Assimilation Of Harrison Opoku In Pigeon English

African immigration grew dramatically in hopes to find better life standards and achieve the unfulfilled desires as Europe being one of the top destinations throughout the history to the present day. Inspired by the tragic story of Damilola Taylor, a ten year old Nigerian boy who was stabbed to death on his way to home by a street-gang in 2000 (Christodoulou, 2017), Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English, with its protagonist and narrator Harrison Opoku, a young Ghanaian immigrant in London shows the dark facets of the immigration experience from the perspective of a child that is full of innocence, curiosity and joy.

With the murder of Taylor, the British public is awoken to the issue of increasing rate of knife crime everyday in the UK, dedicating more than five novels and a televison drama to the incident across the country. (Seresin, 2018) As Pigeon English being one of the notable examples of the awareness, tells the story of a brave Ghanaian family, separates hoping to re-unit someday in England when enough money is saved, as the mother leaves her husband and baby behind in Ghana and starts a new life for the future of her two older children in London. ‘Harri’, arrives to his new house with his older sister Lydia and his mother (Mamma), speaks pidgin english and tries to adjust to his new life as an outsider surrended by an unfamiliar culture with lots of harsh rules, customs and norms. He imitates the new world around him but still not enough to eliminate his new classmates’ marginalization on the immigrants, prejudice and black-racism.

Immigration is a long process that comes with lots of consequences. Harri, on a large scale is unaware of how London’s culture fall against with the philosophy of multiculturalism despite being a multiethnic community and expects its immigrants to assimilate into their way and perception of life which at the outset includes the difficulties Harri frequently faces at his new school. The situation of Harri learning the world around him by copying but being unable to quit his own customs, slangs and norms quietly collides with the social policy of London throughout the story.

A culture which puts massive pressure on the idea of assimilation leaves the reader anxious about how societies target the vulnerable immigrants and to what extent the pressure works within the time they are exposed to the given culture. The portrayel of Harri, despite being vulnerable and good-natured, him resisting to the violence, gang terrorism and anti-black racism widespread in his surroundings is often challenging to maintain his true self as he consistently finds himself in need of proving his masculinity which goes through the only way ‘violence’. The expectations of gangs on outsiders turn the days of Harri into a psychological game of survival. Harri, yet aware of his inability to resort violence, wants to be accepted. Thus the following research question arises: To what extent does Harrison Opoku assimilate into London Culture in Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman?

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman portrays how immigration is an important element in creating a hybrid culture but some dominant communities even with multiethnicity go against pluralism and therefore expect its immigrants to assimilate. Thus Harri, being on both sides as he tries to assimilate himself but at the same time fails at understanding certain norms gives birth to the need of a wider research on the topic. The aim of this study is to investigate the change in behaviour and perception Harri faces within the seven months he spends in a violent community before his death arrives and to prove the role of dominant societies on ruling the weak — particularly immigrants. In order to understand the death of Harri, this study will aim to stay focused on the daily problems Harri comes across in an alien culture by analysing the events under the main themes such as violence, prejudice and norms by making a correlation between assimilation and elimination in an imperial culture.

This study will use the following approach to the question: The events and actions will be treated under the general themes of the novel. The first section will include the difficulties and misunderstandings of Harri on language and norms as he only recently starts exploring London. The second section will be onto a deeper query of Harri’s innocence against the cruelity of racism and prejudice he yet to realise which will lead its way to the third section of him trying to cope with the violence, gang-terrorism and desire to be accepted.

A New Beginning: Language and Culture

Some of the most important highlights presented in Pigeon English go through the relationship of culture, community, and language. Culture, by its dictionary definition, means “The ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society. ” (“Culture”) Though only a small part of behaviour is based on genetics, the role of culture one is born into is superior in shaping the bahaviour. The teachings of culture is learned and accepted the way it is no matter one is considered as an outsider or a member of the culture. However the term community belonging, which can be defined as the belonging to a social group living under a shared culture is a matter of one’s conscious choice and can be seen as one of the main issues Harri encounters in London’s culture.

The first month of the story can be comprehended as a transition between Harri’s realization of a new culture and its harsh reality. The story opens up with the death of a young boy, already demonstrating the node point to the reader with the dangerous truth of London’s knife culture. From the beginning, Harri is armoured with his innocence and naïveté despite the establishment of the violent atmosphere of the new culture around him. He is too young to process the seriousness laying under a murder, thus his actions result in being foolish and relatively fatal throughout the story. Harri and his best friend Dean, decide on being detectives to find the murderer of the ‘dead boy’, unaware of the danger such an action they are attempting which again, exposes the innocent and childish nature of Harri and his friend to the reader.

At this point, London despite it’s dangerous environment, leaves Harri in great astonishment as he observes more about its customs and norms. Kelman uses a variety of approaches in the story done by most newly arrived immigrants during the process of assimilation, illustrated as Harri spends a lot of time ‘comparing’ his Ghanaian customs with English where he occasionally makes his own judgements about the two different live styles. Attending to the dead boy’s funeral is one of the first events of cultural differences he witnesses in London which he puts it as: “Where I used to live, some people have a special coffin in the shape of a real thing. It’s something they loved the most when they were alive […] one of the funeral ladies pulled me and made me dance with her. It was brutal fun. Everybody was happy. Everybody was allowed to join in. I even forgot that somebody died” (28)Harri explains how the coffins carry a deep meaning for the honor of the dead in his own culture. Rather than the tears and outcries he’s not used to see, Ghanaian funerals are “an opportunity to celebrate the life of the dearly departed” (CNN) and he obviously prefers the fun to sadness which leaves him bored in the course of the funeral.

Language is one the earliest fascinations he develops with his arrival to London and presented heavily in the introductory chapter March, as he express this excitement with the words: “In England there’s a hell of different words for everything. It’s for if you forget one, there’s always another one left over. It’s very helpful. ” (4) This attention to the way English is spoken around him brings out the early traces of assimilation efforts in the story. Harri, despite having “so much exuberance, so much curiosity for the world” (Kelman) is happy with his Ghanaian identity, and unawarely not ready to give up his norms and slangs along the way. The use of Ghanaian Pidgin English has a significant role in the narration of the story as such phrases and words like bo-styles, hutious, dey touch, adjei, and more are keep repeated by Harri on a daily basis. However his London community, majorly including most of his classmates, do not embrace this dissimilarity between English and immigrants. Thus rather than the warm welcoming, he’s used as a toy by his classmates to establish superiority over him, seen in Connor Green’s treatment to Harri where he makes a vulgar trick on words by asking him “Have you got happiness” multiple times, substantiallymeaning “Have you got a penis”. He’s proven to be vulnerable both in terms of ethnicity and linguistics. However, Harri’s approach to such attempts at marginalizing is still rather innocent and ingenuous which does not affect his joy of exploring and understanding the English by any means.Kelman’s use of slang language specialized by both cultures is one of the core values presented highly in the story, forming as an important step of the assimilation process. Along with the Ghanaian Pidgin English, London slang language carries a vital meaning in order to truly understand the culture.

The use of slangs in daily life are not limited to verbal ways only, but also appear in non-verbal communication which catches Harri’s attention occasionally. Signs are good examples as a method of modelling information in a given area, usually appealing to the people of the culture. Hence some of them are hard to comprehend by outsiders, especially if manipulated by citizens. Therefore in Harri’s case, he is attracted by such slangs around him, specially by one of them on a sign he encounters in shopping center that reads typical warnings like not to bring in alcohol, bicycles, pets and such. However, what truly catches his attention becomes “NO FUGLIES” (23) written on the blank space by someone, which he later on learns from his bestfriend Dean, that it means an ugly girl. The significance of the slang language accompanying the story shows Harri’s unfamiliarity with London to the reader. Nevertheless, the misunderstandings between the two languages sometimes lead to bigger conflicts in communities, significantly in Harri’s situation at school where nobody has any tolerance for anything, he eventually meets the authority Dell Farm Crew hold — the local gang whom he attends the same school. Harri despite his efforts, little by little faces with the difficulties of assimilation which render Dell Farm Crew the only getaway in this harsh reality whereupon bigger issues will take a lead in the story.

Stepping Back: Prejudice

The community concept in the novel is fairly associated with multiculturalism as Harri meets many people from different ethnic backgrounds at school. Hence the outlook on Harri’s community resemble a community embracing the idea of cultural pluralism to the reader at first. Yet the term ‘cultural pluralism’ is defined as the case in which minority groups cooperate with the dominant society in harmony, regardless of cultural differences, (Random House, 2018) the true case suggested by the novel contradicts with the ideal of cultural pluralism which brings in the notion of ‘prejudice’ to the story.

The lacking of cultural pluralism in a highly cultural community introduces to the reader once again the dominant existency of assimilation considering the prejudice dominant societies hold against the minorities. As in Harri’s case, he faces racial and cultural prejudice by his community most of his time at school majorly seen in X-Fire’s, the leader of the Dell Farm Crew, racially prejudiced attitude towards Harri. He is consistently called ‘Ghana’ instead of his name by the gangmembers showing the mindset that the dominant has not yet to regard the presence of the weak as an individual. However what the novel also suggests is that the dominant is not always the community itself but a certain minority group who hold the authority inside the dominant group. Therefore the members of the community are in obligation of following the authority in which the Dell Farm Crew hold, resulting in an environment with distorted opinions. Such behavioral patterns can be explained via ‘Social Identity Theory’ by Tajfel and Turner, as they stated that the members of the intergroup, rather than as individuals with personal characteristics and relationships, will behave in a certain way that is fit in the intergroup on the basis of their relationship with other group members. (2004) The community formed inside the school is an example of how individuality is lost in relevant situations. Harri despite being an outsider, is not afraid to be who he is most of the time, although the long-time members of the community are banned from exposing personal opinions in order to fit in the intergroup. Even at such a young age, children are afraid of losing their status and being stigmatised by their co-members which impels them to follow what the authority does. On the outside, the community as a whole have common stereotypes and prejudices about immigrants and particularly africans, however individually everyone holds prejudiced opinions about each other, including Harri as he observes more of his surroundings. The majority of society in Pigeon English is demonstrated to adopt a certain mind-set where the members think and act as a whole which leads Kelman to use this cruel side of society to expose the hidden conservatism and harsh society rules via Harri’s relationship with Dean and Poppy and how both of them differ to society’s eyes.

Prejudice can be demonstrated as a barrier between the individual and its environment which most of the time constitutes rejection from the community and failure in assimilation for African immigrants. Although prejudice among children was never observed as a major problem (Chin 39), children growing up in environments with prejudiced thoughts, can learn to be biased by observing. Therefore assimilation of African in a highly white country is far more difficult than white immigrants where the claim is supported through the novel with the character Vilis, a white Latvian boy who is racially biased towards African and bullies Harri telling him where he comes from “they burn black people into tar and make roads out of them. ” (22) As an immigrant once just as Harri, he now fairly holds authority and is feared by most children which shows that assimilation occurs faster and easier for the individual with no identity lost when it is under less prejudice and biased thoughts. In view of the fact that ’standing out’ in the majority contribute to being excluded from the society, the assimilation process for both Vilis and Harri contradicts.One of the strongest points Kelman emphasises on London society is the constant battle between being included and excluded, illustrating how the formation and continuity of the two case matter to in-group members. Dean, who appears in the story as Harri’s English bestfriend at school, experiencing exclusion and being bullied alongside him as a result of befriending the alien shows the harsh consequences of understanding the intergroup bonds where acting individual is not offered as a choice inside the school. While the idea of difficult to be welcomed and easy to be expelled is highly valued, in the case of Poppy Morgan who’s described as an affectionate and a beautiful young girl dating Harri later on in the story does not make her fall victim to prejudice which proves another side of the society in Pigeon English that people who already own a place in the community are not expelled easily which contradicts with Dean’s case. However, the significance of reputed-relationships for the course of assimilation, is still not enough to eliminate prejudice from a community’s perspective.

The most compelling effect of prejudice on Harri’s assimilation can be seen as how prejudice is learned via observation unconsciously and result in having the same biased thoughts as the community despite kindhearted and innocent willings. The sentiment arises from Harri’s short-lasting conviction of he’s not supposed to talk to Somalis because “they’re pirates” (52) nonetheless Harri’s self-awareness being never fully lost until the very end of the story alters with the expectations of the community and, furthermore his process of assimilation.

The End: Death and Violence

Kelman’s mastery on observing and adapting reality into the story is present with his significant use of death and violence from a child’s perspective. Although, death in world literature is treated as one of most used plot devices in the modern writing, its use in Pigeon English indistinctly serves as an element of magical realism as the story starts with the death of a young boy, foreshadowing how Harri will face the same tragic fate and death is an inevitable end in the cycle of violence.

The presence of death and violence is linked up with the gang culture of London society which is brought to the storyline by Dell Farm Crew, seen as the fearless idols of the school. Yet the reason behind this blind worshipping of hundreds of children genuinely originate from the will to power and desire to be feared than to be fearing which go through the only solution that is displayed by DFC; Violence and killing. Considering Harri is at disadvantage as a consequence of the effects of prejudice on his assimilation unlike most children, his desire to be respected by society is notably stronger. Hence, he wants to use the domination DFC hold against the discrimination he faces by joining the gang: “If I was in the Dell Farm Crew Vilis couldn’t abuse me anymore.