Comments on: Becoming Diasporically Moroccan

By: MeganLouise

MeganLouise — Fri, 10 Nov 2017 06:49:00 +0000

Congratulations on the new book you have published! How exciting!
This article is so interesting and I imagine a lot of people who have migrated to Australia, being an extremely multicultural country with a vast amount of areas that welcome different cultures. I read this article and immediately thought of my Abuela who moved from Spain to Australia and then moved back to Spain after 20 years. She explained to us that this was because she felt out of place in Australia and identified Barcelona more as her “home”.

By: MB24

MB24 — Fri, 10 Nov 2017 04:20:00 +0000

Congratulations on your book Lauren. From your post, the book looks to offer a fascinating insight into the practical effect of the movement of people between their original homeland and other places. One issue that arises from your discussion is the seeming rigidity of the law in the example you gave. However, the law need not be so rigid and incapable of being adapted to better suit circumstances in which a person has a legitimate expectation to their Moroccan or other identity.

By: X_C_X

X_C_X — Sun, 05 Nov 2017 23:42:00 +0000

In reply to THI THU NGAN DONG. Your example of your auntie’s same practice in going shopping in Vietnam as that in Sydney reflects what Eleonora Beolchi mentions above that the habits and behaviours of migrants have changed a lot since they have lived in a new environment(culture) or have been raised in a different way from that they are taught to do back in “home country”. When my Chinese friends who also study (only) in Aus asked me about when I would go to China after this sememster ended the other day, they usually said “你什么时候回去?”（When will you go back?) while my cousin who is the second generation grown up in Australia asked me in the way of “When will you go to China?” The differences of their choices of language (Chinese and English) and the choices of word “back” and “China” make me become aware of distance in my cousin’s sense of belonging of his Chinese gene that he becomes more Australian instead of Chinese even though he speaks Chinese at home with his parents and grandparents.

By: 44285736

44285736 — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 05:21:00 +0000

This article is an interesting look into the sense of belongingness from the Moroccans to visit their land of origin. The kind of cultural identity is the one thing that connects people of different ethnicity to feel the sense of belonging, a sense identity, to a culture which gives meaning to their existence. No matter what country people settle in as immigrants their sense of community remains in a foreign land. Though the next generation are not foreign because there are born in the country, they still have a sense of identity to their parents identity. I came across a similar situation when I was watching the rugby world cup when PNG defeated Wales. The PNG team was made up local players and some Australian born players who had PNG heritage. They were proud to represent their people and villages to play for PNG. So, the article captures the essence of having a common cultural identity that unifies the ethnic groups and gives them sense of belongingness across political boundaries. Australia is a multi-cultural society where you have different ethnic groups calling this place home while at the same time maintaining their cultural identity.

By: Eleonora Beolchi

Eleonora Beolchi — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 11:37:00 +0000

In reply to S_A_.

Same in Italy… the second generation of immigrants that are to all intents and purposes Italians, are referred to as Moroccan, Albanian, Romanian depending on their other nationality when they are involved in any episode where the Italian media may want to take distances from, but at the same time these are people that have grown up or lived many years far from their home country and have somehow lost part of the habits and behaviours. Hard to comment on such things…

By: Eleonora Beolchi

Eleonora Beolchi — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 04:28:00 +0000

Congratulations on your book, Lauren!

Reading your post took me back to when I was travelling around the south of Spain and got to see a lot of those ferry boat signs along the street. It made me think of how close Spain and Morocco are, 2 different countries, geographically belonging to two different continents, yet so influential culturally on one another. As a European, I’ve never really thought of that ferry boat as a transportation for Moroccan families to go home for summer holidays, but it’s always been sculpted in my mind as a tool to move towards Europe (more than from Europe to Morocco) if that makes sense… and it’s probably the first time that I can make an analogy between these people going back home for holiday and myself going back to Italy from Australia for the Italian summer.
There is not much difference at the end of the day… I feel my identity has slightly changed the more I live in Australia, so everything I “go home”, I feel in between the 2 counties and the 2 cultures… I enter Italy with my European passport and then once I am there, I’ve got my Italian ID card, just like the Moroccan people mentioned in this post. I am Italian, I feel Italian but a different Italian, not the same that left Italy 6 years ago.
So thank you for showing me another perspective of something that I’ve culturally always perceived with a different purpose and for consequently allowing me to see a similarity with those Moroccan families going back for Moroccan summer 🙂
Elly

By: S_A_

S_A_ — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 03:58:00 +0000

This is such a good read! Thank you, Prof. Wagner! I’m from Belgium and it’s great to read about this topic, since it really is something that is very present in Belgian society. This feeling of never belonging somewhere completely is something my Belgian-Moroccan friends all describe as a very common feeling within the community. They are all very proud of their heritage, but are also often seen by Moroccans as not ‘real Morrocans’. And then, many of them get told that they aren’t ‘real Belgians’ either… And to make matters even worse, when there are problems or there is some trouble they are always considered ‘the other’, for example: a news article told a story about a Moroccan thief. It turned out the man was Belgian-Morrocan, but the article stressed his Moroccan heritage. And the opposite is true as well: friend of mine told me the other day that he didn’t know a habit his grandparents do during the Ramadan, so they told everybody that he didn’t know because he was Belgian…

By: THI THU NGAN DONG

THI THU NGAN DONG — Sat, 28 Oct 2017 04:12:00 +0000

Congrats on your new book and thanks a lot for a fascinating post about ‘becoming diasporic’. This is the first time I’ve read about the term ‘diaspora’ but it is actually not a new phenomenon in my context as well as in Australia. I have some relatives who were ‘boat people’ migrating from Vietnam to Australia during wartime. They are Australian citizens who are fluent in English as they speak and behave like any other Aussies living and working in Sydney. However, when they talk to their families and friends within the Vietnamese community or when they come back home in Vietnam, they seemingly have a different identity. For instance, my auntie hardly ever bargains when she goes shopping in Sydney but she tends to do so during her annual trip to our home town in Vietnam (regardless of the price). Perhaps she is aware of the distinct social practices of the two places which decide what is permissible (or impermissible) to do in each setting.