Plural Homelands and Cosmopolitan Feminism in Nora Glickman's Diasporic Narratives

When we stand in two circles it isn't a question of standing in two separate areas, one moment in one and the next in another, but rather in what is common territory to both of them.

David Ben-Gurion

In a notable essay in which he introduces the expression "rooted cosmopolitanism," Mitchell Cohen argues against theories of national identity that dissolve or abjure cultural differences formed by history in favor of "sweeping universalist prescriptions."¹ Linking his argument to contemporary debates on multiculturalism in the United States, Cohen emphasizes the need for a society "which accepts a multiplicity of roots and branches and that rests on the legitimacy of plural loyalties, of standing in many circles, but with common ground."² To illustrate this position, he cites two suggestive metaphors that speak not only to his own discipline of political theory but also to the fields of intercultural studies and the humanities.³ The first of these metaphors comes from an essay written in 1916 by Randolph Bourne entitled "Trans-national America," in which he envisioned trans-nationality as "a weaving back and forth with other lands, of many threads of all sizes and colors." Cohen admires Bourne for his courageous celebration of the notion of "multicultural exchange" during a period of intense anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States.⁴ Extending the metaphor, Bourne continued: "Any movement which attempts to thwart the weaving, or to dye the fabric any one color or disentangle the threads of the strands, is false to this cosmopolitan vision."⁵ Thus Cohen finds inspiration for his term, "rooted cosmopolitanism," in Bourne's conception of a nation that accepts the legitimacy of plural loyalties and—most relevant to the concerns of this paper—a society that celebrates plural cultural identities.⁶

The second metaphor Cohen evokes in support of the legitimization of plural loyalties comes from a statement made by Zionist Labor leader David Ben-Gurion in the early 1930s in which he declared that his socialist movement stood "within many circles."⁷ Cohen cites Ben-Gurion's enumeration of some of the "circles" of loyalty to which members of his Zionist Labor party adhered, including not only the aspiration to a Jewish homeland in Israel, but also loyalties to the social ideals of workers' rights in general and, in particular, solidarity with the "circle of the working women's movement in its struggle for liberation."⁸ For Cohen, as for Ben-Gurion, the principle of plural loyalties was not to be construed simply in terms of national identity, but also with respect to cultural differences within a democratic society. While praising cultural diversity, Cohen nevertheless warns against the "unreflective" celebration of difference heard at times within contemporary debates on multiculturalism. He insists on the need to emphasize the "trans" in "transnationality," a prefix that suggests the construction of intercultural identities, or in terms of Ben-Gurion's metaphor, the common ground on which culturally diverse citizens stand together within a nation as well as across national borders.⁹

Cohen's attempt to reconcile the apparently contradictory relativist and universalist tensions inherent in the concept of "rooted cosmopolitanism" has been reinforced by Kwame Anthony Appiah, another contemporary philosopher of politics and ethics seeking to rehabilitate the sometimes maligned concept of cosmopolitanism.¹⁰ Appiah elaborates a theory of "rooted cosmopolitanism" that legitimizes both cultural difference and the human rights shared by all citizens of the world. He identifies "two strands that intertwine in the notion of cosmopolitanism...universal concern and respect for legitimate difference."¹¹ I find in Cohen's and Appiah's respective notions of "rooted cosmopolitanism," captured also by Bourne in his metaphor of a cloth woven "back and forth with other lands," and by Ben-Gurion in his image of standing in what is common territory to many circles of allegiance, a suggestive framework in which to read narratives of diaspora, and in particular, the feminist diasporic narratives of Nora Glickman, a contemporary Argentine-Jewish-U.S. writer.

Glickman is one of a unique cohort of contemporary U.S. Latino and Latina Jewish writers...