There's always a time for American people when a new acquaintance the question, "so... where is your family from?" This question may sound simple, especially for people from other countries, but for Americans, it can be quite loaded. One must stop and ponder whether their new buddy wants to know if their parents went to high school together (mine did) or if they mean where is my family from ancestrally. It's almost like a game. People try to guess, based on the color of your eyes or the shape of your nose, from where your great-grandfathers hailed.
In some families, this question is to be taken seriously. My best friend growing up was half Japanese on her mother's side. Even though her Japanese relatives had come to America in the early 20th century, they frequently participated in Japanese cultural events and made special efforts to be involved with other Japanese-American people. In my family, on the other hand, my grandma was born a year after her parents immigrated to the US from Hungary in 1932. I always wondered why she didn't speak Hungarian, and she always just told me it was because they wanted her to be "American." I think this is a common enough story for most American people... some families clung to their culture and ways, while others shed them in favor of "Americanization," which they viewed as the ideal situation for themselves and their children.
The Karim reading on diaspora and their place in a nationalistic world was really fascinating to me because it is a subject with which most people can identify. Even though I personally do not feel that I am a part of this kind of sub-culture, I know many many people who do. When I was a child, my friend's family often took me with them to their Japanese festivals so I could watch my friend do the traditional dances she learned. I remember how much pride she took in being something special, in belonging to the group, and I often asked my mother how long it would take me to become Japanese (I meant physically transform). They did have cute robes and my friend's hair was so shiny (mine was curly and frizzy). My mom didn't tell me that I couldn't be Japanese because I was Italian, Hungarian, French Canadian, German and English. She just told me that I couldn't change who I was anymore than I could turn into a flower.
I guess the question from this weeks reading and class would have to be about what effect the diaspora will have on the nationalistic world. Do these pockets of diaspora somehow take something away from the overall nation state? I guess it depends on who you ask, but as far as I'm concerned... I think it makes this country more interesting. If I could go back in time and tell my great-grandparents that it would have been ok to teach their daughters Hungarian and they would still have had happy lives, I might. But then again I might not. My grandma and her sister were the first in their family to go away to college- at Ohio State, where my grandma met my grandpa. Perhaps if her parents had been a little more conservative about the ways of the so called "old world" I wouldn't be here today.
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I smiled when I read your post because I too fell in love with Japanese culture when I was young. My dad often traveled on business to Japan then, and I eventually visited Japan myself when I was 13. When I was little, I loved dressing up in my kimono and learning Japanese words from his business colleagues. I think my desire to become a diplomat started about then. :-)
Anyways onto the question of your post. I think there has been a shift in the US on how we view cultural differences. Back in the time our grandparents were living, remaining true to the ways of the "old country" often was a cause for discrimination. There were no anti-discrimination laws back then and dressing in a "strange" way or having a funny accent could seriously impair one's ability to earn a livelihood. So many did what they had to do and tried their best to become all-American, whatever that means. I think it's only today, with our country's embrace of multiculturalism (well, sort of) do we now have an interest in preserving and maybe even boasting of our roots. Myself, I've learned to cook pirogies from my Ukranian grandmother, and been to Greek parties complete with lamb on a spit in the backyard with my mom's side of the family, but most of the time I just feel like a generic Caucasian. While that feels a bit sad to me, generic was the goal of many new immigrants back then. Overall I guess a certain amount of assimilation is good and healthy in order to get a job and socialize with people outside of one's ethnic group, but I do appreciate today's celebration of difference and cultural preservation.
-Tory
I agree with what you're both saying. Also, I feel like today our generation is really striving to take cues from our heritage and become more separate from everyone else. Sometimes I feel like it is the 'cool' thing, like you were saying in your post, to have this cultural identity that you are known by and that sets you apart. We all have these unique identities and I feel like a lot of people are trying to take advantage of that and use their uniqueness to develop who they are. I think it's inevitable that at first there is going to be this striving to assimilate into the new culture so they don't stand out, especially whenever our grandparents and great-grandparents were coming to the U.S. because they were the 'other.' I think that attitudes are definitely changing today, and it is for the best that our generation is tending to embrace their culture, but it will be interesting to look at the attitudes of immigrants and whether or not the majority decide to embrace their heritage or just try to fit in.
Great post, Emily! In response to your question, I agree to what everyone else has alluded to. I think that these pockets of diaspora are the entities that become the overall nation-state, at least to our overall nation-state. I always thought it was strange that everyone use the analogy that the United States is a melting pot, but in reality I have always thought of it as a salad bowl. Everyone brings their own ingredients, or cultures, and puts it in the bowl to add to the overall flavor. Diasporas bring their own unique cultures to the United States and are the foundations that contribute to our society as a whole, they culture is not homogeneous and neither is our nationalism. Everyone's culture is inextricably linked to the norms of where we came from- whether that is the nation their grandparents came from, their region, their state, their hometown, or even the dynamics in how their parents raised them. However people always want to be accepted to the main group, so assimilation is just part of the process of being somewhere other than where you came from.