Eastern promises

Comment is free: Eastern promises:

"I lived in Poland for 4 years in the early 'noughties' and I know exactly why they've come over here - to escape miserable living conditions (often families of 4 or more in a two-room - ROOM not bedroom - flat), high unemployment, backward politicians and corruption. I now teach many of them English, and it's amazing how rosy their view of Poland compared to the UK is...short memories! Poles know what to expect when they come, they just want to earn cash to send home and no-one can blame them for that. But when they start taking up lots of school places, colonising rural pubs, and yes being racist and sexist, then we have a problem. For e.g. in Warsaw there is a sizeable Vietnamese community who have been there for some decades. Yet my students, very highly-educated and intelligent, would refer to them as 'the yellows'. No country can sustain immigration levels as we are at the moment, and it should be remembered that we so far have been incredibly tolerantt to immigrants. Much more than any Southern and Central European country. We should stop the hand-wringing and look at the positives in our society."