What is our Definition of Diaspora

Photo Credit: Dr. Roland Holou (www.RolandHolou.com).

 

Welcome to Diaspora Engagement Blog !

We are very excited you chose to visit our blog.

On this blog, powered by Diaspora Engagement ® (aka DiasporaEngager), you will learn about and interact with the international Diasporas.

Before we start blogging about more serious topics, let’s make sure that we all have the same understanding of the term “Diaspora”.

Our Definition of Diaspora

In our context, the word Diaspora is referring to anyone who, for any reason, is living in a country or town that is not his or her place of origin or ancestry or the place s/he calls home. Some people may call them an immigrant, a stranger, or an alien. Some may argue that most individuals can be remotely linked to a country of origin different than their current country of residence, and therefore, most of us are alien, immigrant, or a Diaspora of somewhere. In the US for instance, except the native Indians, everyone else can be considered an alien or immigrant. Even in that case, the Indians themselves have had to migrate from somewhere before reaching the US. The longer the duration of the stay of someone in a foreign land, the higher the likelihood that his or her descendants think that they (the descendants) are native of that place that their ancestry moved to long ago. That’s why, because they are not first, second, or third-generation immigrant, many people easily forget that they are a stranger of what they call “our land”, and unfortunately treat the new immigrants like the “bad people” or like “those who are taking our lands or our country”, or like “those who don’t even speak our language well”, or like “those who don’t behave like us”. In reality, those new immigrants (new arrivals) are usually just trying to go through the obligatory survival and integration steps that the ancestors of those who are calling them “strangers” and who think they are native did long ago. Therefore, without entering into any political and demographic debates, the word “Diaspora” as used in our context can be applied to any human being.

In our future posts, we will give you more details about who we are and what we do, and how we may help you.  The Diaspora Engagement platform, DiasporaEngager.com, allows you to learn about the international diaspora and ways you can engage with them locally or worldwide.

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