5 - Transnational Diasporic Identity

Summary

The idea of ‘home’ has recently become more nebulous for me. Wherever I go, home goes with me – I mean I do not even know where home is, other than what is inside of me. Following the 1979 Revolution and the Iran–Iraq War, many from the Armenian community, including members of my family, emigrated from Iran to US cities with already large Armenian communities such as Glendale, California, where my parents and siblings now reside. Before landing my current academic position in Chapel Hill, I taught at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Georgia, for three years. Despite my professional success, living in the US has not always been easy. When I first moved to Chapel Hill, without any support system or friends, I learned that some of my next-door neighbours were white supremacists. Initially laughing off the overt displays of racism and bigotry, I soon felt that I was becoming a target for my brazen neighbours. I had never been exposed to that kind of extremism and hatred, even in Iran. But I quickly learned how to deflect the taunting questions about my origin, by responding that ‘I came from Georgia’. These volatile incidents of hostility were moments of opportunity for me to begin thinking about origins, identities and the malleability of our dependence on time and space.

Diasporic individuals inherently navigate a dual challenge – the everyday implications of their kaleidoscopic identity in a new environment and the task of piecing together an identity rooted in a fragmented, idealised home and an often-hostile host nation. As they attempt to resolve these challenges, their cultural identity takes root. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall defines cultural identity as a focus on one's shared culture and the vectors of multiple cultures. Because diasporic individuals experience multiple consciousnesses, the establishment of a cultural identity is often full of challenges, including the suffering arising from fragmented memories, the weight of solitude and constant roaming between borders of two or more worlds. New and old environments coexist, placing life in the diaspora ‘outside of habitual order [… in a] nomadic, decentered, contrapuntal’ sphere.