A diaspora (in Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of, διασπορά – "a scattering [of seeds]") is the movement or migration of a group of people, such as those sharing a national Nationality is membership of a nation or sovereign state. Nationality can be acquired by birth within the jurisdiction of a state, by inheritance from parents, or by a process of naturalization. Nationality affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the state and/or ethnic An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, consisting of a common language, a common culture (often including a shared religion) and a tradition of common ancestry (corresponding to a history of endogamy) identity, away from an established or ancestral homeland. When capitalized, the Diaspora refers to the exile Galut or Golus , means literally exile. Galut or Golus classically refers to the exile of the Jewish people from the Land of Israel. There were altogether four such exiles. These are said to be alluded to in Abraham's biblical vision of the future of his descendants according to Bereishit Rabba (44:17): of the Jewish The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation. Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos people and Jews living outside The Jewish diaspora <di-ASP-ora> is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות, or 'exile' that encompassed several forced expulsions of Israelites from what is now the states of Israel, Jordan and parts of Lebanon. The modern Hebrew term of Tefutzot תפוצות, "scattered", was introduced by the American academic Simon ancient The Land of Israel is, according to the Hebrew Bible, the region which was promised by God to the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham's grandson. This land forms part of the Abrahamic, Jacob and Israel covenants. Mainstream Jewish tradition regards the promise as applying to all Jews or modern day Israel , officially the State of Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל (help·info), Medīnat Yisrā'el; Arabic: دَوْلَةُ إِسْرَائِيلَ‎, Dawlat Isrā'īl), is a country in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the Israel.

Origins and development

The first mention of a diaspora created as a result of exile is found in Septuagint The Septuagint , or simply "LXX", referred to in critical works by the abbreviation , is the Koine Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the 3rd and 2nd Centuries BC in Alexandria. It was begun by the third century BC and completed before 132 BC in the phrase "esē diaspora en pasais basileias tēs gēs" translated to mean ‘thou shalt be a dispersion in all kingdoms of the earth’. Its use began to develop from this original sense when the Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible is a term referring to the books of the Jewish Bible (Tanakh) as originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew, with some Biblical Aramaic. It is also called the Hebrew Scriptures. The term closely corresponds to contents of the Jewish Tanakh and the Protestant Old Testament (see also Judeo-Christian) and does not include the was translated into Greek^[1]; the word Diaspora then was used to refer to the population of Jews The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation. Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos exiled from Israel Israel , officially the State of Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל (help·info), Medīnat Yisrā'el; Arabic: دَوْلَةُ إِسْرَائِيلَ‎, Dawlat Isrā'īl), is a country in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the in 607 BCE by the Babylonians Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi (fl. ca. 1696 – 1654 BC, short chronology) created an empire out of the territories of the former Akkadian Empire. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, and retained the, and from Judea Judea or Judæa is the name given to the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel (Hebrew: ארץ ישראל‎ Eretz Yisrael) during the period of Classical Antiquity, from roughly the 8th century BCE (Assyrian rule) to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed to Syria Palaestina following Bar Kokhba's revolt in 70 CE by the Roman Empire The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus.^[2] It subsequently came to be used to refer interchangeably, but exclusively, to the historical movements of the dispersed ethnic population of Israel Israel , officially the State of Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל (help·info), Medīnat Yisrā'el; Arabic: دَوْلَةُ إِسْرَائِيلَ‎, Dawlat Isrā'īl), is a country in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the, the cultural development of that population, or the population itself.^[3] When capitalized and without modifiers (that is, simply the Diaspora), the term refers specifically to the Jewish diaspora The Jewish diaspora <di-ASP-ora> is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות, or 'exile' that encompassed several forced expulsions of Israelites from what is now the states of Israel, Jordan and parts of Lebanon. The modern Hebrew term of Tefutzot תפוצות, "scattered", was introduced by the American academic Simon.^[4]; when uncapitalized the word "diaspora" may be used to refer to refugee Under the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees from 1951, a refugee is a person who , "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such populations of other origins or ethnicities.^[5][6] 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.^[7] In Ancient Greece Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian the term diaspora meant "the scattered" and was used to refer to citizens of a dominant city-state Whereas nation-states rely on a common heritage, be it linguistic, historical, economic, etc., the city-state relies on the common interest in the function of the urban center. The urban center and its activity supplies the livelihoods of all urbanites inhabiting the city-state who immigrated to a conquered land with the purpose of colonisation Colonization, , occurs whenever any one or more species populate an area. The term, which is derived from the Latin colere, "to inhabit, cultivate, frequent, practice, tend, guard, respect," originally related to humans. However, 19th century biogeographers dominated the term to describe the activities of birds, bacteria, or plant, to assimilate the territory into the empire.^[8]

The first recorded usage of the word "diaspora" in the English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into South-East Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria. Following the economic, political, military, scientific, cultural, and colonial influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, and of was in 1876 referring to refugees of the Irish famine^[9][10]. The term became more widely assimilated into English English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into South-East Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria. Following the economic, political, military, scientific, cultural, and colonial influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, and of by the mid 1950s, with long-term expatriates An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing or legal residence. The word comes from the Latin term expatriātus from ex ("out of") and patriā the ablative case of patria ("country, fatherland") in significant numbers from other particular countries or regions also being referred to as a diaspora.^{[11][6][12][13]} An academic field, diaspora studies Diaspora studies is an academic field established in the late twentieth century to study dispersed ethnic populations, which are often termed diaspora peoples. The usage of the term diaspora carries the connotation of forced resettlement, due to expulsion, slavery, racism, or war, especially nationalist conflict, has become established relating to this 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. Diasporic cultural development Social change as a sociological term is defined as, alterations in basic structures of a social group or society. Social change is an ever present phenomenon in social life, but has become especially intense in the modern era. The origins of modern sociology can be traced to attempts to understand the dramatic changes shattering the modern world often assumes a different course from that of the population in the original place of settlement. Over time, remotely separated communities tend to vary in culture, traditions, language and other factors. The last vestiges of cultural affiliation in a diaspora is often found in community resistance to language change Language change is the phenomenon whereby phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of language vary over time. All languages change continually. At any given moment the English language, for example, has a huge variety within itself: descriptive linguists call this variety synchronic variation. From these different forms and in maintenance of traditional religious practice.

European diasporas

European history contains numerous diaspora-like events. In ancient times, the trading and colonising activities of the Greek Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian tribes from the Balkans The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains, which run through the centre of Bulgaria into eastern Serbia. The region has a combined area of 550,000 km2 (212,000 sq mi) and a population of 55 million people.[citation needed] and Asia Minor Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the western two-thirds of the Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, Georgia to the northeast, the Armenian Highland to the east, Mesopotamia to the southeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea spread people of Greek culture, religion and language around the Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a completely and Black Sea The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects it to the Aegean Sea region of the Mediterranean. These waters basins, establishing Greek city states Whereas nation-states rely on a common heritage, be it linguistic, historical, economic, etc., the city-state relies on the common interest in the function of the urban center. The urban center and its activity supplies the livelihoods of all urbanites inhabiting the city-state in Sicily Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, comprising an autonomous region of Italy. Minor islands around it, such as the Aeolian Islands, are part of Sicily. Its official name is Regione Autonoma Siciliana (English:Sicilian Autonomous Region), southern Italy Southern Italy or the Mezzogiorno (Midday) generally refers to the southern portion of the continental Italian peninsula and Sicily, historically forming the Kingdom of Two Sicilies plus the island of Sardinia. It encompasses the modern regions of Basilicata, Campania, Calabria, Apulia and Molise, which lie in Italy's south, and Abruzzo which is, northern Libya Libya (Arabic: ليبيا ‎ Lībiyā pronunciation ; Libyan vernacular: Lībya pronunciation (help·info); Amazigh: ), officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya ( Arabic: الجماهيرية العربية الليبية الشعبية الإشتراكية العظمى ‎ Al-Jamāhīriyyah al-ʿArabiyyah al-Lībiyyah aš-Š, eastern Spain Spain (pronounced /ˈspeɪn/ spayn; Spanish: España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.[note 6] Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for, the south of France Southern France , colloquially known as le Midi, , and the Black sea The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects it to the Aegean Sea region of the Mediterranean. These waters coasts. Greeks founded more than 400 colonies.^[14] Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon , popularly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Μέγας Ἀλέξανδρος, Mégas Aléxandros), was a Greeki[›] king (basileus) of Macedon. He is the most celebrated member of the Argead Dynasty and created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander received a classical's conquest of the Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire , also known as the Persian Empire, was the successor state of the Median Empire, ruling over significant portions of what would become Greater Iran. The Persian and the Median Empire taken together are also known as the Medo-Persian Empire, which encompassed the combined territories of several earlier empires marked the beginning of the Hellenistic period The Hellenistic period describes the era which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia. It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decline or decadence, between the brilliance of the Greek Classical Era and the emergence of the, which was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization in Asia Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population. During the 20th century Asia's population nearly quadrupled and Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people (as of 2009, see table) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.72% of the world's human population, with Greek ruling classes established in Egypt The Ptolemaic dynasty, was a Greek royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC, southwest Asia The Seleucid Empire was the eastern remnant of the former Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great. The Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic empire centered in the Near East in the region of the Asian part of the earlier Achaemenid Persian Empire. At the height of its power it included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's and northwest India The Indo-Greek Kingdom covered various parts of the northwest and northern Indian subcontinent during the last two centuries BC, and was ruled by more than 30 Hellenistic kings, often in conflict with each other. The kingdom was founded when the Greco-Bactrian king Demetrius invaded India early in the second century BC; in this context the.^[15]

The Migration Period The Migration period, also called the Barbarian Invasions or German: Völkerwanderung , was a period of human migration that occurred roughly between the years 300 to 700 CE in Europe, marking the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. These movements were catalyzed by profound changes within both the Roman Empire and the so- 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 The Goths were a heterogeneous East Germanic tribe, who played an important role in the history of the Roman Empire after they appeared on its lower Danube frontier in the third century (Ostrogoths The Ostrogoths were a branch of the Goths (the other branch being the Visigoths), an East Germanic tribe that played a major role in political events of the last decades of the Roman Empire 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, Huns, Khazars, Pechenegs), as well as Bulgars, 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 approximately 240,000 Europeans entered American ports.^[16] Immigration continued to North and South America. In the 19th century alone over 50 million people left Europe for the Americas.^[17]

A specific 19th century example was the Irish diaspora, beginning mid-19th century and brought about by 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.

Circassians diasporas

From 1763 to 1864, the Circassians fought against the Russians in the Russian-Circassian War only succumbing to a scorched earth campaign initiated in 1862 under General Yevdokimov.^[18][19] Afterwards, large numbers of Circassians were exiled and deported to the Ottoman Empire; others were resettled in Russia far from their home territories.^[20][21]

Middle East

Circassians began arriving in the Levant in the 1860s and 1870s through resettlement by the Ottoman Empire. Even today, various communities of Caucasian origin living in the Middle East, notably Jordan and Syria and Iraq and small communities in Israel, are known as Circassians, and a suburb of Damascus settled by these people is called al-Shirkassiyya (from Arabic shirkasī, 'Circassian'). Modern Amman was reborn after Circassians settled there in 1878 or 1887 along with other important Pre-Jordanian towns, and the first wave of Circassians who settled in Amman was from the Shapsug-Shapsigh tribe,^[22] and as a result the first four Mayors of Amman (1905–1920) were Circassians,^[22] before the establishment of Transjordan by the Hashemite Emir Abdullah. The Circassians were strong supporters of the Emir, hand by hand with the Jordanian Beduin tribes. During the French Mandate period in Syria, in the 1930s, some Circassians in the mostly Circassian town of Al-Quneitra tried to convince the French authorities to create a Circassian national home for them in the Golan Heights, but failed in their attempt^{[citation needed]}. The objective was to group the large numbers of Circassians already living in Turkey and in various Middle Eastern countries such as Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran.

In Israel, there are also a few thousand Circassians (see also Circassians in Israel), living mostly in Kfar Kama (2,000) and Rehaniya (1,000).^[23] These three villages were a part of a greater group of Circassian villages around the Golan Heights. As is the case with Jewish Israelis, and like the Druze population living within Israel (but not those living on the Golan Heights), Circassian men must complete mandatory military service upon reaching the age of majority. Many Circassians in Israel are employed in the security forces, including in the Border Guard, the Israel Defence Forces, the police and the Israel Prison Service

In Syria, the Circassians lived in the Golan Heights. After the 1967 Arab-İsraeli war, they withdrew further into Syria, specifically to Damascus. Some petitioned the U.S. in the mid-1970s for asylum. The U.S. allowed some of them to immigrate to America. They settled in New Jersey and New York City. After the Yom Kippur War two Syrian Circassian villages came back under Syrian control and some of the villagers started rebuilding their houses. Now two villages Beer Ajam and Barika are the only remaining Circassian villages in the Golan Heights.

The Circassians in Syria are generally well off. Many of them work for the government, in civil service, or for the military. The former Syrian interior minister and director of the military police, Bassam Abdel Majeed, was a Circassian.^[24] All Circassians learn Arabic and English in school; many speak Adyghe language, but their numbers are dwindling. One kindergarten in Damascus provides Adyghe language education. However there are no Circassian newspapers, and few Circassian books are printed in Syria.

The Circassians of Syria were actively involved in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Their unit was under the leadership of Jawad Anzor. 200 Circassians were killed in action. They performed well, but the overall failure to stop the founding of Israel led to the special Circassian unit being disbanded.

Cultural events play an important role in maintaining the ethnic identity of the Circassians. During holidays and weddings, they perform folk dances and songs in their traditional dress. As of 1987, approximately 100,000 Circassians lived in Syria.^[25]

In Eastern Europe

Around 1600, a number of immigrants from the Caucasus region, of somewhat privileged background, settled in the then Principality of Moldavia, and became known by the name "Cerchez" (pronounced [Cherkez] in Romanian). There, they constituted one of the principality's 72 boyar families. In time they were assimilated into the general population. However, one of the last descendants of this family, Mihail Christodulo Cerchez, was a Romanian national hero in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 (Osman Paşa, the Turkish commander of the Pleven garrison, who was an Adyge himself, surrendered his sword to Cerchez at the end of the siege). One of the main halls of the Cotroceni palace in Bucharest is named "Sala Cerchez" ("Cerchez Hall") in memory of General Cerchez.

A small minority of Circassians had lived in Kosovo Polje since the late 1880s, as mentioned by Noel Malcolm in his seminal work about that province, but they were repatriated to the Republic of Adygea in southern Russia in the late 1990s.^[26]

African diaspora

One of the largest diasporas of modern times was the African Diaspora, which began at the beginning of the 16th century. During the Atlantic Slave Trade, 9.4 to 12 million people from West, West-Central and South-east Africa survived transportation to arrive in the Western Hemisphere as slaves.^[27] This population and their descendants were major influences on the culture of English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish New World colonies.

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, literally "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 on the Indian subcontinent, emigrating from India towards the northwest no earlier than the 11th century.^[28]

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.^[29]

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

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,^[30] 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, most of whom were descendants of immigrants who had settled in those areas nearly two centuries before. This was in retaliation for the German Nazi invasion and their pan-German attempts at annexation. Most of the refugees moved to the West, including western Europe, and with tens of thousands seeking refuge in the United States.

Galicia in northern Spain sent many political activists 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 nations became more hostile in relation to their historic Jewish populations (Sephardim) of nearly 1 million people. Most of them emigrated, with the majority resettling in Israel, where they became known as Mizrahi Jews.

At the same time, the Palestinian diaspora resulted from the war to establish Israel in 1948, in which 750,000 people were displaced or emigrated from their former territory. The diaspora was enlarged by the effects of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Many Palestinians continue to live in refugee camps maintained by Middle Eastern nations, but others have resettled in the Middle East and other countries.

The 1947 Partition resulted in the migration of millions of people between India and Pakistan. Millions were murdered in the religious violence of the period, with estimates of fatalities up to 2 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, and formally from 1910, Japan made Korea a 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 the 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 the population of Tibet southward. They fled without papers through the Himalayas from Chinese persecution and Sinicization. The major emigration lasted till the middle 1960s. To a smaller degree, it has continued. It is estimated that ca. 200,000 Tibetans live now dispersed worldwide, half of whom in are 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, some of which was related to power struggles between the United States and the Soviet Union, created new refugee populations which developed into global diasporas.

In Southeast Asia, many Vietnamese people immigrated 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]} A small, predominantly Muslim ethnic group, the Cham people long residing in Cambodia, were nearly eradicated.^{[citation needed]} The mass exodus of Vietnamese people from Vietnam coined the term 'Boat people'.

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.^{[citation needed]}

Many Iranians fled the 1979 Iranian Revolution following the fall of the Shah.

The Assyrian diaspora expanded by 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 Assyrians on the roads of exile.^[31]

In Africa, a new series of diasporas formed following the end of colonial rule. In some cases as countries became independent, numerous minority descendants of Europeans emigrated; others stayed in the lands which had been family homes for generations. Uganda expelled 80,000 South Asians in 1972 and took over their businesses and properties. The 1990s Civil war in Rwanda between rival ethnic groups Hutu and Tutsi turned deadly and produced a mass influx of refugees.

In Latin America, following the 1959 Cuban Revolution and the introduction of Communism, over a million people have left Cuba.^[32]

A million Colombian refugees have left Colombia since 1965 to escape the country's violence and civil wars. In South America, thousands of Argentinan, Chilean and Uruguayan refugees fled to Europe during periods of military rule in the 1970s and 1980s. In Central America, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Costa Ricans (however, the country had no dictators) and Panamanians fled conflict and poor economic conditions.

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, in which numerous nations have been involved, has also created millions of refugees.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have fled conflict in their nation since 2003, the beginning of the US occupation of Iraq.

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 people in Japan.

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, disenfranchisement 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,^[33] 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.^[34]

In popular culture

Works of science fiction sometimes refer 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

DJ Krust and Saul Williams' track Coded Language opens with the line Whereas, breakbeats have been the missing link connecting the diasporic community to its drum woven past.

Punk rock band Rise Against entitled one of their songs Diaspora in the album The Sufferer & the Witness but later changed it to Prayer of the Refugee. The originally titled song was available on advance copies of the album.

The experimental rock outfit PINKNOISE released an EP in 2010 titled The Dance Of The Diaspora expressing the current Indian diaspora, both musically and demographically.

See also

Citations and notes

1. ^ p.81, Kantor
2. ^ pp.53, 105-106, Kantor
3. ^ p.1, Barclay
4. ^ Diaspora, Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Katrina scatters a grim diaspora BBC
6. ^ ^{a b} Out of the Hadhramaut
7. ^ pp.96-97, Galil & Weinfeld
8. ^ pp.1-2, Tetlow
9. ^ from the Greek diaspora, derived from diaspeirein "to scatter about, disperse," from dia- "about, across" + speirein "to scatter Diaspora
10. ^ Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (2004) ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson, Oxford University Press
11. ^ Katrina scatters a grim Diaspora BBC
12. ^ The world's successful diasporas - Research - World Business
13. ^ Diasporas of Highly Skilled and Migration of Talent
14. ^ Early development of Greek society
15. ^ Hellenistic Civilization
16. ^ James Axtell. "The Columbian Mosaic in Colonial America". http://www.millersville.edu/~columbus/data/art/AXTELL01.ART.
17. ^ David Eltis Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic slave trade
18. ^ Allen, W.E.D. and Muratoff, Paul (1953) Caucasian Battlefields: History of the Wars on the Turco-Caucasian Border 1828-1921 Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 107-8 OCLC 1102813
19. ^ Mufti, Shawkat (1972) Heroes and emperors in Circassian history Librairie du Liban, Beirut, OCLC 628135
20. ^ Brooks, Willis (I995) "Russia’s conquest and pacification of the Caucasus: relocation becomes a pogrom on the post-Crimean period" Nationalities Papers 23(4): pp. 675-86
21. ^ Shenfield, Stephen D. (1999) "The Circassians - A Forgotten Genocide?" in Levene, Mark and Roberts, Penny (eds.) (1999) The Massacre in History Berghahn Books, New York, ISBN 1571819347
22. ^ ^{a b} "Official Website of Amman". http://www.ammancity.gov.jo/english/accessing/aboutgam.asp. Retrieved 2009-05-21.
23. ^ "Circassians in Israel". Circassian World. http://www.circassianworld.com/Israel.html.
24. ^ http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/782/re302.htm
25. ^ A Country Study: Syria. The Library of Congress.
26. ^ "Circassians flee Kosovo conflict". BBC News. 2 August 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/143667.stm. Retrieved 30 April 2010.
27. ^ "Welcome to Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Black History", Encyclopedia Britannica
28. ^ Kalaydjieva, Luba; Gresham, D; Calafell, F (2001). "Genetic studies of the Roma (Gypsies): A review". BMC Medical Genetics 2: 5. doi:10.1186/1471-2350-2-5. PMID 11299048. PMC 31389. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2350/2/5. Retrieved 2008-06-16.
29. ^ Bhaumik, Subir (November 7, 2007). "Bhutan refugees are 'intimidated'". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7082586.stm. Retrieved 2008-04-25.
30. ^ An International Conference on the Baltic Archives Abroad
31. ^ Codeswitching Worldwide II,^[vague] by Rodolfo Jacobson
32. ^ [1]
33. ^ Anthony E. Ladd, John Marszalek, and Duane A. Gill. The Other Dispora: New Orleans Student Evacuation Impacts and Responses Surrounding Hurricane Katrina. Retrieved on 2009-11-24.
34. ^ 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.
• Oonk, G, 'Global Indian Diasporas: trajectories of migration and theory, Amsterdam University Press, 2007.

External links

• Livius.org: Diaspora
• http://asiansinafrica.com
• DIASPORAS.SE

Categories: Diasporas | Diaspora studies | Greek loanwords

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