RHETORICAL ETHNICITY OF PERMANENT SOJOURNERS: THE CASE OF ISRAELI IMMIGRANTS IN THE CHICAGO AREA

Abstract

Immigrants who perceive their stay in the host country as a temporary stay are known as sojourners. In this article I examine the sojourn experience and ethnic attachment of Israeli immigrants in Chicago. I portray the sojourn experience as a dynamic process, in which the orientation towards the place of residence, and the experience of being a stranger can be changed over time. This process is analysed by giving close attention to sojourners who remain in the host country without any concrete plans or without a definite date of returning to the homeland. Those of them who maintain their general wish to return to the homeland are labelled in this study as `permanent sojourners', and their orientation towards their place of residence represents a compromise between the `sojourner' and the `settler' types of orientation. The findings reveal that Israeli `permanent sojourners' express a unique form of ethnicity, which I term `rhetorical ethnicity'. The manifestation and meaning of this form of ethnicity are discussed in the light of new forms of ethnicity in the United States. The findings and conclusions of this article are based on a field study of two discrete status groups of Israeli immigrants in the Chicago area.