Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia by Sunil S. Amrith (review)

Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia is part of Cambridge's New Approaches to Asian History Series. So far, six other such books have been published. The aim of the series is to "publish books on milestones in Asian history" that "have come to define particular periods or mark turning points in the political, cultural, and social evolution of the region." Written by scholars with established credentials in their chosen fields, the books are intended as introductions for students. This book generally meets these criteria, some better than others.

Histories of nations in the developing world in Asia, Africa and the Pacific, have generally been constructed around the concept of the "nation state," disregarding themes and developments which transcend national boundaries. Migration is one such theme. This book's singular contribution is to point out that migration, in its various manifestations and in its different phases, has been an integral part of Asian historical experience, rather than something extraneous to it. People migrated for a whole variety of reasons: as professional soldiers and sailors, as casualties of human violence and warfare, as seasonal workers, as state-sponsored laborers, within and between countries, for various lengths of time. In some cases, the displacement was permanent, in others a temporary sojourn, widening imaginative horizons and expanding (or disrupting) the networks of those who undertook the journey.

Asia's great age of external migration was from the middle of the 19th century to the early decades of the 20th century when Chinese and Indians, particularly, went abroad as indentured laborers in large numbers to various parts of South and Southeast Asia (Ceylon, Malaya, Burma). Upheavals in the middle years of the 20th century due to wars and revolutions and the trials and tribulations of the newly emergent nation states with their jealously guarded national boundaries, ended that experiment. External migration was replaced by internal migration to various development projects desperately in need of cheap labor. All this is fairly well known to scholars of Asian labor and migration history, but not as the connected "Asian" narrative presented in this book. This is refreshing.

Wherever the laborers went, they "took with them not only their skills, capital or labour power, but ideas, cultural practices, sacred symbols, and ways of life," which "changed in the process of migration, as they transformed the new lands where they took root" (58). This is common sense when you come to think of it; the same could be said of virtually any migrant community anywhere in the world. What ideas? What cultural practices? What sacred symbols? How were these changed or transformed in the process of migration and settlement? There is, by now, a large body of scholarly and popular literature on cultural change and transformation in the Asian diaspora, from food and fashion to religious practices and performance that could have been brought into the discussion to enrich and enlarge it in a more substantial way. This is a missed opportunity.

The latter half of the book deals with the experience of Asian migration in the second half of the 20^th century. The discussion is assured and informative and supported by relevant statistical data about the development of mega Asian cities (Tokyo, Manila, Mumbai) where migrants plied their trade as street hawkers and drivers of taxis and rickshaws, about urbanization and its impact on minority immigrant communities, about the plight of minority communities trapped in often unsympathetic nation states and subjected to various forms of discrimination (in Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, Sri Lanka), about the feminization of the migrant labor force and its opportunities and challenges (of violence and sexual exploitation). Amrith makes the point that "memories of migration are everywhere imprinted on the social fabric of most Asian societies," (198) but in many places, through deliberate state policy, the official angle of vision excludes, or marginalizes, the migrants' contribution. The battle for full citizenship and all that it entails is a long and difficult one (as the Indian community...