Diaspora Generation
The older I’ve gotten, the more I realize that being a diaspora kid has definitely shaped my personality. The most obvious example of this is how I’m weirdly comfortable with long distance relationships. Distance between me and a loved one has never felt inherently stressful, because I grew up with most of my family continents away. (Weekend trips to grandma’s? THAT seems foreign.)
People like to simplify the diaspora experience as “never quite belonging,” but I would describe it more like always belonging in multiple places. It’s like cultural polygamy. For third culture kids, it’s always necessary to participate in and remain loyal to two different lifestyles, as if balancing time between two simultaneously jealous girlfriends. (Shoutout to everyone whose relatives in the homeland asked them “do you like it better here or there?”)
Personally, I think this experience had its cognitive advantages. Living in two cultures meant I had a built-in immunity to jingoism, and it has given me a more critical lens towards nationalistic policies and propaganda. Also, growing up around multiple languages allegedly improved my visual-spatial skills, memory, and creativity. But there were also cognitive burdens associated with being a transplant.
I don’t go through life with the self-assurance of someone whose forefathers walked the same path. I’ll never be a nepotism baby. And even if we ignore the big picture stuff, diaspora doubts always pop up in my day-to-day life.
Having appropriate social interactions when switching between ask culture and guess culture is still really difficult for me. Plus, it’s kind of scary figuring out the right time to showcase unique aspects of my identity in professional environments. (Comment poll: Should I ask to take Diwali off during my first month at a new job?)
In discussing diaspora symptoms with my friends, I realize that it’s not only POCs and immigrants that have these feelings. Most of my White/American friends feel similar types of pressure too. That’s because almost everyone I know has made a huge move for work or for school sometime in their life.
The general willingness to uproot oneself for a career has steadily increased in recent years. A 2022 Gallup Poll on the State of the Global Workplace found that 1 in 5 workers (20%) in the US and Canada predict that they will relocate for work in the next year. This figure is up by 3% since last year.
The is exactly the opposite of what I would have expected. With more companies embracing remote working, one would think that people would take advantage by staying in their established routines. Instead, it seems many people have taken shifting workplace trends as an increased freedom to explore new lands.
Again, there are pros and cons. With more relocation, formerly isolated communities experience more diversity of thought, an influx of outside resources, and infrastructure development. But as anyone who has ever rented an apartment in a big city knows, “development” is often code for gentrification and displacement.
What I’m more interested in is the social implications of this trend. What will it be like a world where nobody lives where they grew up? Or where their parents grew up? I’d like to think that this will make people more open to establishing friendships and meaningful connections with others, even if they don’t envision them in their lives several years down the line. But I’m honestly not that optimistic.
Willingness to uproot doesn’t often equate to a willingness to put down roots wherever you end up.
Instead of a melting pot, I worry that increasing relocation will produce ever-shifting currents of consumers, who take local resources without plans for reciprocity or long-term investment. Once we all feel like members of a diaspora, who will spearhead preservation initiatives? Who will maintain traditions? Who will organize local communities?
Yes, there will always be a newcomer willing to “step up” and fill those roles. But to be honest, the cringey insincerity of carpetbaggers in organizing circles is enough to turn me off of local politics altogether.
During law school, for all the talk about the importance of being involved in the lawmaking process, most of my classmates didn’t vote! They were registered in their home states hundreds of miles away! And those of use who did register here in Georgia were pretty much told to adopt the policy platforms of local candidates wholesale or not to bother. The issues unique to transplants just didn’t matter.
For example, I’ve never seen the topic of loneliness meaningfully addressed by a prominent politician, even though scientists know that loneliness is a problem causing tangible harm to people’s physical health, tantamount to a pandemic. Nor have I seen politicians discuss how to promote human capital development for those planning on leaving a state or a city. Only endless plans to prevent brain drain.
Whether it be ballot initiatives or the policy platforms of individual candidates, the interest of transient and temporary residents is never really a top priority. For good reason: nobody wants to acknowledge that a certain amount of their tax dollars will inevitably be invested in people who skedaddle as soon as they can. Nonetheless, it’s lonely out there for those 1 in 5 workers who don’t see themselves settling down anytime soon.
Thus, we arrive at a uniquely American paradox. Our pop culture, our economy, and our constitution all promote exploring the great unknown and embracing interstate commerce and travel. Therefore, a huge amount of us end up participating in a somewhat transient “transplant lifestyle.” Many of us are in need of social supports because of that transience. And yet, also because of our transience, we are politically underrepresented (and also maybe politically indifferent), so there’s no way to put pressure on those in power to create the necessary support systems.
That’s why nobody in politics is seriously addressing loneliness. That’s why nobody is addressing the bureaucracy of moving. These seemingly minor issues, such as how much time, money, and effort is wasted simply trying to get your ID and address updated in a new place, are the things which end up cutting off people’s access to housing and education and positive health outcomes.
Perhaps, insidiously, this is by design. The country’s most vulnerable people are forced into transience. Did you know that people convicted of federal crimes in D.C. can be incarcerated in any federal prison in the country? When federal inmates are released, they’re more or less given only a bus ticket and “good luck.” Similarly, ICE detainees are often shuffled across state lines to different detention facilities against their wishes. And of course, homeless Americans are often pushed away from their home regions by tent sweeps and shelter shortages.
I think it’s important to think about these types of involuntary transience as being on the same spectrum as the immigrant diaspora experience. All of us live together in a society which pressures us to keep relocating— so that the churn of capital can continue— and then punishes us for doing so. And all of us have something to gain from a culture and an infrastructure which fosters a sense of belonging for newcomers and which eases the path to permanence.
While the issues arising from transience aren’t really being addressed politically, I do think explorations of the social and emotional side of this lifestyle have already started to show up in contemporary media.
The book-turned-TV-show “Normal People” takes on topics of isolation and mental health through a story of two childhood friends who relocate for university. The multiple moves which repeatedly cause the characters heartbreak are also continuously presumed to be the best option for the characters’ careers, which speaks to a cultural norm that probably would have been a harder sell a few decades ago.
Similarly, Jordan Peele’s “Nope” and Joe Talbot’s “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” both address the difficulty of holding onto family land in California, where a never-ending influx of short-term newcomers disrupts real estate markets. And yet, both movies offer sympathy and understanding to the transient characters displacing the protagonists. In these films, the visitors are likened to forces of nature. Undeniable, ancient, maybe even supernatural forces which are definitely out of one’s control.
But unlike these stories, in reality, there are political levers which can control how relocation affects all of us. It doesn’t have to be an inevitable violence. Whether through municipal governments or international diplomacy, relocation for work and for school can and should be made easier and less violent. If 1 in 5 workers plans on relocating, policymakers should focus on responding to that trend, rather than to prevent or deny the diasporic lifestyle that characterizes our generation.