Today marks the fourth national Windrush Day and 73 years since the first Caribbean migrants arrived to the UK to help re-build Britain after the Second World War.
Britain, with its new reforming Labour government after the war was a country short of workers and needed to rebuild its weakened economy. Thousands of men and women came to Britain from the Caribbean with hope and uncertainty, and a promise of opportunity to work in sectors including manufacturing, public transport and the NHS.
The Caribbean was, at the time, a part of the British commonwealth, and people who arrived were automatically British subjects and free to permanently live and work in the UK.
However they were met with prejudice and hostility when they arrived, and in 2017 the Windrush scandal started where it emerged that hundreds of Commonwealth citizens, many of whom were from the ‘Windrush’ generation, had been wrongly detained, deported and denied legal rights.
We spoke with a resident at Elmswood Park who arrived with her family in 1953, as part of the 50,000 people who emigrated from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1973.
She said; "I arrived in Britain by boat from Jamaica with my family when I was 14 years old. We docked in Southampton and took the train to Manchester where I settled with my mum, dad, two sisters and brother in Moss Side. Back then, we were one of the only black families in the area and faced racism and discrimination on a daily basis.
"When the Windrush scandal broke in 2018, I was due to retire and I remember being asked for my passport number to make sure I wasn’t an illegal immigrant and that I had to prove my identity. It was a very worrying time as I didn’t know what was going on and I wasn’t sure if I would be deported.
"My life is in the UK, with no family back in Jamaica. I know of people who were stripped of their citizenship and deported back. The hardest part is knowing you’ve been living here all your life, working hard to build a home and family, and then there's a chance you will get deported to a country you don’t know. Everything is taken away from you and there is a strong possibility you will end up living on the street with no family or support.“
Without the contributions from those that bravely moved from their home in the Caribbean and answered the call from the United Kingdom to rebuild the country, the UK, as we know would be a very different place.
Join the Caribbean African Health Network (CAHN) this Saturday as they host a special Windrush Celebration Event online
This year's theme is "Windrush: our shared heritage, culture and history!"
Experience the diverse nature of our history through songs, food, clothes, art, performances, poems and interviews!
Date: Saturday 26th June 2021
Time: 1pm - 3pm
Register here or for further information, please contact events@cahn.org.uk.
