Expats in Spain

Pretty much... ironic isn't it!

Bouncingturtle - exactly, it makes you wonder why they still harp on about it when they´ve moved away and shouldn´t really have to worry about it, although I suppose a lot of people use it as their excuse to emigrate.

Rosa - I agree, hence why I mentioned two people who have different ideas about what it means to live in Spain, my dad has friends who fall in both camps. The point that is being made is that the ones who fall into the "won't integrate" camp are the ones who harp on about immigration in Britain.

Rosa - I´m with you as an expat abroad. There are nice Brits around here as well and I also love popping to the south of this island to indulge in fish & chips/pies/English bacon, etc and must admit to buying the occasional Daily Mail In the area where we live we will always be the outsiders but we have been able to integrate because we do work, pay taxes and have bothered to learn the language (albeit badly )

You may find this interesting. www.amazon.co.uk/British-Costa-Del-Sol/dp/1841420476/ ref=sr13/203-3564422-1016764?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1 182288764&sr=8-3 . It's a study by Karen O'Reilly, a British sociologist, of the British community in Southern Spain. It tries to answer boo64's questions.

It's true that a horrifying number of Brit expats on the coasts of Spain fail to learn Spanish, but rant on about how immigration has ruined the UK. It gets right up my nose and is the reason we moved inland. Of those expats, none consider themselves Spanish and almost none pay taxes (because you don't have to obey smelly foreign laws, only UK ones)

It's not a majority though. there are nice expats about, on the coasts and inland. They're just quieter.

Can I just say that not all British / English act/ behave like you have stated some of your comments seem to imply that.
I am an expat I have both British and local friends. I have adapted to the local ways of life and have changed my ways to be accepted into local life. I am still however the foreigner/ stranger though and I will remain that way.
I watch Eastenders and love good British food..But I don't feel the need to go to a pub or reading british newspapers . Thats what going back to the Uk is for !

speedymama - sadly tis true. It makes me so . Intolerance based on such superficial things as colour of skin has no place in the world.

were i live we do have a lot of white immigrants such as polish etc

i just hate the way people predudice against anyone who is not 'perfect'(even though i dont know what this is)

i was short at school and slightly chubby in hindsight (even though at the time i was mad to feel like a whale) and got ridiculed for it! so now i hate it when people say their cruel words to anyone that is remotely 'differant'

british people are so racist, even people that recon that they are not racist still make racist comments, my dad grandad, dp and a lot of friends constantly make racist comment and dont understnad why i get offended! i get offended because they are degrading the culture i live in! it makes me so mad!

Mother2b, generally when the ignoramus talk about invading immigrants, they are not referring to the French, German, Finnish, Americans, Australian, New Zealanders etc because they are predominantly white. They reserve their bile for the non-whites like my parents.

i have a friend who has naturally dark skin and she enjoys coming tanning with me, and when i discussed this with my nan (because she thinks that people with dark skin dont want to hve dark skin) she was gobsmacked and started making excuses like 'shes probably doing it to try and fit in'

sorry to turn thread about immigrants into one about racism but i see them to be very closely linked

Agree Mother2b, and it makes you wonder where these people have travelled in their lives (probably no further than the next county) to think we haven't stuck churches up all round the world!

am actually being a little hypocritical here though, see, i was born in germany and live there until i was 5, then went back for a very short while when was 11, i lived on a british base and went to a british school and did not pick up much of the language, although if i went back now i would definatly learn german. i can understand quite alot of german just cant speak it very well.

hypocrite me

but that doesnt mean that its right!

Yes, I was an umarried mother to an illegal immigrant partner in Taiwan who didn't even have to pay taxes as teachers don't have to there. The Sun would so been knocking on my door had I been Taiwanese doing that in England,

I don't get that either - if I emigrated to Spain or Italy, I'd hate to live with other English folk. I'd want to live with and as the natives do (I did start learning Italian to this end once). I guess expats want an "English community" without the bad weather.

FWIW I hate it when people from the UK misbehave abroad as it tars everyone speaking English with the same brush . After all, like it or not, they're representing their country.

ROFL @ Uncle Barney

Mother2b - I wholeheartedly agree with you.
My dad is Spanish, he moved back to Spain 20 years ago after he and my mum split up(she kicked him out). When he was in England, he learnt the language as quick as he could be talking to people and reading English books and newspapers. He worked constantly, never claimed money from the state and paid his taxes.
He lives near a large British ex-pat community and counts many people from there as his friends. They are a mixed bag. For example at a bar my dad took me to, a man came up to him and started chatting away to my Dad in Spanish, I assumed he was one of my Dad's Spanish friends. Until he turned to talk to an English couple in English with a broad Cockney accent!
Another time, I went with my dad to a car boot sale and was chatting to an English women who tole me that she only knew a few words of Spanish (she was impressed when I spoke with a Spanish woman about an item I was thinking of buying - I don't actually speak much Spanish myself ). I asked her how long she had been in Spain(expecting her to tell me no more than a couple of months) and I was staggered when she said 10 years!!!!
And yes it is true that those who won't integrate are the ones that harp on about immigrants!!!!

How very dare you! That's you lot out of my will.

soph
"why shouldn´t immigrants in England have papers/bars/schools in their native language if they´re working and paying taxes"

i agree with this also, it annoys me when on the bus out of local shopping city (which drive past some mosques) you hear people complaining that 'we' dont stick churches up all over the world so why should they stick up mosques, now this our our own fault at britons for as a whole not being religious, i only know a hand full of religeous britons and most of these are decendants of other cultures

i just hate to see anyone being treated different for their shape, size, colour,handicap, culture or basically anything out of their control.

why shouldnt people from other cultures move here?

so many times i hear peopl talking about all those 'imagrents that come over here and take all our dole money' these people are uneducated and if they looked would realise that when people move to our country dont want to sit on their bums for a measley £42 or whatever it is a week, in fact in my experience people from other culture are very hard workers because they want to prove themselves! but if people are constantly nasty and dissaproving this will change and people will start think 'why do i bother?'

you here the expression so much 'its a free country' YES it is so get on with life rather than making it bad for other people

sorry for long post but this is something i feel really strongly about, i could keep going easily but rant over for now!

sorry if i rambled abit [

i hear dh uncle talk like this (lives in spain with wife)...all the immigrants in uk blah blah ..so thats why you emmigrated to spain then, barney?...
i think they think spain,at least certain parts, where they live,are theirs, therefore english..

OP, here here! So many times I have listened to interviews on radios where some ignoramus says that they are emmigrating because of the number of immigrants in the UK.

Really do have to go now as ds needs picking up from swimming.