Dining Over the Divide: Perspectives on Migration and Culture

Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired underwriter

Political history: Usually Tory, except when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the SDP

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her home country, Aotearoa, she supported both Labour and Green

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a significant duration to be at sea

Initial impressions

She: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be open

He: She seemed like a very intelligent, well-spoken, pleasant person

She: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that British people who are native to the area, including non-white Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on technology

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it occurred. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could come here and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; since then it’s been service industry, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

He: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I don’t like pollution, I value fresh atmosphere, I love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their energy revenues soared after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll require in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, windfarms and hydro

Dessert topics

She: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

Steve: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. People stare at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or xenophobic

Takeaway

He: I think we separated amicably. We had a embrace at the station

She: We both said that we’d had a wonderful evening