The British dream: multiculturalism (Stroud Green Road)

[from The Times]

From The Times

July 19, 2008

The British dream: multiculturalism

A writer trawls a London street to hear 10 remarkable stories of hope and patriotism from immigrants who have settled there

Tim Pozzi

On an ordinary, slightly tatty street in Finsbury Park, North London – an area best known nationally for the mosque in which Abu Hamza used to preach – people from across the globe, from Somalia to Vietnam, Pakistan to Peru, live and work side by side. Amid ongoing public debate about the impact of immigration, London has developed into the most multicultural city in the world, with people from 243 nations (according to the 2001 census) now neighbours.

Stroud Green Road, with its ecelectic shops and small businesses, is a patch that has long attracted immigrants – Ho Chi Minh is said to have once lived there, while in 1878, a young Pole named Joseph Conrad found lodgings in the neighbourhood. But what of today’s settlers? And what are their thoughts about the land they now call their home?

Tim Pozzi walked the 1,056 yards of Stroud Green Road, and listened to ten remarkable stories of migration, hope and new British patriotism.

Read the full story here.