Our City: Migrants and the Making of Modern Birmingham

‘Indispensable … Speaks of hope and courage’ Observer

‘An ode to openness, offering a refreshing alternative to those accounts that treat migrants as faceless statistics’ David Lammy MP

‘A highly informed and eloquent account of life in a modern British city during a period of globalisation, austerity and mass migration’ Patrick Cockburn, Independent

Race and migration are the most prominent and divisive issues in British politics today.

As Brexit and the dangers of Islamist extremism are being used to reassert a closed British identity, these stories - of fifty migrants, first and second generations; men and women; from thirteen different countries from Ireland to India, Pakistan to Poland, the Caribbean to Somalia - highlight the variety of migrant experience and offer an antidote to the fear-mongering of the tabloid press.

This positive story of integration is all too rarely told, and it offers a firm defence of the principles of equality and increased diversity. Our City shows why mixed, open societies are the way forward for twenty-first-century cities, and how migrants help modern Britain not only survive but prosper.