Source Based Essay- Windrush
Source-Based Essay
Jahmai M. Scarlett
Professor Nochomovitz
English 110
3 Oct 2019
Source-Based Essay
Rhetorical Situation
Between 1948 and 1970, nearly half a million persons from the Caribbean were asked to assist their “Motherland” with post-war rebuilding of the country due to the severe labour shortages. These immigrants were later called the “Windrush Generation” due to majority of them being carried over by the vessel called “Empire Windrush”. Working age adults and many children travelled from the Caribbean to join parents or grandparents in the UK or travelled with their parents without their own passports. Thus, leaving many of the children, who are now senior citizens, without any feasible way to provide proof of legal migration or naturalization. With this being the case, anyone who had arrived in the UK from a Commonwealth country before 1973 was granted an automatic right permanently to remain, unless they left the UK for more than two years. Since the right was automatic, many people in this category were never given or asked to provide documentation of their right to remain at the time or over the next forty years. In this time, many continued to live and work in the UK, believing themselves to be British.
This, however, was put into chaos by the passing of the “hostile environment” policy came into effect in October 2010 by the British parliament which targeted illegal immigrants so they would be forced to leave by coercion or deportation. Measures introduced by the policy included a legal requirement for landlords, employers, the NHS, charities, community interest companies and banks to carry out ID checks and to refuse services if the individual is unable to prove legal residence in the UK. The policy would also force the owners of the jobs to pay huge fines if “illegal” workers were found at their premises.
This caused Warnings and penalties to the legal “illegal” citizens which soon turned into action causing hundreds of legal British citizens to lose their homes, jobs, their livelihood based on the judgement of the government that was trying to protect them. These four articles dives both in the political as well as the personal aspects of the country and the individually affected people and what ramifications it had on the people and the society on whole. The four articles being presented on are A Changing Windrush, Windrush: The Perfect Storm, The Windrush Generation. (Report) and Windrush scandal Chased into ‘self-deportation’. Each tackle the issue in a unique way while bringing across their points on the issue.
Well each article had their attention on the effect the “hostile environment” policy while putting emphasis on how the lives of the people from the Windrush Generation have been affected. In “A Changing Windrush”, it also goes into the protests against the hostile environment law that had affected the Windrush generation, and the impact of the events on the consciences of British people. In “Windrush: The Perfect Storm” it highlights some horror stories associated with the implementation of the policy and zooms in on the slow reaction of the British government on the issue with them failing to realize the ramifications of it. The Windrush Generation (Report) was a more scholastic approach to the situation as it goes in on how the laws have only shone light on the larger issue of immigration and deportation. How the methods and strategies of dealing with the issue was a glaring human rights issue and how it destroyed the lives of the people affected. In “Windrush Scandal-Chased into ‘self-deportation’, it broadcasted the most political point of view of all the articles. The article exposes the lack of effectiveness of the “hostile environment” policy and the downward spiral of government interaction and care for the issue which ended with it becoming a scandal. It also went into how the government internal agencies were at the time in shambles with addressing the situation.
Author and Audience
Gary Younge, the author of “A Changing Windrush”, is a British journalist, author and broadcaster. He is editor-at-large for The Guardian newspaper and writes a monthly column for The Nation, “Beneath the Radar”. This gives him credibility as he has written about similar cases and background.
Guy Arlington Kenneth Hewitt, a minister of religion and social development specialist, was the High Commissioner of Barbados in London from 2014-2018. and Kevin M. Isaac Kevin Monroe Isaac is a diplomat representing Saint Kitts and Nevis. He has been the High Commissioner of Saint Kitts and Nevis to the United Kingdom. They are the authors of ‘Windrush: The Perfect Storm’ and both have vested interest as well as direct influence on the matter, therefore are credible to write on issue.
Huon Wardle is a social anthropologist teaching at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and Lauara Obermuller has a PhD in Anthropology from the University of St. Andrew as well as a lecturer at University of West Indies Mona.
Amelia Sophie Gentleman is a reputable British journalist as well as a reporter. She has a pristine reputation in England and also writing articles which broke ground on many topical issues in which gave her a variety of awards, which includes Print journalist of the year(2019), London press club.Therefore, she has the credibility to report on the issue.
The audience for all articles was everyone. Gary and Amelia were mainly targeting the readers of their articles but the authors of the Windrush Generation(Report) were also targeting Caribbean People on a whole as they warned of how citizenship in places like Britain is more of “social credit” rather than actually them providing properly for their immigrants. Authors of “Windrush: The Perfect Storm” tailored also to the Caribbean, but in the sense of highlighting what they personally contributed on the as well as other key figures. Evidence of this is when they always claim, “First to bring it to Summit”, which is akin to the G7 summit but for the Caribbean nations, and other similar lines.
Tone and Purpose
In “A Changing Windrush”, The tone of the article was sympathetic as well hopeful. He seemed sympathetic as he turned to the stories of the people and claimed it to be disheartening as they came to Britain with segregation and racism being a core aspect, and all this is doing is reliving such atrocities (Younge 21). He was hopeful as he linked the Windrush situation and the love people showed for them with how future relation with the immigrants may eventually develop as he stated, “it offers hope that we might be able to take that revelation and apply it to more recent immigrants.(Younge 36)” The same sympathetic vibe was also felt in “Windrush scandal Chased into ‘self-deportation. However, this was compounded with a tone of sorrowful and frustration as how the environment the people were forced to live under as well as the fact that her voice was not being recognized until much later (Gentleman 41). She requested for the people in charge to take this matter seriously before it developed into the story it is now and how people lost their lives, in the case with the overdose, due to the stress associated with the policy, as with the case with Joycelyn as she, “finally decided that a “voluntary” departure would be easier than trying to survive inside the ever-tightening embrace of Home Office hostility.” Anger and disappointment were the tones of the “Windrush: The Perfect Storm” as the author lays claims that the situation did not have to develop to a detrimental point for the people. Disappointed in the fact they treated people who literally built and sacrificed for the nation as illegal immigrants whilst totally casting aside their human rights. The tone for the Windrush Generation (Report) was of an aggressive tone as the authors speaks also speak on the fact the people came to develop the nation and were now treated horribly and had most issue with the idea of “citizenship” and how it only segregates and not unite.
The purpose of “The Changing Windrush” and “The Windrush Generation (Report)” were to inform the population on how the policies enacted destroyed the people’s lives. They went into the history of how the people got to the situation they are in and documented many personal stories associated with the scandal. “The Changing Windrush” mainly tackled the issue of xenophobia while in “The Windrush Generation (Report)” tried to categorize what citizenship is doing presently. In “Windrush scandal Chased into ‘self-deportation’” and the “Windrush: The Perfect Storm”, the main purpose was to show the mismanagement of the government policy. All expressed views against deportation and expressed their disdain against the policy. “Windrush scandal Chased into ‘self-deportation’” more so as it goes step by step into the issue, evidence by how she comments how the Prime Minister refused to meet with the Caribbean Leaders and only did when the public essentially forced her to.
Genre and Medium
For “The Windrush Generation (Report)”, the genre is journal since it was presented in an anthropology journal. For “A Changing Windrush”, the genre was magazine, “Windrush Scandal chased into ‘self-deportation’” was newspaper article and “Windrush: The Perfect Storm”, the genre was a scholarly article, as this was published from a university.
The Medium “A Changing Windrush”, “Windrush: The Perfect Storm” and “Windrush Scandal chased into ‘self-deportation’” used was online. While “The Windrush Generation (Report) was published in magazine form as well as via online. The “Windrush Scandal chased into ‘self-deportation’” is was published physically through newspapers in addition to the internet.
Stance and Language
Each article used formal language however “Windrush scandal chased into ‘self-deportation’” used emotive language to bring across their points as when they expressed the situation the people who feel under this policy as ‘desperate’ and people who have given up(Gentleman 46).
Each article has a visible stance against the policies against immigrants, whether illegal or not. In “The Changing Windrush”, his stance was holistically against the discrimination against immigrants. This was evident as he hoped that the attitude the populace showed towards the Windrush victims be transferred over to other immigrants as well. In “Windrush Scandal chased into ‘Self-deportation’”, the stance was also of one to bring down whoever was responsible for the issue to begin with. Evidence of this was with her call out of then Prime Minister, Theresa May. Evidence of this is when she stated, “Rudd’s departure only shifted attention from the person who was really responsible: Theresa May,” as Amber Rudd resigned from the mishandling of the Windrush Generation.
Work Cited
1)A Changing Windrush.
Younge, Gary. “A Changing
Windrush.” The Nation 306.15 (2018): 10. Web.
2)Windrush: The Perfect Storm.(Notes
and Comments)(Essay)
Cengage Learning,
Inc. Peer Reviewed
Hewitt, Guy, and Kevin
M. Isaac. “Windrush: The Perfect Storm.” Social and Economic Studies, vol. 67, no. 2-3, 2018, p. 293+.
Gale
Academic Onefile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A568371835/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=937daa96. Accessed 18 Sept. 2019.
3) The Windrush Generation (Report)
Wardle, Huon, and Laura Obermuller. “The Windrush Generation.” Anthropology Today 34.4 (2018): 3-4. Web.
4) Windrush scandal Chased into ‘self-deportation’
Gentleman, Amelia. “Chased into ‘Self-Deportation’: The Most Disturbing Windrush Case so Far.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 14 Sept. 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/14/scale-misery-devastating-inside-story-reporting-windrush-scandal.
