Mexican Diaspora: De Donde Soy?
When
someone talks about Diaspora, people usually automatically think about the
Jewish Diaspora; never does someone think about the Mexican Diaspora. What does
that mean? Mexicans are dislocated? Rinderle discusses in her article that
Diaspora is a physical as well as cultural dislocation, and that many Mexicans
and Mexican-American find themselves suffering from Diaspora. It was a concept
that my brothers and I spoke about without realizing what exactly we were
talking about. We constantly argued how technically we were living in Mexico
because Colorado used to be part of Mexico, and I never thought about why we
were trying to justify living in Mexico as opposed to the United States. No, I
never felt like I really belonged here, I always felt like I was happier and
more relaxed back in Mexico where we always went at least once since I was a
baby. So why is it that I feel this way, why is it that I feel the Diaspora
personally? In theory doesn’t Diaspora affect all Americans, so why don’t they
all feel the homesickness and yearning to return to the homeland? Who knows, even
one of my brothers feels like he is a true blue American, even spoke English
fluently years before my other brother and I. I guess it depends on what type
of identity we identify with more strongly.
Resources
Rinderle, Susana.
(2005). The Mexican Diaspora: A Critical
Examination of Signifiers. Journal of Communication Inquiry. V. 29, 4. 294
– 316.
In the same article it mentioned the Mormon diaspora, or when the Mormons got forced out of Nauvoo Illinois setting the eventual stage for their movement out West in the Salt Lake valley. While I've always known of this event in Mormon history I have never really seen it as a diaspora until now. That longing to be home is different in Mormon culture as most look upon the pioneer settlement in Utah as fate completed. Interestingly, still, my family will travel back East to Illinois and New York to take a historical journey through the early years of the church. This, I assume, is a cathartic opportunity for the guilt they still feel for the lives they now live at the expense of their ancestor's sufferings.
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