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Direct colonial bonds between the UK and Spanish and Portuguese-spoken Latin America did not exist, however London has been home to numerous independence

leaders12 _{for Spanish America and British companies granting loans to independent}

Latin American nations for state building projects (McIlwaine 2011; Miller 1998). Besides, some Latin American diplomats, businessmen, writers, artists and politicians13 lived in London in the 19th century, making it not only a place of political activity but also “a place for writing and involvement in the intellectual and social life of the capital” (Miller 1998: 10).

Nonetheless, the large-scale migration of Latin Americans occurred first due to the repression imposed by military governments in the 1960s and 70s, which led to an influx of refugees mainly from Brazil, Chile and Argentina (Miller 1998: 9), but also from Paraguay and Uruguay (based on an interview with Victor). This is connected chiefly with ‘Operation Condor’, which was formally established in 1975, but whose members had engaged with each other since the 1960s. It was “a secret intelligence and operations system […] through which the South American regimes coordinated intelligence information and seized, tortured, and executed political opponents in combined cross-border operations” (McSherry 2002: 38). The main members were Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil, subsequently joined by Ecuador and Peru (ibid.: 38). These countries were supported and assisted by the United States, which perceived them as allies in the Cold War14 (ibid.: 38). The militaries disobeyed “international law and traditions of political sanctuary to carry out their shared anti-communist crusade” (McSherry 1999: 144). Those refugees who fled military coups and repression in their own countries and came to neighbouring countries “disappeared” in joint transnational operations (ibid.: 144). “The regimes hunted down dissidents and leftists, union and peasant leaders, priests and nuns, intellectuals, students and teachers” (ibid.: 150). Many Latin Americans who faced dictatorships, repression and violence in their homelands sought refugee or asylum-seeker status in the UK, as it was considered a country where human rights were protected (McIlwaine 2007: 3).

12 _{For more on the Latin American exile community, trade of Britain and Latin America and its financial}

connections, see Decho and Diamond (1998).

13 _{For example, Juan García del Río – a politician, diplomat and writer, Hippolyto da Costa – a journalist,}

Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Miranda – both political leaders – all stayed in London at some point of their lives (Miller 1998).  

Many people have perceived the UK as a multi-cultural country with a reasonably stable economy, and thus immigrants have come here to seek employment and a stable and safe life. London particularly has been seen as one of the most important multi- national global cities in the world, and thus has attracted many people (ibid.: 3). Between 1974 and 1979, many migrants from Colombia came to the UK to work in low-skilled jobs in hotels, catering and hospitals through the work permit system (McIlwaine 2014: 4; McIlwaine 2007: 3). Colombians continued to arrive in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s, escaping armed conflict and seeking asylum in the UK, but also to join their families and relatives (Bermudez Torres 2008: 47). Subsequently, Ecuadorians and Peruvians also arrived during this period, mainly as economic migrants and asylum seekers, with more arrivals of Brazilians and Bolivians who came for economic reasons after the year 2000 (Bermudez Torres 2008: 47; Carlisle 2006; on Bolivians - Sveinsson (2007); on Ecuadorians - (James 2005)).

Latin Americans in Edinburgh

It is extremely difficult to find out how many Latin Americans actually reside in Edinburgh. Many of them have Spanish, Italian or Portuguese passports. Some people’s statuses have not been regulated. What is more, due to the fact that Latin Americans are not recognised in the UK as a minority group, they do not appear in statistics as a separate category. This under-recording related to irregularity, short-term migration and entry on European passports, as well as a lack of data makes it difficult to establish the size of the Latin American population in the UK (McIlwaine 2011). Furthermore, the variety of legal statuses of migrants (from high-skilled migrants with specific visa arrangements to undocumented immigrants) makes it harder to estimate the total migrant population (Lafleur 2011: 2). As I have mentioned before, in some European countries, access to citizenship for migrants from some Latin American countries is favoured, thus those migrants will not be visible in the Latin American migration statistics as these people are counted as European citizens (Tintori 2009 in Lafleur

15 _{For the demographic profile of Latin Americans in London, see McIlwaine, Cock, Linneker (2011) No}

longer invisible: The Latin American community in London. London: Trust for London. Available from:

2011). Some estimates from the Annual Population Survey in 2008 show that there were 130,186 Latin Americans living in the UK (McIlwaine, Cock and Linneker 2011: 4).

As far as the demographic profile of the Latin American migrants in Edinburgh is concerned, the people I met during my fieldwork in Edinburgh are mostly first generation migrants who came to Edinburgh as adults. There is also a second generation who range from babies, young children, teenagers and people in their twenties who were born in the UK or came to the UK a child, and a few people from the third generation. These are mainly small children. Their parents are now in their late forties and mid fifties. They were either born in the UK after their parents migrated to the UK, or came to the UK with them. Most second-generation migrants living in Edinburgh are still very young. Among members of the Latin American community in Edinburgh, I spoke to those who have been living in Edinburgh for more than 3 years; of these people, more are women. The majority are in their mid thirties and early forties, many of whom have babies. There is also a group of people who have been living in Edinburgh for over 15 years, with some even staying over 30 years. Among those there are a few approaching retirement. Most people are thus in the working age group. There are many Latin Americans in Edinburgh who are well-educated. They often initially work in a lower status job unrelated to their education because they do not have sufficient knowledge of English, or because their professional qualifications have not been recognised in the UK. However, there are also many qualified workers, especially in the oil industry, who from the beginning of their stay in the UK found the same job they carried out in their home countries. Some others, after living years in Edinburgh had improved their English so much that they gained qualifications at colleges or universities in Edinburgh and subsequently found better employment.

This study focuses on particular individuals and their life experiences; however it also acknowledges that the similar stage of the life course is one of the many impetuses that bring many Latin Americans together and gives to their ideas about being migrants a certain valence and significance. Most of the informants among whom I conducted my research are first-generation young adults. What many share is the fact that they did not see themselves as being far away from ‘home’ during their 20s or early 30s because of

emotional or/and financial reasons. They maintained strong family bonds with their parents and grandparents. Many had good jobs. They were in relationships. Like Maria from Peru who told me that when she was in her 20s she felt that ‘my idea of my world was complete’, she said.

Both my grandparents were alive, I had a good job, I managed to buy my own house a few years after graduation and I was in a happy relationship. However, I felt something was missing […] Perhaps the value of family in Latin American culture, in a way, made me prioritise family first, and my personal goals second. After my grandfather's death, I felt it was the time to pursue my aspirations.

For many Latin Americans the death of a close family member triggered their decision to migrate and settle abroad. Some others migrated in search of new opportunities and many decided to settle down in Edinburgh when they met a partner and/or had a child. What is important to mention is that many people with whom I interacted did not perceive themselves as immigrants. Maria told me: “During my time in Scotland I never saw myself as a migrant, but as a student since the main purpose for my residence in Scotland was to receive higher education”. The life course of people whom I met impacts how they shape their understandings of what it means to be a migrant but that does not mean that they all operate with a category ‘migrant’ when talking about themselves. Aileen, another friend of mine, also does not see herself and does not talk about herself as a migrant in our day-to-day conversations. She explained to me that she actually does not feel that she is one while living in Edinburgh. However, when I asked her what being migrant means to her she told me that

it represents being bicultural, when you know you come from another place, you tend to look for similarities to feel safe and happy. In my generation there are many new families changing their paths and starting their lives in new places because of the opportunities and the better way of life that some places represent to them. In my case, being from Mexico does not take out the idea of my culture and my expectations but I am learning to adopt this new culture and make it mine with all the positive views of both countries.

When taking an analytical perspective and categorising many people among whom I carried out my research as first-generation young adults one can see that those individuals are at a stage of their life course that is alike due to their similar age and the fact that they are foreign born individuals who moved to Edinburgh. Being first

generation provides life experiences to talk about that many share. They can discuss their routes that took them to Edinburgh. Common feelings between them are of coming from somewhere to one place - Edinburgh but at times feeling as if they are ‘nowhere’ at present. Most people also commented that it is possible to have and to construct two homes. “Because of the ties I made during those 7 years, I feel people can have two homes in any part of the world. People can ‘fit in’ or belong to any society as long as they make it their own”, Maria told me. It seemed to be easier for many first-generation young Latin Americans to ‘feel at home’ while living in Edinburgh than it was for some people who arrived in Edinburgh when they were older. The latter frequently could not find themselves in Edinburgh and deeply missed their homeland16.

The reasons differed as to why the people whose lives in Edinburgh I studied migrated. Nonetheless, they had to go through a similar stage of leaving their country of origin or any other country in which they had previously lived, they had to familiarise themselves with entry regulations and how to obtain permission to stay in the UK. Then afterwards they had to learn about how life works in Edinburgh, for example, where to find a place to live, how to register with a doctor and how to enrol their children in a nursery or school. Some experienced an initial language shock because many came to Edinburgh with some knowledge of English but had to get used to understanding a strong Scottish accent. Many were not able to rely on their social capital before coming to Edinburgh as they were the first ones who moved here. They realised at different moments of their lives that they have a need to belong, or not to, to the Latin American ‘community’ in Edinburgh, share the ‘Latin American dynamics’ that has been discussed throughout the thesis and to build and maintain pseudo-familial networks that supplement or substitute the transnational bonds with their family.

Here I would like to stress that event though the majority of the Latin Americans whom I met were first-generation young adults, this did not restrict them from only interacting and making friendships with people of a similar age and their generation of migration. The similar age indeed brought many people closer as they move between similar roles, whether being husband, wife, mother, father, or work, study related roles, that they are all mostly familiar with and experienced similar life events at more or less same stage of

                                                                                                                16 _{See Haran’s ‘home’ p. 190.}

their lives in Edinburgh be it graduating from a university, birth of children, marriage, death of parents, grandparents, finding work and family balance, and constructing their homes, to mention but a few. However, when they construct their social networks, and the social capital that is formed by these ties, they do it in manifold ways. Their personal networks also depend for instance on whether they get on well with the other person, whether they share common interests, values, some life experiences and also for some whether they see any positive effects and benefits while being part of the network. People whom I met are foremost humans above all the categorisations. They continuously form their senses of identity through different acts of identification where they are identifying themselves and being identified by others.

Many Latin Americans, as I observed, build connections based on whether personal social, neighbourhood, educational or professional networks. Being Latin American might be sufficient when coming together as Latin Americans and celebrating together as members of the Latin American ‘community’ in Edinburgh, however it is not the most important factor when they decide to build friendships and to maintain frequent contact with one another. There exist “multiple modes of incorporation” and “multiple pathways within each mode” (Glick Schiller et al 2006: 614) of how individuals whom I met incorporate themselves into the city of Edinburgh, “ethnic pathway” (ibid.: 614) is just one of them. It is also interesting that some people became linked to the Latin American ‘community’ through non-ethnic networks of friends, neighbours, colleagues at work and peers from university or college.

Many of the activities organised by different members of the Latin American ‘community’, even though they are linked with a specific nationality such as the events organised by the ‘Peruvians in Edinburgh’, enable participation that surpasses their national basis and attract people from other Latin American national groupings. Other organisations or groups are particularly organised around the Latin American identity such as the ‘Latin America sings in Edinburgh’. This group mobilises itself around this identity in order to share the ‘Latin American dynamics’, but also in order to raise awareness and knowledge about the region to those living in Edinburgh. Thus, to shape their senses of identification. The small numbers of Latin Americans who have settled in Edinburgh makes the growing Latin American identification in Edinburgh

significant. As there are not many people from some of the countries from the region such as for instance Bolivia, Ecuador or Paraguay, the Latin American identity offers an attractive form of pan-regional identification for some of those people who have a need to belong to an ethnic ‘community’ but who otherwise would not feel an affinity with members of any other ethnic ‘community’ in Edinburgh.

The Latin American ‘community’ is an ‘invisible community’ due to the fact that many Latin Americans self-classify themselves through different identities at different moments of their lives, including their national identities, and due to the city of Edinburgh’s scale that is “the ordering of sociospatial units within multiple hierarchies of power” (Glick Schiller and Çağlar 2011: 6). Edinburgh is a global city affected by global neoliberal processes that can be positioned within “hierarchies of political, economic, and cultural power that extend within and across nation-states” (ibid.: 63) that are experienced locally. The migrant settlement takes place within “specific spaces and are shaped by, as well as shape, the history as well as particular local practices and representation of those spaces” (ibid.: 63). Latin American migrants are dispersed throughout the city of Edinburgh. They live, work and meet in different parts of Edinburgh, with no particular district dominating, apart from students mainly concentrating near the universities and in the city centre. Nevertheless many told me that they feel welcomed here by the official bodies, city of Edinburgh council and its citizens. As I was finishing writing this thesis I observed that some Latin Americans found ‘their places’ where they are becoming more visible including more Latin American businesses that opened and others that evolved. Just to take one example, ‘ORINOCO Latin food’ expanded and has its stands at various street markets, is present at the Edinburgh festivals and in 2017 catered food during the Latin American Forum 2017, that has been running in Edinburgh since 2012 and is organised annually by the University of Edinburgh Business School. The first generation young adults on which this study mainly concentrates have formed the Latin American ‘community’ in Edinburgh that is concurrently transnational and overly localised.