Writer:Cecily Liu
Steven is 45. Despite having lived in Dublin for over 30 years something is still missing for him to call it 'home'.
I met Steven on my way to Dublin Airport at the end of a business trip. A cheerful, talkative fellow with a friendly smile, Steven spoke with a strong Irish accent. He drinks Guinness, plays Gaelic football, and as a local taxi driver, has probably visited every street of the city. But his childhood years spent in Swansea makes him feel Welsh.
"I often wonder where home is for me, I'd like to think it's Swansea but I have a life here now," he explained to me, as if trying to convince himself. Having left Swansea as a teenager, he has since lost contact with all his childhood friends, and most of his family left there too.
His words surprised me, as I had assumed cultural similarities and ease of movement across Europe deemed the concept of home irrelevant. I had thought high tech communications in our globalized world would have collapsed the 250 miles distance between Dublin and Swansea to almost none. I had thought that Steven's Caucasian look would help him fit in, that in Dublin no one would constantly ask him the 'where are you from' question.
I was wrong.
But I should not have been surprised. Despite growing global connectivity, identity is still central to people's hearts, and the UK's Brexit vote was perhaps one dramatic consequence of such emotions.
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