Some of you know that I moved to the UK with my daughter from Greece back in 2014 and my son was born here in Kent the same year. I think the journey of an immigrant really starts in a way after arriving to a new country. I love the UK. I love the rich culture and history. I love the nature and the people. Yet sometimes I feel like an outsider and it's hard to know if I'm being discriminated because I'm an immigrant or because I'm autistic. I am wearing a sunflower lanyard because I stutter when I talk with strangers and at the supermarket tills, I felt people were looking at me wondering if I can even speak English.
Then it's the aspect that back in Greece, the only time I visited all these years, I felt like everything was as foreign to me as if I was just a tourist that happened to know the language. And the fact that my son never spoke Greek and my daughter has forgotten most of it. Does it count as Immigration if you've always felt like a citizen of the world?
Well I guess it does in the eyes of the 12 years old kids that were throwing chestnuts to our windows, or the unknown people that broke our car tyres 5 times in a year, or the real estate agencies that wouldn’t rent us a property, or the client in that care home that refused to get help from me and another non British girl, or the lawyer at the law clinic that I asked help for my UK citizenship application and told me I am not entitled even if I filled the criteria, or the bus driver that insisted I should fold my push chair when it was stuck.
Having said all that, there was a sweet old lady -bless her- that told that driver that what he's doing is discrimination. And a colleague that helped me find a house. And the salvation army lady that supported us when we were in need. And the British system that provided us with an autism diagnosis and a dyslexia one, when in Greece I had been to many professionals that wouldn’t investigate on my symptoms and would dismiss my concerns with a vague 'depression diagnosis' and the label of ‘not trying enough’ for spelling at school.
Indeed, I can’t but acknowledge that I am thriving here. I managed to register to university, and I am already half-way to my degree; when in Greece I had three unsuccessful attempts to study. My neurodivergent children also have the support they need here and the option to home educate; something illegal in Greece. And I finally feel able to speak about my sexual orientation here more openly than ever before (for the new ones in my blog I am bisexual.)
So, what is the conclusion there, if any, of all this blabbing? I suppose that it is worth immigrating, but once you’re gone there’s really no place you can call home.
And since my blog is dedicated to the dear future historians I think I will finish that post with a wish that in the future there won’t be any borders, and that immigration will be a term only in history books.
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