How does the concept of Citizenship contribute to our understanding of Essay

How does the concept of Citizenship contribute to our understanding of the experience of minority ethnic groups - Essay Example Legal British citizenship for the minorities has been changing concept recently with more regularities and demands. The citizenship requirement is not spread in an uniform way amongst the minorities; instead, the blacks seem to be having an upper hand here. "The rates of British Citizenship found across different groups contain a high degree of variance, with black Africans exhibiting the highest level of non-British citizenship in 1977," (Evans, 1999, p.105). Blacks who have migrated into Britain since the days of slavery and increased their numbers in recent decades, have become better naturalised citizens than other minorities. Complete naturalisation and acceptance of British way of life, while retaining some of their own traditional values, depends on many criteria. The main factor that should be considered here is the period of migration and the length of stay here. "These factors are the period of migration, the economic conditions of migration, the citizenship regime of the host state, and the ways in which the political cultures imported by immigrants from their original countries have combined with native political cultures," (Pennin... This means, an individual's mindset about Britain and its citizenship mainly depends upon the treatment he received from the British people after migrating here, the stereotyped models the individual has maintained in his mind and also the prejudiced or unprejudiced attitude he had developed over the years, either aided by the local population, or totally unaided. Victorians thought that the minorities were uncivilised people from far off colonies, and unfortunately they showed it in their attitude. This does not mean that there were no kind people in Victorian days. If the minorities had come into contact with well-balanced thinkers, there are instances of positive outlook where the person became happy under a helpful employer or a friend. The mass migration was from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and West Indies. The settlements were localised and some clusters emerged in London, Liverpool, Cardiff, in the early 1800s and in those days, they were all referred to as black communities. They lived a poor life, as any other immigrants of any country and tried hard to eke out a living. "A pattern of black minority ethnic settlement characterised by residential concentration, segregation and deprivation is now well-established in Britain.the day-to-day experience of most people living in Britain at that time was a white one," (Pacione, 2002, p.216). Eventually their living conditions, with their own hard work and government help, improved and along with it, improved the attitude of the British, who came to recognise the good qualities of their minorities. In any country, it is quite natural, to have wrong opinion, dislike, suspicion about the new people who look