Diaspora

Dictionary: Di·as·po·ra   (dī-ăs'pər-ə)

1. The dispersion of Jews outside of Israel from the sixth century B.C., when they were exiled to Babylonia, until the present time.
2. often diaspora The body of Jews or Jewish communities outside Palestine or modern Israel.
3. diaspora
   1. A dispersion of a people from their original homeland.
   2. The community formed by such a people: “the glutinous dish known throughout the [West African] diaspora as … fufu” (Jonell Nash).
4. diaspora A dispersion of an originally homogeneous entity, such as a language or culture: “the diaspora of English into several mutually incomprehensible languages” (Randolph Quirk).

[Greek diasporā, dispersion, from diaspeirein, to spread about : dia-, apart; see dia– + speirein, to sow, scatter.]

For more information on Diaspora, visit Britannica.com.

The term "Dispersion" is a translation of the Greek word "Diaspora," referring to the scattering and resettlement of Jews outside of the land of Israel. The earliest references to the idea of a dispersion are found in Leviticus 26:33; Deuteronomy 4:27; 28:64-68; Psalms 44:11; 106:27; Jeremiah 9:16; 13:24; and Ezekiel 12:13-16. Israel's unfaithfulness and disobedience to God's covenant were punishable by ruin and exile.

The history of the Diaspora can be dated from the Assyrian Exile (722 B.C.) when the ten tribes, deported to Assyria from the Northern Kingdom of Israel, were eventually assimilated; or from the Babylonian Exile (586 B.C.) when a large part of the population of Judah was sent to Babylonia where many remained even after being permitted to return by Cyrus the Great (539 B.C.). At the same time, a Jewish community began to develop in Egypt (Jer 44:1). The Diaspora grew extensively during the Second Temple era and by NT times extended from Cyrene to Rome (cf Acts 2:9-11). The travels of St. Paul and his visits to Jewish communities in various countries provide graphic evidence of the extent of the Diaspora in his time.

The dispersal of ethnonational groups.

The term diaspora is derived from the Greek verb speiro (to sow) and the Greek preposition dia (over). All diasporas have in common significant characteristics: They result from both voluntary and imposed migration; their members wish to and are able to maintain their ethnonational identity, which is the basis for continued solidarity; core members establish in their host countries intricate organizations that are intended to protect the rights of their members and to encourage participation in the cultural, political, social, and economic spheres; and members maintain continuous contacts with their homelands and other dispersed segments of the same nation.

Ethnonational diasporism is a widespread perennial phenomenon not confined to the Jews, although in many contexts the term is presumed to refer specifically to the Jewish diaspora. Some ethnonational diasporas are dwindling or disappearing, but other historical, modern, and incipient diasporas are multiplying and flourishing all over the world, including in the Middle East.

Middle Easterners of various ethnic backgrounds permanently reside in foreign host countries within or outside the region; simultaneuosly, Middle Eastern states host diasporas. The larger diaspora communities in the Middle East include Palestinians, Egyptians, Yemenis, and guest workers from elsewhere (Chinese, Pakistanis, Koreans, Vietnamese, and Filipinos) who reside in the Gulf states and in Saudi Arabia; Armenians, Druze, and guest workers from Romania, Turkey, the former Soviet Union, Thailand, the Philippines, and African countries residing in Israel; Palestinians, Druze, and Armenians in Lebanon; Palestinians, Druze, and Armenians in Syria; and Sudanese, Palestinians, and a small number of Greeks in Egypt. Some of these diapsoras, such as the Armenians, come from established states, while others, such as the Kurds, Druze, Gypsies, and the Palestinians, are stateless.

Age, dispersal in and outside the region, group size, status, organization, and connection (or lack thereof) to their homelands influence each of these diasporas' positions in and strategies toward host countries an d homelands. Because of globalization and growth in worldwide migration, their economic and political roles have become increasingly significant.

Bibliography

Maʾoz, Moshe, and Sheffer, Gabriel, eds. Middle EasternMinorities and Diasporas. Brighton, U.K.: Sussex Academic Press, 2002.

— GABRIEL SHEFFER

The term "diaspora" was first used to describe the shared experience of the Jewish peoples—experience of exile and displacement, but also of continuing (some would say strengthening) connection and identification. Etymologically, "diaspora" derives from Greek dia ('through') and speirein ('to sow, scatter'). The word is used more broadly to refer to the cultural connections maintained by a group of people who have been dispersed or who have migrated around the globe. Each distinct "diasporic group" or "community" is a composite of many journeys to different parts of the world, occurring over very different timescales. The experiences of particular subgroups can therefore vary considerably—to the extent that some writers argue it is meaningless to talk of shared identities and experiences of, for example, "the South Asian diaspora," at the global level. Avtar Brah's book Cartographies of Diaspora provides a detailed discussion of the complex history and uses of the concept.

A key characteristic of diasporas is that a strong sense of connection to a homeland is maintained through cultural practices and ways of life. As Brah reminds us, this "homeland" might be imaginary rather than real, and its existence need not be tied to any desire to "return" home. The maintenance of these kinds of cultural connections can in some cases provoke both nostalgic and separatist tendencies. The focus here is on the place of cooking and eating among the enduring habits, rituals, and everyday practices that are collectively used to sustain a shared sense of diasporic cultural identity, in recognition that culinary culture has an important part to play in diasporic identifications.

Diasporic Foodscapes

Among the everyday cultural practices routinely used to maintain (and in some cases enhance or even reinvent) diasporic identities, food is commonly of central importance. There are a number of reasons for this. First, food traditions and habits are comparatively portable: groups that migrate around the world often carry with them elements of the diet and eating habits of the "homeland." Indeed, the migrations of foods can be used to track the past movements of people, a cornerstone of research into foodways and foodscapes. Every nation's diet therefore bears the imprint of countless past immigrations. Second, foodways are adaptable: While migrations can map the movements of ingredients, foodstuffs, or methods of preparation into new habitats unchanged, they also tell tales of adaptation, substitution, and indigenization. As people and their cuisines move, they also change to suit local conditions. Ghassan Hage's research with Lebanese migrants in Australia provides a simple illustration. In his essay "At Home in the Entrails of the West," based on interviews with Lebanese migrants to the Parramatta area of Sydney, Hage reports on this process of adaptation and substitution. One of his respondents talks about using peanut butter in Lebanese dishes in place of tahini, which was not at the time available in Australia. (In fact, when tahini later became available, the respondent admits to craving peanut butter.) Over time, this reshaping of ingredients and cooking methods often leads to a reshaping of diasporic culinary cultures, such that the dishes sometimes bear little resemblance to the original version. Comparing the same dishes among diasporic groups in different countries (say, the Chinese in the United States and in the United Kingdom) makes this clear, as does comparing diasporic versions of dishes with those served "back home."

This mobility and adaptability assures that food habits are usually maintained (even while they are transformed) among diasporic groups. Occasionally entire culinary cultures may be preserved. More often, "traditional" foods are maintained only in particular symbolic meals or dishes. For example, the small community of Russian Molokans in the United States perpetuates the rituals of preparing and sharing formal community dinners, or obedy (as reported by Willard B. Moore in "Metaphor and Changing Reality"). Alternatively, a particular dish can be singled out as embodying and preserving diasporic identity, as in the case of the ghormeh-sabzi, a stew eaten by Iranian immigrants in central England. This dish has particular significance as a way to reconnect with Iranian culture, tradition, and beliefs. A detailed discussion of the place of ghormeh-sabzi can be found in Lynn Harbottle's essay, "'Bastard' Chicken or Ghormeh-sabzi?" Harbottle's respondents report that they had to make compromises in their families' diets, allowing some Western dishes onto the table, even though they were generally wary of losing their cultural identity through Westernization. However, they expressed health concerns about the inferiority of the food in England compared with their diet back in Iran, and were keen to maintain the cultural and religious significance of food habits and pass them on to future generations. (These habits were mainly connected with their Shi'ite faith and the consumption of halal ingredients in accordance with Islamic dietary law.) In some cases, this led to the transformation of some staples of contemporary English cuisine, such as pizza or burgers, to realign them with Shi'ite custom. The diasporic transformation of diet is, therefore, a two-way process.

In fact, the arrival of diasporic foodways can more broadly transform the "host culture" into which migrants move. In Britain, for example, the migration of South Asian peoples has brought with it a variety of "immigrant" cuisines. While these were maintained initially for the migrant communities as a reminder of "home," their popularity among non-Asian Britons is longstanding and has continued to grow. Certain indigenized dishes, such as chicken tikka massala, are among the most enthusiastically and widely eaten meals in Britain today. (This, of course, need not signal comfortable race relations away from the table; see Uma Narayan's essay on Indian food in the West, "Eating Cultures.")

Diasporic Dilemmas

It would be wrong to simply equate the popularity of chicken tikka massala in Britain with the comfortable accommodation of South Asian migrants into a commonly shared and widely adopted multicultural identity. This is one of Hage's main points: the adoption of diasporic cuisines by host cultures often does little to encourage other forms of productive encounter between different ethnic groups. In fact, for Hage, the availability of diasporic foodstuffs permits a lazy "cosmo-multiculturalism," in which eating foreign dishes substitutes for other forms of engagement. Moreover, the necessity of maintaining "exotic" foodways can produce a distinct diasporic burden, fixing migrant culinary cultures rather than allowing them to change. There is, therefore, a set of ethical questions attached to the existence of diasporic foodscapes: For whom are they produced? What are their outcomes and effects? What alternatives might be suggested?

Two discussions can serve as illustrations of this dilemma. The first focuses on the role of the döner kebap among Turkish "economic migrants" in Germany. In his essay "McDöner," Ayse Caglar traces the ways in which the symbolic meaning of the döner has shifted over time. He notes its immense popularity in Germany, and reminds us that the dish was invented for non-Turkish Germans and does not exist in Turkey in the form it is now served—as a fast food consisting of meat slices in pide (Turkish flatbread), garnished with salad and sauces, bought on the street from an Imbiss (mobile stand). Moreover, the vast majority of döners are eaten by non-Turkish Germans. Back in the 1960s, döner vendors traded heavily on the ethnic exoticness or Turkishness of the döner, but since the early 1990s the food has been increasingly deracialized, shedding its ethnic signifiers and in many cases being rebranded using American symbols—hence the "McDöner" of Caglar's title. This shift, Caglar explains, mirrored the mounting social marginalization of Turks in Germany.

In the case of the döner kebap, then, we can witness the "invention" of a food symbolic of ethnic identity, though in this case (unlike the Iranian ghormeh-sabzi) the food is largely consumed by the "host culture" rather than by the immigrants. The "ethnic" markers attached to the döner have subsequently been shed, reflecting the shifting social position of the migrant group. As a final irony, Caglar notes that successful Turkish caterers in Germany have switched to serving Italian food to a more up-market clientele.

A second example is provided by David Parker, in an essay called "The Chinese Takeaway and the Diasporic Habitus." Like the indigenized Indian curry house (a key provider of chicken tikka massala), the Chinese takeaway (takeout shop or restaurant) has come to occupy a particular symbolic location on the British culinary landscape. However, foods from the South and East Asian subcontinents are available through all kinds of other food outlets, from supermarkets to trendy eateries. Moreover, food is only one cultural product used in diasporic identifications; the development of distinct "ethnic quarters" such as Chinatowns in many cities testifies to a broader-based cultural infrastructure. For critics, the existence of such "ethnic quarters" merely furthers the economic exploitation of diaspora, while for other commentators it suggests the success of multiculturalism. Food outlets are commonly center stage in these kinds of urban areas, testifying to the significance of the food distribution as a site for diasporic cultural production.

Parker reads the Chinese takeaway as a key site for the negotiation of British Chineseness in relation to the global Chinese diaspora. By focusing on the encounters between workers and customers, Parker reveals a mode of interaction that he names the "diasporic habitus," defined as "the embodied subjectivities poised between the legacies of the past, the imperatives of the present, and the possibilities of the future" (p. 75). This habitus shapes ways of "being Chinese" in diasporic contexts, and is the result of the uneven distribution of "imperial capital" between Chinese and non-Chinese Britons: what occurs in the takeaway bears the enduring imprint of colonial contact between Western and non-Western peoples. Parker shows not only how these encounters are overlaid by orientalist racialization, but also how this "contact zone" offers critical possibilities. Parker argues (like Hage) for a contested (instead of celebratory) multiculturalism that explores the complex interplay of identities in everyday locations. The takeaway, therefore, is an emblem of British Chineseness rather than Chineseness—a situational outcome of one particular diasporic foodscape.

Of course, the notion of British Chineseness still retains an emphasis on being (at least in part) Chinese, rather than simply British. This is part of the diasporic burden mentioned earlier: the necessity of retaining some degree of ethnic difference. In some cases, of course, migrant groups may wish to reject, either partially or wholly, their ethnic identity, and adopt the identity of their new "home." They may, however, be denied that possibility by the "host culture," which wants to preserve their ethnic identity for a variety of reasons. The deracializing of döner kebap illustrates an attempt by German Turks to integrate more fully into German society at the same time that the ethnic marker of Turkishness was becoming increasingly problematic there.

The existence of diasporic cuisine marks a complex negotiation between cultural identities. For both German Turks and British Chinese, elements of their cuisines (or "invented" versions of them) have become institutionalized on the foodscape. While this may provide some level of economic security—the "success" of Chinese takeaways in Britain is often reported as evidence for multiculturalism, at least in terms of business culture—there are many compromises and dilemmas involved as well. As the döner Imbiss and the Chinese takeaway both illustrate, mundane yet intensely symbolic items such as food are woven in complex and shifting ways into discourses of tradition and transformation, identity, and community. Diasporic diets, like all aspects of diasporic identity and culture, are constantly remade, even while some key elements endure over time.

Bibliography.

Brah, Avtar. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. London: Routledge, 1996.

Caglar, Ayse S. "McDöner: Döner Kebap and the Social Positioning Struggle of German Turks." In Marketing in a Multicultural World: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Cultural Identity, edited by Janeen Costa and Gary Bamoosy. London: Sage, 1995.

Hage, Ghassan. "At Home in the Entrails of the West: Multiculturalism, Ethnic Food, and Migrant Home-Building." In Home/World: Space, Community, and Marginality in Sydney's West, edited by Helen Grace, Ghassan Hage, Lesley Johnson, Julie Langsworth, and Michael Symonds. Annandale: Pluto, 1997.

Harbottle, Lynn. "'Bastard' Chicken or Ghormeh-sabzi? Iranian Women Guarding the Health of the Migrant Family." In Consumption Matters, edited by Stephen Edgell, Hetherington, Kevin, and Alan Warde. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.

Moore, Willard B. "Metaphor and Changing Reality: The Foodways and Beliefs of the Russian Molokans in the United States." In Ethnic and Regional Foodways in the United States: The Performance of Group Identity, edited by Linda Keller Brown and Kay Mussell. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984.

Narayan, Uma. "Eating Cultures: Incorporation, Identity, and Indian Food." Social Identities 1 (1995).

Parker, David. "The Chinese Takeaway and the Diasporic Habitus: Space, Time, and Power Geometries." In Un/Settled Multiculturalisms: Diasporas, Entanglements, 'Transruptions', edited by Barnor Hesse. London: Zed, 2000

—David John Bell

Tutor's tip: This word was used in the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee finals.

Not to be confused with diaspore (botany) or diaspore (mineral).

For other uses, see Diaspora (disambiguation).

Look up diaspora in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The term diaspora (in Greek, διασπορά – "a scattering [of seeds]") refers to the movement of any population sharing common ethnic identity who were either forced to leave or voluntarily left their settled territory, and became residents in areas often far remote from the former. It is converse to the nomadic culture, and more appropriately linked with the creation of a group of refugees. However, while refugees may or may not ultimately settle in a new geographic location, the term diaspora refers to a permanently displaced and relocated collective.

Diasporic cultural development often assumes a different course from that of the population in the original place of settlement. It tends to vary in culture, traditions and other factors between remotely separated communities. The last vestiges of cultural affiliation in a diaspora is often found in community resistance to language change and in maintenance of traditional religious practice.

Contents 1 Origins and development 2 Native American diaspora 3 European diasporas 4 African diaspora 5 Asian diaspora 6 The 20th century and beyond 6.1 WWII and the end of colonial rule 6.2 The Cold War and the formation of post-colonial states 6.3 Migration diasporas: A subject of debate 7 In popular culture 8 See also 9 Citations and notes 10 References 11 External links

Origins and development

The first mention of a diaspora created as a result of exile is found in Deuteronomy 28:25 "thou shalt be a dispersion in all kingdoms of the earth". Its use began to develop from this original sense when the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek^[1]; the word diaspora then was used to refer to the population of Jews exiled from Israel in 607 BCE by the Babylonians, and from Judea in 70 CE by the Roman Empire.^[2] It subsequently came to be used to refer interchangeably, but exclusively, to the historical movements of the dispersed ethnic population of Israel, the cultural development of that population, or the population itself.^[3] To date, when capitalized and without modifiers (that is, simply the Diaspora), the term generally refers specifically to the Jewish diaspora^{[citation needed]}.

The wider application of diaspora evolved from the Assyrian two-way mass deportation policy of conquered populations to deny future territorial claims on their part.^[4] In Ancient Greece the term diaspora meant "the scattered" and was used to refer to citizens of a dominant city-state who emigrated to a conquered land with the purpose of colonisation, to assimilate the territory into the empire.^[5]

The first modern attestation of diaspora is in 1876 from the Greek diaspora, derived from diaspeirein "to scatter about, disperse," from dia- "about, across" + speirein "to scatter".^[6]

Sometimes refugees of other origins or ethnicities may be called a diaspora, but the two terms are far from synonymous.^[7][8]

The term became more widely assimilated into English by the mid 1950s, with long-term expatriates in significant numbers from other particular countries or regions also being referred to as a diaspora.^{[9][8][10][11]} An academic field, diaspora studies, has become established relating to this contemporary, more general sense of the word.

In all cases, the term diaspora carries a sense of displacement; that is, the population so described finds itself for whatever reason separated from its national territory; and usually its people have a hope, or at least a desire, to return to their homeland at some point, if the "homeland" still exists in any meaningful sense. Some writers have noted that diaspora may result in a loss of nostalgia for a single home as people "re-root" in a series of meaningful displacements. In this sense, individuals may have multiple homes throughout their diaspora, with different reasons for maintaining some form of attachment to each.

Native American diaspora

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New World history records many diaspora-like events or mass migratory patterns (nomadism) wherein major populations of the indigenous peoples in the Americas were either dispersed or transported. These dynamics continue. Virtually every Native American tribe, community and confederation in North, South and Central America has this experience as part of their family stories. Colonialists divided indigenous communities intentionally; however, strong Native American blood lines remain visible. These document-based methods of proving Native American blood lines largely preclude all but reservation families. However, a large number of Native American peoples were nomadic, and so, do not fit the meaning of the diaspora.

European diasporas

Further information: European diasporas

Greek Diaspora 6th c. BC

European history contains numerous diaspora-like events. In ancient times, the trading and colonising activities of the Greek tribes from the Balkans and Asia Minor spread people of Greek culture, religion and language around the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins, establishing Greek city states in Sicily, southern Italy, northern Libya, eastern Spain, the south of France, and the Black sea coasts. Greeks founded more than 400 colonies.^[12] Alexander the Great's conquest of the Achaemenid Empire marked the beginning of the Hellenistic period, which was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization in Asia and Africa, with Greek ruling classes established in Egypt, southwest Asia and northwest India.^[13]

The Migration Period relocations, which included several phases, are just one set of many in history. The first phase Migration Period displacement from between AD 300 and 500 included relocation of the Goths (Ostrogoths and Visigoths), Vandals, Franks, various other Germanic people (Burgundians, Langobards, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Suebi, Alemanni, Varangians and Normans), Alans and numerous Slavic tribes. The second phase, between AD 500 and 900, saw Slavic, Turkic, and other tribes on the move, resettling in Eastern Europe and gradually making it predominantly Slavic, and affecting Anatolia and the Caucasus as the first Turkic tribes (Avars, Bulgars, Huns, Khazars, Pechenegs and possibly Magyars) arrived. The last phase of the migrations saw the coming of the Hungarian Magyars and the Viking expansion out of Scandinavia into Europe and the British Isles, as well as Greenland and Iceland.

Such colonizing migrations cannot be considered indefinitely as diasporas; over very long periods, eventually the migrants assimilate into the settled area so completely that it becomes their new homeland. Thus the modern population of Hungary do not feel that they belong in the Western Siberia that the Hungarian Magyars left 12 centuries ago; and the English descendants of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes do not yearn to reoccupy the plains of Northwest Germany.

In 1492, a Spanish expedition headed by Christopher Columbus reached the Americas, after which European exploration and colonization rapidly expanded. In the 16th century perhaps 240,000 Europeans entered American ports.^[14] Immigration continued to North and South America. In the 19th century alone over 50 million people left Europe for the Americas.^[15]

A specific 19th century example was the Irish diaspora, beginning mid-19th century and brought about by a combination of harsh imperial British policies and the An Gorta Mór or "Great Hunger" of the Irish Famine. Estimates are that between 45% and 85% of Ireland's population emigrated, to countries including Britain, the United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand. The size of the diaspora is demonstrated by the number of people around the world who claim Irish ancestry; some sources put the figure at 80-100 million.

African diaspora

One of the largest diasporas of pre-modern times was the African Diaspora, which began at the beginning of the 16th century. During the Atlantic Slave Trade, twenty million people from West, West-Central and South-east Africa were transported to the Western Hemisphere as slaves. This population and their descendants were major influences on the culture of English, French, Portuguese and Spanish New World colonies.

The Arab slave trade also transported Africans from the continent, although the effect of the Diaspora to the east is more subtle.

Asian diaspora

Chinese emigration (also known as the Chinese Diaspora^{[citation needed]}) first occurred thousands of years ago. The mass emigration that occurred from the 19th century to 1949 was caused mainly by wars and starvation in mainland China, as well as political corruption. Most immigrants were illiterate or poorly educated peasants and coolies (Chinese: 苦力, translated: Hard Labor), who immigrated to developing countries in need of labor, such as the Americas, Australia, South Africa, Southeast Asia, Malaya and other places.

The largest Asian diaspora outside of Southeast Asia is that of the Indian diaspora. The overseas Indian community estimated at over 25 million is spread across many regions in the world, on every continent. It constitutes a diverse, heterogeneous and eclectic global community representing different regions, languages, cultures, and faiths. The common thread that binds them together is the idea of India and its intrinsic values (see Desi).^{[citation needed]}

The Romani are widely dispersed with their largest concentrated populations in Europe. Linguistic and genetic evidence indicates the Romanies originated from the Indian subcontinent, emigrating from India towards the northwest no earlier than the 11th century.^[16]

At least three waves of Nepalese diaspora can be identified. The earliest wave dates back to hundreds of years as early marriage and high birthrates propelled Hindu settlement eastward across Nepal, then into Sikkim and Bhutan. A backlash developed in the 1980s as Bhutan's political elites realized that Bhutanese Buddhists were at risk of becoming a minority in their own country. At present, the United States is working towards resettling more than 60,000 ethnic Nepalese from Bhutan in the US as a third country settlement programme.^[17]

A second wave was driven by British recruitment of mercenary soldiers beginning around 1815 and resettlement after retirement in the British Isles and southeast Asia. The third wave began in the 1970s as land shortages intensified and the pool of educated labor greatly exceeded job openings in Nepal. Job-related emigration created Nepalese enclaves in India, the wealthier countries of the Middle East, Europe and North America. Current estimates of the number of Nepalese living outside Nepal range well up into the millions.

The 20th century and beyond

It has been suggested that Jamaican diaspora be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

The twentieth century saw huge population movements. Some involved large-scale transfers of people by government action. For instance, Stalin shipped millions of people to Eastern Russia, Central Asia, and Siberia both as punishment and to stimulate development of the frontier regions. Some migrations occurred to avoid conflict and warfare. Other diasporas were created as a consequence of political decisions, such as the end of colonialism.

WWII and the end of colonial rule

As WWII unfolded, Nazi Germany deported and killed millions of Jews. Some Jews fled from persecution to western Europe and the Americas before borders closed. Later other eastern European refugees moved west, away from Soviet annexation,^[18] and the Iron Curtain regimes after World War II.

After WWII, the Soviet Union and Communist-controlled Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia expelled hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans, who had lived in eastern countries for nearly two centuries, in retaliation for Nazi invasion and attempts at annexation. Most moved west, with tens of thousands seeking refuge in the United States.

Galicia in northern Spain sent many emigrants into exile during Franco's military regime from 1936 to his death in 1975.

Following WWII, the creation of the state of Israel, and a series of uprisings against colonialist rule, the Middle East was almost entirely emptied of its historic Jewish populations of nearly 1 million. The majority found refuge in Israel and became known as Mizrahi Jews. At the same time, the Palestinian diaspora was created as a result of the establishment of Israel in 1948, in which 750,000 people were displaced. It was enlarged by the effects of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War; today the Palestinian refugee population is the oldest in the world.

The 1947 Partition resulted in the migration of millions of people between India and Pakistan. Many were murdered in the unrest of the period, with estimates of fatalities up to 10 million people. Thousands of former subjects of the British Raj went to the UK from the Indian subcontinent after India and Pakistan became independent in 1947.

From the late nineteenth century Korea, and formally from 1910, became a Japanese colony. Millions of Chinese fled to western provinces not occupied by Japan (i.e., in particular Ssuchuan/Szechwan and Yunnan in the Southwest and Shensi and Kansu in the Northwest) and to Southeast Asia. More than 100,000 Koreans moved across the Amur River into Eastern Russia (then the Soviet Union) away from the Japanese.^{[citation needed]} During the Japanese war with China (1937-1945), Japan established Manchuria as a multi-ethnic puppet state, Manchukuo.

After 1959 invasion of the Chinese People's Liberation Army into Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama and his government fled to India, followed by mass emigration of population of Tibet Southward, fleeing without papers through Himalayas from Chinese persecution and Sinization, which lasted till the middle 1960-ies and to a smaller degree continues until now. It is estimated that ca. 200,000 Tibetans live now dispersed worldwide, half of whom in India, Nepal and Bhutan. The Tibetan Government in Exile establishes the Green Book to Tibetan refugees.

The Cold War and the formation of post-colonial states

During and after the Cold War-era, huge populations of refugees migrated from conflict, especially from then-developing countries.

Upheaval in the Middle East and Central Asia, much of which related to power struggles between the United States and the Soviet Union, created a host of new refugee populations which developed into global diasporas. The Afghan diaspora resulted from the 1979 invasion by the former Soviet Union; both official and unofficial records^{[citation needed]} indicate that the war displaced over 6 million people, resulting in the creation of the largest refugee population worldwide today. Many Iranians fled the 1979 Iranian Revolution following the fall of the Shah.

The Assyrian diaspora expanded as the Civil War in Lebanon, the coming into power of the Islamic republic of Iran, the Ba'athist dictatorship in Iraq, and the present-day unrest in Iraq pushed even more Assyrians on the roads of exile.^[19] Tens of thousands of Iraqis have fled conflict in their nation since the beginning of the American occupation of Iraq in 2003.

In Southeast Asia, many Vietnamese people emigrated to France and later millions to the United States, Australia and Canada after the Cold War-related Vietnam War. Later, 30,000 French colons from Cambodia were displaced after being expelled by the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot.^{[citation needed]} The mass exodus of Vietnamese people from Vietnam coined the term 'Boat people'.

In Africa, a new series of diasporas formed following the end of colonial rule. Uganda expelled 80,000 South Asians in 1972. Hundreds of thousands of people fled from the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 into neighboring countries. Thousands of refugees from deteriorating conditions in Zimbabwe have gone to South Africa. The long war in Congo has also created massive numbers of refugees.

In South America, thousands of Chilean and Uruguayan refugees fled to Europe during periods of military rule in the 1970s and '80s. A million Colombian refugees have left Colombia since 1965 to escape the country's violence and civil wars. In Central America, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Costa Ricans and Panamanians fled conflict and poor economic conditions.

Migration diasporas: A subject of debate

Some scholars argue that when economic migrants gather in such numbers outside their home region, they form an effective Diaspora:^{[citation needed]} for instance, the Turkish Gastarbeiter in Germany; South Asians in the Persian Gulf; Filipinos worldwide; and Chinese workers in Japan.

Hispanics or Latinos in the USA are sometimes referred to as a newly developed "diaspora" or dispersions of immigrant peoples from Latin America into the United States, and ethnic groups continued their cultural distinction, such as Mexican-Americans, Puerto Rican people, Cuban-Americans, etc.

Since the 1970s, Mexican immigrants to the United States have been chiefly economic refugees coming for work; many have crossed the border illegally or remained undocumented aliens who never acquired legal residency or US citizenship.

Earlier mass movements of rural migration in the U.S. occurred: The two waves of the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the North, Midwest and Western states comprised a diaspora and resulted in urbanization of more than 6.5 million African Americans from 1910-1970. Many were recruited by northern businesses eager for labor for their developing industries, but the people were also "voting with their feet" to leave behind segregation, lynchings, disfranchisement and limited chances in the southern rural economy.

Historians identify as another diaspora the mass migration of people during the Dust Bowl years: the "Okies" from the drought-ridden American Great Plains and "Arkies" from the Ozarks of the American South in the 1930s; the majority of both groups went west to California.^{[citation needed]}

More recently, some observers have labeled evacuation from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina a diaspora,^[who?] since a significant number of evacuees have not been able to return, yet maintain aspirations to do so. Other scholars maintain that inclusion of such migrations under the heading of "diaspora" has caused a blurring of terms.^{[citation needed]}

The International Organization for Migration said there are more than 200 million migrants around the world today. Europe hosted the largest number of immigrants, with 70.6 million people in 2005, the latest year for which figures are available. North America, with over 45.1 million immigrants, is second, followed by Asia, which hosts nearly 25.3 million. Most of today's migrant workers come from Asia.^[20]

In popular culture

Futuristic science fiction sometimes refers to a diaspora, taking place when much of humanity leaves Earth to settle on far-flung "colony worlds".

İsmet Özel wrote a poem titled "Of not being a Jew" in which he lamented the fact that he felt like a pursued Jew, but had no second country to which he could go. He writes:

Your load is heavy

He's very heavy

Just because he's your brother

Your brothers are your pogroms

When you reach the doorsteps of your friends

Starts your Diaspora

See also

-

* List of diasporas Armenian diaspora Assyrian diaspora Basque diaspora British diaspora Greek diaspora Irish diaspora Jamaican diaspora Jewish diaspora Mexican diaspora Polonia Quebec diaspora Refugees of Iraq Romani diaspora Tamil diaspora Tibetan diaspora Turkish diaspora

boat people Displaced person Ethnic cleansing Exodus Expatriate Human migration Immigration Population transfer Refugee Rural exodus Slave trade Ummah

Citations and notes

1. ^ p.81, Kantor
2. ^ pp.53, 105-106, Kantor
3. ^ p.1, Barclay
4. ^ pp.96-97, Galil & Weinfeld
5. ^ pp.1-2, Tetlow
6. ^ Diaspora
7. ^ Katrina scatters a grim diaspora BBC
8. ^ ^{a b} Out of the Hadhramaut
9. ^ Katrina scatters a grim Diaspora BBC
10. ^ The world's successful diasporas - Research - World Business
11. ^ Diasporas of Highly Skilled and Migration of Talent
12. ^ Early development of Greek society
13. ^ Hellenistic Civilization
14. ^ James Axtell, The Columbian Mosaic in Colonial America
15. ^ David Eltis Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic slave trade
16. ^ Kalaydjieva, Luba (2001). "Genetic studies of the Roma (Gypsies): A review". BMC Medical Genetics 2: 5. doi:10.1186/1471-2350-2-5. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2350/2/5. Retrieved on 2008-06-16. 
17. ^ Bhaumik, Subir (November 7, 2007). "Bhutan refugees are 'intimidated'". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7082586.stm. Retrieved on 2008-04-25. 
18. ^ An International Conference on the Baltic Archives Abroad
19. ^ Codeswitching Worldwide II,^[vague] by Rodolfo Jacobson
20. ^ Rich world needs more foreign workers: report, FOXNews.com, December 02, 2008

References

• Kantor, Mattis, The Jewish time line encyclopedia: a year-by-year history from Creation to the Present, (New updated edition), Jason Aronson, Northvale NJ, 1992
• Barclay, John M. G., (ed.), Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004
• Galil, Gershon, & Weinfeld, Moshe, Studies in Historical Geography and Biblical Historiography: Presented to Zekharyah Ḳalai, BRILL, 2000
• Tetlow, Elisabeth Meier, Women, Crime, and Punishment in Ancient Law and Society, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005
• Cohen, Robin, Global Diasporas: An Introduction, University of Washington Press Seattle, 1997
• Shain, Yossi, Kinship and Diasporas in International Politics, Michigan University Press, 2007
• Braziel, Jana Evans. 2008. Diaspora - an introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

External links

• Livius.org: Diaspora

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - jødernes spredning, jøder i landflygtighed, isoleret trossamfund

Nederlands (Dutch)
diaspora (verstrooiing van volk buiten eigen land)

Français (French)
n. - Diaspora

Deutsch (German)
n. - Diaspora, Zerstreuung

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (θρησκ., μτφ.) η Διασπορά (των Εβραίων)

Italiano (Italian)
diaspora

Português (Portuguese)
n. - diáspora (f)

Русский (Russian)
диаспора

Español (Spanish)
n. - diáspora, dispersión

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - relig. förskingring

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
犹太人的离散, 大移居, 离散的犹太人

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 猶太人的離散, 大移居, 離散的猶太人

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 유대인의 분산, (이스라엘 밖의) 유대인 주거지

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - ユダヤ人の離散, 離散したユダヤ人

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) حاله التشتت لشعب بحيث يستقرون في دول أخرى, اليهود المشتتون في أرجا العالم‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮יהדות התפוצות, הפזורה היהודית בגולה‬

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