Pub Date : 2023-06-05DOI: 10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.04.11
A. Manalang
Abstract:This essay seeks to situate discussions of seminal Filipino intellectual America Is in the Heart, an early twentieth century autobiographical novel, within the literary trope of the “American dream,” and trace the themes present in his work within contemporary recorded experiences, or in this case, contemporary twenty-first century interviews: in-depth qualitative interviews and personal testimonies of Filipino American citizens. I will highlight the historical and ongoing ethos that Asian American immigrants face with respect to their citizenship, their relationship to the host-nation, or specifically the United States, and what sacrifices have accompanied attempts in attaining the American dream.Bulosan's art is framed as being born in the gap “between colonial bondage and capitalist ‘freedom,’” (, 7) and his goal was to “interpret the soul of the Filipinos …. What really compelled me to write was to try to understand this country [the United States], to find a place in it not only for myself but my people” (, 267). The US formally colonized the Philippines during the early twentieth century, a historical relationship that complicates this inquiry. Given the postcolonial dynamic, or that the Philippines is the only Asian country that the United States colonized on a clearly public policy level, how might this historical relation of power shape postcolonial citizenship? Moreover, how might Bulosan's understandings of citizenship connect with Filipino Americans’ notions of the American dream in the early twenty-first century? By reflecting through an interdisciplinary approach, I directly place into conversation a Filipino American seminal thinker from the twentieth century vis-à-vis Filipino Americans in the twenty-first century to interrogate notions of belonging and identity within the framework of the American dream.
摘要:本文试图将20世纪早期的一部自传体小说《美国在心中》(America Is in the Heart)的讨论置于“美国梦”的文学修辞中，并在当代记录的经历中，或者在这种情况下，在当代21世纪的采访中，追踪他的作品中呈现的主题:深入的定性访谈和菲律宾裔美国公民的个人证词。我将强调亚裔美国移民在其公民身份、他们与东道国的关系，特别是与美国的关系方面所面临的历史和持续的精神气质，以及在实现美国梦的过程中所付出的牺牲。Bulosan的艺术被框定为诞生于“殖民奴役和资本主义‘自由’之间”(，7)，他的目标是“诠释菲律宾人的灵魂....”真正迫使我写作的是试图理解这个国家(美国)，不仅为我自己，也为我的人民在其中找到一个位置。”美国在20世纪初正式成为菲律宾的殖民地，这一历史关系使调查变得复杂。考虑到后殖民的动态，或者菲律宾是唯一一个在公共政策层面上被美国殖民的亚洲国家，这种权力的历史关系如何塑造后殖民的公民身份?此外，布洛桑对公民身份的理解如何与21世纪初菲律宾裔美国人对美国梦的看法联系在一起?通过跨学科的反思方法，我直接将一位20世纪的菲律宾裔美国人的开创性思想家与-à-vis 21世纪的菲律宾裔美国人进行了对话，以在美国梦的框架内询问归属感和身份的概念。
{"title":"Citizenship and Postcolonialism: Interdisciplinary Reflections on Filipino Americans and their Pursuit of the American Dream","authors":"A. Manalang","doi":"10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.04.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.04.11","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay seeks to situate discussions of seminal Filipino intellectual America Is in the Heart, an early twentieth century autobiographical novel, within the literary trope of the “American dream,” and trace the themes present in his work within contemporary recorded experiences, or in this case, contemporary twenty-first century interviews: in-depth qualitative interviews and personal testimonies of Filipino American citizens. I will highlight the historical and ongoing ethos that Asian American immigrants face with respect to their citizenship, their relationship to the host-nation, or specifically the United States, and what sacrifices have accompanied attempts in attaining the American dream.Bulosan's art is framed as being born in the gap “between colonial bondage and capitalist ‘freedom,’” (, 7) and his goal was to “interpret the soul of the Filipinos …. What really compelled me to write was to try to understand this country [the United States], to find a place in it not only for myself but my people” (, 267). The US formally colonized the Philippines during the early twentieth century, a historical relationship that complicates this inquiry. Given the postcolonial dynamic, or that the Philippines is the only Asian country that the United States colonized on a clearly public policy level, how might this historical relation of power shape postcolonial citizenship? Moreover, how might Bulosan's understandings of citizenship connect with Filipino Americans’ notions of the American dream in the early twenty-first century? By reflecting through an interdisciplinary approach, I directly place into conversation a Filipino American seminal thinker from the twentieth century vis-à-vis Filipino Americans in the twenty-first century to interrogate notions of belonging and identity within the framework of the American dream.","PeriodicalId":119873,"journal":{"name":"Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126533501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.02.14
Basile Ndjio
Abstract:This essay, which is based on secondary sources and online research, examines the home dilemma experienced by many diasporic African elites during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. It argues that despite the pervasive nationalist discourse on homeland and the official celebration of national home, many postcolonial African elites actually view their home nations as a "second chez soi" (second choice home), from which they quickly distance themselves during times of political unrest and health emergencies. This oscillation between cosmopolitanism and nationalism partly explains why many of the so-called Afropolitans started to experience anxiety after the global health pandemic forced them to lead sedentary lifestyles akin to those of their less fortunate peers. Furthermore, the essay sees the COVID-19 pandemic as a leveling and game-changing force that has significantly altered the home life and mindset of the "rooted cosmopolitan" African elites. Many of them are now neo-localists or maisonneurs (stay-at-home people) who strive to create a new sense of community in their formerly unloved African homeland.
{"title":"Coronavirus, Imagined Location, and Disenchanted Home in Africa","authors":"Basile Ndjio","doi":"10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.02.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.02.14","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay, which is based on secondary sources and online research, examines the home dilemma experienced by many diasporic African elites during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. It argues that despite the pervasive nationalist discourse on homeland and the official celebration of national home, many postcolonial African elites actually view their home nations as a \"second chez soi\" (second choice home), from which they quickly distance themselves during times of political unrest and health emergencies. This oscillation between cosmopolitanism and nationalism partly explains why many of the so-called Afropolitans started to experience anxiety after the global health pandemic forced them to lead sedentary lifestyles akin to those of their less fortunate peers. Furthermore, the essay sees the COVID-19 pandemic as a leveling and game-changing force that has significantly altered the home life and mindset of the \"rooted cosmopolitan\" African elites. Many of them are now neo-localists or maisonneurs (stay-at-home people) who strive to create a new sense of community in their formerly unloved African homeland.","PeriodicalId":119873,"journal":{"name":"Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116197151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.02.20
A. Matin‐asgari
{"title":"This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States","authors":"A. Matin‐asgari","doi":"10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.02.20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.02.20","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":119873,"journal":{"name":"Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116883861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.03.11
T. Malsch
Abstract:This article is about marriage stories collected from Palestinian Muslim families making a new life in Germany while seeking to retain their transnational ties and cultural roots. They belong to the Arab and Muslim diaspora whose disposition to integrate into the fabric of European society has been persistently questioned. Arab and Muslim immigrants and their offspring largely seem to prefer staying amongst themselves, taking spouses from their home countries rather than intermingling with the local population. However, faced with transnational exchange and intercultural crossover in much the same way, those who do intermarry and those who do not may have more in common than often suggested. Combining narrative inquiries with quantitative comparisons, three issues are addressed in this article: the impact of migration histories on marriage preferences and prerogatives, intergenerational dynamics of marriage stories unfolding at the family level, and shifting boundaries of "protection" and "strangeness" evolving in the course of change from below.
{"title":"How to Protect Your Daughters from \"Stranger Marriage\": Palestinian Families in Germany Betwixt Kinship Endogamy and Intercultural Exogamy","authors":"T. Malsch","doi":"10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.03.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.03.11","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article is about marriage stories collected from Palestinian Muslim families making a new life in Germany while seeking to retain their transnational ties and cultural roots. They belong to the Arab and Muslim diaspora whose disposition to integrate into the fabric of European society has been persistently questioned. Arab and Muslim immigrants and their offspring largely seem to prefer staying amongst themselves, taking spouses from their home countries rather than intermingling with the local population. However, faced with transnational exchange and intercultural crossover in much the same way, those who do intermarry and those who do not may have more in common than often suggested. Combining narrative inquiries with quantitative comparisons, three issues are addressed in this article: the impact of migration histories on marriage preferences and prerogatives, intergenerational dynamics of marriage stories unfolding at the family level, and shifting boundaries of \"protection\" and \"strangeness\" evolving in the course of change from below.","PeriodicalId":119873,"journal":{"name":"Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125425627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.3138/diaspora.23.1.fm
{"title":"Front Matter","authors":"","doi":"10.3138/diaspora.23.1.fm","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.23.1.fm","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":119873,"journal":{"name":"Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135469519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.03.27
S. Olaoluwa
Abstract:Since Johannes Hofer's coinage of the term nostalgia in the seventeenth century, which he used to describe the pathological suffering of Swiss soldiers serving abroad, various disciplines engaging with migration and the broad-based discourse of diaspora have focused on this experience to the extent of "theoretical closure." I argue that this discursive strand has prevented a systematic consideration of the simultaneous suffering and creativity that are provoked in stay-at-homes when their loved ones are dispersed to other lands. This article draws upon insights from the Ogu cultural practice of effigy carving in the representation of departed twin children to underscore how dispersal from the homeland provokes suffering and creativity in the left-behind, and is generative of what I have termed extalgia. Further, I illustrate the networks of suffering and creativity that are implicated in extalgia through an exploration of theoretical and empirical possibilities within the broader discourse of diaspora that mobilizes African and African diaspora textuality and culture to animate the complex spatiotemporal trajectory of the term. While premised on the fundamental discourse of diaspora, the article draws substantially from the iterations of exile as a strand of diaspora in its illustration. The article concludes that extalgia facilitates new understandings of how the absence of the dispersed is commemorated and curated in homeland memory through the expression of suffering and creativity by stay-at-homes, and challenges us to transcend the legible frames of diaspora to a holistic rendition of the experience as a spectrum. Ultimately, the article invites scholars to consider the various ways in which the concept of extalgia is dramatized in other disciplinary contexts across the globe, particularly concerning the ideational and practical borders and networks between extalgia and the time-honored notion of nostalgia.
{"title":"Extalgia: Transcending the Legible Frames of Diaspora","authors":"S. Olaoluwa","doi":"10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.03.27","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.03.27","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Since Johannes Hofer's coinage of the term nostalgia in the seventeenth century, which he used to describe the pathological suffering of Swiss soldiers serving abroad, various disciplines engaging with migration and the broad-based discourse of diaspora have focused on this experience to the extent of \"theoretical closure.\" I argue that this discursive strand has prevented a systematic consideration of the simultaneous suffering and creativity that are provoked in stay-at-homes when their loved ones are dispersed to other lands. This article draws upon insights from the Ogu cultural practice of effigy carving in the representation of departed twin children to underscore how dispersal from the homeland provokes suffering and creativity in the left-behind, and is generative of what I have termed extalgia. Further, I illustrate the networks of suffering and creativity that are implicated in extalgia through an exploration of theoretical and empirical possibilities within the broader discourse of diaspora that mobilizes African and African diaspora textuality and culture to animate the complex spatiotemporal trajectory of the term. While premised on the fundamental discourse of diaspora, the article draws substantially from the iterations of exile as a strand of diaspora in its illustration. The article concludes that extalgia facilitates new understandings of how the absence of the dispersed is commemorated and curated in homeland memory through the expression of suffering and creativity by stay-at-homes, and challenges us to transcend the legible frames of diaspora to a holistic rendition of the experience as a spectrum. Ultimately, the article invites scholars to consider the various ways in which the concept of extalgia is dramatized in other disciplinary contexts across the globe, particularly concerning the ideational and practical borders and networks between extalgia and the time-honored notion of nostalgia.","PeriodicalId":119873,"journal":{"name":"Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124780108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.02.02
S. Thangaraj
In Diaspora as Translation and Decolonisation , Ipek Demir provides an important intellectual horizon for theorizing diaspora by centering longer temporal and spatial practices in racial hierarchies. By centering processes of translation and decolonization in diasporic communities, Demir demands an extended engagement with history and power through critical interrogations of Western imperialism and Western colonialism, alongside post-colonialism and local forms of colonialism. She projects a vision of diaspora that is not limited and contained by the dominant strain of thought that theo-rizes diaspora and diasporic social formations through the “nation” and “nation-state.” This work contributes to studies of diaspora by examining how diasporic formations have always been sites of both coloniality and decoloniality as well as imperialism and de-imperialism.
{"title":"Diaspora as Translation and Decolonisation","authors":"S. Thangaraj","doi":"10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.02.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.23.1.2023.02.02","url":null,"abstract":"In Diaspora as Translation and Decolonisation , Ipek Demir provides an important intellectual horizon for theorizing diaspora by centering longer temporal and spatial practices in racial hierarchies. By centering processes of translation and decolonization in diasporic communities, Demir demands an extended engagement with history and power through critical interrogations of Western imperialism and Western colonialism, alongside post-colonialism and local forms of colonialism. She projects a vision of diaspora that is not limited and contained by the dominant strain of thought that theo-rizes diaspora and diasporic social formations through the “nation” and “nation-state.” This work contributes to studies of diaspora by examining how diasporic formations have always been sites of both coloniality and decoloniality as well as imperialism and de-imperialism.","PeriodicalId":119873,"journal":{"name":"Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122439226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.3138/diaspora.22.2.2022.07.04
Tsolin Nalbantian
First held in 1998 with only a couple of hundred Armenians in attendance, in its last incarnation in 2020, the Armenian Heritage Cruise (AHC)— the “Original Armenian Cruise” —hosted over 1,000 participants coming from over ten countries including the United States, Canada, Argentina, Venezuela, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Australia, and Armenia. Based on on-site participant observation and twenty open-ended interviews with cruise attendees between 2007–2015 and the chair of AHC committee in 2018, in addition to the analysis of the AHC promotional and published material (2007–2020), this article argues that the annual AHC is a simulacrum of the organizers’ and participants’ fantasies of Armenia (Baudrillard 1994, 6). The simulacrum, an exclusive and serviced tropical fantasy in the middle of the Caribbean, catered to passengers with buying power who consumed the messages of an idealized, “better” Armenia. It likewise “freed” Armenians from a marginalization they claimed to experience in the communities where they usually live, even as these places were also a source of pride, had established Armenian institutions, or were even in the “real” Armenia.
{"title":"“A ‘Little Armenia’ In The Caribbean”: The Armenian Heritage Cruise As A Simulacrum","authors":"Tsolin Nalbantian","doi":"10.3138/diaspora.22.2.2022.07.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.22.2.2022.07.04","url":null,"abstract":"First held in 1998 with only a couple of hundred Armenians in attendance, in its last incarnation in 2020, the Armenian Heritage Cruise (AHC)— the “Original Armenian Cruise” —hosted over 1,000 participants coming from over ten countries including the United States, Canada, Argentina, Venezuela, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Australia, and Armenia. Based on on-site participant observation and twenty open-ended interviews with cruise attendees between 2007–2015 and the chair of AHC committee in 2018, in addition to the analysis of the AHC promotional and published material (2007–2020), this article argues that the annual AHC is a simulacrum of the organizers’ and participants’ fantasies of Armenia (Baudrillard 1994, 6). The simulacrum, an exclusive and serviced tropical fantasy in the middle of the Caribbean, catered to passengers with buying power who consumed the messages of an idealized, “better” Armenia. It likewise “freed” Armenians from a marginalization they claimed to experience in the communities where they usually live, even as these places were also a source of pride, had established Armenian institutions, or were even in the “real” Armenia.","PeriodicalId":119873,"journal":{"name":"Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129566915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-23DOI: 10.3138/diaspora.22.2.2022.05.24
J. Frelier
Abstract:Kim Thúy and Thi Bui fled Vietnam with their families in 1975 and 1978, respectively, in the midst of the Vietnam War, a conflict that pushed hundreds of thousands of people from the country. These women authors are part of the 1.5 generation—they were born in Vietnam, left before adulthood, and are the children of refugees. In my comparative analysis of the authors’ first publications, I show how the two texts reveal their authors’ specific interventions related to transdiasporic identity-formation (an identity-formation that that resists home and homeland, that is ambiguous and shape-shifting, and that is outside of time and place) and to maternal becoming (a process of shape-shifting maternal development characterized by fluidity). I argue maternal becoming allows the protagonists of these texts to travel across time, revisit, reread and revise their ideas about their mothers, and discover an identity that relies on fluidity and time travel. In other words, these women authors suggest maternal becoming transforms the “postmemorial retrieval” process of their protagonists, a retrieval required of them because of their position as members of the 1.5 generation (Kurmann and Do 2018a). Motherhood nudges the protagonists toward self-discovery that is prompted by a “recuperative reading” of the mothers who raised them (Kaplan 1994).
摘要:Kim Thúy和Thi Bui分别于1975年和1978年随家人逃离越南，当时正值越南战争期间，这场冲突迫使数十万人逃离越南。这些女性作家属于1.5代人——她们出生在越南，成年前离开越南，是难民的孩子。在我对作者首次出版的比较分析中，我展示了这两篇文章如何揭示了他们的作者对跨流散身份形成(一种抵制家园和家园的身份形成，这种身份形成是模糊的，形状变化的，而且是在时间和地点之外的)和母性成为(一种以流动性为特征的形状变化的母性发展过程)的具体干预。我认为，母性的形成使这些文本的主人公能够穿越时间，重新审视、重读和修改他们对母亲的看法，并发现一种依赖于流动性和时间旅行的身份。换句话说，这些女性作者认为，母性的转变改变了她们主人公的“记忆后检索”过程，这是她们作为1.5代成员所需要的检索(Kurmann and Do 2018a)。母性推动主人公走向自我发现，这是由养育他们的母亲的“休养性阅读”所推动的(卡普兰1994)。
{"title":"Maternal Becoming In The Vietnamese Transdiaspora: Kim Thúy’s Ru (2012) And Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do (2017)","authors":"J. Frelier","doi":"10.3138/diaspora.22.2.2022.05.24","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.22.2.2022.05.24","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Kim Thúy and Thi Bui fled Vietnam with their families in 1975 and 1978, respectively, in the midst of the Vietnam War, a conflict that pushed hundreds of thousands of people from the country. These women authors are part of the 1.5 generation—they were born in Vietnam, left before adulthood, and are the children of refugees. In my comparative analysis of the authors’ first publications, I show how the two texts reveal their authors’ specific interventions related to transdiasporic identity-formation (an identity-formation that that resists home and homeland, that is ambiguous and shape-shifting, and that is outside of time and place) and to maternal becoming (a process of shape-shifting maternal development characterized by fluidity). I argue maternal becoming allows the protagonists of these texts to travel across time, revisit, reread and revise their ideas about their mothers, and discover an identity that relies on fluidity and time travel. In other words, these women authors suggest maternal becoming transforms the “postmemorial retrieval” process of their protagonists, a retrieval required of them because of their position as members of the 1.5 generation (Kurmann and Do 2018a). Motherhood nudges the protagonists toward self-discovery that is prompted by a “recuperative reading” of the mothers who raised them (Kaplan 1994).","PeriodicalId":119873,"journal":{"name":"Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121295178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-11DOI: 10.3138/diaspora.22.2.2022.06.16
Yan Tan, Xuchun Liu
Abstract:China’s profound demographic and socioeconomic transitions over the last four decades have led to significant changes in its diaspora: increased numbers, different destinations, and diversified reasons for emigration. The national diaspora policy has undergone many shifts since China’s momentous economic reforms and opening to the world in 1978; but policy now converges on a multifaceted and intrinsically transnational system of engagement in the service of soft power. Studies have so far stressed domestic interests, drawing insights primarily from policy documents; but this article seeks to broaden the perspective, using a transnationally oriented framework to assist investigation of factors that range beyond the domestic. Using in-depth interviews with a variety of key informants and stakeholders, we systematically analyze features in four core policy dimensions that incorporate both international and domestic dynamics: diaspora institutions, dual citizenship, talent recruitment, and soft power. Finally, we explore implications for development (economic, sociocultural, educational) in both China and host countries. We draw the conclusion that China’s diaspora policy is shaped by a constellation of transnational factors—such as changing global and regional power structures, and competition in talent-recruiting and talent-retaining in the new technological era. China now deploys multi-scale linkages across several dimensions, expanding from economic to sociocultural and political spheres, to engage its diaspora effectively. Finally, these policy developments not only shape China’s internal development but also influence global sentiment, bringing new dynamics to bear global power relations.
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