Diaspora Humanities Series, Vol. 6
This book critically explores the history of Asian Americans as a diaspora marked by the loss of homeland, and their journeys to find a sense of home on American land. Rather than focusing on diaspora at a philosophical, theoretical, or metaphorical level, the book places its emphasis on diaspora as lived life and concrete experience.
In doing so, the book challenges early-2000s theoretical trends that, while criticizing essentialist modes of thinking about culture and identity that arise from treating diaspora primarily as a theoretical or metaphorical concept, abstract away the painful experience of diasporic lives. The aim of this study is to detach diaspora from the abstract realm of theory and metaphor and to situate the journeys of those who, having lost their homelands, seek new homes within actual histories and geographical maps.