Can we as an Asian family move to a rural area?

[discopisco]

Just that really. We're currently living in London and are both of Indian parentage. DH has been grumbling about hating the rat race for a while now but I've ignored him (I'm from a small mill town from the north and couldn't wait to get out of there). However, we've just had our first baby and I feel like we're already outgrowing our 2 bed flat. To buy a bigger place in our current area isn't financially possible now or in the near future just on DH's salary. So, I've been looking at property prices where we'd want to move to (close but not too close to where I grew up) and we'd be able to afford a very big house there. However, my worry is racism. I grew up somewhere where there was a very clear white vs Asian divide which resulted in subsequent riots. Would we be mad to move to the rural outskirts of those areas? I love London- despite its many failings- and don't want to be isolated location wise if we were to move or have bricks thrown into our windows, be ostracised in the local area and our child bullied at school. Are my worries justified or am I being paranoid?

There are lots of pros of moving:

Family links
Familiarity
Lots of house for our money
Greenery

Cons:

Potential (most definite?) racism
Crappy schools (we'd probably have to go private)
Potential drop in DHs salary
Missing out on London life and all it has to offer

Would it be worth moving considering the above? Or should we stay out?

Part of me says to keep hold of our flat as once we move out of London we'd never be able to afford to move back but the other half says to go and live our life as best as we can while we can. Would appreciate any help, advice, guidance!

How about Skipton area? That is not all that far from the places you have mentioned. It is a mainly white area I guess but still plenty of diversity and I wouldn't think you would stand put a lot. Also near to Keighley where there is a large Asian community and less than an hour from Bradford.
House price would be more than the areas you are looking at so far I think but good schools and not too rural.

Of course you can move to the country, I live on the South Downs so near London and there are lots of well to do asian and black families round here and a big muslim community in the small seaside town nearby.
I find a lot of the elderly country folk are still quite rascist in their outlook but the younger people are better.

Nearly forty years ago, mine was one of the only Indian families in a rural area of the NW. My parents still live there. There have definitely been racist incidents over the years but I can count them on the fingers of one hand - and the rage of our white neighbours when they heard about these isolated incidents was a sight to behold.

My parents taught us that racism was a result of poor education and lack of life chances, and racists were to be pitied rather than hated. I’m baffled by the antipathy to the “So where are you from?” conversational gambit, for example - to me, that’s just someone making small talk and feeling their way towards finding common ground. My husband is WB from North Yorkshire and is asked the same question there, just because he doesn’t have a Yorkshire accent!

OTOH, I have so many positive memories of rural life I get tearful with nostalgia recalling even a few of them. I never had to suppress my Indian-ness; on the contrary I was rather proud of its glamour. My mother used to come into our village school and give lessons on tying a sari, Diwali, cooking etc as part of PSE courses. We were included in the Hotpot Supper at Harvest Festival and I was devoted to our Brown Owl and to Riding for the Disabled. Things that my otherwise very over-privileged daughter will never experience here in West London where ours is not even the only mixed family on our street.

I suppose the difference between our experiences is the great unmentionable - social class. A big house, expensive school, a plummy accent and educated parents mixing with other neighbours of similar outlook does make life infinitely easier. Your children will have a much easier life than you had. I think it’s important to teach them a positive attitude towards differences of all kinds and let them tell their own immigration and migration stories.

1moreRep just caught your post. Hurray for Cheshire, so happy yours is also a positive (and more current) experience of my adopted home county 😊

CharlesBakerHarris See, the example you’ve given here as an example of ‘casual racism’ isn’t really racist is it? Yes, it’s perpetuating a stereotype (a completely wrong one in my case, because I’m a terrible cook in every nationality of cuisine) but where is the malice in it? It’s just ignorance - and in correcting it you can educate someone and perhaps in the course of that conversation, make a new friend.

Race hate is a very different thing and it chills my blood, but the example you give is fairly harmless banter, and ought to be treated as such.

Sorry for my constant and...and...and messages, I’m just reading through and responding.

I completely agree with a previous post that a country life is a way of life that transplanted townies often don’t understand. My parents fitted in because they, too, were country mice all be it from 5000 miles away. If you’re a town mouse I’d make life easier on yourself and go somewhere that felt familiar.

Also, I’ve just remembered that Krishnan GuruMurthy is from Clitheroe!

I love the assumption that a white person who refuses to contribute to village life is simply excused as “busy”. No they’re really not; they’re condemned as stuck-up c*nts and their lives made miserable in all sorts of subtle ways. When there are only a few hundred people in a place, everyone has to pull together. As a previous post says, you get out what you put in, and that’s true of life generally, irrespective of the colour of your skin.

Have you considered Horsham or the surrounding villages? It's lovely and still commutable to London if needed? Good schools too.

Oh OP your thread makes me sad that people these days still have to worry about racism. I wish I could say it's non existent in Horsham but as a white person I can't hand on heart say. I do however have friends of different races and as far as I am aware they are very happy.

The thread is long so will admit I've not read the full thing but I did want to comment. X

Totally disagree with a previous poster on racism depending on how dark you are. The most disadvantaged group with the poorest educational/health/wealth expectancy often look ‘white’ (travellers/gypsys).

Chumsnet I think I love you.

I love the assumption that a white person who refuses to contribute to village life is simply excused as “busy”. No they’re really not

I agree!

And also another poster said that in some villages people will be perfectly pleasant to you but not really try to be your friend - this is also true for white people - the existing villagers aren't necessarily being nasty but people can only support so many relationships. They might have their sister round the corner and mother across the road, and lots of school friends. They just don't need more friends and aren't lonely! And if they've never moved they possibly won't have experienced what it's like to be a newcomer and inviting you over won't occur to them.

I did move to a village and all my friends are also newcomers, although we all get on together with the others down at the pub and at the school, my close friendships are with new people. The others already have their networks.

How has everyone missed OP saying she wants to move back home, nearer her family?

They live in an area where communities have become segregated and there are well documented divisions along racial lines.

Loads of posters saying, ‘Oh don’t be so oversensitive OP. Come and live in my village! I grew up here and we won’t tolerate disgusting racism as long as you make the effort to fit in.’

OP doesn’t want to move to a random village outside of London (even if it is a beacon of tolerance).

She’s not accusing all non Londoners of racism, she’s asking valid questions about the wisdom of moving back home.

I always think people who make any sort of deal our of nationality or culture are strange - whether it be English, Spanish, American, indian, Chinese - whatever. What does it matter?

Yes it does matter, culture and customs are facinating. I'm white British but love the Vaisakhi celebration held in my local park. Diwali means the fireworks carry on after Nov 5th.

Anyone who cannot understand experiencing racism in these small Northern towns obviously hasnt grown up in them.

this

The OP isn't asking for 'just' rural, she is wanting to be rural near family.

I believe I grew up in the same town as the OP and I know if I walked down certain streets with her there would be comments from people. One side of Colne Road it would be from white people, the other from Asian people.

And yes it IS that divided.

I had a boyfriend from an area a couple of miles out of the town centre, not particualarly rural, all terraced housing.

He told me about a family that had moved into the area and the things they endured before moving out, and it was stones through the window and worse throught he front door.

Now that is 30 years ago, I don't know if it has changed. It is completely reasonable for her to question if it has. My recent experience is limited and I'm white.

My father attends an RC church, the congregation includes a number of people whose families fled Paistan due to religeous intolerance. One of my mother's friends had an obsession with watching who took wine when they went for comunion. She had some strange idea that they migh be 'secret Muslims' if they didn't drink wine.

This is the level of, well a dog breeder once expressed it to me as, 'getting a bad gene', apparently once a line of dogs gets a 'bad gene' it is difficult to breed out.

I've also heard people referred to as 'Dingles'.

It's also not practical to say, "rent for 6 months", what about jobs? What about schools?

OP

I totally get where you are coming from, and I thnk your concerns are valid, I wish it wasn't so.

I hate the segregation, but when I visit I also see the countryside, and the affordable housing and think, 'maybe'. But then I come home and when I go to a sweet centre I'm not the only white person in the shop and it's not a big deal, and people are normally polite to me, not overly polite in the way Babdoc's BIL is treated.

I finally read all the pages. I'm on holiday with my mum at the moment so it's taken me a couple of days.

sleightofmind

Thank you, you've saved me so much space to respond.

For those that are hard of reading, I'll leave the most irrelevant comments alone. I find those taking offence at the crappy schools comment are possibly focusing on the wrong aspects.

chumsnet Love the name. Agree with much of what you say except the being asked where you're from.

When someone asks you where you're from that's innocent. When they ask where you're "really" from that's othering.

OP I think someone upthread mentioned that if you go into the whole thing with the idea that there will be a problem, you will be setting yourself up to fail and I agree with them. I'd never leave London because I'm an up my own arse snob - born and raised and not ashamed - so there!

But the main reason is because somewhere deep down I always feel that it would be calling me home. Once you have kids you long for family and familiar things around you. I think you are in the conundrum of wanting comforts of "home", but remembering it wasn't great and the reason for that could be damaging to your children.

I wouldn't take the chance but I'm risk averse you have to make the decision for you.

DH and I are from two different European countries. We've lived in the UK for almost twenty years, two of which were spent in Hertfordshire (the rest in London). I've never felt so foreign as the two years we spent in Hertfordshire. Constant "well-meaning" questions about how and why we had ended up there. We actually had people staring at us when speaking a language other than English and children asking their parents why we spoke "like that"... I'm glad we did it but only because it made us realise that London is the right place for us.

When someone asks you where you're from that's innocent. When they ask where you're "really" from that's othering.

Recently I’ve been asked what is my passport and specifically asked if I have a British passport 😲😲😲

For people who wonder if there is any issue with racism and xenophobia in the U.K....

And also another poster said that in some villages people will be perfectly pleasant to you but not really try to be your friend - this is also true for white people
That is true but I disagree this is ONLY because they already have a pool of people they can rely on.
And I would say that they are not pleasant - they are pleasant to your face. Which is very different.

Midsomer Murders set in some very isolated villages at times portrayed well the "incomers" (those only been there for the last 30 years - mostly white so in those very small places it tends to be who is new who is different rather than skin colour) who are never quite accepted until a few more generations go by. I am sure I am relatively new on this London estate too compared with some as only been here 20 years.

This is not meant to be a loaded question and hopefully you’ll take it in the sincere spirit that it’s asked: what do you mean by being ‘othered’ and what is so terrible about being ‘othered’ ? I will always wear my Indian heritage in my skin colour even when I wear British clothes or speak English with my Princess Anne accent. Of course I’m something ‘other’. But I’m not inferior to anyone.

Are you being made to feel inferior? Is being of Indian heritage something to be obscured?

I’m probably of a different generation to you but I positively enjoy people’s differences. I’m often the only brown face in the room and it doesn’t bother me one bit. I once wore a sari to the Royal Enclosure at Ascot (normally wear a dress and coat because of the weather) and people were literally walking over just to admire my clothes. I enjoyed being exotic to be honest!

The comments above of people being pleasant to your face and not so pleasant behind your back. Isn’t that the human condition? You don’t like everyone, why should everyone like you? But with a very few asshole exceptions, we are polite and pleasant in our interactions because it makes life easier for everyone.

This is why I do/do not want to move out from a big city.
I would not worry about schools- there are plenty of good ones out there.
Racism is a thing though. My area is very multicultural, and I'm whi,e but from Eastern Europe. I have experienced racism while living in the area I lived in before (a larg/is town, but with hardly any diversity), I got people on the bus stop come up and tell me to 'go back where I came from'- people I didn't even interact with! I was just standing there minding my own business, but clearly you can tell from my face where I'm from :) And that was before Brexit!
A Nigerian friend who moved out of London said the same thing. They are the only black family in town, and while they get the lifestyle. (sort of) they wanted, the kid gets picked on, people are not very polite and they made no friends. Not sure I want to trade London for another place, despite the crime levels and housing prices...

And another thing, while salary can go down, so will your outgoings. Life is cheaper outside big cities.

Will you volunteer time for community events? Will you smile and say hello to people as you walk around? Will you be happy with country smells. Mud and church bells? Let your children play out with other children (applying common sense, of course, and when they are old enough)?

If so, you’ll be just fine.

I live in rural Lincolnshire and we have great schools (primary, Grammar and good comps). My dd went to a lovely rural, faith primary school which had about 140 pupils, 99% of whom were white, a few were Eastern European so didn't stand out in terms of their skin colour and 3 were African or Asian and they did stand out from the crowd. However, the school was lovely, and had a great welcoming ethos and I can honestly say that as far as I know skin colour seemed to be inconsequential to the children. I have a lovely anecdote where my DD (who is white) was describing her friends to a girl who didn't go to her school and she described them all by their hair, including her friend who was black and had had an afro but currently had braids. She could easily have said that X is black but didn't and I think that summed up how the children saw each other - they were colour blind to a certain extent. That said I do know that this girl did find being in a minority hard at first, as she felt no-one looked like her.

I'm waffling a bit but I wanted to say that whilst I do understand that racism is a very real thing it might not be as prevalent in rural areas as you might fear. Even in our small town there is a Mosque and the children from DD's old school have just visited it as part of their National Curriculum studies. I think that if you do get any questions, as a PP has said about religion, where are you from etc... it will be more from curiosity and well-meaning ignorance rather than anything sinister.

You might find that you are the subject of village gossip but so were we when we moved here from the South because that's what village life is like - people talk to each other and about each other but we also look after each other too. If you want to PM me to talk more please do.

I know this isn't the point of this thread but it makes me sad that this is even a question.
Easier said than done but if people judge you for anything so trivial as not being the same as them it says more about them than you.
I believe you find what you expect sometimes, so don't pay any thought to it. Don't make skin colour an issue, be who you are. If a small minority don't like you for it then you'll find it easier to know who you want in your life. But never let anyone's opinion of you determine where you live. Teach your children you have the right to live where you like and be who you like.
2018 and some people still can't accept difference. It is heart breaking.
Wishing you luck OP xx