Almost 75 years ago, a large ship called the Empire Windrush pulled into the docks at TilburyA port town in Essex, England. in Essex. On board were a few hundred soldiers and 693 people who had come from the CaribbeanThe region made up of the Caribbean Sea and its islands, including the West Indies. to settle in the UK.

None of them could have known that they were about to change British society for good. Now a new exhibition in London will celebrate the "Windrush generation" and its contributions to British life.

The Windrush generation started coming to the UK in the 1940s. During World War Two, much of Britain was devastated by air raidsAnd attack in which bombs are dropped on an area from the sky.. After the war, the UK government invited people in its Caribbean colonies to come and help rebuild "the Mother Country". In all, about 600,000 people answered the call.¹

In Britain they frequently faced racism. Although they had mostly been highly skilled workers in the Caribbean, now they were given the dirtiest jobs with the lowest pay.

But most stayed on, despite the challenges. Through their efforts, Britain began to transform. As it became more multiculturalIncluding many different cultures or nationalities., it also became more open and interested in the wider world.

Not everyone in Britain welcomed this change, however. And this gave rise to one of the biggest scandals in recent years.

When the Conservative PartyA British political party. Members are known as Tories. came to power in 2010 they imposed a policy called the "hostile environment". 

The idea was to make it as difficult as possible for migrants without leave to remainIn the UK, an immigration status in which somebody who is not a citizen of the UK has the right to stay and work in the country. There is a difference between limited and indefinite leave to remain. in the UK so that they would give up and leave. However, it also affected the Windrush generation.

When their countries won independence, they became foreign citizens in the UK. The British government allowed them to stay, but it did not give them any papers to prove they still had the right to live there.

Under the hostile environment policy, however, all migrants had to provide documents proving their status in order to get jobs and healthcare.

Without these documents, many in the Windrush generation were denied services, and some were even deported to the Caribbean.

The scandal rocked Britain. But the hostile environment is still in place.

That is one reason why some think we should teach people more about the Windrush generation and how it made modern Britain.

Yes: Britain invited thousands of people to come, and then changed its policy and forced many of them through years of hell. It is a shameful episode in British history.

No: This was a tragic accident that came about because of a confusion in government about laws previous governments had made. It was a harmful mistake, but not necessarily a malicious one.

Or... Whatever the cause of this crisis, it came about because the government imposed harsh measures on migrants. It was inevitable that some people would slip through the cracks and their lives would be greatly impacted.