Je suis un Immigrant

The intention of this website was originally to celebrate immigrants. Be something to unite the world in these dark times. For what else is a backpacker other than an immigrant? When I began investigating, however, I soon realised there were already a number of websites dedicated to helping immigrants believe they are normal and welcome, so I decided to chronicle my own experiences instead. 

This dear sweet toothless old lady is not my mother. But she could have been, had I been born in a micro desert in Colombia. My point? That child sitting behind her probably doesn't have Coco Pops for breakfast either. Actually, I entered the hut to record their poverty and know for a fact he doesn't!

Surely, Carlitos, you hail from the British Isles - whenever you travel to far-flung places you’re an expat. Immigrants are brown skinned and poor.

Wrong! I take great pride in calling myself an immigrant. In fact, reading their stories on the two Immigrant websites I searched, I was struck by how much I had in common with refugees from Sierra Leone, Syria and Afghanistan. Growing up in the south of England during the 1980s could be just as harrowing as having one’s mud hut destroyed by a US drone. For example, I remember one particularly harsh winter when the boiler broke down and my working class father had not the means to repair it. How we shivered through those freezing months! 

We returned from a summer holiday to Portugal one year to find the local church gutted by a fire. With the local council’s budget groaning under the cost of providing welfare and cleaning vomit from the streets, the ruins of this former place of worship remained a constant blight throughout my adolescence. To add insult, I wrote a letter to the actor Kevin Costner when I read he was to star in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves because I thought the ruins would be just the kind of place Robin and his merry men would have sacked before dishing out the goods to others. Kevin eventually replied and I was dismayed to learn the film was already "in the can". Besides, he said the Safeway supermarket would have been visible in the background.

I also recall with bitter clarity visiting the houses of better-off friends and noting the high-end brand names stuffing their larders: Kellogg’s Coco Pops, PG Tips, Heinz Baked Beans and every kind of crisps under the sun, from Wotsits to Quavers to Hula Hoops. Compare this with the binary coloured Tesco own-brand products which lined the shelves of our larder and you begin to realise life in Eastleigh and Aleppo aren’t very different at all. We could be have been twinned.

By sharing my tales and learnings from a life of travel I hope the peoples of the world will come together as one.

Love conquers all.