Daily Discrimination Stories | category

anonymous

May 2, 2025 / Race, At work, In public, Immigrant, At school/uni, Near home

As a middle eastern, I have been living in Finland, around Uusima, for about two years now. At first, I thought I was just being paranoid. After all, I hadn’t done anything wrong or illegal, so why were people staring at me? Then it escalated to them even taking pictures. I started to wonder if I was dressing inappropriately, but having lived in many countries before, I knew my style wasn’t unusual. It was only after reading stories about even Finns who “stick out” in any way and face similar treatment that I realized this wasn’t just me.
Another problem arose at work: I was being excluded and disrespected. Suddenly, my boss accused me of being hostile. These things happened simultaneously, making me question my own sanity. The only reason I knew I wasn’t losing my mind was because I found others with similar stories. If you stand out, the collective society can be hostile. This is deeply troubling.

Someone

April 7, 2025 / Race, At work, In business, In public, Near home

Older women especially in my experience, almost most of the Tokmani shopping centers that I go to buy my daily groceries the older ladies who work in the counter look at us in a very exaggerated way. Narrowing their eyes and behaving in a sense that we are a piece of extra thing at the counter. But immediately after they do our job. They laugh smile and say with open face hello to the Finnish costumers. This feeling in a daily regular basis is so hard. I wonder if the managers of these big companies even pay attention to these things.

anonymous

March 26, 2025 / In public, Near home

Last summer, I started farming on a piece of land that I lease. It’s my first time doing this, and it’s been a rewarding experience. In the evenings, after working on my field, I enjoy walking through the community garden. It’s inspiring to see others cultivating different crops and vegetables, and it often gives me new ideas. I’m also amazed by how people turn their small plots of land into their personal amusement parks, with flowers, BBQ tables, and kids’ playgrounds.

One evening, I invited a friend to visit my garden, and we were simply taking a walk through the garden. We stayed on the small walkway beside the plots, being mindful not to intrude on anyone’s personal space. I also gave my friend some onions from my own garden. Out of nowhere, a middle-aged woman started shouting at us in Finnish, accusing us of stealing. She called us thieves, which was completely unfounded. I was so embarrassed, especially in front of my friend. The woman didn’t even take the time to listen when I tried to explain that I have my own plot there and that I was growing my own vegetables.

It was such a hurtful experience. The whole situation was uncomfortable for both of us. Gardening and farming are supposed to be enjoyable, peaceful activities, but how am I supposed to feel when my neighbors verbally attack me like that?

RP

March 26, 2025 / In public, Immigrant, Near home

I used to live in Kalasatama. One day I went looking for a specific tea from the local K-market right after work and on my way to home. I quickly scanned the tea section and couldn’t spot it so I started leaving the shop. The owner of the shop briskly stopped the queue at the counter and rushed to me to frisk my handbag. This was around 2018-19 or so. I feel there were very few immigrants in that neighbourhood and feel I was stopped because of distrust in my immigrant background / looks?

Anonymous

February 8, 2024 / Immigrant, Near home, Uncategorized

I rented out my apartment to an Erasmus student who came originally from Germany and had begun her studies in Zurich Switzerland, my home town. She came to do her Erasmus at Aalto and was bad-mouthing Switzerland very much, how racist Swiss people are, which I do acknowledge since I grew up in a multicultural family in German-Speaking Switzerland. I told her that alas, she would most likely encounter similar experiences here in Finland, as I had been living in Helsinki for roughly 3 years at that time and gone through some very nasty things e.g. people spitting at me, telling me to speak Finnish not German (once I took a call from a Swiss friend in public, very bad decision). Of course people are entitled to their own oppinion, but I believe that nobody has the right to belittle other people’s experience and deny the fact that there are racist elements in Finnish society.

Anonymous

February 7, 2024 / In public, Near home

I was walking home in Helsinki from a workout class yesterday around 7pm (February 6th 2024) when I crossed another pedestrian on the road when she suddenly turned towards me and spat in an aggressive manner. This is not the first time that someone has spat at me in Finland. It’s disturbing.

americandreaminfinland

February 7, 2024 / In business, In public, Immigrant, Near home, Online, Language

I started TikTok and Instagram channels under the name americandreaminfinland, making videos comparing my life living in Finland to my life in the US, telling the story of how I moved to Finland, how I found work in Finland, how I applied for studies in Finland, etc. In the comments sections of those videos, I regularly got comments telling me to “go home,” ” go back where you came from,” “don’t bother speaking Finnish because you suck at,” and on and on.

I’ve also received threats in my direct messages such as the following one:

“terve vaan saatanan homo. toivottavasti osaat puhua suomea kun paskiainen oot haaskannut verovaroia asuessasi täällà saatanan haaska. oikeesti sut pitäisi puukottaa kuoliaaksi. tollasia saastaisia epäpuhtaita maahanmuttajapaskoja ei suomeen kaivata.
joten ota kivääri ja ammu ittesi kuoliaaksi. koko suomen kansa iloitsisi jos tappaisit itsesi, hirttäisit ittesi. kaltaisesi maahanmuuttajapaska ei ansaitse asua tässä kultaisessa maassa. tapa ittesi paskiainen.”

In my spare time, I work a side gig at a bar. I’ve had a customer tell me I was a nice person but they are not allowed to like me because I’m a foreigner. Also I have had two customers tell me I’m an embarassment for not speaking Finnish and I should go home.

In my past relationship, myself and my ex were spending time in the courtyard of my apartment. One of my neighbors swore at and spit at my ex telling her to go get f’d by her immigrant man.

anonymous

September 29, 2023 / Race, Immigrant, Near home, Language

In the very early 2000s, only a few weeks after I had moved to Finland, I was walking my dog in Punavuori in front of the Aleksanterin teatteri when an elderly woman clad in a full-length mink coat and mink hat stopped to fawn over my handsome and friendly companion. I awkwardly smiled and nodded, as one does when you have no idea what is being said or how to respond, given that I knew very little Finnish.

When she said something I knew was a question, I replied rather sheepishly that I didn’t understand Finnish. She immediately proceeded to spit on me and shout at me, which my Finnish spouse would later translate for me as being hateful of foreigners at a time when the non-Finnish population of Finland was roughly 2%.

It made an indelible impression on me of how Finns view foreigners and is largely why I never feel as though I’ll ever be accepted whilst living here, especially now with the current government, even though I’m white, highly educated, have learned the language, have mostly integrated, have a number of Finnish friends, and even love salmiakki. I looked around corners for her for years whenever I was walking my dog, both wanting to avoid her and also to confront her.

Anonymous

September 26, 2023 / Gender, In public, At school/uni, Near home

There was a foreign male student who came for exchange to Aalto University. Some day we were chilling with a big group of people on a beach. He tried to multiple times touch my legs pretending he wanted to cover me with a blanket from a cold (I didn’t want him to do that). Asking him to stop didn’t help.

With time I learned that other women in that group of students and friends were scared of him for the same reasons. There was a time when a drunk group of girls wanted to go to the beach after some party, that guy heard it and made some juicy comment about how he will “follow them, stay, and watch”. Two of more sober girls of that friend group had to persuade the girls to cancel the beach plan because it felt very unsafe to go there at night after his comment. He was also referring to one of the university female tutors like “big boobs” and there were many other disgusting situations like that.

The worst part was that male Aalto students heard all of that, but no one ever did anything to anyhow help us or shut him up. They went on inviting him to the parties. They tried to downplay his words and actions by “he is just joking”. I tried to tell one of those men, who was kind of my friend, how my “don’t touch me” didn’t stop that creepy student from touching me, to what my “friend” replied: “Well, with your accent it sounds so sexy, no wonder he didn’t stop”.

That’s how it went on till the end of the exchange period. Women were feeling unsafe, were telling each other not to go alone somewhere where that guy may be, and were watching their drunk female friends, while the male students were enjoying his company, smoking weed, and playing volley with him. Aalto University men, we don’t need your startups, we need your solidarity and active fight with harassment.

Anonymous

September 25, 2023 / Immigrant, Near home, Uncategorized

We ordered window cleaning to our appartment and once the person came behind our door who was supposed to do the job she looked at me, a black man with my then three year old son and said: People your colour don’t pay and refused to enter the house. My wife contacted the company and we made comments on their Facebook page to which they responded to by disabling possibility to review them on Facebook the company CEO kept referring to past experience and insisting they are not racist… contacted the police and they said there is NOTHING they can do but how unfortunate.