October 5 – International African Diaspora Day

nPostednon October 5, 2014 n

n(First Sunday of October)

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Tonunderstand today’s holiday, you have to understand the word diaspora.

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nThisnword is always a noun, and you probably know that a noun can be anperson, place, thing, or idea. Well, this particular noun can benpeople, places, or an idea.

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nLet’snstart with the idea:

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nAndiaspora is the scattering of a people away from their ancestralnhomeland (the area that they had lived for many generations). Thenmovement of people in a diaspora can be forced or voluntary, but itnisn’t the movement of a whole bunch of people from Point A to PointnB. (That could be called migration.) Instead, it’s thenmovement of a whole bunch of people from Point A to many differentnnew locations.

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nSonthe idea of “scattering” is important.

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nAlso,nit is apparently an important part of a diaspora that the people whonhave scattered maintain a connection with their homeland. Manyncontinue to think of themselves and label themselves primarily innterms of the homeland rather than the country in which they ended up;nthey have what are considered “founding myths” related to theirnplace of origin; they sometimes maintain customs and beliefs andnmaybe even language of the homeland.

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nNownfor the people and places part of the definition of diaspora:

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nDiasporancan refer to the people settled far from their ancestral homelands.

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nItncan also refer to the the place where these people now live.

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nWhennit is capitalized, Diaspora refers to one particular diaspora:nthe scattering of Jews outside of Palestine after the 6th CenturynB.C.E. destruction of the temple by the Babylonians, and after thenRoman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. (A.D.)

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nButnscholars also use the word for other scatterings. Today we arenencouraged to think about African diasporas.

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nThenhistorical African diaspora is the result of the enslavement ofnAfrican peoples and their forced transport to other places,nespecially places in the so-called New World. The U.S., Brazil, andnmany Caribbean islands have large populations of people with Africannancestry because of the slave trade.

This map depicts the historical African diaspora resulting from the slave trade.

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nThentwo more modern African diasporas occurred. The first happened duringnthe time that European colonies in Africa had tied together morenclosely two particular regions, and the second happened in the lastnhalf century as several newly independent nations becamendictatorships, or fell into abject poverty, or as people facednpolitical persecution or civil war or even genocide (murder of entirenpeoples). Whether African people were moving to European nations thatnhad colonized them, or were fleeing from terrible conditions, thesenlast two diasporas were voluntary, as African people moved in anneffort to find new economic opportunities, political freedoms, and/ornjust plain old safety and stability.

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n(InREALLY like safety and stability, so I can support that motivation!)

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nDidnyou know…?

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nAlmostn all—95%—of Haitians are of African heritage.

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nItalyn receives many immigrants from Africa; a study published in 2011 saidn that 22% of Italy’s immigrants come from Africa.

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nThen African diaspora in France is one of the largest in the world; then French people with African heritage generally had ancestors who camen to France from French colonies in Africa or the Caribbean Sea.

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nInn Brazil, the various races have mixed for many generations; more thann half of Brazil’s population is considered Afro-Latino (and of coursen “Latino” generally means a mixture of European and Amerindiann peoples).

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nTo learn more about the African Diaspora, check out this “Experience Africa” website.

nCheck out the images in the Museum of African Diaspora website. Be sure to click “Enter Exhibit” to see the transformation of a photo to a photo collage!

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nAlsonon this date:

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