Livstycket Working with Immigrant Women in a Stockholm Suburb Angela Leopold
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soundings issue 8 Spring 1998 Livstycket Working with immigrant women in a Stockholm suburb Angela Leopold Angela Leopold describes a project for ethnic minority women in Stockholm. Livstycket means 'corset'. The word consists of two parts: liv ('waist') and stycke ('piece'). But liv also means 'life', so the name of the project, Livstycket, suggests both a snug support and a Piece of Life. Livstycket includes about sixty women from twelve countries who design and print textile products which are then sold. Before describing the project in detail let me sketch the context ' geographical, historical and sociological - since patterns of migration to Sweden have their own particular characteristics. Tensta Tensta, where Livstycket is located, is a suburb about ten miles northwest of central Stockholm. It was built in the late 1960s and consists mainly of blocks of flats, three to eight storeys high, surrounded by trees. For purposes of administration, Tensta originally belonged to a group of six suburbs, five of which differed little in general social profile from the rest of Greater Stockholm. They consisted mainly of older buildings or detached houses inhabited by native Swedes or assimilated immigrants who had been settled in the country since the 1950s. Tensta, on the other hand, was from the start populated by young, recently arrived immigrant families. The median age in Tensta in the 1970s 146 Livstycket was 28 and it has not changed much since. Finns originally constituted the largest foreign group; today they are second to the Turks in number. Other groups include (in declining order of population) Iraqis, Ethiopians, Chileans, Iranians, Lebanese, Somalis and Syrians. Altogether, more than 100 languages are spoken by the inhabitants of Tensta. In the mid-1970s Finns, Greeks and Turks together made up 70 per cent of Tensta's immigrant population. Many of the people from Finland have left since then, among them numerous Finnish Travellers, who have mostly moved to the neighbouring suburb of Rinkeby. In the 1970s, immigrants of all nationalities worked hard and wanted to bring their relatives to join them. As Swedish statistics define invandare (immigrant), it means, 'a foreign citizen settled in Sweden or a Swedish-born resident with at least one parent born abroad'. The percentage of Tensta's population consisting of immigrants has grown over the past quarter century as follows: 1970: 17%; 1976: 30%; 1986: 40%; 1996: 66%. In 1996, 42 per cent of Tensta residents received economic assistance from Social Services (the Greater Stockholm figure was 10 per cent); unemployment in Tensta stood at 12.3 per cent (Greater Stockholm, 6.3 per cent); the percentage of residents born abroad was around 66 percent (Greater Stockholm, 19 per cent). By 1978 approximately 40 per cent of Tensta's inhabitants had moved out of the suburb. Since then the population has stabilised at about 15,000. However, due to higher birth rates among immigrants, the percentage with foreign citizenship has been growing. Today between 80 per cent and 100 per cent of the pupils in a typical Tensta classroom will have foreign-born parents and a mother-tongue other than Swedish. In Greater Stockholm the equivalent figure is around 16 per cent. The context - how projects come and go As people of so many nationalities moved into Tensta, some social problems arose. To help the different ethnic groups adjust to the Swedish way of life, projects of various kinds have been started, some continuing longer than others. 147 Soundings I shall mention a few of the more important ones, which will give you an idea of the needs of the different groups. In every project both the users and providers of services encounter difficulties, which each tries to solve within their own cultural framework. In describing these difficulties as they relate to the various ethnic groups I sometimes generalise and indulge in speculation. I hope this causes no offence. My loose discussion contains many loose ends. he first large foreign group in Tensta was the Finns, among whom there were many well educated men. There were also many single mothers Tfrom Finland, attracted by Swedish society's more tolerant attitude to their situation. Sweden and Finland, like fellow 'Nordic' nations, put few restrictions on the migration and free movement of labour between them. The Swedish labour market was booming in the late 1960s and Finnish men easily found work. Unmarried men often brought their girlfriends over from Finland, and when they had children they saw to it that Finnish-speaking creches were available, and eventually education in Finnish by the state school system. A Project was started for the single mothers to give them economic assistance while they were learning Swedish and being trained as kindergarten teachers or nurses. Nearly half of the Tensta Finns who did not return to their own country eventually moved to more prosperous parts of Greater Stockholm. As an ethnic group, Finns in Sweden today are, by and large, quite assimilated. A Project for Traveller immigrants - serving 250 families from Finland, 100 from Poland and 150 from Spain - was started in 1979 to help preserve the Romany language and cultural heritage. Swedish social policy in the 1970s was to foster cultural identity as essential to successful integration into Swedish society. The Project encouraged Traveller women to acquire reading and writing skills and to send their children to school. Special classes were set up in which the children could speak Romany. A survey showed that most Traveller men wanted to be trained as drivers, car mechanics or horse trainers. The Project backed that training with economic assistance. However, Travellers tend to keep within their own culture (much like the more recently arrived Somalis). Now and then a Traveller youngster tries to break loose from the kinship system, but this is very difficult. Such matters are 148 Livstycket discussed at the Romany court, the Kris, where the elders' judgement carries great authority. The Greek presence at Tensta dates from the 1967 Colonels' coup. Greek immigrants in Sweden have always maintained close contact with relatives at home and, in the early years, always expected to go back to Greece some day. The Greeks at Tensta found jobs quickly and made sure their children got a good education. They also kept a close eye on their children's activities. The Greek basketball team Akropolis became one of the best in Sweden. The Greek immigrants also formed societies where democratic ideas were discussed. When the political situation in Greece improved in the 1970s, about a third went back, but some of those have since returned to Sweden. Many Greeks brought their elderly parents to join them in Tensta. In the 1990s a Project called Kapi was started to provide a meeting place for the elderly where they could socialise in Greek and have a Greek-speaking doctor available. The next groups to immigrate were the Turks and the Kurds, who arrived between 1970 and 1985. As it happened, about 70 per cent of the Turks came from the small region of Konya and the village of Kulu. Until 1993, a special bus went between Tensta and Kulu every summer, so those who couldn't manage the trip to Turkey on their own could visit their relatives. Most of the Turkish women were illiterate and few of the men had had much schooling. Despite the official policy that every immigrant should study Swedish at least three hours a day, Muslim traditions tended to keep Turkish women at their chores at home and away from the classroom. urkish children of both sexes, however, promptly learned Swedish at school. They could also receive regular lessons in Turkish, since, at the T time, all immigrants were entitled to 'home language' instruction. But education was not much encouraged by Turkish parents and not all their children availed themselves of this opportunity. Consequently, second-generation Turks tend to have a limited command of their parents' native language. In this they differ markedly from second-generation Greeks. In 1979, a report on the Turks of Tensta by a social studies student confirmed what had long been noticed by the social workers, that Turkish families seemed to require more help than other groups. Some examples of their problems were the following: many men had a second wife in Turkey; some young girls were forced to go to Turkey to be married. Others were confined to the house and 149 Soundings deprived of all but the legal minimum of education. Both wives and daughters might be beaten if they disobeyed rules set down by their husband or father. A wife who sued for divorce would be completely rejected by her husband's relatives, and often by her own relatives as well. This continues to happen. A Project was started to encourage Turkish parents to take a greater interest in their children's schooling, but it failed to arouse interest. In the 1980s narcotics - mainly cannabis and (smoking) heroin - began to pour into Tensta. Some Turkish boys dropped out of school and began to use and sell drugs. The Turkish gambling houses, which are illegal in Sweden, also attempted to recruit young men. Those involved in the gambling clubs often sought to prevent young men from joining the regular Turkish club - for example, the clubhouse was set on fire several times between 1993-95. More recently Muslim fundamentalist leaders have come to Tensta, trying to undermine the authority of the local Imam, who held quite progressive views. After much pressure he was forced to leave. f considerable importance was the Kurdish Project, which was in operation from 1984 to 1990. During that time Tensta had the largest OKurdish population of any city in Europe.