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    British Bangladeshi

    When what are now Bangladeshi communities formed in the UK, would they have been Pakistani communities? How would that identity have changed with independence?

    I guess a similar process would have occurred with British Pakistani people.

    Are there other examples, where a diaspora community changed its identity due to changes elsewhere. Eritrea?

    #2
    One of my friends at school was from what is now South Sudan, but back then was still a part of Sudan. Her family came to the UK because her dad was an anti-government journalist and got death threats. She had a British passport that specifically stated she couldn't use it to enter Sudan.

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      #3
      Unrelated anecdote. My parents immediately liked her parents because they were the only other parents at the entrance exam to that school who were reassuring their daughter to just try her best and have fun and whatever result she got they'd be proud of her. All the other parents were in the midst of terrifying their children with frenzied lectures about how important the exam was and this being the child's one and only chance to determine their future. My mum had just told me it was a fun day out where if I answered some questions we could go for lunch out and shopping afterwards.

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        #4
        In my experience, the people in question identify as Bengali first and foremost, no matter what government was in control of their hometown at the time that they left.

        There are also strong extended family/hometown networks that similarly consider national labels largely irrelevant.

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          #5
          'Bangaldeshi' did not appear in The Guardian until 1971. The ethnic identity 'Bengali' seems to have existed since the Bengal Sultanate was established in 1352.

          Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 14-07-2021, 11:25.

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            #6
            On a slightly related note I’ve met a handful of people who describe themselves as Yugoslavian here in the US - probably more than I’ve met who describe themselves as Serbian or Croatian or Bosnian. I don’t know if this is because they moved (or their parents moved) when it was still Yugoslavia, whether they were Serbs who refused to accept the disintegration of the Yugoslav state, or whether they used Yugoslav to elide the ethnic question which comes with all kinds of baggage. And given the sensitivity of it and that these were people I know superficially at best, I wasn’t going to get into a deep questioning session with them.

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              #7
              Originally posted by Levin View Post
              When what are now Bangladeshi communities formed in the UK, would they have been Pakistani communities? How would that identity have changed with independence?

              I guess a similar process would have occurred with British Pakistani people.

              Are there other examples, where a diaspora community changed its identity due to changes elsewhere. Eritrea?
              In Germany, during the Sixties and Seventies, there was a significant wave of Yugoslav Gastarbeiter, most of whom later settled down in the coming decades. The immigration seems to have largely comprised of Serbs, with another sizeable proportion of Croats, though in that era it seems unclear whether they would have defined themselves in such terms, or have genuinely considered themselves as Yugoslavs and only retrenched to national identities in later years.

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                #8
                In the only recent case I can think of of a country joining up, rather than splitting apart, I used to share a house with an East German girl. 15 years after re-unification, she was still very definitely East German, not German.

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                  #9
                  The "Yugoslav" identity is indeed complicated and sensitive.

                  Each of SB's hypotheses works for at least some of those who identify as Yugoslavs, but the dominant one I have encountered in the US is that of eliding any more specific identification that could be perceived as problematic, For that reason, it is more common among Serbs and Croats than Bosnians, Slovenes, etc. People who are genuinely nostalgic for the country under Tito do exist, but are now very old.

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                    #10
                    Most Russian-speaking emigres to the US, certainly in the first decade after the Soviet Union broke up, consider themselves Russian, even if they're from Minsk or Riga or wherever.

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                      #11
                      Oh yeah, three of ex-boyfriend's best friends were Yugoslavian and East German. The guy from Yugoslavia left in a car with his family when he was eleven with as many possessions as they could fit in the boot of the car. The car was promptly nicked when they got off the ferry in the UK so they had to start from absolutely nothing. He still identified as Yugoslavian. The East Germans were a couple from near Dresden who definitely identified more with East Germany than Germany as a whole. They lived in London for a good 10/15 years and had their first child there but have since gone back to the family home to renovate an enormous dilapidated farmhouse. Will probably try to go and visit them once this pandemic is over.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Flynnie View Post
                        Most Russian-speaking emigres to the US, certainly in the first decade after the Soviet Union broke up, consider themselves Russian, even if they're from Minsk or Riga or wherever.
                        Even now, that remains complicated, as the major social democratic party in Latvia tends to be supported by Russian-speakers, and the Latvian nationality law discourages them from "becoming" Latvian, even when they are natives. As for Belarus, Belarusian is now considered an endangered minority language:

                        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_language

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                          #13
                          I wonder if people who identify as Yugoslavian now are those who would have identified as Yugoslavian then. As I've mentioned before pretty much nobody where I live would identify as Romanian, even though we would identify them as such, based on their "passport nationality"

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                            #14
                            Granted, there is much overlap in terms of musical culture, cuisine etc in the Western Balkans, but it's hard to see how anyone aged under 35 would identify as "Yugoslav", unless their parents tended to eulogise the Tito years, and were gone sufficiently long that they actively sought to avoid the wars of the Nineties.

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by pebblethefish View Post
                              In the only recent case I can think of of a country joining up, rather than splitting apart, I used to share a house with an East German girl. 15 years after re-unification, she was still very definitely East German, not German.
                              While working over there I met a West German pole vaulter. She'd previously been an east German pole vaulter

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                                #16
                                Originally posted by Discordant Resonance View Post
                                Granted, there is much overlap in terms of musical culture, cuisine etc in the Western Balkans, but it's hard to see how anyone aged under 35 would identify as "Yugoslav", unless their parents tended to eulogise the Tito years, and were gone sufficiently long that they actively sought to avoid the wars of the Nineties.
                                This is exactly the case of the guy I was referring to. He's about 39, family left Yugoslavia age about 10/11, early nineties, at the first sign of trouble. I don't think his parents talked to him that much about politics.

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                                  #17
                                  Only two people immediately spring to mind that I know from Yugoslavia, one identifies as Croatian, the other as Serbian. They both would have been born there pre-split, and emigrated post-.

                                  While all the Chinese people I know from Hong Kong identify as Chinese, they also are very careful to let you know that they're from Hong Kong and not mainland China.

                                  The two Russian speakers from the Ukraine that I know identify as Ukrainian.

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                                    #18
                                    My Trini neighbour, who is ethnic Indian, yesterday refered to "All the Pakis" in London, in a conversation with my wife.

                                    Also, I've noticed that people from Sri Lanka stress that they're Tamil, not 'Sri Lankan', which they used to do. I'm not sure of the background on this one.

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                                      #19
                                      Since the Sinhalese won the civil war, they have increasingly rowed back on devolved autonomy for the Tamils, which had been granted before it ended.

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                                        #20
                                        I used to work with a Greek man, whose family was evicted from Turkey at the end of the First World War, he always considered himself Turkish.

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                                          #21
                                          I wonder how many of the Gastarbeiter from Turkey identified as Turkish and how many as Kurdish and when that changed?

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                                            #22
                                            Whether my husband introduces himself as Italian or Palestinian or "half-Italian" or Middle Eastern or Mediterranean or "from Hertfordshire" depends entirely on context and his assessment of the likely response he may get from whoever he's talking to. The first time he met me he cautiously opted for "half-Italian".

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                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by elguapo4 View Post
                                              I used to work with a Greek man, whose family was evicted from Turkey at the end of the First World War, he always considered himself Turkish.
                                              That population exchange or mass ethnic cleansing was based on religion only. That family more than likely had lived in Turkey, do you know which part, for generations and would probably have spoken no Greek at all.

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                                                #24
                                                His family was from Thrace ,and his name is Greek. As you say,his grandfather was a boy when they were evicted , and always spoke Turkish around the house.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Bengali and Punjabi people, I'm assuming, would have had very distinct and different cultures until we turned up and insisted they all had to wave the same new flag?

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