In the past 15 years, ‘diaspora’ has emerged as an often discussed term. Initially, the classical use of the term was mainly confined to the study of the Jewish experience. It was in the period from the late 1980s to the early 1990s that the term ‘diaspora’ became fashionable. Its connotations were no longer confined to the Jewish diaspora (Oonk 2007). Moreover, the academic world began wondering how the word ‘diaspora’ could be useful in understanding international migration, the migrants and their relation with the motherland and the host society. As Tololian (1991: 4–5) notably argues, ‘the term that once described Jewish, Greek, and Armenian dispersion now shares meanings with a larger semantic domain that includes words like immigrant, expatriate, refugee, guest worker, exile community, overseas community, ethnic community’. In the postmodern world, it is further argued that diasporic identities have been constructed and deconstructed in a flexible and situational way. While the increased complexity and deterritorialization of identities are valid phenomena constitutive of a small minority of diasporas, ideas of home and often the stronger inflection of homeland remain powerful discourses (Cohen 2010).

Throughout human history, people have migrated from one place to another across the globe. Since the creation of nation-states, immigration has been a vital issue for many governments throughout the world to address. The purpose of this chapter is to explore a certain type of immigration, known as ‘diaspora formation,’ specifically with respect to the Americas. Although, historically, the word ‘diaspora’ has referred almost exclusively to the forced Jewish population dispersion throughout the world and their eventual return to their homeland in modern times, the word ‘diaspora’ has acquired a more flexible meaning. Advances in technology, particularly in communication and transportation, as well as a worldwide economic imbalance between the rich and the poor, have empowered modern diasporas to become an international force, politically and economically.

Cohen (2010) offers a suggestive schema based on the nine common features, of a diaspora (Box 6.1), although no diasporic society can be expected to reflect all of them (Clifford 1994).