Discuss the guest-worker program in Europe and how it affected self-identification .

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

As a result of significant population decreases in Europe between 1960-90, as well as large numbers of retirement among older populations, there was a labor shortage in western Europe in what were deemed "critically needed" economic positions. Mostly these were low skill, menial labor jobs, but western Europe opened its borders to "guest workers"-not European citizens-who were allowed to live in the European Community on a temporary basis. They would pay taxes, but not qualify for citizenship or benefits provided under the Welfare States (insurance, health care, retirement benefits, etc.). Many responded and found they were marginalized with little attempt to acculturate into European society. As immigrants came from Asia, Africa, and the West Indies, they were largely "invisible" to society at large. However, as their numbers grew and they formed their own communities, many cultural differences were exposed and brought confrontation. A particular delineating factor was that many of the guest workers were Muslim, whose traditions clashed with traditional European ideas. This came at a time when many nations within Europe were beginning to self-identify as European rather than Italian, German, etc., but this raised the question of where this new working culture fit into the identification paradigm. New tensions arose regarding what it meant to be European. Marginalized on the basis of color and religion, there was resentment among the guest workers who saw the repatriation of eastern Europeans with the fall of communism, who were assimilated into the European spectrum without question, which raised the issue of extending citizenship to workers who had been part of the European economy?sometimes for decades?and who had established families and property, but were not entitled to be citizens.