immigrant song

I
This is on the way to the southside of Glasgow from the city centre this morning. A ghost of a place that has been coverted into a cafe for people to meet and from that a football team. Converted by recent immigrants to the city.
If you pass this place later in the day there are crowds of people chatting, exchanging imformation, busy wrestling out the forward momentum in their lives.
Govanhill - where I work part of the week, and where I lived as a newly wed - is full of this immigrant energy. Shops and cafes and welfare stores and social clubs have popped up. Foreign tongues get a taste of the Scottish sky. Mixing with the local environment. Being influenced and influencing the community.
It could be New York in the 1920s.

II
When I lived in Spain one of my favourite teaching jobs was an early morning course in Torrevieja where my students were all immigrants keen to learn English, to give a little kick to the forward momentum in their lives. Ukranians, Russians, Brazilians, Uruguayans, Argentinians, Ecuadorians, Morrocans. It could have been New York in the 1920s.
Each of them had worked late as a waiter, chef, barista, barmaid the night before the lesson, all finishing work at 1 or 2 in the morning. My class started at 8.30 and they were always there. Wanting to better their prospects. They were the liveliest group I taught, wanting to learn more, to know about good places to go and work. This energy was contagious and the room crackled with their enthusiasm, with laughter, with support. We often all went for coffee after class.

III
In Spain, for a brief period, I lived in an estate where Brits had got silly money on their homes back home and had paid the same silly money to Spanish builders. Good people, in the main, who had worked hard themselves and wanted a life of sun, cheap booze and fags.
A lot of them talked about immigrants, though. About not recognising their home town. They didn't see themselves as immigrants, even though they did the very thing they criticised others of : not speaking the language, keeping to their own, not integrating with the culture.

IV
I'm an immigrant, so are you. It depends when you choose to look at a country's history. At a particular time my beloved family were peat-bog Irish having too many children and ruining the place. Let's not even get on to my Welsh heritage! Yet we never learn about immigrants. Glorious, industrious immigrants. People actively seeking a better life away from their familiar home. They can be poor, they can be needy but they are hungry for a better living and willing to risk to gamble.

V
We're all Scotland's story, and we're all worth the same . Let us recognise and embrace the immigrant's hustle for what the day can offer. Let us recognise what matters between us all.