Diasporas ad infinitum

I’ve been thinking quite a lot about identity recently. It’s hardly been an overlapping theme in the three classes I’m currently taking – but then, when has literature not been about identity?

I first recall learning the term, “Diaspora” when I was an undergraduate at UCR. I taking a class on Latin American Literatures and, ironically, up until reading Susan Stanford Friedman’s essay, “Migrations, Diasporas, and Borders,” I identified Diaspora as a Latin American movement. Of course, Friedman’s essay defines Diasporas in a much wider context, but specifically she focuses on Jewish and African Diasporas. This leads me to another question in a more direct historical context – is not everyone in the United States considered part of a link in a diasporic movement? Are military families considered diasporic? What about children who disperse themselves between the homes of divorced parents? To make the definition even broader, I can define the current era of globalization and everyone who encompasses it to be part of a diasporic movement. My research proposal also reflects a diasporic movement, although I dare say that I’m bending its focus towards a more linguistic interpretation than a diasporic one. Friedman quotes May Joseph when she writes, “Cultural citizenship is a nomadic and performative realm of self-invention.” I particularly like this quote because it implies something that it not necessarily of diasporic value, but something that is important to remember for anyone who is alive today. In a time when the effects of globalization are more porous than ever before, human beings seem to cling tightly to an aspect of themselves that they can call distinct. Whether it be on a map or on our grave, in our heritage or our faith, our sexuality or our ideology- whether you’re seeing the USA in your Chevrolet, being deported to Iraq, or texting your sister in Copenhagen, Diaspora is everywhere and in everyone. I can’t help but think that Diaspora was created as a way to separate humans as being unique, rather than confronting the very elements that describe an identity that is personal, familiar, and not at all alone.