The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development announced on Thursday that you are more likely to go to university if you are the child of an immigrant living in England – news sure to lead to endless features on oh so successful “immigrant parenting”.
Having grown up in the most ethnically-diverse borough in the UK and being the child of an immigrant, what went on outside the school gates of my Stratford school paid homage to many long-kept stereotypes. From seeing friends routinely dodge the slipper following a set of bad maths results; to the kids in my primary school who were sent on “holiday” after getting a detention, only to never return. These stories chime with Diane Abbott sentiments when she said: “West Indian mums will go to the wall for their children.”
The idea that immigrant families might be doing something well will no doubt be music to the ears of parents whose child-rearing practices are routinely berated for being not British enough. In the UK, you can drag your child around the park on a leash and you’re considered sensible; but ban your child from having boyfriends until they leave the house and you’re a monster.
But is the idea that our parents dictate how far we go in life anything new? I remember calling my dad – having done my A-levels while living in a hostel on my own for three years – to tell him that I had gotten my grades to go to Cambridge. “What percentages?” he demanded.
To him, the idea that the struggle had ended just because you had some marks on a piece of paper was akin to believing in space urchins. For every day that I did well in school, there would be an over-inflated story about having to swim to school and dodge a rickshaw along the way to remind me that my life was a blessing.
The fact that high standards set by immigrant parents may be part of the reason their kids do so well is borne out in the fact that this “immigrant effect” wears off after two generations. That doesn’t make us special; it makes us lucky.
Every congratulation I get for the supposed grit and hard work it took to go to school after washing in a bucket in my hostel makes me remember the years in my childhood home when I was forced to learn where my clavicle and sternum were while other kids were still singing “head, shoulders, knees and toes”. There is no denying that the desire my dad had for me to succeed made me value education as a route out of poverty.
That understanding was what enabled me to stay focused when I was in a bad situation, and to think about what I needed to do to get out of it. And I am proud. I find it hard not to hold up the stories of my youth with a sense of honour, at a time when the poor and the “foreign” are so frequently told that they aren’t good enough. I want to shove my history in the face of every Etonian-with-British-roots-so-deep-they-own-the-land-I-walk-on, shouting: “See? My parents are worthy too!”
But then I remember the point of my story. It is not one of the American Dream, in which every child can fulfil their potential, but one of what can be done with the right support and tools. If I don’t believe that, I am repeating the same old work-hard-and-you’ll-do-well rhetoric that traps so many people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Not everyone can have immigrant parents who will go to the wall for them and push them to achieve all they can – so let’s demand that the state does the same for everyone else.
