Project  description

The first area I have worked in is the northern city of Bradford, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Britain. A major indication of this emerged in a recent survey which showed thirty percent of Bradford children regularly use a language, other than English, at home. The survey revealed that of the sixty-eight languages spoken by the people of Bradford, the most commonly spoken are Punjabi, Gujerati, Bengali, Pushto, Hindi, Italian, Polish and Cantonese.

I have documented the Bangladeshi community which lives in a small area of the city’s Manningham district. This ‘ghetto’ comprising about ten streets and perhaps a few hundred families, alongside the city’s soccer ground, is in the forefront of community organisation. The people there are mobilised around the question of under-achievement of ethnic minorities in education and who controls the way children are taught. Bangladeshi children, most of whom speak Urdu, Punjabi and English and can read, if they are religious, Arabic, are consistent under-achievers at school.

I have photographed in textile mills and restaurants where most Bangladeshis work. I have photographed and recorded interviews inside their homes, mosques, schools and clubs. I have documented this small group of settlers, during a period of self-organisation, that has welded the Manningham community together. In the process, the campaign to control the education of their children has became well known in Britain and throughout Europe.

Among the most recent migrants to Britain have been the Zairians seeking political asylum. This community of about four thousand people, lives in east and north London. Their arrival has come at a time when European countries, through the European Union, are tightening immigration laws. Only a very limited number of Zairians have been granted refugee status.

In response to these problems, the Community of Zairian Refugees in Great Britain (COREZAG) was formed in 1993. This organisation addresses social problems facing refugees in Britain. It also seeks to defend Zairians in establishing legal status and supports them when they are in prison or detained at various ports of entry. I have worked with COREZAG, documenting these newest settlers who are trying to establish viable lives. Recent changes in Zaire are an example of how Empire Windrush is keyed into developing events in the world and how these changes affect people living in Britain. After the extraordinary events in Central Africa, the reason for immigration (now) Congolese political refugees has been lifted and COREZAG is presently helping these once political refugees return to their homeland.

 I have documented the Chinese community in Manchester. In this, the third largest Chinatown in Britain, very few people actually live, but it is the commercial and cultural centre for thousands of families scattered throughout the Northwest. I have recorded the local peoples’ concern over the the return of Hong Kong to China. The overwhelming majority of Chinese people in Manchester originate from Hong Kong and the New Territories. Some of the questions the community is discussing is how the great changes in China will affect them in Britain. I have recorded how the Chinese in Manchester are responding to the tumult in China where it was recently reported that ninety million people have been streaming from rural provinces to industrial coastal cities. On some days 500,000 people float through the Shanghai railway station looking for work.

The second largest Jamaican community lives in the Handsworth district of Birmingham in the West Midlands and I have worked there too. The Empire Windrush project was endorsed by the Birmingham Racial Attacks Monitoring Unit and I spent several months working with them. The Kurdish community in Britain is centred around Green Lanes in north London and I have worked there too.

I will develop eight or nine areas where the Project will work and these will be decided upon as the Project grows and begins to incorporate its experiences. I intend photographing in Glasgow where the population reflects the tensions in Northern Ireland. How will Glaswegians react to the quickening developments in Ireland? How is the population in Glasgow organised? These are fascinating questions especially when placed in the context of the movement towards a Scottish parliament. Filipino domestics suffer greatly at the hands of their employers. They are organising to defend their basic human rights and this campaign must surely be documented!

Where I photograph and record a local community will actually clarify during the course of working on the project. This will certainly be one of the Project’s strengths. But the determining factor in deciding which specific communities I document is whether the people there are collectively organising, around some issue or another, to defend and extend their common interests; that people are organising is what I am interested in, not where the community is collectively passive or indifferent, but is fighting back in some way.

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