Immigration and Halloween: The Monsters We Create

Every October, Britain cloaks itself in shadows. Doorsteps flicker with candlelight, fake cobwebs drape over hedges, and shop windows fill with plastic skulls and polyester bats. Children knock on neighbours’ doors in capes and masks, demanding sweets while adults crowd bars in skeleton makeup and witch hats. Halloween is a celebration of fear, a night where we flirt with darkness for fun. But beneath the costumes and cauldrons, Halloween is a cultural mirror — one that reflects how easily fear becomes entertainment, and how quickly fear becomes politics.

Halloween’s history itself is a migrant tale. Its roots stretch back to the Celtic festival of Samhain, marking the end of harvest and the thinning of the veil between worlds. Later, Christianity’s All Hallows’ Eve overlaid this pagan ritual, and as centuries passed, migration carried it far from its origin. When Irish immigrants fled famine in the 19th century, they brought Samhain traditions to North America. There, pumpkins replaced the turnips of Ireland, and the “trick-or-treat” tradition blossomed in a country reshaped by immigration. Halloween is not an ancient, static relic — it is proof that cultural identity is fluid, that migration reinvents, and that every tradition is stitched together from the movements of people.

And yet, as the season of fright rolls in, it is not witches or vampires who are demonised in our headlines, but migrants. The language is chilling. “Invaders.” “Hordes.” “Swarm.” Politicians fuel a fear of the “other” that has very little to do with truth and everything to do with power. They conjure images of danger, chaos, and loss of control, playing puppet-master with public sentiment. Just as witches were hunted and immigrants once feared for bringing “foreign” traditions like Halloween itself, today’s migrants are transformed into spectres of threat.

This weaponisation of fear isn’t new. Halloween itself reminds us of humanity’s fascination with scapegoats. Medieval Europe hunted witches to soothe its own insecurities, and the Irish fleeing famine in the 19th century were caricatured as lazy, criminal, and diseased. The Polish and Jewish immigrants who shaped Britain’s cities faced similar suspicion. Each wave of migration has been met with fear and vilification, only for the contributions of these communities to be celebrated generations later. Halloween — now a commercialised, global event — is just one example of what fear once rejected becoming beloved tradition.

The irony is stark: Halloween thrives because we enjoy fear when it’s safe. We seek out haunted houses, queue for horror films, and laugh at fake blood. We delight in playing at being frightened. But when that fear is directed at real people — families crossing seas, refugees fleeing war zones, workers seeking safety and opportunity — it becomes a tool of cruelty. Detention centres fill. Borders harden. Newspapers drip venom about people who risked everything for survival. Suddenly, these human beings are no longer neighbours or colleagues; they are ghosts haunting the nation’s conscience, easy to ignore or banish.

Look closer, though, and you see the truth: migration is not a spectre but a lifeline. It is the reason Halloween itself exists in the form we know. It’s the reason our food, our art, our music, and even our national identity have evolved. Britain is not a fortress but a crossroads. From Huguenot weavers to South Asian doctors, Somali restaurateurs to Eastern European builders, migration has shaped every thread of our cultural fabric. Even the pumpkins we carve come from the New World, a migrant crop brought back to Europe centuries ago. Halloween’s cheerful orange glow is a testament to the richness that movement brings.

This October, when politicians and tabloids whip up fear over small boat crossings, remember that those boats are filled with people who have seen horrors far darker than any Halloween attraction. Their fear is not a thrill; it is survival. Their journeys are not an invasion; they are escapes from nightmares we can barely comprehend. Halloween offers a chance to reclaim that truth. Celebrate its immigrant roots. Learn the history of the Irish families who carried their rituals across oceans. Honour the stories of those arriving today, weaving new customs into Britain’s tapestry.

Fear is easy. Fear sells papers, wins elections, and turns suffering into spectacle. But Halloween reminds us that fear can be playful, transformative — a mask we wear for one night before we return to reality. We don’t have to believe the stories that turn migrants into monsters. We can write new ones.

So this year, carve your pumpkin with pride, knowing it is a migrant tradition. Share sweets with your neighbours, whoever they are and wherever they’re from. And when you see headlines dripping with panic, remember that the real horror isn’t immigration — it’s how quickly fear makes us forget our own humanity.