CHANGING COUNTRIES
Seeking a new life and hoping a significant (1)___________ in their standard of living, foreign workers began flocking into Western Europe during the 1950s. In britain, some of the first immigrants arriving from the West Indies and the Indian subcontinent were welcomed by brass bands, but the dream of a new life soon (2)_______ sour for many.
Attracted by the promise to earn good money and learn new skills, the reality they found was often one of low wages and, in many (3)________, unemployment. Some did not adapt (4)_______ to life in a country of cold weather, cold welcomes and discrimination. The (5)________ of West Indian immigrants (6)____________ into the inner cities, areas that were already fraught with social tensions caused by poverty and (7)__________housing. There were cases of open hostility towards the newcomers; in 1958, riots (8)________ out in Notting Hill, West London, when gangs of white youths began taunting immigrants.
Yet despite the (9)_______ difficulties they encountered, many foreign workers did manage to (10)_______ to their new conditions, settling in their new adopted country and prospering. Their contribution had the effect not only of speeding up the (11)_________ of economic change in the postwar period, it also (12)_______ Western Europe into a multiracial society.
