Date of Award
2007
Document Type
Honors Thesis (Open Access)
Department
Colby College. English Dept.
Advisor(s)
Anindyo Roy
Abstract
In light of these continuing debates concerning immigration, national identity and belonging, re-examinations of immigrant and ethnic communities, often referred to as ‘diaspora,’ have become increasingly popular and prudent. Khachig Tololian, editor of Diaspora magazine, calls diaspora “exemplary communities of the transnational moment.”5 In an increasingly globalized world, where labor, capital, and resources are passed fluidly from continent to continent, diaspora are created by relocation or displacement of immigrant workers and their descendents.6 For these unskilled, immigrant laborers, middle class immigrants, and the children of both groups, adaptation to the culture, society, and life in a new ‘host’ country can be difficult, to say the least. So, in response to a new cultural landscape and a tenuous sense belonging, as well as to maintain a connection with a shared past, citizens of the world’s numerous diaspora replicate linguistic, cultural, and social norms, creating their own “cultural space[s]” that mirror and often replace a past relationship to their land of origin, or ‘home’.
Keywords
Ethnic groups in literature, Postcolonialism Identity, Nationalism and literature South Asian literature, Asian diaspora Immigrants
Recommended Citation
Zajchowski, Christopher A., "Dialectics of Diaspora Space: a Study of Contemporary, Diasporic, South Asian Fiction" (2007). Honors Theses. Paper 269.https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/269
Copyright
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