The Latinx Diaspora in the UK: An Invisibilized Community
During my first year of university studying at LSE, I was elated one day when I realized the guy who was in charge of cleaning our floor in halls also spoke Spanish. Despite LSE’s reputation as an international uni, I still remember the disappointment of finding almost no Spanish-speaking, Latinx undergrads during my first months in the U.K. I obviously wanted to socialize as much as possible with people from all over the world, but at the same time I yearned for the comforts of hearing a Latinx-Spanish accent and talking about shared experiences of growing up in Latin America. So I was obviously really excited when I met Justino, a man who had come to the U.K. after having previously migrated to Spain from the Dominican Republic.
That year, I spent many mornings talking to Justino and even got to know some of his co-workers, like María, a Colombian woman who had just arrived in the U.K. a few months prior, or Roberto, a young man also from the Dominican Republic who had spent most of his life living in South London. Slowly, I realized that most cleaners at my halls were Latinx immigrants, and yet, I had never really heard about a Latinx minority in the U.K. These morning chats became kind of a ritual. I would sit in the halls’ kitchen early in the morning eating breakfast before having to walk the fifteen minutes down to campus for lectures, and most days I would talk to Justino while I ate my cereal and he cleared out the trash. Over these short morning chats, Justino would tell me bits and pieces about his life story. He had first migrated to Spain from the Dominican Republic when he was a boy. After spending most of his life in Spain, he obtained Spanish citizenship, which allowed him to move to the U.K. and look for a job after the 2008 financial crisis. Spain was one of the hardest hit countries in the Eurozone during this crisis, and Justino was one of the many workers who became unemployed. He felt coming to the UK was a sort of life-line, seeing Britain as a promise-land full of jobs and opportunities where he could earn money to live the life he wanted to live. Coming to London was not a choice; he would have preferred to stay in sunny Barcelona, yet he saw the positive aspects of starting anew.
After many chats, I could hear the disappointment in Justino’s voice. The life he had envisioned for himself when he had migrated to London almost eight years prior had not become a reality. He started out as a cleaner, and he was still a cleaner, finding it really hard to move up the job ladder. He told me he lived a comfortable life: he could afford rent in London after all, he could buy groceries and the essentials, and could also afford London’s infamously expensive public transportation. But I could tell this wasn’t enough for him when he told me that he was not satisfied with pure survival. Quiero vivir de verdad, he would tell me. I want to truly live. Earning a low wage and affording food and housing is not enough to truly live.
This was my first interaction with the Latinx community in the UK, a community which has been marginalized and invisibilized in Britain. Justino’s story is shared by many Latinx immigrants who have come to the U.K. in search of a better life, yet are not acknowledged by a society which claims to be progressive, yet clearly still has many elements of racism and coloniality attached to its ideas of former glory. The more places I looked, the more I realized how prevalent this problem was. I yearned to take a class on Latin American history or politics, but I was disappointed when my first year history teacher told me “that’s not part of the curriculum here.” Another surprise came when I first had to fill out a form for the NHS for the first time. On the part where I had to select my ethnicity, a box for “Latinx/Hispanic” simply did not exist. One has to check the “Other” or “Mixed-race” box, which perfectly reflected how I felt this community was treated, simply as an “Other.” Or the time where I showed my Mexican ID before going into a club and was asked if I knew Pablo Escobar- problematic in it of itself because of the drug dealer stereotype associated with Latinx, not to mention the fact that he was Colombian, not Mexican. The more I looked, the more I became aware of how problematic this was. At the same time, I wasn’t so sure. Was it simply that we were such a minority in this country that people didn’t even realize there were Latinxs living here? After all, this wasn’t like the U.S., where the Latinx minority makes up almost 17% of the population.
I started believing this narrative- maybe the Latinx population was so small that we didn’t need representation. There are so many racialized groups in London from Africa and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and South Asia that continue to fight racism and discrimination, that surely their fights had to be prioritized. Still, something felt wrong. Even if we weren’t a big minority, surely we shouldn’t be disregarded as the “Other” box on NHS forms.
I slowly started discovering more and more aspects of the Latinx diaspora in London. I realized that Elephant and Castle and its surrounding areas served as the geographical epicenter for the Latinx diaspora in London. Walking around the neighborhood, I could see signs welcoming visitors to try traditional foods like arepas, asados, cocidos. Going into Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, with its eccentric yet abandoned vibe, feels like being in downtown Mexico City, Santo Domingo, Lima, or Bogotá. I would eventually go to La Bodeguita in the shopping centre, a Colombian owned and operated restaurant, and try their bandeja paisa with my friend Sophie. However, I was shocked to hear about plans for demolishing this shopping centre to make room for another pricey high-rise commercial and residential development. What would happen to the Latinx people who gathered here to eat, to work, to talk, to shop? Just talking to a few people in this place made me aware of the cultural significance it has for this community. Yet, clearly Southwark Council just saw this as another inevitable step in the never ending process of gentrification in London.
My journey of discovering the Latinx diaspora and its struggles is far from over. Before Corona hit, I volunteered once a week in a community center in South London helping non-native English speakers practice their language abilities, and was surprised to encounter more and more Colombian, Bolivian, and Dominican students every week. And the more I learned about them, the more I learned about the racialized struggle of being Latinx in the U.K. Without generalizing people’s individual experiences, I got a feeling from talking to many of my Latinx students that most of them had had negative experiences with their employers as well as public services, such as the NHS. But the language barrier, the color of their skin, their citizenship status- all prevented them from speaking up to their employers (or to any person in a position of power) about their struggles, because many of them felt they were simply not in a position to do so.
So where does this leave us? My goal is to create awareness about the invisibilization and marginalization of the Latinx diaspora in the U.K. I am by no means an expert, and I still have a lot to learn: are there more Latinx diasporas in other cities in the U.K.? What are the particular racial and class struggles this community faces, and how are they different from the struggles of other minorities in Britain? How can we learn more about the history of Latinx migrations to the U.K.? These are all questions that I’m still working towards, but it’s good to start somewhere. I realize I’m speaking from a place of privilege. After all, I’m also Latinx, yet my class privilege has allowed me to be the student at a prestigious university asking these questions. I benefit from a system which privileges legal immigrants living in the U.K. on expensive student or work visas, gaining rights that resemble British citizenship more than many others who were actually born here. Yet, if I can use my voice and my privilege and contribute to give visibility to a minority and fight a system which has systematically oppressed so many minorities, I think it is my responsibility to do so.
Andrés Gómez-Ríos is a third year student at London School of Economics originally from Mexico City.