Workforce Language Services

A scholarly feature article in the Migration Information Source examines the role of the feeling of belonging in the process of immigrant integration in modern times.  Drawing from ethnography, the article focuses on the immigrant experience in England, but the author also identifies 10 feedback circuits that are application to any country in the world in which immigrants reside.

These 10 feedback circuits, or areas from which people receive messages about belonging run the gamut from the familial to the cultural to those that necessitate support from the larger culture.  A few of these markers are particularly interesting to those striving for cultural competence:

8. Everyday public services that are of the people as well as for the people. In rural societies, police officers, health professionals, and teachers live in the same communities they serve. The patterns in cities are less clear-cut, and the mismatch between public services and communities creates tensions, such as the continuing battles over Muslim schools, or health care that is attuned to Koranic teachings.

A related issue — acute now for long-standing working-class communities — is the perceived injustice of decisions and distributions. In the United Kingdom, public hostility to asylum seekers often comes from the perception that asylum seekers have privileged access to resources.

9. Homes. If people like you, your family, and your friends can afford housing in the community (to rent or to buy), and the owners or landlords are willing to rent or sell to you and those like you, then you are receiving a positive message.

Public-housing policy also matters. The Young Foundation’s work showed the very damaging effects of UK public-housing policies that separated families in an effort to allocate strictly according to need. Although classic social-policy terms justify this type of rationing, such policies essentially told local people they had no claim on their locality.

10. Law and its enforcement. The legitimacy of law — that it reflects the community’s values and protects its interests — is critical to belonging. In many places, new negotiations are needed over nonnegotiable rules (for example, on the place of forced marriage).

To read the entire article, click here.