Week 3: Diasporas and Identity

I found this week’s discussion and reading on diasporas an interesting topic to consider. As Professor Hayden pointed out, deterritorialization is the idea around which diasporic communities are defined. When you no longer have that shared physical space of culture, ideology, and nationalism how does your identity transform and evolve? So much of our identity is formed around our learned behaviours as children growing up in a very culture-specific environment. Even the instance of the homeschooled little boy who is grows in a homogenous WASP-dominated town, and who many public school-educated urbanites would view as a bit of a philistine, has his own sense of identity based around the ideas he was fed in his development. No matter how comfortable we are in our nation, when that space is lost and we are placed in a new one, internal identity crises are bound to occur. One doesn’t shed their own cultural skin just by being in a foreign environment, some find it easier to adapt than others, but the effects of our cultural systems can still be seen in the way we interact with others in our new environment, or the way we portray that cultural aspect of our identity.

So far graduate school has strained my ability to think, but one question that I think deserves a little space to dwell amongst the mess of theories still settling in up there is-what is the difference of forming identity between diasporic communities who have consciously made the decision to be detached from their motherland, and those who are forced to find a new space?

There isn’t the space, and I don’t have the mental capacity to consider how identity is formed among those immigrant populations who willingly took the risk to settle in a new place. There are a very high number of factors to consider-the accessibility of the new place they are assimilating into, the personal openness to compromising their identity for a new one, the exposure of their distinct culture they provide future generations in their families and communities, etc. It’s a lot to consider, and one that I don’t have the experience to write on.

But obviously choice plays a role, I’m sure Sudanese refugees in Chad aren’t trying to fully embrace their new surroundings. Their situation is much too tenuous, temporary, and uncertain. My situation pales in comparison, but as a Korean adoptee, I can reflect a little on what it means to be part of a diasporic community that did not consciously choose to be placed into a new cultural context. It is a bit of a unique situation to be in, we truly fill that ‘3^rd space’ mentioned by Homi Bhabha in the Karim article, and this crisis in identity affects some adoptees much more than others. Unlike ethnic communities that make up our cities, we have a much more fractured and intangible sense of shared identity. For those who it is a formidable part of their identity, the struggle to reconcile the pull of two motherlands can be just that, a struggle. For others, there is no issue, they are obligated to identify themselves as an adoptee but it is secondary to the other parts of how they view themselves. Regardless of these sorts of identity dynamics, the underlying common point remains.

What I have seen living both here and back in Korea is the formation of a true diasporic community with a voice and an agenda. I think just as when immigrants unite around issues that affect their ethnicity, Korean adoptees have done the same. This has manifested itself in a pretty powerful way, the adoptee population in Korea has succeeded in changing the citizenship laws in South Korea so that holding dual citizenship will be a possibility of next year. This effort was led through media outlets and creating public pressure on the government via tools of mass media. It is a strong example of how one diaspora has not only strengthened its sense of self, but affected actual political change. The foundation of the movement is all about the idea of choice. One of the primary arguments is that adoptees were not afforded the choice to abandon their motherland, and many want to find their way back. Korea is definitely not quite ready to comfortably embrace them, or to confront the ongoing issues of transnational adoption in their country. But the power of the adoptee diaspora has succeeded in not only the legislative aspect, but more importantly opening a space for a new controversial dialogue in a generally rigid and conservative society.

Lastly, there is an irony in all of this-if the adoptee community in Korea succeeds in their goal to reduce the number of transnational adoptions, they are simultaneously working for the reduction of their own community.