Scarica La Gran Bretagna post-coloniale e più Appunti in PDF di Cultura Inglese I solo su Docsity! Post-colonial Britain
1948 is a crucial year for British
migration.
The British Nationality Act,
enacted 1948 by the British
Parliament, defined what a
British citizen was and the British Nationality Act 1948
colonies status.
1948 CHAPTER 56 11 and 12 Geo 6
From that moment, people from An Act to make provision for British nationality and for citizenship of the
the colonies became citizens United Kingdom and Colonies and for purposes connected with the matters
. . aforesaid. [30th July 1948]
instead of subjects.
Thanks to this act, every citizen in the colonies could migrate to Great Britain with
no restrictions and settle there.
21st June 1948 = the Empire Windrush ship arrived at Tilbury port. It brought
a large group of West-Indian migrants from Jamaica to England.
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some of the migrants had already been in England: they
served the country during the Il World War.
now, after the war, the majority of them have been asked to
come settle in Great Britain to rebuild the country.
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On this ship, there was Lord Kitchener, a calypso singer.
Calypso music is an Afro-Carribean genre brought in London by West-Indian
migrants. It usually deals with the lives of citizens of British colonies who
migrated to UK in the '50s. The songs which belong to this music genre depict
London in a uthopian way and they usually point out all the iconic places of the
city.
Betta
Lord Kitchener, London is the Place for Me
London is the place for me
London this lovely city
You can go to France or America,
India, Asia or Australia
But you must come back to London city
Well believe me I am speaking broadmindedly
I am glad to know my Mother Country
I have been travelling to countries years ago
But this is the place I wanted to know
London that is the place for me
To live in London you are really comfortable
Because the English people are very much sociable
They take you here and they take you there
And they make you feel like a millionaire
London that's the place for me
At night when you have nothing to do
You can take a walk down Shaftesbury Avenue
There you will laugh and talk and enjoy the breeze
And admire the beautiful scenery
Of London that's the place for me
Yes, I cannot complain of the time I have spent
I mean my life in London is really magnificent
I have every comfort and every sport
And my residence is Hampton Court
So London, that's the place for me
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At the beginning and at the end of
the song, there a particular piano
tune: it corresponds to the
Westminster Quarters melody, the
same tune played by the Big Ben.
The blending of a typical British tune
and typical Calypso instruments is a
meaningful metaphor of those times.
England was becoming a
heterogeneous city, filled with
different cultures that blended
together.
This song is a representation of the
colonial subjects' fantasy of what
they expected to find in London.
This naive fantasy is not only the result of the positive and hopeful vision of
migrants, but it also derives from what they have been taught in schools.
In fact, the imperialist idea was perpetuated in the schools in the colonies too:
they were taught about English civilisation and literature and that "as British
citizens, they were part of the greatest and most benevolent empire of the world".
A picture of Lord Kitchener.
