An alien in London: The informal story of an immigrant in the big city
Illustration by Christelle Troost
Joana Felício explores what it means to be a Londoner as she details her personal experience moving from rural Portugal to UCL.
I am not a Londoner. I am a person who lives in London. The difference is astonishing, but here’s why it doesn’t really matter.
I moved to London from a small rural town in Portugal in 2016. Plain fields and irregular buses were all I had ever known. Then, in one swift swoop, I found myself in a fast-paced city that felt more like a country, with its speeding cars and double-deckers making me fear for my life at every turn. The ‘London’ accent seemed to mock my other-worldliness. My perfect grammatical (but still obviously foreign) English, which I had worn as a badge of honour back home, was now my shameful giveaway. It was overwhelming and wonderful. I had heard the stories of the big city swallowing small town girls whole, and I was both terrified and excited to see if they were true.
Despite the anxiety, I was more fortunate than most. I had a starting point: university. It is hard to think of what my first few days in London would have been like without the orientations and effortlessly scheduled events; from Freshers’ Week to the beginning of classes, to the incredible support of the staff and veteran students that welcomed me into the UCL community. It is a reality for many that their migration to London is more sudden, lonely and much less voluntary, as so many flee the poverty and horrors of other places in search of opportunity. In the end, my gentle induction into London placed me and all the others in the same boat – we were lost and disillusioned, yet hopeful for the future.
Early in the morning, leaving for class the first time, I passed by people in suits and shiny briefcases. The men seemed like they hadn’t slept the previous night shouting obscenities at the wind whilst children in uniforms ran for the bus. I saw women with high heels in their hands heading purposefully home - this has been my routine for the past three years. I have become more than accustomed to the travel quirks of London but will never forget the embedded fear of chaos that took hold of me during rush hour. They all seemed to know where they were going, or like they had nowhere to be – and I was somehow somewhere stranded in the middle. Still, anyone I talked to had an accent, and I was quick to identify where they were from and for how long they had been in London just by listening to the melodies of their vowels – that is when I started loving London – the moment I began to feel like as much of an outsider as everyone else. Even the London accent became a welcoming sound, when I made my first born and bred Londoner friend…and in the spirit of British drinking culture, our language barrier became entirely insignificant after a cold can of dark fruit Strongbow.
During the next few weeks, I absorbed the dense London air pollution like Heidi in the Swiss Alps. I longed for the deafening shrieks of the underground, or colloquially known as the ‘tube’ (a word which, to this day, still sounds like the most London-like of all). I walked the streets of Camden with the uninformed fearlessness of a tourist – ignorant to the hourly muggings as I browsed the eclectic stalls. Nothing set me aside as an outsider more than the blissful acceptance of my fate, so I changed my ways. I started complaining about bus route 29, which was always full in the mornings and smelled of anxiety. I proudly ate meal deals from Tesco and every so often indulged in overpriced sushi to go. What started as theatre is now my unashamed truth.
Not much has changed since then, except perhaps a passive acknowledgment of my reality – I comport myself like a Londoner, and yet I have never been one. But I live in London, so I am as much a part of it as anyone else. The girl from rural Portugal still exists, and she still makes herself known in my knowledge of church records and quiet evenings, but London has accepted me, like it does to anyone who asks. To this day, the uncertainty still excites me, and the London routine has never bored me.