ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the changing patterns of expectations regarding refugees in relation to both learning English and in maintaining their 'mother tongue' language(s). It analyses the inter-relationship of refugees, language and power in twentieth century Britain. The chapter suggests that although refugees are indeed 'different', the approach of dealing with that difference by hoping it will go away is both naive and harmful to the dispossessed themselves but ultimately damaging to the receiving society as well. It shows state recognition that refugees often passionately desire to maintain their own culture whilst simultaneously wanting to become part of the new one - a process in which language is essential - goes back as least as far back as the arrival of the Belgians. In the 1970s the journal of the Association of Jewish Refugees reflected on its sister paper in the United States, the Aufbau, which in contrast was published in German from the start.
