Abstract

Immigration is a topic of social and political concern across the globe and usually it has positive economic effects on native populations in a country. Immigration leads to multicultural and ethnically diverse society towards. UK is considered as one of the leading economy with transnationalism where the immigrants forge and sustain multi-standard social relations (Gardner, 2002, p. 191). Historically, immigrants from South Asia have been settling in Britain for many hundreds of years (Visram, 1986). Among the immigrants of British subcontinent, Bangladeshis became famous as cook in British Ships (also known as Lascars) travelling around the world. Many of the current British Bangladeshis are third or even fourth generation of those Cooks or Lascars. Although the majority of the Lascars worked in the ships travelling abroad, some of them took the ships to London and started working as peddlers or restaurants (Gardner, 2002, p. 192).Overtime, they settled in the UK and became part of this comprehensive multicultural society. However, the path to this inclusive society is often confronted by racial discrimination and violence, as experienced by British Bangladeshi community in UK Considering the ratio of Bangladeshi immigrants in UK from Sylhet and to reflect on the very own views of community, this chapter have used the terms Bangladeshi, Bengali and Sylheti interchangeably as suggested by Thapan (2005, p. 127). Brick Lane and its surrounding neighbourhoods in London are considered as Little Bangladesh in UK due to predominant Bangladeshi settlement in the area. Some of the ancestors of British Bangladeshis travelled to UK during British colonial period in undivided Indian subcontinent and eventually became settled in the country.