WEEK1 Introduction - "Asian Diasporas and Multilingualism"

Last week I had the pleasure of attending a brunch hosted by film makers, Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider, of the informative documentary, Speaking in Tongues. The film documents the lives of young students involved in language immersion schools in the San Francisco School district. Coincidentally, I am also searching for a Spanish immersion school for when my two year old turns three. I considered Vietnamese immersion schools too but none exist where we live.

Why the interest in a bilingual education for my children? Aside from seeing the value and academic rigor of such an education, having gone through some years in an international school in Yemen learning both French and English, I found myself now confronting questions that people in diaspora, or even more generally, people living in our current times ask. That is, how does and how will my family engage with the world in the Age of Globalization? 

When thinking about bilingualism, I factored in issues of cultural preservation as well as interest in the culture of the second (or more like third) language my children will learn. Friends chimed in with practical reasons for choosing certain languages over others. "French sounds nice but Mandarin is crucial for jobs in the future. China will be a leading economic power," one friend argued.

The authors of the first week of readings in my Diaspora class also tackle such topics, albeit on a more theoretical level. In the context of the U.S., all agree the importance of centering diaspora as a framework to discuss immigrant populations and their experiences. Robin Cohen's introductory chapter in Global Diasporas describes diverse diasporic populations that were created through varying circumstances from imperialism to trade, while reminding us that diasporas have existed for centuries. Cohen presents the classic example of diaspora using the Jewish model -- characterized by endured persecution, expulsion, dispersement, and ultimate lost of homeland (Cohen 1997).

Like the Jewish diaspora, Asians have been leaving their homelands for other parts of the world for centuries now. Evelyn Hu-Dehart's “The Great Diaspora: Where Would Asian Americans Be Without the Lengthy History of Asians On the Go?” speaks to this history of emigration that resulted in diverse resettlements. Communities formed but memories of "home" remained, in part by choice, but also because of inherent racism and exclusion in the host country (Hu-Dehart). 

The increase in the immigration population post 1965 compounded with the rise of globalization has scholars, particularly in the areas of Ethnic Studies, Areas Studies, Cultural Studies to (re)consider "diaspora." But, as Braziel and Mannur forward in their chapter, “Nation, Migration, Globalization: Points of Contention in Diaspora Studies” in Theorizing Diasporas, with new diasporic formations, there is a need to properly attack slippery terms related to the diaspora and even "diaspora' itself. Particularly, they want to know what terms will rise when discussing how diasporic groups will relate to the culture of their  "home" and "host" countries and how they will consider geography in their identity formation (Mannur and Braziel 2003). 

Anderson and Lee attempted to tackle the term diaspora in their chapter “Asian American Displacements” in Displacements. They convincingly define diaspora as those that are displaced. This displacement range from physical/spatial displacement to having multiple ideas of home and choice or lack of choice of home. Their nine types of displacements make one wonder if they were too inclusive in their definition. If leaving a country is enough to make one displaced, should everyone that emigrate be considered a part of a diaspora? Of course Lee and Anderson do not suggest everyone can be studied as a diaspora but they do make a good case that it can be done for at least Asians in the Americas (Anderson and Lee 2005).

With the growing number of Asians in the U.S. and some very obvious connections they have with the homeland, Parrenas and Siu suggests looking at these groups using Asian and Asian American Studies perspectives. They make this connection by surveying multiple locations while recognizing the tensions that exists between diasporic subjects and their home/host country as well as with other diasporic Asian groups. They approach their study of diaspora as "ethnographically grounded research that is historically informed" (Parrenas and Siu 2007). 

All these scholars recognize the urgency and need to think of Asians in the Americas and elsewhere differently. They believe using diaspora as a framework serves as an effective strategy to do this. I tend to agree since so much of my own personal decision making, such as picking bilingual schools for my children, also take into account the condition of our times and how I relate to the world, locally and globally, as a diasporic subject. 


Questions:
1. Has globalization and racial unease in the U.S. mean all Asians here are diasporic?
2. What of people who partake in international or cross-cultural practices other than their own. They don't have that homeward gaze. Are they diasporic?
3. Sometimes it appears the definition for "diaspora" is too inclusive leaving a rather loose framework to discuss Asians in the U.S. and elsewhere. So, how else can we tighten it up?
4. Is it useful to distinguish "old diaporas" like the Jewish or Armenian models to "new diasporas" like the Vietnamese?
5. What types of tensions in the home and host countries that motivate diasporic formations?


By Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde