ANTHROPOLOGY, sa.44, ss.1-3, 2022 (Hakemli Dergi)
As a Dutch born hyphenated person, I have been a
sequential part of the Dutch immigration process
that started during the sixties of the last century. My
father went to the Netherlands in 1964 as a labourer.
Needless to say, the sole reason for this migration to
the Netherlands was an economic one. It is a wellknown fact that Western countries needed cheap
labour after the destruction of the Second World
War. The answer was governmental policy to bring
in temporary labour from certain countries such as
Türkiye as well as Morocco. At first instance such a
policy seemed mutually beneficial as these imported
labourers foresaw a positive change in their economic
positions. However, this economic migration that was
supposed to be a temporary one, took an unexpected
turn during the eighties and became a permanent
immigration. Such a development was as unexpected
for the first-generation immigrants as it was for the
Dutch people.