| ‘I was torn between two cultures’
Immigration is a hot topic in the UK just now – but what is it actually like to be one of ‘them’? Tena Stivicic tells her story. When I first came to London from Croatia, I thought of myself as a foreigner. At the age of 26, I left a promising career as a writer, and my comfortable life in Zagreb to do a Masters degree in Theatre studies. I didn’t know if I would settle in England, but I wanted to pursue a childhood idea to be a citizen of the world. Why live in a one small place when there is a whole world out there? I thought that leaving would be the hardest part of the journey. Rather naively, I believed that my brave new world could only be better, and that a person who wanted to improve herself. Work hard and pay her dues would be welcome anywhere. I was in for a bit of a surprise. The London I imagined was the London from Four Weddings and a Funeral. I landed in Only Fools and Horses. Almost the first thing that happened to me when I arrived was getting mugged outside my house. I think that was when I first became aware of my own vulnerability. My time at Goldsmiths College was great, and I remember it fondly. But I also remember the loneliness and exhaustion. My mind was forever computing new data, from stuff as banal as trying to work out a bus map to unpicking the delicacies of how the British communicate. Finally, how was I supposed to enter my desired professional world when I didn’t even know the door I should be knocking on? Life here often feels as though everything you want is within reach, but you haven’t been told the password. Most of all I suffered from a nagging feeling that everywhere I went, the first thing people saw was my background. ‘You must be Eastern European,’ men would say in bars, gesturing vaguely to my cheekbones. I would of course protest. If you’re East European and an immigrant...it certainly brands you as ‘other’. Even though people are generally polite, you are left with a perpetual feeling that they don’t quite know what to make of you and are slightly uncomfortable with it. I realised early on that people don’t intend to offend, but sometimes I itch to point out to them that if I referred to all Western Europeans as just that, maintaining that the differences between the British and the French were too insignificant to distinguish and too difficult to remember, I’m sure most ‘Westerners ‘ would find that unacceptable. Living in a big city such as London, it’s easy to feel you could disappear and no one would notice. I think lots of people share this feeling. To a newcomer like me, however, used to a relatively small community that would often take too much interest in what you were doing and always pass judgement, the feeling of anonymity was especially daunting. So, after a while I began to embrace my Eastern European label. I took comfort from being part of a group – even if it was a group of outsiders and only a group in name (it’s not as if we all club together to do Eastern European things). But it felt like a force, belonging to this vague Eastern European pool. When I went back to Zagreb for a visit, I realised that there, too, I had started to feel out of joint. I had adopted new habits and developed new ideas; ‘we’ suddenly became ‘they’. I was constantly on the verge of telling people off for not turning their mobiles off in restaurants or not saying ‘sorry’ when someone squashed you on public transport, something ‘we Londoners’ are very good at...I fell into a typical émigré trap – instead of having two homes, I ended up feeling like I had none. I have lived here for six years now. The feelings of being torn have become less tempestuous. Time has played a part in that, as has getting my work produced. Most of all, building a home with my British partner has eased the transition. I feel pleasantly nostalgic for Zagreb and enjoy my visits, but this is where I belong. Living here, among so many cultures, has made me a far less judgemental person that I otherwise might have been. It has taught me to question stereotypes. It has given me a wider world view and confidence in my own resources. The emotional impact of being ‘other’ has sensitised me to the migrant experience. I think I felt a fraction of what it must be like to be a migrant when this is not the first or desired choice. And it’s a situation that merits understanding. As a writer, it has been the single most valuable experience of my life. Tena Stivicic Psychologies UK edition July 2010 |
 |
 |