In a Friday (June 3) Facebook post, Workers’ Party Member of Parliament Jamus Lim (Sengkang GRC) wrote that in the house visits he carried out at 338B Anchorvale this week, what impressed him the most was how encounters with three families were “new in ways that are uniquely Singaporean.”
The last family he mentioned in his post was of mixed ethnicity, and he wrote, “Such families—of which my own is among—are increasingly common, and, to my mind, are also very much Singaporean.”
Assoc Prof Lim is married to Ms Eneida Patricia Alcalde, a Chilean writer, and they have one daughter, who was born in 2019.
He added, “We are a multiethnic society, and it is natural to see these cross-cultural linkages reflected in our language, our food, and our relationships.”
The first family he wrote about, surnamed Gill, is new to the neighbourhood.
“As their family expanded, they desired more space, and chose to upgrade,” the MP explained.
He called this “a quintessential Singapore story,” one that he experienced “multiple times” in his childhood.
“They explained that they have been happy (with) the move, and as I welcomed them to the neighborhood, I promised to help with any assistance they required as they settled in,” Assoc Prof Lim added.
The other family he wrote about in his post, surnamed Wang, had moved to the area after they recently became Singaporean citizens.
“We are an immigrant nation, and such aspirations—toward a better life—likewise strike me as deeply Singaporean.
I have always believed that we become stronger when we attract talent from the rest of the world, and retain them with a clear path to eventual citizenship, rather than have them remain loosely moored to the nation as permanent residents,” Assoc Prof Lim added.
/TISG
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