To ask what you think of Eastern Europeans living in the UK?

[Bananasinpjs7]

I have lived in the UK for almost 10 years which is pretty much a 1/3 of my life. I never thought I’d stay this long but met my partner here and decided to build a career in an industry that we don’t really have in my home country... yet.
I’m trying my best... language wise I think I’m pretty fluent. English is the language I speak 95% of the time.
I try to fit in as much as possible, learn as much as I can about the UK to understand it’s history and culture...
But I feel extremely left out ... I feel people look at me and think ‘she is from eastern eu’ as if it has some sort of stigma. It feels like if you are from somewhere glamorous like France or Scandinavian countries you are much more accepted... I’m so tired of constantly feeling like this

1. What Poles have in common with Romanian people? In fact historically Poland exchanged more customs/words etc. with Germany. Poland was also influenced by Turkish culture.
2. Polish Muslim minority, Tatars are against Muslim immigration from countries like, for example, Pakistan. And they have good reason for that.
3. Check: Is Eastern Europe really more racist than the West? By Kenan Malik for NYtimes.
4. If British/French elites/academics/media would be as engage in debate about past and sins of the nation like it is in Poland this world would be already better place. I can't speak for Romanians, Bulgarians etc. as I have very little understanding of their culture but I can speak about Poland.

Btw.its funny how Poles are portrayed as alcoholics when drink less per capita than Brits. Also Polish GP would be concerned about British norm - one beer a day.

Sorry are YOU eastern European

My family are. As well as being part North African and a few other ethnicities

@Oliversmumsarmy

Sorry are YOU eastern European

My family are. As well as being part North African and a few other ethnicities

Ok my apologies.

You don't mention that in your post. Only that your bf is and your DC have EE friends.

Ds2's best friends mum is Slovak. Our schools are RC so have a large % of polish. No problems.
Like a pp sometimes they don't attend birthday parties and do seem to socialise together, but I guess that's natural.

@Livingoncake, but any child arriving new to the UK would have little support (other than the use of visuals to help with communication) in the classroom, whether Chinese, French or Eastern European. Do other countries provide much support?

No one is going to come on this thread with a xenophobic rant. I'm sure there are a lot of people in society who do feel negatively towards people whose accent isn't native UK.

But Polish children sometimes don't go to birthday parties? That's a new one to me! My DCs catholic primary school had a reasonable % of Polish children, a few Latvian and I don't think anyone ever didn't come to her parties. They did tend to give a large (vast) amount of sweets as a gift though, much to DDs delight. She was also invited to a lot of birthday parties, but she was never invited home to play after school. That could have been because I worked full time so didn't chat with the parents on the playground at home time.

OP, you say in the UK people seem prefer those from glamorous places like France and Sweden. To be honest, it's a bit more unusual to bump into some one from Sweden or France than Eastern Europe. Actually, I'm
not sure I've ever chatted with a real life Swede.

*Callardandbowser
I love Eastern European’s. *
This sort of statement takes my breath away. It's as ridiculous as when my gran used to say (in the 1950s) - 'Actually, I quite like blacks'.

@ lifestooshort123 I didn’t mean for my comment to come across like that, I should rephrase to, every Eastern European I have ever come into contact with has been nothing short of lovely.
I’m not racist.

I live in one of the most bigoted places in the uk, lots of Eastern Europeans here. I think locally there is a general view that they all work picking in the fields or working in the poultry factory and are seen as unskilled. Which is bollocks as a lot of them working in unskilled jobs are actually really highly educated but just can’t get work elsewhere. Not that there’s anything wrong with that sort of work.

One of my good friends has a polish surname but has lived here all her life so when you meet her she appears English, no accent, etc. She says people who she’s initially been in contact with over email, or they’ve phoned her up are often surprised when they talk to her.....she has a very upper class accent.

So yes, I can understand why you might feel there’s a stigma and I’m sorry about it. While there might be some small minded idiots about hopefully there are also plenty of non idiots. Don’t waste your time with the idiots.

My DH is East European. I have friends who married guys from various parts of Western Europe and that was seen as fine whilst I was questioned by my choice by some friends,work colleagues etc so I sensed a definite prejudice. I think East Europeans are viewed as economic immigrants and half don't even want to be here. From my experience, that is actually true. My DH has integrated fully and is well liked and has no problems. Some of his friends only watch TV from home, only eat their own food and can speak only broken English. They are quite critical,especially about how the women parent in UK, and will complain that they are not accepted.

I think the whole 'Eastern Europe' thing is a political hangover from the 'cold war'.
Personally I haven't said 'EE' for years because it's not. Europe stops at the Urals.
It's like when I was working in Czech rep. I had people say 'oh you're in Eastern Europe'.....er no look at the map. In fact Austria is further east. But nobody calls Austria Eastern Europe.... Therefore it's a slightly 'othering' political thing.
I like the idea of 'mitteleuropa' but I guess that has gone...

Please realise the majority of us dont feel this way, my best friend is polish, My friend group are mainly Lithuanian and Polish, my sons partner is Czech.
No one I know is anti EE. Although I do know since the brexit vote, the few bigots feel it's a go ahead to be insulting.
The majority of folk, go by what a person is like rather than their country of birth.

Please realise the majority of us dont feel this way

I don’t know if that’s true actually . Brexit was a body blow for so many people , my ex DP was mortally wounded and never felt the same about the UK afterwards . There are racist people , and whilst the non racists have come to this thread what OP experiences , is reality

Tbh, every Eastern European I’ve met has attributes to be admired, all very kind, very very hard working, willing to stand up for what is right, capable of independent thought. All attributes I admire. I’m sure if I looked round I’d find some people from Eastern Europe who didn’t display these attributes. But my overriding impression is as stated above. I’m very happy to welcome you with open arms.

I think the problem arises from people who are too lazy to show these attributes and rather than try and raise themselves up they try and pull others down. Rest assured it’s their shortcomings not yours!

@Pumpertrumper

I'm not questioning your experience but I have literally never heard comments like these. Though I may have seen them online in things like 'comments' sections.

Who are you hanging around?

Brexit was a body blow for so many people , my ex DP was mortally wounded and never felt the same about the UK afterwards . There are racist people , and whilst the non racists have come to this thread what OP experiences , is reality
I'm not sure it is racism? Thing's have changed massively since free roam of EU citizens. Rents have went sky high due to over population, wages have decreased massively for trade people, crime levels have risen, random sexual assaults are much higher.
Personally I find EE very racist towards black people, many think they are superior in general to Irish. I am slim and have had it mentioned a few times by EE women at the school on how unusual it is to see slim Irish women.

I totally understand your feelings. I don’t discriminate at all. I work got the nhs so work with several Eastern European colleagues who I’m proud to call my friends. Much like the friends I have from India, the Philippines, Africa, Spain, Portugal, etc etc.

I’m half Indian myself but look white so I see white people being racist as they are comfortable with me being a ‘white’ person to be racist to me. Well piss off. I’m not white so from now on I’m challenging you (I never have before which was totally wrong of me).

My son is half-Swedish. When he was bullied by other boys who didn't know him well but knew he had a foreign first name, they shouted at him to go back to Poland. I rather think that bears out what the OP said about Poland being perceived as less glamorous and posing more of a target for xenophobia.

On the Poles v others points I only mentioned Poland gives my Catholic mother's positive views of Poles I think some stationed near her during WII in England and the Catholicism in common -so that was in a sense a view before the cold war post war period and because my daughter's best friend was half Polish. However some of the differences with Western Europe were simply the result of communism and it was the same with East Germany - those countries sadly suffered hugely under communism compared with Western Europe and we certainly would include Poland as much as Romania in that - not because they are identical countries but because they were in the Soviet Bloc. Having less money and more of a struggle between about 1945 and until independence and indeed beyond is bound to have affected them and indeed is one reason some of them wanted to move to richer nations.

On the Romanians and Roma issue the Roma have fewer chances of education over there. We had a temporary cleaner a year or two ago in the summer. The Romanian one spoke reasonable English and understood everything. The Roma one needed a lot of help with her phone - she didn't get paid if she couldn't make the app work so may son spent the first 30 mins of the 3 hour slot helping her with that and it seemed to me it was an issue about her education although hopefully both the Romanian and Roma Romanian have both prospered here but I could definitely notice a difference between them in terms of education and understanding.

We have a new Polish lady in my local garage who is lovely to talk to - everyone is liking her - she chats to them all. I have never seen anyone not welcome here. My London borough is only 40% white however so we must be one of the most mixed areas in the whole of the UK I suspect so perhaps not typical of the UK.

I'm not from the uk either , I'm irish and in my time here (nearly 2 years) I've had some pretty awful comments thrown at me. Thankfully I'm moving home this week , I havent found the people here very friendly at all and the xenophobia has been pretty obvious since day 1. I had been on holiday several times to the UK over the years and always found people friendly , so I'm presuming it's just the particular area that I moved to that is unfriendly. In fact the first thing I noticed in my first week was the lack of forgieners, it's really rare here to see a poc or even hear an accent that is not local. Now I know why 😂😂

In fact in some villages, romdowa, whether Ireland or England, people from say Manchester or London have to have lived there for 30 years or 2 generations before they cease to be the newcomers. Cities are different- they have an anonymity about them.

It's really embarrassing to read some of these posts...people tripping over themselves to show they're not racist or prejudiced by saying how they love every EE person they've ever met. Truly cringe.

I know loads in my very diverse part of London...

My lovely mum friend who is a really wonderful lady
My neighbour who is incredibly gossipy and spiteful
An acquaintance at a party who kept dropping the n word like it was normal
My relatives cleaner who is a truly lovely kind woman
The very well behaved child in my dcs class who is a model pupil
The incredibly naughty child in my dcs class who kicks chairs around

The thing is, I make judgments based on their character rather than their nationality.

Like anyone from anywhere, some are lovely people, some aren't. Some are lazy, some are hard working, some are kind, some are mean..

Its ridiculous to describe an entire nation of people as one homogeneous group.

The problem is that Eastern Block is not a reality for past 30 years. For some reasons when speaking about germans we use phrase Germany when about every country on the west side of German border just generic term Eastern European. Although if Bulgaria is EE than so is Greece. If Poland is EE than what about Ukraine etc.?
Again having few shared experiences does not make half of Europe one culture. In fact, Romanians even speak language that belongs to the same groups as French. Poland is a big country so people automatically think about Poles because that's the only thing they "know".
So when they dont want to be xenophobic directly they shout about Eastern Europeans. Some have courage to use Pole as some kind of a slur.

Ps.
Polish children not attending parties is sad for everyone but let me explain.
Poles have this idea that they need to be perfect and its better to not embarrassed themselves. So if parents feel they are different or that they language is not enough they simply prefer to not try in case of embarrassment and future judgement.

Please realise the majority of us dont feel this way

I don’t know if that’s true actually.

I agree. I think we massively underestimate the amount of racism in the UK (and within our own hearts if we are willing to look closely) we dismiss it as 'tiny minority'. I don't think it is a tiny minority.

@MinnieMountain

yes I've heard of the British Empire. That's my point. People from Britain who weren't wanted, couldn't thrive, sought better opportunities emigrated to other places and eventually pushed out the native cultures and languages and appropriated the land. The fact that it started so long ago compared to the relatively current influx of Europeans since the establishment of the EU doesn't make it that different, just accepted by many. People will always move to places they think hold better prospects. It's been happening for thousands of years.

I like Eastern Europeans. I just wish they would interact more. I would love to chat to more Polish people locally but quite often they just look down when I smile. Perhaps that is because some people haven't been welcoming in the past.