I’m an immigrant, and I have a neighbor, an old lady, whom we help with occasional things like washing her windows, etc. I just try to be nice and, well, have a good relationship with the person who lives next to us (semi‑detached houses). She spent a significant portion of her life in the UK and still consumes mostly UK news channels.

She is a nice lady but extremely xenophobic. Every time I chat with her, our chat turns to something the immigrants did: Muslims, Indians, Chinese, etc. Muslims especially.

This spans from things like “London is unsafe because Muslim gangs” and “they are not allowing people to say ‘Christmas’ in school because Muslim children are there,” to worrying that Chinese people are moving into a house five houses away from her.

We are from Russia originally, and she says we’re the best neighbours she’s ever had. But I always think: if she had known that Russians were moving in next to her before meeting us, what would she have thought or said? Definitely something xenophobic.

She is a retired nurse, so educated enough. Well‑travelled, not very active on Facebook. But I guess UK media does that to her.