If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are oppressing and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. Malcolm X Juan is a seven-year-old boy who enjoys playing alone rather than with friends. He was known for his wild imagination. From a short distance he was playing in the…
Tag: identity
Migrant Tales Literary (Suomen Silta 1990s): Mistaken identity
We don’t see thins as they are, we see things as we are. Anaïs Niin The date and year are not important, but it is a weekday, not too long ago. Spring has arrived and spreads its magic to these sub-arctic latitudes after a long slumber. Leaves are budding everywhere; trees are stretching out their…
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Finnish identity isn’t a monolithic slab held together by power, privilege, prejudice, and bigotry
The biggest challenge facing our culturally and ethnically (non-white) community this century is the narrow definition of who we are. As long as our definition excludes others, all efforts at “integrating” newcomers and ensuring that they become members of society will fail. The aims of our schools to teach children of foreign parents to become…
Who determines who we are?
Here’s a simple question: By law, a person is a Finn if he or she is a Finnish citizen. Why, then, are some of these Finnish citizens spoken of and near-constantly reminded by society that they are so-called “people with foreign backgrounds?”
Migrant Tales (April 14, 2015): My identity is mine, not yours, so stop labeling me according to your prejudices
Why do some public services like the police even some migrants believe they have the right to define who are? The police do it constantly. Every time they label a person or group as a person with “foreign” or “migrant” background they are effectively relegating that person publicly to second- or third-class status in society.
Migration Pulse: What the refugee crisis says about race in Europe
While many Europeans have felt growing humanitarian concern on being confronted with images of desperation among refugees seeking entry, across the continent a large minority have suggested any sympathy is misplaced.
Children of immigrants: “Only Finnish spoken here and you’re a mamu”
We claim that Finland has one of the best educational systems in the world. We claim that we teach our children social equality and that they have equal rights to advance in life. Why then are children of immigrants called at some schools mamus and why do we force them to speak only Finnish? The term mamu…
Migrant Tales Literary: Unleashed hope (Part I)
By Anonymous Migrant Tales…Migrant Tales…Migrant Tales! you gave others and myself hope when there was nope for East and West I probe South and North nope I drop for there was no one nope unheard around the globe nor nothing to hang the rope for there was a steep slope of a…
Ariela Patterson: The right to be me on my terms
One of the biggest challenges facing Finland in the new century is to come to terms with its ever-growing cultural diversity. While some Finns have no problems with this, others oppose it. Finland’s cultural diversity is, however, something that nobody can stop. There are today tens of thousands of Finns with multicultural backgrounds. Ariela Patterson,…
Migrant Tales Literary with Le monde n’est pas: Around Europe by Miguel Velayos
Comment: I came across this neat website on Twitter called Le monde n’est pas rond (The world is not round). The website describes itself as “an international artistic newspaper, based in Luxembourg, that explores the contemporary realities of migration, borders, and human rights through the publication of articles, art and illustration, photography, prose and poetry.” Why not…