Week 3_Natalie Lortz_ASA 114

“Diaspora should be used to name the affections, subjectivities and identities formed in relation to real and imagined homelands” (25). Asian American “ideals” are constricted to those who are heterosexual and with substantial financial means. It excludes groups of Asian Americans who do not fit these categories, evoking a sense of elitism and creates a false idea of a “real” Asian American, simply due to the lack of a multifaceted understanding. The challenge within diasporic studies is to accurately describe and understand all communities relevant to the diaspora. 

However, in order to do so, there comes a point where studying people’s experiences moves away from diasporic discourse and turns into ethnographic studies about migrants and issues surrounding assimilation, identities, values, cultural clashes, etc. they may face. 

 Identities can be situational, overlapping, and revived as seen in the context of assimilation and acculturation, but identities in the context of the diaspora are absent unless they are comparing the home country with the land of settlement. 

Later generations learn what it means to be a person of their ethnic culture within that hybrid, transnational space. Transnational fields allow for the possibility of multiple identities and multiple incorporations. Culture, time and place play a large role in this. There are many complex factors that unite and differentiate those in the diaspora from each other. It begins with identification, whether to the homeland or not, and to what cultures that exist in these spaces and continues in a larger conversation surrounding unequal relationships of local, national, and global power. 

Is it wrong to use diaspora as an umbrella term to include Asian Americans, refugees, immigrants, and more?