This is an editorial. It expresses the newspaper Nation’s view. Editor-in-chief and political editor are responsible for the content.

Big dreams and little luggage. This is how Pakistanis describe their arrival here in the country. Norway was in desperate need of labor and Pakistanis were in desperate need of labor.

The plan was to work hard and intensively, for a few years. The plan was not to stay.

Many rotted. After a few years, the working immigrants were mentioned in the Norwegian media. But it took a long time before the women became visible.

They were at home and lonely, without connection to society and without family networks from the home country.

One of the first time The isolation of immigrant women is mentioned in the Norwegian press, was in Arbeiderbladet in February 1975, writes Shazia Majid in her critically acclaimed book Out of the shadows. A Swedish survey revealed that only 18 percent of immigrant women working at home in Sweden understood Swedish. Homemakers received no language training.

A few months later wrote Nationen about another Swedish survey, says Majid. It showed that 21 out of 30 Turkish women visited lacked formal education. No one had children in kindergarten and almost no one understood Swedish. Seven women felt isolated. Father in the house was in charge of all contact with the outside world.

Willingness to be interested in people, in who they are and how they feel, is a cornerstone of journalism. Such curiosity and willingness to be important is a central part of the Nation’s journalism even today.

Tens of thousands of people in Norway has another country they call “home”. At least 3,000 of them work in agriculture, as seasonal workers.

Vietnam, Philippines and Ukraine. This is where most of the seasonal workers in agriculture come from. During the corona, many were barred from coming. This has created major problems for the green industry and for the workers.

A net monthly salary here corresponds to the Vietnamese Dao Thi Hiep, as the family’s main breadwinner, could have saved up during the year at home, she told Nationen in October last year.

A few hundred stranded in Norway when the corona pandemic gave closed borders and strict restrictions. Our journalist met 22 of them in February this year, and have not read the strong report from a red house along highway 241 at Jevnaker, you should do it now.

Many immigrants lives here permanently and has knowledge and insight Norway benefits from throughout the year. Like Richard Mukoyo, who the Nation wrote about in August last year. He was an agronomist in a refugee camp in Zambia for nine years. He is now integrating refugees in a 350-year-old vegetable garden on Tolga in the North-Eastern Valley.

50 years later that the first Pakistanis came to Norway, one of their descendants, Hadia Tajik, has again taken a ministerial post. Another, Abid Raja, has just resigned. Both have broken barriers and enriched Norwegian society. Their – and others’ – stories are worth seeking out and listening to. Immigrants have made Norway richer, in so many ways.