How diverse is your community?
I often think that how one sees the world is coloured – if you’ll forgive the pun – by how one’s community looks in terms of diversity or ethnicity.
I live in the Northwick Park Ward of the Borough of Brent in the city of London and I have recently seen census data for the 13,000 citizens in the ward and it breaks down as follows:
- White 31.2%
- Black 10.2%
- Asian 51.0%
- Mixed 3.3%
- Other 4.3%
I am half English and half Italian; my wife is half Welsh and half Czech; and our daughter-in-law is Canadian. In our road, our immediate neighbours include Irish, Spanish, Polish, Indian, Pakistani and Lebanese. My postman is Nepalese, my doctor is Indian, my dentist is Iranian, my newsagent is Sri Lankan, and my dry cleaner is Pakistani.
I love this diversity. England, more especially London, and most especially Brent, is a microcosm of our diverse world and all the more wonderful for it.
July 24th, 2013 at 9:51 am
Hi Roger
I always have to check myself, as in Australia “Asian” means East Asian (which I guess in your list comes under “Other”?).
So how far does “Asia” in your UK context go – all the way from Turkey to Bangladesh?
Cheers
Nadine
July 24th, 2013 at 8:08 pm
Hi, Nadine.
In the context of ethnicity in the UK census, the term ‘Asian’ essentially means the Indian sub-continent, that is India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sr Lanka and Nepal. As a result of the British Empire, most immigrants from Asia to Britain have come from these countries.