Amsterdam, Migration & the Myth of Origins

A city that should not exist

Amsterdam was never meant to be easy.

Where the city stands today, there was once swamp. Waterlogged land. Wind. Mud. A place that resisted human ambition.

There was no ancient tribe called Amsterdammers. No original people who could say: this was always ours.

The first inhabitants were practical risk‑takers — farmers, fishermen, traders — who decided to build on unstable ground and fight water with wood, engineering, and stubbornness.

From the beginning, Amsterdam was an experiment.

And from the beginning, people arrived from somewhere else.

Who is really “from” Amsterdam?

Ask someone in Amsterdam where they are from.

You will often hear:

“My grandmother was from Suriname.”
“My father is Moroccan.”
“My family came from Portugal.”
“Indonesia.”
“Turkey.”
“Poland.”
“Spain.”

Even those who proudly say “I am Dutch” often discover that their family story leads somewhere else within two or three generations.

To be a “pure” Amsterdammer — with deep roots in the same soil — is statistically rare.

The city was built by arrivals.

Merchants, refugees, Jews fleeing the Inquisition, Huguenots escaping France, sailors, laborers, thinkers, artists, entrepreneurs.

Amsterdam did not grow despite migration.

It grew because of it.

When “anti‑immigration” forgets history

This is where something becomes uncomfortable.

Modern anti‑immigration discourse often sounds like this:

“They don’t belong here.”
“They are changing our culture.”
“They are the problem.”

But…

Change is the culture of Amsterdam.

Movement is its origin story.

The idea of a fixed, pure, untouched national identity collapses the moment we look honestly at history.

So perhaps the real question is not:

But rather:

To answer that, we have to zoom out.

Far beyond Amsterdam.

Another migration story: the Americas

Now shift the map.

North America. Central America. South America.

Here too, the modern nations were shaped by immigration.

But this time, it was not mostly peaceful.

Europeans arrived — Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, French.

And what followed was not only settlement, but:

Mass death of indigenous populations

• Forced labor
• Slavery
• Extraction of gold, silver, land, resources
• Destruction of existing social systems
• Imposition of European religion and hierarchy
• The natives were not “integrated.”

They were displaced, exploited, or erased.

Entire civilizations were broken.

Why Latin America still carries this wound

Many South American countries today struggle with:

Deep inequality

• Weak institutions
• Corruption
• Concentrated land ownership
• Fragile trust in government
• Cycles of poverty
• These are not accidents.

They are historical consequences.

Colonial systems were designed to extract wealth — not to build prosperous, educated local societies.

Religion often reinforced this structure:

Obedience over agency

• Suffering as virtue
• Reward postponed to the afterlife
• Authority presented as divine
• When generations are taught to endure rather than to build power…

when resources are removed instead of reinvested…

when institutions serve elites instead of citizens…

“underdevelopment” becomes predictable.

Not a cultural flaw.

A structural inheritance.

A contrast: the United States

The United States was also built by immigrants.

But under different conditions.

Many early settlers — English and Dutch Protestants, especially Calvinists — carried a different worldview:

Literacy (to read the Bible)

• Discipline
• Work as moral duty
• Saving and reinvestment
• Contracts and institutions
• Individual responsibility
• Even the colonial styles differed.

The English often displaced or killed native populations.

The Dutch, while far from innocent, were more inclined to trade, negotiate, and coexist pragmatically (especially in early New Netherland, today’s New York).

The result?

A society structured early around commerce, law, and long‑term investment.

Again — not moral purity.

But different systems create different futures.

Back to today’s migration

Now return to the present.

When people leave Venezuela, Honduras, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan…

They are not leaving because they are adventurous.

They are leaving because:

Institutions failed

• Violence became normal
• Economies collapsed
• Corruption suffocated opportunity
• Climate destroyed livelihoods
• Migration is not the disease.

It is the symptom.

The real questions we avoid

If we are honest, the debate should not be:

But:

1. How do we help countries become places people don’t need to escape from?

Through:

Fair trade instead of extraction

• Real investment in education and infrastructure
• Fighting corruption internationally (not just locally)
• Ending economic systems that benefit rich nations while hollowing out poor ones
• And also:

2. If people arrive anyway — how do we integrate them intelligently?

Not by pushing them into:

Undocumented labor

• Fear
• Isolation
• Parallel societies
• But by offering:

Language education

• Legal pathways
• Skills training
• Cultural orientation
• Dignity and responsibility
• So they can contribute.

So they can belong.

So history does not repeat itself in ghettos and resentment.

A mirror for Amsterdam

Amsterdam likes to see itself as tolerant, open, modern.

And in many ways, it is.

But its very existence comes from movement.

From people who were once strangers.

From hands that did not belong to the land, but built it anyway.

So perhaps the honest position is not:

But:

Walking the city differently

This is why I guide.

Not only to show canals and houses.
Not only to explain dates and architecture.

But to invite people to walk the city with different depth.

To stand on a bridge and remember that this water once rejected human life.
To pass a church and remember the waves of newcomers who shaped the neighborhood — Flemish merchants, Sephardic Jews, Huguenots, sailors and workers who expanded the city and gave it its character.
To hear an accent and understand it as part of an old pattern, not a new problem.

Amsterdam can be consumed quickly.
Or it can be read slowly.

Like a layered book written by engineers, refugees, traders, survivors, dreamers.

When we understand how fragile its beginnings were, we become less arrogant about the present.
When we see how much of its beauty came from outsiders, we become more careful with our judgments.

History does not exist to make us feel superior.
It exists to make us more responsible.

Because cities are stories written by footsteps.
Borders are recent.
Movement is ancient.

And the way we treat those who arrive today
will quietly decide
what kind of chapter Amsterdam becomes tomorrow.

That is the walk I like to offer.
Not just through streets —

but through memory,
complexity,
and the possibility of a wiser future.

Walk it with me

If this way of seeing the city resonates with you, this is exactly what I offer through my work as a guide.

With Love, Constanza is not about rushing through highlights.
It’s about depth, context, and the human stories that shaped Amsterdam — and continue shaping it today.

If you’d like to explore the city slowly, thoughtfully, and with curiosity, you’re very welcome to join me.

Amsterdam with Constanza
Instagram: @amsterdamwithconstanza