My mother moved to England from the Philippines back in the 1970s. She was recruited as a nurse and worked at a hospital for older learning disabled people. She was appalled at how British people treated learning disabled people, especially shocked at how families had abandoned their relatives, never visiting them. For her and her Filipino sense of family values, this lack of care was incomprehensible to her.

It was Thatcher’s Britain: she dealt with a lot of racism and dismissive attitudes. However, she formed a community with her friends. She was my father’s boss when they first met. I asked her what had drawn her to him. She said he was rare. He saw her as a person and not just an exotic immigrant.

They fell in love and got married. She has lived in England longer than she ever lived in the Philippines. She misses it, but this is her home.

-Angie, Essex