I have the privilege of being able to choose where I live, at least to some extent. I come from an EU country, I am not perceived as someone foreign when I walk down the street, people can’t tell or assume where I’m from by my accent. If forced to leave, I could quite easily settle somewhere else in the EU. I don’t have children or family obligations here. I realise this is quite a rare experience.
According to the Office of National Statistics, in 2017 there were 9.382 million non-UK born people living in the UK, of which 6.2 million were not British citizens.1 In Wales, according to the latest census from 2011, there are about 837,000 non-Welsh born residents 2, including 167,871 people who weren’t born in the UK.3 Some of us chose to move here, some were forced to, some moved here with their families and some stayed although they never planned to. There are people born to British parents abroad; people born here, who moved abroad and came back; people with a dual citizenship. For those of us who, moving here, were old enough to know another home, or who have more than one place to call home, I wonder what makes us feel at home here, and what does not.