Young refugees are obliged to learn Dutch as quickly as possible. Only to find out afterwards, sometimes, that they prefer to speak English with Dutch people. Anthropologist Moos Pozzo conducted research into the multilingual situation in which young asylum seekers and status holders in the Netherlands find themselves. She tried to do her research not only about, but also together with the young people.
Interviews turned out not to work, because, according to the young people themselves, they resembled the asylum procedure too much. So Pozzo had long informal conversations with the young people and co-wrote their stories with them. She also organized cultural activities and looked very carefully – observational participation – at what happened between the young people. And she mapped out their networks: who did they associate with and in which language or languages did they do so.
The Dutch language plays an important role in their lives. Pozzo: “They have to take a language test within three years. If they fail to do so, they will receive a fine or no permanent residence permit. So there’s a lot of pressure on that. The level of that test has even been raised this year, from ‘A2’ to ‘B1’”.
Few Dutch people
Learning Dutch is seen in Dutch policy as the most important key to future integration. At the same time, young asylum seekers are not among the Dutch. It is ‘learning Dutch without Dutch people’, they say themselves. One of them: ‘I attend a school with other refugees where we learn Dutch. I don’t meet Dutch people there. While it would be much more useful to me if I were among the Dutch.’
Pozzo: „My network analyzes show that they often speak Dutch, but especially with non-Dutch people, and that there are few Dutch people in their networks. To explain this, they referred to the negative discourse in the media about refugees. That they are seen as a risk in society, and also as unqualified, stupid, poor. And they also referred to the paradoxical fact that they are expected to learn and integrate Dutch, but that in the meantime they have been set apart in asylum seekers’ centers and language schools for years. They said: the very fact that we did not mix with the Dutch during that initial period is counterproductive, unproductive.”
Once they speak some Dutch, they notice that this does not necessarily work in their favor. One of them about this: ‘As soon as the Dutch hear my accent, they experience a kind of discomfort.’
“They experience exclusive reactions from the Dutch every day,” says Pozzo. “As soon as they speak Dutch, with of course mistakes and an accent, they notice that there is distance, especially if they also look a bit Arabic. And there’s one more thing. The better they master Dutch, the better they understand the negative discourse about them. They read about it, see it on television and feel excluded and sometimes even threatened as a result.”
When they subsequently become status holders and are able to follow an education or start working, they see that there are all kinds of other newcomers in the Netherlands who did not first have to learn Dutch for two or three years: foreign students, expats, labor migrants from other EU countries. One of the young people said: ‘I feel discriminated against because I was forced to learn Dutch for years, while the manager of the company where I now work didn’t have to.’
Love to learn English
Pozzo: „Imagine that you are a young lady from Iraq, that you spent three years at the ISK, the International Transition Class, to perfect your Dutch. Finally you can do an MBO retail, you will do an internship at a clothing chain. And then you get there and you are told: yes, but in our stores there you also have to speak English. There you are with your focus on learning Dutch. Then you feel betrayed. If Dutch is so important in the Netherlands, then that must be the key to success, you thought. And now that turns out not to be the case. The majority of the young people in my study had not learned English in their country of origin. But after they pass their language test, most are eager to learn English, because it has an unexpected advantage.”
In the words of one of the youngsters: ‘When I speak English with a Dutch person, we both speak a foreign language and we meet at the same level. And, more importantly, I am no longer seen as a refugee.’ Another said: ‘English opens doors for me that remain closed when I speak Dutch.’
Pozzo: „With that English they also gain access to all kinds of more international contexts within Dutch society, where the negative discourse about refugees simply does not play such a role. For example, a young person can study at university, he or she follows an English-taught program and then this choice is made: either you speak Dutch during the break and then join the Dutch student club, or you speak English and then you sit down with the international students. They always choose the latter. Because then they will be rid of being a refugee and of speaking imperfect Dutch to native speakers of Dutch and always being seen as less.”
Dominant group
The government policy of learning Dutch as quickly as possible contains three assumptions that are not entirely correct, says Pozzo: “One: the idea that if you learn Dutch, you will also integrate more quickly with Dutch people. Two: that integration should preferably take place with the Dutch, ie with the dominant group. And three: that if you don’t, you’d be stuck within your own ethnic group. While, what appeared from my network data – and I found that very interesting – is that they deal with a diversity of non-Dutch people. With people they know from the AZCs, of course, but also, once they have been in the Netherlands for a bit longer, with second-generation migrants, because that is a group with whom they have a lot in common.”