Diasporas, Anarchism And The Nature of Humanity

Humans like being one with a group, with a collective of like minded individuals. This drives idealisms such as patriotism, the love for your community and where you come from. So naturally, when people are isolated from said community they tend to connect on to any person with some similarity with them. This is why when abroad you may feel a connection with people from your country, even if in that country you’d be complete strangers, like Indians feeling connected to other Indians when living in the US, even if they would be strangers back in their country. It gives some aspect of familiarity and comfort, being with someone who reminds you of stability. Some societal theories recognize this. Anarchism, for instance, states that after society is destroyed, humans would form communes, based on the similarities between people that allow them to be part of a group of mutual-aid.

We can apply this idea to immigrants as well, with their main similarity being their ethnic identity. Throughout history, whenever mass immigration has occurred, immigrants tend to congregate around one another. This is what leads to Chinatowns or Little Indias, areas where enough immigrants of a specific ethnicity have come and congregated that it forms a specific small town or block that is reminiscent of the area they came from. These areas typically establish a sense of familiarity and comfort which provide a calming environment for these immigrants, especially elderly members of that ethnic minority group. However, one important question to ask here is how this idea is applied to diasporic kids.

When diasporic kids head to their new schools, there can be issues. Teasing, bullying, and racism are common, all of which ultimately cause social isolation. Therefore, a safe haven from these attacks typically lies within members of their ethnic community. Being with someone who has been in the same metaphorical boat as them earlier can allow for them to feel more at ease. I for one spent a lot of my time with other Indian-American kids when I moved to India as I felt like they were similar to me and therefore more comfortable to talk to. However, there is a dark side to this. Due to the inherent comfort of these groups, these students will often not stray outside of them. This can cause a different form of social isolation and can still cause a lack of developmental social skills as staying with one group and only that one group can cause one to become socially inept in any other environment, something that is naturally an issue as society is filled to the brim with unfamiliar environments.

So what’s the point of this post? Honestly, it's just to get you to step out of your comfort zone. Like it’s cliche sure, but important nonetheless. This isn’t to say that you should talk to everyone immediately but just make some small steps over time and it’ll be perfect! And to shamelessly self-plug, you can do this on our forum! We have a discord that has a bunch of other diasporic kids and through talking to them you may be able to figure some stuff out! So yeah!