The life of our immigrants

In this number of the Street Magazine we bring an interview with one of our politicians who also is the owner of the immigrant shop, Arkan Bourkanyana.

Arkan Bourkanyaia and his wife came to our country 20 years ago. They managed after some hard years to establish themselves in our district and Mr. Bourkanyaia got some help to start his own shop. The couple has two children and they are now teenagers both of them, the son Karhan 15 years old and the girl Leki of 18.

"Many of the readers will know you as the shopkeeper and your famous good bread, specific vegetables and exotic food Mr. Bourkanyaia, how has it been to establish yourself in this country?"

"Well, it was really hard in the beginnning when me and my wife came to this country. Everything was uncertain and so different from where I came from. The language was difficult to learn and we did not even know for how long we were allowed to stay. After the citizenship was settled we felt that we could start to live and to day I feel I have something to give to our community. That's why I'm also active in politics. To become member of the city council is a great honour for me as foreigner".

"What about the rest of your family? As I understand you have now two kids and your wife what about her? Does she feel the same as you about the situation?"

"The change has not been so easy for my wife. I think she miss her family back home more than me, and if she could I think she would prefer to go back. She has been home with our children and kept the household and is doing a great job with this even though she also have her health problems. She has some contact with women from our own country living nearby, but she has never learned the new language very well so she is not as comfortable as me to participate in the activities in our community"


"Our youngest son would prefer to start working. He is struggling with his school work Ijust hope he manage to fulfill now. It is not so easy to know what to do as parents when the kids struggle with school and want to drop-out.

It is a great contrast to our older daughter. She is doing rather well in school. But you know she challenge her mother a lot. The young girls in this country are used to have their own will and freedom in quit another way than is common in our culture. She is now in the age where she is going out with boys and we are very worried about her. But I suppose this is also what other teenage parents are??

I have seen how much problems there has been in families when the daughters fell in love with an ‘autochthonous’. We have not experienced this yet."

"What would you say has been the most difficult thing by coming to this country?"

"I think that must be the constant conflict and compromises you have to do between keeping your own culture and heritage and addapting to the culture and tradition in this new country. How to do this in a good way? I don't think I have found the answer yet even after 20 years."

"What is the main consern for you as a politician?"

"I am concerned about the intergration of the people coming from different cultures. To day there are still too few meeting places where we can learn from each others and exchange our thought about what is best for our community. When you have kids you have the school and you meet other parents there, but as you can see here when you walk in the park the "immigrants" stay by themselves and there is very little contact with the "autochthonous’. It is as we are afraid of each other. For me to be involved in politics and having the shop is one way of getting in contact with all sorts of people which I think is important"

"As a politician you are in power to do something about this? What kind of solutions do you see to make people more integrated and mixed?"

"Well there are some plans coming up, but we are discussing this now and I don't want to say too much about this before we have come to a conclution. What I can say is that the plans will involve our park area. I hope this is ok."

"Then we are looking forward to hear the result of this planning process and hope to come back to you later. Thank you for the interview"

(THIS interview can be made as a roleplay/video recorded. I'm thinking about one immigrant working in the Red Cross that I can contact and that might be a very good mr Bourkanyana. If we choose to do this a an interview I can contact him. Otherwise this could be done with voice over and pictures maybe?)