3 - Creating new homes and communities

Summary

This chapter turns from charting the histories of migratory movements among South Asians to the task of trying to understand the experience of these migrants in the places which were to become home at a very deep level of perception, alongside a sense of remaining connected to South Asia. The approach is thematic rather than portraying any total picture of the many and diverse diaspora groups which have developed over the last century and a half. It looks at crucial issues facing migrants as they have sought to create new homes and communities, put down roots in new countries, and raise new generations of offspring born outside the subcontinent. Much of the rich literature on particular groups in particular places to which readers may subsequently progress should then fall into place within this issue-orientated framework, rather than overwhelming them in its detail and diversity.

Before embarking on our analysis there are several preliminary observations which are important for a proper historical understanding of the diaspora experience. Although from the perspective of the start of the twenty-first century the many strands of the South Asian diaspora seem permanent and settled, for those who journeyed from the subcontinent this was rarely seen as a permanent departure, as a fundamental uprooting. For most of the first generation of migrants there remained a powerful ‘myth of return’, a vision of South Asia as the place to which one would eventually return after a sojourn abroad, as one's real and final home.