Diaspora

One of my earliest memories is of being spit on.

I was sitting calmly on my Aunt Effie’s front lawn, observing my cousins as they ran about setting the table for dinner on the porch.  All of a sudden, without warning, my theia lifted me into the air, whisked me around to face her and sent three showers of saliva squarely between my eyes.  To most onlookers, my aunt probably seemed severely deranged.  In fact (or perhaps more accurately in myth), she was conscientiously protecting me from what she determined to be an evil spirit that had passed on the sidewalk while I sat unknowingly in the spring sunshine.  (Maybe she is deranged…)  This Holy Trinity of protective spitting against the “evil eye” is rooted – ironically – in Greek pagan traditions from centuries ago and is still very much a part of Greek culture.

But this incident took place in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts, thousands of miles from Greek soil.  If it weren’t for the Stop & Shop supermarket bags in the kitchen, you wouldn’t know it.  My Greek/Greek-American (I don’t even know how to label them) family lives in a fairly close-knit community centered around a nearby Greek Orthodox church that they incongruously do not even attend. Most conversation, except for occasional dialogue between second generation Greek-Americans, is in Greek, even (and sometimes especially) when in the presence of non-Greek speakers.  The television and radio are perpetually tuned to their respective Greek-language channels and all print media is from Hellenic publishers.  Children attend public school during the day but never eat the cafeteria lunches, thanks to the massive portions of homemade moussaka, spanakopita, and pastistio.  After the final bell they schlep over to afternoon Greek school where they polish their slang and prepare for when their family’s restaurant makes enough profit to plan a trip back to the homeland.

Homeland.  This word came up quite frequently during our class discussions on diaspora, as it is the concept of a common origin that unites members of the diaspora living in various peripheral regions.  In his “Introduction: Identity and the Arts in Diaspora Communities,” Thomas Turino quotes William Safran’s definition of the phenomenon.  He suggests that individuals who identify as part of the diaspora “regard their ancestral homeland as their true, ideal home and as the place to which they or their descendants would (or should) eventually return.”  It was this component of the definition that indicated to me that my family is indeed part of the Greek diaspora.  When I was in fifth grade, I wrote a poem for English class in which I expressed my desire to visit my “homeland and reunite with my roots” (what a pretentious kid I was).  I finally “returned home” for the first time last summer, after having been told from an early age that my life would remain unfulfilled until I completed my own pilgrimage.

I find that in my family’s case, Greek music and music from the Greek diaspora are relatively similar, or at least the latter invests wholly in the former and makes little effort to create its own musical identity.  The cinematic arts, however, as expressed by Stuart Hall in his article on the Caribbean African diaspora, are like music in that they intimately articulate who we were, who we are, and what we are becoming.  This profound statement of purpose seems unnecessarily deep in the case of “My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding,” the most well known mainstream film portrayal of the Greek-American culture.  This Academy Award nominated romantic comedy features a somewhat deceptive image of the typical Greek-American family.  The protagonist’s parents speak English with an accent, but their vocabulary is relatively diverse.  The family doesn’t seem to interact extensively with other Greek-American families within the context of the plot, despite the fact that they are involved in a wide array of ‘typically’ Greek activities, such as owning a restaurant and roasting lamb on a spit (…both of which are quite accurate depictions).  My family both owns a restaurant and roasts lamb on a spit, but as I mentioned before, most interactions are in Greek and there is significant socializing within the Greek-American community.

Interestingly enough, most second- and third-generation Greeks I know adore this movie and worship it as a token representation of our diasporic society.  When I searched for YouTube clips, I was immediately drawn to the comment section, where I found several debates between those who find the satire offensive and those who appreciate how it “brings bittersweet memories to every Greek.”  One member who found the movie derogatory and inaccurate – a native Greek, not a Greek-American – picks up on the complexity in portraying a disasporic community as opposed to a mainland Greek community.  In response to the antiquated ways of the older characters, he/she writes, “Now I dont know exactly how much old-fashioned the Greek-American families are since they were initiated by Greeks who immigrated there 50 years ago” (I left all spelling and grammatical errors intact).  Unfortunately, I’ve already reached my word limit and don’t have enough space to delve into this fascinating topic, but I will discuss it in my final project!

Until I grew old enough to dress myself, I wore a tiny, cobalt blue eye-shaped bead pinned to my collar.  This miniature Mediterranean vaskania amulet, was a constant reminder of my heritage, and it is something I still cherish to this day.  As it is for my father and his father, my aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends, my involvement in the diaspora is meaningful to me.  It’s something I claim as part of my identity, even though the Greek-American community has begun to assimilate more intricately into the American system.  I see myself as among those who consider “remaining ‘ethnic’ [as] part of being a true American” (Levitt 448).

As a Jew, I am keenly aware of the diasporas that my people have experienced.  Firstly, of course, there was the diaspora out of Israel which imbued the Jewish people with a strong sense of a need for a homeland.  The diaspora that has most strongly influenced my family and many other Jewish families was the one out of Eastern Europe to the United States.  Music is a very important part of Judaism, from ceremonial uses in temple chanting to recreational uses such as Klezmer music.  As immigrants to New York City, my family probably went to many Yiddish theater performances.  The tradition of Yiddish theater grew out of Europe and was brought by Jews over to America in the diaspora.  Yiddish theater was very popular and led to many Jews becoming involved in theater, especially popular theater such as vaudeville. This has probably led to the stereotype of Jews running the media.  Playing music, and especially having a piano was a status symbol for Eastern European diasporic Jews, and that tradition has continued up to today—my grandparents and parents both own pianos, even though none of them can really play very well.  All of my siblings and I took music lessons, though only my little sister wanted piano lessons.    Many Jews became prominent within jazz music, such as Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, who both made strides in integrating swing bands.  I used to play a lot of jazz clarinet and so did my grandpa, who was very influenced by Goodman and Shaw and gave me a lot of their tapes when I was younger.
The Jewish emphasis on music and musical education has continued to this day.  Jews, of course, have been very important in rock music.  Bob Dylan and Lou Reed are both Jewish (though Dylan has since converted to Christianity) and so were Joey Ramone and Marc Bolan.  Matisyahu is an Orthodox Jewish reggae singer who puts a lot of Jewish themes in his music.  Music has been one of the ways that the Jewish people hve both retained and created an identity in the absence of a homeland.

It’s been difficult for me to relate personally the topics of Diaspora we’ve discussed recently in class. In high school history we were assigned the task of constructing a family tree; my parents helped me make up names and dates based on vague notions of our heritage. No one in my family knows very much about our family history so we don’t have ties to a heritage or traditions outside of the U.S. My aunt recently discovered that Roe, for my family, is an orphan given name, like Doe (John Doe). And we haven’t been able to trace our family any further back than an orphanage somewhere in Germany. We’ve had no better luck tracing my mom’s maiden name; Said we say it like “Bryce said hi”, though we’re pretty sure it’s pronounced sigh-eed and is middle-eastern-you’d never know form looking at anyone in our family though, and again, no middle-eastern traditions have been passed on. I don’t have any ties to a heritage outside of the United States and my family doesn’t associate with any particular religion that would instill practices linked anywhere outside of the United States; Christmas is about family and presents.  It’s likely I would have given little thought to the topic of Diaspora at this point in my life had I not lived in Jamaica Plain,outside of the city of Boston, during my sophomore year of college at Northeastern University, and then come to Oberlin.  Jamaica Plain has a very diverse population in a small area. In addition to functioning as host area for members a variety of Diaspora’s, the low rent has attracted a great number of college students from the numerous schools in Boston, as well as college graduates, and pre-professional first-time home-buyers. The presence of artists led to the opening of many galleries, book stores and arts and music centers. It’s continued to draw in college-educated professionals, political activists, and a large lesbian and gay community while maintaining a large Spanish-speaking population from Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. There is also a large Jewish presence with several reform and conservative synagogues, and a large Irish community. This diverse population makes it quite different from China Town, for example which is much more preserved, but rather there is a great deal of mingling amongst the different groups.Diaspora can be witnessed around every corner in Jamaica Plain. The grocery store near my apartment, the Hi-Lo, is more than a grocery store for the Latino population. It stocks hard-to-find foods from all over the Caribbean and Latin-America. They don’t advertise but do fantastic business just on word of mouth. Everyone there speaks Spanish. I went on a few times, attempting simply to become a more adventurous eater, but mostly searched in vain for something that I knew anything about. They sell what most grocery stores would call specialty foods, but they’re being sold as staples. Everyone there knows each other and spends as much time socializing as they do shopping. Everyone is welcome however, and the employees were willing to explain to me how to prepare anything I picked up in the store. The store provides a place for the Latin-American and Caribbean Diaspora to feel at home by speaking their own language and buying products from their particular country.  Various spaces offer closer contact amongst the various groups of people. Music venues rarely specialize in the area but host local hip-hop groups, latin-dancing, indie-rock bands, as well as drawing larger name groups from outside JP. The Milky Way Lounge and Lanes is a venue I frequented where the hybridity element of Diaspora can be witnessed. (www.milkywayjp.com/music) It often functioned as a collaborative space for musicians on and off stage; jazz musicians from Berklee College of Music performed frequently and jammed with local musicians from the various Diasporas. A local group called the Diaspora Funk Movement and the two groups that make it up; Soulfege and Foundation Movement. (For some reason this wouldn’t accept the link- it’s myspace.com/diasporafunkmovement) The members sing in Spanish and English, and the songs are a combination of hip-hop and funk. Their lyrics comment on strife for peace amongst while representing a distinction between themselves as members of the African Diaspora and the larger community in which they reside. They often comment on persecution of various marginal groups, and not only the persecution of African Americans. According to Turino, persecution itself can be one of the crucial components in creating a shared experience for members of a Diaspora. It does so in this case, but the group uses this signifyer as a way of linking them to other groups of people that have been the subject of persecution.Boston itself is diverse, but Jamaica Plain is one of the most varied and integrated of Boston’s neighborhoods. While different groups often came into conflict, they struggled to get along in order to provide the services they needed, and many social institutions have come into being as a result, The Brookside Park Family center works to convenient and affordable medical and social services to the ever changing population. The area exhibits the characteristics that foster Diaspora longevity; the different groups can mingle amongst each other and with each other depending on the social space. Because the community as a whole has to work together to function, there is a degree of assimilation, while maintaining ties to a home country which results in a hybridity of the cultures. There is also a tie to the Diaspora itself. Going back to the example of the Hi-Lo, I met a couple there that had traveled with their friends from Cape-Cod to stock up on staples from their native Puerto Rico. Another another crucial element in the existence of Diaspora’s can be analyzed here, because geographical location doesn’t function as a social boundary, expressive cultural practices are very important. While Cape Cod is only a few hours away, not everyone can travel hours to connect with other Diaspora members, and they are spread out much further. The arts are therefore central to understanding the links that are crucial to this social formation. The music I heard in Jamaica Plain expressed the Diaspora at large, while expressing a degree of assimilation in their collaboration. 

Much of the collective feeling in the second generation South Asian community comes from the shared experience of stereotyping. South Asians are often stereotyped in the US as being passive, overly-academic, socially inept, and as having overprotective parents. The tools that the second generation diaspora are using, such as media and performance, both play into and defy these stereotypes. Many second generation South Asian college-aged students that attend universities with large South Asian populations are involved in cultural clubs. Many of these clubs put together large-scale cultural shows at their colleges. These performances, which include various skits, dances, traditional or classical performances, and music are iconic of the various ways that diasporas combine both the homeland and host country’s cultural sensibilities. These performances also show the way that the second generation has formed their own unique community, different from the first generation diaspora.

  This video is of a skit performed by Northwestern’s South Asian student group, “Utsav”. The title of the video is “Love is Blind”. The beginning of the video is prefaced with the narrator saying that it’s just a normal night at Northwestern University. However, the student actors are watching cricket (which is broadcasted rarely here in the US). Gender roles are raised, but in terms of stereotypical Indian gender roles (women staying at home making “parathas”, a bread). This prefacing puts the actors somewhere between the US and India culturally. The next scene introduces us to a stereotypical nerdy Indian boy, a math major, dressed in pleated short pants, a buttoned polo shirt and thick glasses. Interestingly, many of the characters switch between speaking English and Hindi. The form of the skit is like a Bollywood movie: the scenes are stitched together with song and dance, with dance moves that index both popular Indian and American (namely African American) culture. The nerdy boy falls in love with a girl (who is actually a guy dressed up as a girl). The skit is meant to be quite comical- the underdog beats up the “tough guys” and performs the dances with what seems to be an intentional lack of precision. 

This video is of the concluding number of another Northwestern UTSAV performance. Typically, these shows end with a medley of dances that are reminiscent of various regional cultures in India (via sound and dance style) but also of American popular dance and music. As one of the articles mention, the use of African American urban culture in Indian diasporic music, dance, and performance makes sense for a few reasons: Indians, like African Americans, have been oppressed and stereotyped (though, of course, in very different ways) in the US. This stereotyping pressures Indian-Americans into over-projecting a sense of “coolness”. Given that Indian-Americans are seen as extremely nerdy in American culture, alluding to hip-hop and urban African American culture “baddens their image” (Dietrich). The costumes in this video are indicative of the hybridity utilized by the 2^nd generation diaspora: the women’s outfits have a shimmery piece of cloth on their tops, alluding to the chuney or the sari (typical women’s clothing in India). Their skirts are made of bright pink silk and with a gold border, also reminiscent of traditional clothing. Of course, the cuts and styles of the clothing (short skirt, tight sleeveless shirt, leggings) are indicative of what’s “in” here in the United States and are much more provocative than typical Indian clothes. The second generation diaspora has also utilized modern technologies such as YouTube and websites like www.DesiComedy.com to unite the diaspora via common experience and collective feeling about their place in society. DesiComedy is full of Indian-Americans imitating people in India, or first generation Indian immigrants in situations where their backgrounds cause conflict with everyday American situations. One example is an audio clip of a man getting angry at a McDonalds about their being beef in his hamburger, demanding that he speak to the manager, Ronald McDonald. http://www.desicomedy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18:drive-thru-ranjit&catid=3:dc-audio&Itemid=154 I can recall many free periods in high school, watching videos and listening to audio from this website. When I first found out about this site, it was just one page with a few links. Now, there are categories, several sub-sites with tons of media. Parodies of hip-hop songs are quite popular among young Indian-Americans, and support the argument of Indians identifying with urban African American culture that I mentioned above. Makers of these videos even take on names like “Ludakrishna” and “Anoop Dogg”. Here are a few examples of videos:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7Li7T7KC0Ahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-OutHnlOhMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVz15QIjcRA&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95xw65uikXg&feature=related These examples reveal how shared experience projected in media and performance creates cohesion among a diaspora. These examples also show the many number of ways the home and host country’s cultures can be mixed to index both for the diaspora. The difference between 1^st generation and 2^nd generation South Asian diasporas shows the fluidity in diasporic group identity, and the necessity for shared experience and habits in social formations. 

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Klezmer is a music that iconically Jewish, especially in the United States. Today, there are about 6.5 million Jews living in the Americas, mostly in the United States and Canada (MyJewishLearning 1). The Jewish Diaspora has been an ongoing process, spreading Jewish people around the globe since 587 b.c.e. when Babylonians conquered the Kingdom of Judea and exiled many Jews to Babylonia (MyJewishLearning 1). Now, more Jews live abroad — about 8 million — than live in the Jewish homeland, Israel — about 5 million (MyJewishLearning 1). Because of their long history of being an oppressed minority, Jewish people have been expelled from many homelands and forced to disperse across the globe. The Jewish diaspora does not refer to a single event, but rather to many dispersions. The Babylonian invasion was followed by the Roman Conquest in the first century A.D. which resulted in the differentiation between Sephardic Jews, those who settled in Spain and the Mediterranean, and the Ashkenazi Jews who settled in Central and Northern Europe (Strauss 1). The last major Jewish expulsion happened in 1492 when Spain exiled all Jews who refused to convert to Catholicism (Strauss 1).

One of the major ways in which identity has been maintained and revived for Jewish people, is through music and other other practices of Jewish popular culture. Throughout the Diaspora, Jews have maintained a very separate identity from those around them which is at once related to the Jewish homeland, and various other host sites of the Diaspora. For most Jewish people in the United States, Israel is seen as the homeland, but they are much more closely linked to other areas in Central or Eastern Europe because it is from there that their ancestors immigrated to the US. A major part of Central and Eastern European Jewish cultural practice is Klezmer music.

Klezmer is instrumental music of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe (Buhle 78). It was inicially wedding music and the musicians were generally low status and seen as those without proper training (Buhle 78).

One of the most popular and famous Jewish songs is “Hava Nagila.” It is often portrayed as the iconic Klezmer music.

Hava Nagila – Sammy Musiker Orchestra (1957)

However, the song was originally a Hasidic melody from Eastern Europe (Loeffler 1). Hasidic music is very related to Klezmer, but this song has lyrics which is not “traditionally” Klezmer (Buhle 80). In the 1940s in the US, the song began to be performed as an Israeli-style hora, a subgroup of Klezmer music which is also a type of Romanian circle dance (Loeffler 1).

In the 1870s, the first wave of Jewish immigrants came to the United States (Buhle 82). Quickly, a large Jewish population grew up in New York City. Klezmer was used, especially in Jewish weddings, as a way to assert Jewish identity.

Adam and Arie playing Klezmer at a Jewish Wedding

In the early 20th Century, Jews in the United States often maintained ties to their homelands through landsmanshaftn, or associations that were directly connected to their hometown in Central or Eastern Europe (Buhle 83). Music was a very important part of this tradition. Musicians would know specific songs that were related to the particular town in Europe and play them for events of the landsmanshaftn in the United States, maintaining the identity of that association in relation to the specific town in Europe (Buhle 83).

In the US, Klezmer music became popular through Yiddish theater, fakebooks published of Klezmer music, political rallies, radio, records, piano rolls, etc (Buhle 83). Some songs went on to be appropriated and taken completely out of a Jewish or Klezmer context. One example of this is the song Bei Mir Bist du Schoen. Originally, this was a Klezmer song, then sung in Yiddish, and in the United States, became a big band and swing classic.

Bei Mir Bist du Schoen

It was turned into a pop hit by the Andrew Sisters in 1937.

Bei Mir Bist du Schoen – The Andrew Sisters

In the 1930s and 1940s, there was a decline in the variety of Jewish music (Buhle 84). Instead of maintaining distinct identities based on different hometowns and areas of Europe, Jews in the US began to be grouped together. The very religious aspects of music were taken out and Klezmer was very popular (Buhle 84). However, after World War II, Jews began looking more and more towards Israel as the heart of Jewish identity and culture and less to their homes in Europe (Buhle 87). This led to a decline in the popularity of Klezmer as more Jews were taking adopting Israeli folk music and dance as more authentically Jewish.

The 1970s saw a revival of Klezmer music often known as the Klezmer revitalization. It was a way for Jews to maintain pride in a Jewish identity without the connection to Zionism that was seen as a part of Israeli folk music and dance (Buhle 88). The music could be explored without having to adopt a political stance (Buhle 88). The group Klezmorim is seen as the pioneer group of the Klezmer revival. Their 1977 recording East Side Wedding repopularized Klezmer among United States Jews (Buhle 88). Here is a link with Klezmorim songs and audio clips of some of the music:

Klezmorim – early recordings

Another important recording of the Klezmer revival was the album Jewish Klezmer Music released in 1979. It was created by Zev Feldman, an expert in Yiddish and Turkish music who plays the Klezmer dulcimer and cimbal along with Andy Statman, a clarinetist.

KIvuKlezmer by Oy Division with Dr. Zev Feldman

Andy Statman

Today, Klezmer is very popular among United States Jews and is still a major marker of Jewish identity. Contemporary Klezmer is often performed in a “traditional” style, trying to stay close to the Central and Eastern European origins of the music, but there are also many fusions of Klezmer with jazz, ska, hip-hop, rock, etc. Some popular Klezmer bands today are Brave Old World, The Klezmer Conservatory Band, the Klezmatics, and Veretski Pass. In 2007, the Klezmatics won a Grammy for Best Contemporary World Music Album for their record, Wonder Wheel.

Mermaid Avenue by The Klezmatics (from Wonder Wheel)

Bibliography

“American Jews” Wikepedia.com.

Buhle, Paul (Ed.). Jews and American Popular Culture: Volume 2 – Music, Theater, Popular Art, and Literature. Praeger Perspectives. Westport, Connecticut and London. 2007.

Gilman, Sander L. “There Ain’t No There There: Reimagining Eastern European Jewish Culture in the 21st Century.” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. 25.1. 2006.

Loeffler, James Dr. “Hava Nagila’s Long, Strange Trip: The Unlikely History of a Hasidic Melody.” My Jewish Learning. 2009.

“Overview: The Jewish Diaspora Around the Globe.” My Jewish Learning. 2009. <http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history/Jewish_World_Today/Jews_Around_the_Globe.shtml>

Ray, Jonathan. “New Approaches to the Jewish Diaspora: The Sephardim as a Sub-Ethnic Group.” Jewish Social Studies. Vol 15. No 1. Fall 2008.

Strauss, Bob. “How to Understand the Jewish Diaspora.” eHow.com. 2009.