Research update (March): Exploring Cultural Identity and Integration in UK Schools
Thomas Benson, Researcher of Welcoming Committee for Hong Kongers
This March, WC4HK convened our network of education stakeholders to discuss issues of cultural identity and integration in the UK school system. We were fortunate to host speakers from the arts and education sectors, who shared their personal experiences of growing up in the UK as migrants from Hong Kong. These personal testimonies raised a number of important questions about memory, culture, and language, and the way that these aspects of Hong Konger identity are transmitted through the generations.
Our first speaker, an actor whose family moved to the UK in the 1970s, recalled the racist taunts he faced at school and the verbal abuse of drunk customers, late in the evening, at his parents’ Cantonese restaurant. While attitudes have undoubtedly changed since the 1970s, he noted that in more recent years, his nephews and nieces have all said to him, at various times during their respective childhoods, that they ‘wished they weren’t Chinese’ - that they were part of the majority culture of the UK.
Our second speaker, who moved to a rural part of the UK as a child, remembered the effort of trying to remove any trace of accent from her voice, and the difficulties in trying to understand spoken English over the phone. It is a struggle she recalls whenever she speaks to BN(O) families arriving in the UK: ‘they’re always so relieved to hear a Cantonese voice on the phone.’ As a teacher in a comprehensive secondary school in Cambridgeshire she now works to support new arrivals on the BN(O) scheme from Hong Kong, offering ‘the kind of support I would have liked as a teenager.’ At her school, she has helped provide spaces for Hong Kong children to talk in Cantonese and form support networks. She also encourages her pupils to take a positive, proactive approach to integration through involvement in sports and activities, from rugby to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.
The powerful testimonies of our speakers underlined the importance of getting integration right for newly arriving families on the BN(O) programme. Our speakers raised some concrete examples of where children from East Asian backgrounds could be empowered to take ownership of their identity, rather than merely ‘fitting in’ or feeling disconnected from their cultural heritage. Chief among these were increasing representation of East Asian voices and faces in childrens’ books, television programmes, and film; as well as gently encouraging children to use their Chinese/Cantonese names, if they so wish, as a possible alternative to adopting an English name.
Our forum participants, many of whom are also Hong Kongers, also raised the importance of getting the generations to speak to each other. Often, children from BN(O) families are aware of the risks and responsibilities faced by their parents in moving to the UK, and do not wish to burden them further by expressing their feelings of loneliness or cultural dislocation. Conversely, as some of our participants noted, many parents and grandparents do not wish to burden their children with their political anxieties or difficult memories. Our forum members expressed the hope that British educators could provide an outlet for children from Hong Kong to express their feelings and, in time, come to a deeper understanding of their families and the decisions which brought them to the UK. In the words of one of our speakers,
‘People have lots of different reasons why they chose to leave Hong Kong. What I think is important for children is to make it as positive an experience as possible and listen to how they’re thinking and feeling.’
Our session was a great reminder that when thinking about how to integrate new arrivals from Hong Kong into the UK, we should endeavour to listen to the experiences, both good and bad, of those who have arrived in generations past. We are lucky to have been able to hear two stories in our session, and we will bear their words in mind as we go forward.
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