Marketing the Diasporic Creed

Bibliographic Data

ID3891983
AuthorsSheila L Croucher, Sheila Croucher (Miami University, corresponding author), Patrick J Haney (Miami University)
Year1999
Volume8
Issue3
Pages309-330
Publication date1999-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueDiaspora A Journal of Transnational Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1044-2057 • E-ISSN: 1911-1568
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/dsp.1999.0008
OpenAlexW2009092354
LanguageEN
References cited14

Diaspora 8:3 1999 Marketing the Diasporic Creed Sheila L. Croucher Patrick J. Haney Miami University of Ohio Marketing the American Creed Abroad: Diasporas in the U.S. and Their Homelands. Yossi Shain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Beginning on Thanksgiving Day 1999, and for many months to follow, the impact of diaspora groups on US international and domestic politics became strikingly clear when Elian Gonzalez's mother drowned, along with ten other Cuban refugees, while trying to reach South Florida's shores. Six-year-old Elian survived and reached the US, but only to suffer another torrent, once in the US, of lawsuits, custody battles, and a shameless political tug of war. Cubans on the island demanded that the boy be sent back to his father, who was still living in Cuba and pleading for the return of his son. Cuban Americans in Miami, including relatives of Elian, refused to return the boy to the "Communist tyranny" his mother had died trying to escape. This battle over one little boy's fate is just the most recent episode in a case that has, for over thirty years, illustrated the dedication (in this case antagonistic) that diasporas can maintain toward a homeland, the energy they can and will expend to influence US foreign policy toward that homeland , and the profound as well as profoundly complex implications of diaspora identity and mobilization for US politics and the US political system. Just months prior to the Elian Gonzalez case, a similar but unrelated testimony to the power of diaspora politics occurred during Hillary Clinton's pre-campaign for the US Senate seat from New York. Even before she officially announced her candidacy, Hillary Clinton was thrust into the morass of diaspora passions. Whether by angering New York's Jewish community with the suggestion of support for a Palestinian state or by rallying Puerto Ricans in New York with her support for clemency for jailed Puerto Rican dissidents, Hillary Clinton learned the lesson that many politicians in the US have learned: campaigns for legislative seats, at the local, state, or national level, are now rarely restricted to 309 310 Diaspora 8:3 1999 issues and concerns that pertain only to or play out solely within the territorial confines of the geopolitical unit at stake. This is not a new phenomenon, but is one that most analysts see as intensifying in an increasingly transnational world (see, e.g., DeConde; King and Melvin; Uslander). Much less agreement exists on the question ofhow diaspora politics and other forms or products oftransnationalism affect individual nation-states. These are the topics that form the focus of Yossi Shain's Marketing the American Creed Abroad: Diasporas in the U.S. and Their Homelands. He is not particularly interested in the Cuban-American case (whose discussion is in fact very limited), but he is interested in how diasporic dedication to homelands affects US foreign policy and how ethnic involvement in homeland affairs influences US civic culture, ethnic relations, and the character of homeland politics. Shain's study is not primarily an "ethnic interest group" approach (although he talks about some of the groups that have emerged within diasporic communities); rather, it is a community-based approach in which he tracks the political involvement and impact of diasporas in America. Shain's approach, in this sense, is similar to that of a project of the Council on Foreign Relations on minority groups and US foreign policy (see Vidal), among others.1 What is both unique and provocative about Shain's study is his thesis that the negative impact ofdiasporas, internationally and domestically, has been overstated and that, in fact, diaspora groups can and have been a force for democracy abroad and unity within the US. Some of the material in the book has previously been published in more narrow treatments (e.g., the chapter on Mexican Americans can be found in Political Science Quarterly), but, by pulling a vast amount of material together, Shain attempts to provide a thorough treatment of his topic. The first chapter introduces the political and academic debates surrounding diaspora populations in the US and provides a historical overview of diaspora relations. In the remainder of the

Ancient history · Battle · Creed · Diaspora · Economic history · Homeland · Media studies · Miami · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Religious studies

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