This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work

by Tiffany Jewell

The history we carry with us is the Windrush generation. The children of the colonized traveled from the Caribbean Commonwealth to Britain on a big ship called the HMT Empire Windrush. Thousands of folx came to the UK from colonized countries from 1948 to 1971. They came from Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and several other Caribbean countries to work. The British government invited them because there was a shortage of labor in the years after World War Two. The Immigration Act of 1971 stated all citizens of Commonwealth countries living in Britain were able to live in Britain for as long as they’d like (indefinitely). Many folx of the Windrush generation came to the country on their parents’ passports. Many of them already thought themselves to have British citizenship and did not have their own paperwork and passports. Since January 1973, stricter laws around immigration have required folx to prove their continued residency in the UK. Employers, hospitals, landlords, and police were encouraged to check paperwork and prove folx did not belong in the country. Without that proof, this generation of people were threatened with deportation and the loss of national medical care and their jobs. These stricter laws were created to keep immigrants from coming to Britain and, in dong so, also managed to leave a generation of folx feeling unwelcome in their homes.29