price of these benefits” is. Because of Britain and the Commonwealth countries’ colonial past, she says, there is a “massive disparity in power” due to Britain’s economic advantages and political weight, and thus she is conflicted between a sense of loyalty to her country, the Maldives, and the opportunities provided to her in her new “home” country. This leaves her with a sense of wariness and unsettlement, which many migrants can relate to.
Magda, for her part, feels comfortable in the UK and has no desire to move back to Poland. “For many, the benefits of migration lie in escaping a difficult reality at home, rather than a preference to leave,” says Oscar.
Transcending geographical connections
As we have seen, for many migrants, “home” remains the country of origin, whereas, for others, it is the host country where they have been able to build a new life and become part of a different community. But for most, the idea of “home” is not clear-cut.
Sukhman, having lived in India, Canada, and the UK, highlights how challenging it is to attain a “sense of belonging,” something she feels has always been absent wherever she is. For many migrants who have difficulty settling into a host country, the sense of belonging never materialises, and many feel caught between their “old” and “new” homes. This sense of “in-betweenness” is a key feature of the contemporary migration experience, which is often heightened by frequent trips between the country of origin and the host country. Migrants are thus neither here nor there and do not feel “settled” in the conventional sense.
For others, the country of origin recedes even further into the horizon. Oscar has the sentiment of having felt increasingly “less tied to a single place” since leaving Peru and becoming, in his words, an “expat.” Though he initially wanted to return to Peru, this subsided over time: “It became harder to feel like I belonged to the place I once called home.” Oscar attributes this shift to the length of time he spent away from Peru, experiencing different cultures and gaining different experiences from his Peruvian peers. But this did not mean that Oscar felt so at home in his host country that he was able to fully adopt it as his new “home” and thus he too is in between: “I often feel too British to be fully Peruvian and too Peruvian to be fully British.”
Nisha also doubts that she would automatically feel at home if she were to return to her country of birth even if the prospect of living in a country where she is not considered a foreigner is appealing. “It could be that I retain a foreignness about me even if I return to my country of origin,” she says, considering she has been gone for quite a long time.
Oscar speaks for many when he says that for him home is “no longer a physical place but a state of mind,” and in view of his wife and son, he says that “home is where we are together.”
Conclusion
In conclusion, the journey of migration is deeply connected to the complex concepts of home, belonging, and identity. For many migrants, the effort to create a sense of home in a new country involves overcoming cultural barriers, language difficulties, and a persistent attachment to their homeland. While some individuals, like Magda, Oscar, Sukhman, and Wing, successfully embrace their new environments and build fulfilling lives, others, such as Nisha, Olesia, and Styliana, struggle with feelings of alienation and a longing for the home they have lost. Ultimately, these narratives illustrate that the idea of home is not fixed; it evolves as people adapt to their surroundings and seek connections to both their origins and their present. The ongoing conversation about migration and belonging highlights the necessity of fostering inclusive communities that celebrate diversity, allowing all individuals to discover their own sense of home, wherever that may be.