In the Article, "They Just Won't Mix,"James Montague wrote about The immigration issue in Spain from the view of a British man. He is a British person living in Spain and attending low priced night school so that he can learn Spanish, which is a language he has much trouble with. As the only Brit in the class, and one of the four Brits in the entire group of classes, he sits as a minority. Montague brings up the issue that Spain has about the British immigrants as a whole, which is that they, unlike most other immigrants, don’t take time to get to know the language or culture of their new country and even keep their kids segregated from the Spanish culture. Montague also brings up the fact that not only do the British generally not integrate with the Spanish when living there, they also make it challenging for anyone other than Brits to fit in, in their country. The Brits have highly priced school for English classes making it hard for the migrants to even learn the language.
I find it really interesting to see what goes on in other countries when talking about immigration, being that I hear about America’s problems with it all of the time. It astounds me that when people go to Spain, it’s made easy for them to have the opportunity to try to learn the language and fit in, but when people go to Britain, it is made very complicated as though Britain just doesn’t want them there and will make it hard for them to succeed so that maybe they’ll leave. I also really likes Montague’s closing statement about how Spain sees teaching their language as an investment, which I can really see how that could be.
James Montegue, "They Just Won't Mix," New Statesmen, January 3, 2008.
