Fly Home Research Articles

튀르키예 아동문학에 나타난 디아스포라 의식: 소설 『전쟁에서 도망친 나무』를 중심으로

For more than a decade, Syria has been embroiled in a civil war that has pitted Syrian rebels against government forces. Syrian refugees who have crossed the border have found shelter in neighboring countries, including Türkiye. As the country hosting the largest number of Syrian refugees in the world, 21st-century Turkish literature has seen the emergence of a significant body of diasporic literature that explores the lives and stories of Syrian refugees. In this study, we wanted to examine various refugee issues, focusing on the novel If I were a bird, I'd fly home, which vividly depicts the pain and inner conflicts that Veşir, a refugee boy who fled from Syria to Türkiye, experiences in diaspora. The novel describes the search for a new identity as a refugee, the lack of basic human needs such as food, discriminatory attitudes towards refugees and economic poverty. In particular, the novel explores the difficult lives of refugees who have been forced to flee their homeland due to civil war and are now in an unfamiliar environment through the unadorned eyes of a child.

Critical Focus | Farewell Reality, Hello Jellybeans

Scientific publishing is a racket. Research for the author's book Nonscience Returns reveals how academics battle to have more papers in print than their rivals, no matter what the cost. Click. You've won a prize and it's worth $11,690. For that money, two of you could fly from Washington to New York in a private jet, have a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce take you for lunch at Masa, the most expensive restaurant in America, and fly home sipping vintage cognac. Something that endures? What about a Rolex Oyster -- Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy owned Rolexes, and so does Barack Obama. World-renowned rapper Jay-Z has several. Alternatively, what about a luxurious Cunard voyage? You could both cruise the Caribbean from New York in a Princess Grill suite aboard the world's greatest liner, Queen Mary 2. Oh wait, you might have research to publish. This money would allow you to print 1,000 copies of a satisfyingly stout book (50 color pages, 200 more with text and diagrams), professionally bound in dark blue cloth-covered boards, like the textbooks you may remember from your student days. Or you could publish a single research paper in Nature.

Giving the Devil His Due

I fold the paper skeleton,untack the cardboard bats.Halloween behind me.A Nor'easter kept most kids in.My son in hooded slicker and bootsslogged through the streetswith the persistence of a Jehovah's Witness.His loot now resides in a funereal urnon the hutch. Not long ago,a medicine show drove into townto stir up dirt about the devil's work.At a feverish pitch parishionersripped Madonna posters, stompedCDs, shattered ancient albumsand tossed it all triumphantlyinto fifty-gallon drumsfrom which flames shot heavenwardlike Pentecostal tongues.Sometimes I feel I've fallenoverboard and clamberin the ship's wake for a ropeor handhold, while all aroundlurk the gray uncertain shapesof defeat. Acid rain turnsto acid snow, the hole in the ozonewidens, cancer feathers my father's lungsfrom some forty years agowhen he machined asbestos.Maybe if we gave the devil his due,commended him on the beastlinessof this seamless universe,the sky would sweeten,the rain salve our wounds,an angel would findhis leathery wingsand fly home.

The Tennis Bracelet

Would you return an accidentally stolen diamond bracelet? In this work of philosophical fiction, a couple on vacation in Israel realize, once they are back in their hotel room, that a diamond tennis bracelet caught on their bag and they walked out of the store with it. Now they are can’t decide if they should return the bracelet or keep it? If they return it, will they be accused of stealing it? They are set to fly back to America in a day, so why risk anything, why not just get on the plane and fly home? In the end, they decide to head back to the store to return the bracelet. The cashier than asks, “Would you like the refund in cash or check?”

The Proclivities of Witches

The Proclivities of Witches Leslie Stonebraker (bio) I find, as I age, that I better understand the proclivities of witches. Keep the children safe inside the tower. Provide the children with nourishment: spun sugar windows to lick and hard cake walls on which to nibble. Teach the children useful skills, like sweeping cinders and spinning flax. Protect the children from the prying eyes of princes who see only a pretty face, a lilting voice, an empty vessel to fill with seed and bear their children, so those children can be rescued by more princes to bear more children, and on and on until royal is just another word for average. Naturally we try to intervene—we, the shrews, the crones, shrouded bodies bent beneath the weight of our terrible magics. Only we have the tools to halt the endless cycle of hardly consensual happily-ever-afters. We are capable, independent women. We have the resources, time, and attention to properly grow the little creatures of this world. We understand that a child should know things, like how to ride the current of the wind, how to cultivate a rampion, how to avoid the kind of kisses that cause forgetfulness. Sure, we may have an odd craving or two. But who hasn’t thought a chubby infant thigh looked delicious? Who hasn’t seen distortion reflected in a magic mirror? I find, as I age, that I better understand the proclivities of witches. [End Page 1] No longer do I identify with those following the second star to the right—now my heart breaks for their parents, left behind to sit at a picture window waiting for children who may never fly home. I feel for the pirate endlessly tortured by a tyrannical little boy who can’t leave well enough alone. Why shouldn’t three bears live happily in their own home, undisturbed by entitled trespassers upsetting delicate family dynamics? Kings are right— teenage mermaids are much too young to fall in anything more than lustful fantasy after a dramatic moment on a beach. And sea witches, they’re right too, to demonstrate how fickle young men can be, how poor their recollection of a supposedly magical encounter. That little mermaid should have learned something about life and love, should have more closely examined her happy ending before trotting down the aisle on a shapely new pair of legs. Now, as I watch the Disney credits roll, I’m certain the prince will negotiate a timeshare for winter weekends at the undersea castle as part of the divorce. Now I find myself wondering: when did grown-ups become the villains of these stories? When did I become a grown-up? I find, as I age, that I better understand the proclivities of witches. My tawny summer children are ill-prepared to face the Big Bad Wolf huffing particles of disease, trying to blow our house down. Like a witch, I conceal them from the dangers of this world, shutter every window against the western wind and hang blue-eyed amulets to ward off evil watchers. I closely guard my son’s and daughter’s innocence, banishing the voices of the princes on the television with a wave of my magic wand. I ply my children with sweets when they become uneasy, so I can watch their bodies stretch into the humans they’ll become. I am responsible for this bit of magic, this spark of something that came from the emptiness inside of me. I will not let it be stolen. I am sure one day my children will rewrite me as the covetous hag, envious of their golden youth, unable to let them go. They will tell of their escape from my clutches, revise their childhood fairy tale as a coming-of-age story, a necessary fall from grace, a seductive bite from the fruit of the tree of knowledge so they could finally embrace the real world. But for now, I embrace the witches and cackle as I build an evergreen garden inside my castle, pull up the drawbridge, and shut the world away. [End Page 2] Leslie Stonebraker Leslie Stonebraker lives in New Hampshire with her husband...

Flashpoint: How a Little-Known Sporting Event Fueled America's Anti-Apartheid Movement

Flashpoint: How a Little-Known Sporting Event Fueled America's Anti-Apartheid Movement

Recasting the Global South

Recasting the Global South

Grackle

Grackle Megan Gower (bio) Black bird opens its beak, voice creaking like the tuning of an old car radio searching for frequencies. Three of them in the tree out back speak in crackling waves and vibrations—calling. I try to tune in, want to listen to the hits, watch how they groove along the branch with spotty connection and beat each other with their wings. I wonder what they sing, what warning they're emitting— to look out, to fly home— to fly from what plagues us. They close their throats, bob their heads, their shrill eyes still pierce the veil of rain. [End Page 72] Megan Gower Megan Gower graduated from Appalachian State University with her B.A. in English with concentrations in both creative writing and professional writing. She attended the Columbia Publishing Course and worked in New York publishing before deciding to return to North Carolina to acquire her graduate degree in poetry at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She currently teaches undergraduate writing and literature courses as a lecturer at UNCG. Copyright © 2021 Berea College

Reporting the Covid-19 Pandemic: Trauma on Our Own Doorstep

The political and media rhetoric of the pandemic is that of conflict and a call to arms in face of a hidden enemy. But this is not a distant war where journalists are parachuted in to report on the action for a few weeks and then fly home. It is on our own doorstep. Many of those covering the global crisis do not correspond to the popular image of hardened conflict reporters and may have little experience in dealing with distressing stories of death, grief and mourning. How are journalists coping with the everyday diet of trauma when the corona frontline may be affecting their families, friends and colleagues? this article explores these issues through narrative interviews with UK-based journalists covering the pandemic for broadcast, print and digital media. It seeks to capture their “emotional labour” and explore possible differences in their practice and the coping strategies they employ. The paper locates this discussion within the context of an industry that has paid relatively little heed to these issues and considers what long-term implications the coronavirus may have for the next generation of digital journalists.

Commentary: COVID‐19 Pandemic and Higher Education: International Mobility and Students’ Social Protection

Commentary: COVID‐19 Pandemic and Higher Education: International Mobility and Students’ Social Protection

Olfactory information from the path is relevant to the homing process of adult pigeons

The contribution of path information to the homing process of adult experienced pigeons is by no means consensual. Adult pigeons are expected to determine the homeward direction solely based on information gathered at the release site (i.e., map information). However, several are the evidences suggesting that path information is somehow important to the homing process. Using adult homing pigeons and manipulation of the pigeons’ access to olfactory information from the displacement to the release site by means of nasal plugs that were applied unilaterally, we accessed the contribution of olfactory path information to the homing process. Pigeons transported to the release site with only the right nostril plugged were impaired on the determination of the initial homeward direction, while pigeons transported to the release site with only the left nostril plugged were impaired on the homing speed. The present findings highlight the importance of information from the path to the navigational process wherein olfactory path information contributes to the accurate determination of the homeward direction and in keeping the pigeon’s motivation to fly home. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Animal migration has fascinated mankind for generations. However, and although vast research has been done on the subject, it is still controversial the way as animals accomplish such endeavor task. Using homing pigeons, a biological model for spatial processing, and behavioral experiments for manipulation of information from the path (here, olfactory), we showed that information from the path contributes to the accurate determination of the initial homeward direction and to keep the pigeon’s motivation to fly home. Therefore, information from the path (here, olfactory) appears to lie at the heart of the processing of spatial information in migrating animals, contributing to the accurate determination of flying course and motivation to reach the destination.

Global Frequency: The Audacity of Peace

8 WLT MAY–AUGUST 2017 global frequency The Audacity of Peace by Rob Vollmar Rahim AlHaj Letters from Iraq: Oud and String Quintet Smithsonian Folkways Iraqi-born composer Rahim AlHaj’s latest album, Letters from Iraq, is his most ambitious to date. AlHaj pairs masterful oud playing with a string quintet on eight original compositions that seamlessly blend a variety of Arab and European traditions. Moreover, each composition is inspired by an actual letter from Iraq, creating a kind of conceptual collage reflecting the mass disruption that has wracked the nation since the US invasion of 2003. In his marriage of the oud with strings (and added percussion), AlHaj builds upon a musical formula first realized on selected tracks from his Little Earth album (Ur, 2010) but with a much greater sense of scope. The opening track, “Eastern Love,” draws most deeply from the Arab classical tradition: each section carefully modulating to the next; the melody, passed back and forth between the oud and the strings until they arrive together in unison and power; all expressed in ten beats to the measure even as the tempo quickens, ebbs, or disappears altogether depending on the structural demands of the section. Other tracks push harder on the listener ’s expectations as they blend the maqam (or scales) of the Arab music tradition with sections that call to mind the music of the Baroque. The string arrangements, overseen by Zack Kear, are remarkable in their chameleonic ability to shift from the powerful unisons that typify Egyptian firqah orchestras to the delicate harmonic interactions normally associated with the European chamber music tradition. The sum is breathtaking in its capacity to evoke a wide variety of emotions in the listener: the wistful sadness of lost love in tracks like “The Last Time We Will Fly Birds”; terror in “Running Boy” and “Unspoken Word”; and even hope, which emerges from the closing pieces, “Fly Home” and “Voices to Remember.” In the liner notes to the album, AlHaj declares his intention to “make music to make us realize peace.” It is a laudable goal and one that stands in stark contrast to a nonironic reading of W. H. Auden’s famous observation that “poetry makes nothing happen.” Although one might question how much of this intention may be fettered in an era when streaming provides none of the programmatic material that fuels the album, it is clear that the composer hopes to mine peace through the cultivation of empathy. Through these compositions, AlHaj scales the incomprehensible violence, the crippling instability, the wave upon unyielding wave of grief, down to the unspoken voice of the individual—an individual whose story inspired the music and lends his or her name to the track. It is on this human level that we can grapple with a small piece of what can seem to be a labyrinth of suffering and loss otherwise. It is an audacious claim in 2017 that music can help us realize peace, but, given the short supply of peace these days, perhaps the world could benefit from more audacity of a similar nature. Rob Vollmar is WLT’s book review editor. Notebook ...

When 'home' means another nation: The power and pitfalls of repatriation at the end of life from a tertiary cancer centre.

46 Background: How people die lives on in the memory of those who survive. It is therefore pivotal for palliative teams to help craft an ending in line with patient and family goals. It has been observed in a tertiary cancer centre that there is often a spiritual imperative for patients to return to their nation of birth, once treatment is stopped and mortality accepted. Methods: Retrospective chart review of 3 patients repatriated for end of life care to their nation of birth (Romania, Portugal, Ireland), focusing on: the conversations about the goal of repatriation and its meaning to the patient; the practical barriers and enablers of repatriation of patients with advanced cancer. Follow-up interview with bereaved families to establish impact of repatriation. Results: Chart review revealed multi-layered hesitant conversations, often facilitated by the palliative care team, to establish that getting ‘home’ meant returning to the country of birth. This became an overarching pre-occupation for the patient, family and team. Patients were not concerned whether they were transferred to a hospital, hospice or family home – it was the country that mattered. There was huge anxiety and little objectivity about fitness to travel. Nurses were more anxious than doctors. Patient and family expressed least anxiety. There was a knowledge deficit regarding fitness to fly, whether an escort was needed, the respiratory and metabolic effects of flight, and how to maximize wellbeing on the journey. Reassurance was gained if the transfer was to a hospital, with greater concern if the transfer was to a community setting. Follow-up interviews with bereaved families are still in progress. Initial findings suggest no regrets in terms of the decision to fly home, and that self-esteem improved with familiarity and social connection. Conclusions: The practical anxieties of health professionals often act as delays to repatriation at the end of life. Checklists to facilitate these journeys would ensure that the process does not need to be learnt each time, and that windows of opportunity are not missed. Achievement of spiritual goals for a loved one is hugely important to those who live on.

Leaving Nepal After the Earthquake: Sometimes Stepping Away May be the Best Disaster Response.

Leaving Nepal After the Earthquake: Sometimes Stepping Away May be the Best Disaster Response.

Child Safety, Absolute Risk, and the Prevention Paradox

AbstractImagine you fly home from vacation with your one‐and‐a‐half‐year‐old son who is traveling for free as a “lap child.” In the airport parking lot, you put him into his forward‐facing car seat, where he sits much more contentedly than he did in the rear‐facing one that was mandatory until his first birthday. After he falls asleep on the way home, you transfer him to his crib without waking him, lowering the side rail so you can lift him in more easily.Many parts of this idyllic parenting picture are deemed unacceptably risky according to recent child safety proposals. While these proposals all aim to improve child safety, their possible impact is unclear because there has been little discussion of the absolute risk and risk reduction involved in each. And while precise figures are lacking, rough estimates indicate that the magnitudes are quite small. I will argue that this risk and benefit data raises important questions about the proposals, including whether parents might reasonably believe that the small absolute risk reduction offered by the proposed changes does not justify the attendant burdens. This possibility—termed the “prevention paradox” in other contexts—highlights ethical and theoretical challenges in this area of public health.

“Fixin’ to Die Blues”: The Last Months of Bukka White With an afterword from B.B. King on Bukka White’s Legacy

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A faint odor of bedpan greeted me as I entered room in rehabilitation unit of Beverly Hospital in Beverly, Massachusetts. In bed lay stocky figure of Booker T. Washington White, clad in a white hospital smock. The upper half of hospital bed had been raised so that Bukka (as Vocalion record label had dubbed him in 1937) could sit. His wide torso looked even wider in smock--not wiry sort of blues icon I had in mind when I called his doctor's office to ask if he was well enough to have a visitor. White had suffered a stroke a month before while on a flight from Memphis to Boston, where he was scheduled to play a week-long engagement at a small concert club thirty miles north of city. After spending eight days in intensive care unit, he had been transferred to rehabilitation unit on Sunday, July 4. By time I visited him on Thursday afternoon, July 29--the day before he was to leave hospital and fly home to Memphis--I was told that he had regained enough strength in his right hand to be able to play some guitar while sitting up in bed. In July 1976 I knew almost nothing about Bukka White other than that he was an old-time blues musician. I was lifestyle editor of a local paper who had been writing about music, mostly rock, for seven years. I owed what little I knew of Mississippi Delta blues to Robert Johnson album owned by college friends, and I had heard Skip James in person. I thought White must be like them. As I introduced myself, I could tell almost immediately that he was not interested in talking to me that day. In hindsight, this was more than understandable: I was not only a complete stranger, but a reporter seeking an interview--and most emphatically not a medical professional in a position to help him leave hospital, which was his overriding goal. As hospital publicist had told me, wants simply to go home. White had compelling personal reasons to return to Memphis. He had traveled to Boston with a tragic loss on his mind: only ten days before, daughter of his longtime domestic partner had been murdered almost outside his door. Presilla was one of three children of Leola Morris, woman with whom White had lived for years in Memphis, and the night she died she was walking in alley almost to [White]'s house when her boyfriend shot and killed her. [white] and Leola heard shots and ran out to discover her already dead. (1) Although I had spoken with his doctor's office, I cannot recall if White had received advance notice of my visit. In those days my journalistic curiosity was greater than my sensitivity. I thought of White as a newsworthy musician whose performance I had planned to cover had he not suffered stroke. As a journalist, I had a reporter's urge to document his presence north of Boston in a story for my newspaper. On a personal level, I did not want to miss such an opportunity to learn first-hand about nature and history of blues. For several minutes we negotiated about whether he would allow me to interview him without being paid. He hinted that he was accustomed to receiving money for an interview. In 1976, during an era when reporters were full of ethical self-awareness following Watergate scandal, I avoided responding directly to his suggestion. Instead, I gave reasons why my newspaper--a 30,000-circulation daily--was unable to pay him. My persistence prevailed. He at last agreed to interview, and I set up my small tape recorder on table by his bed. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Over next forty-five minutes White shared a remarkable account of actual life of a blues musician--not romantic conception of that life that many in music, film, and print media have portrayed before and since. The first twenty-five minutes of tape consist of an interview about White's life and music; next twenty minutes capture a personal discussion between musician and a medical social worker about medical care (or lack of it) that would be available to him when he returned to Memphis. …

That Winter

90 miha mazzini fiction That Winter Adapted with the author from a translation by Tom Priestly 91 The prisoners released before me had flown home from The Hague in airplanes sent for them by their states. I was the first one who wasn’t a national hero. The guard just handed me a train ticket to Sarajevo and some pocket money for travel expenses . I greeted him with “Tot ziens” and he answered with “Tot nooit, hopelijk!”— an unsubtle indication he didn’t want to see me again. In the train I couldn’t take my eyes off the window: moving, everything was moving . Houses, cities, gliding by, going away, a constant flow of change after eleven years of immobility. Waiting for another train in Düsseldorf, I felt like a ghost returning to the world for the first time. I moved out of the way of a person talking to himself, a sure sign of madness at the time of my imprisonment, whereas now everybody had headphones and their mouths were empty of cigarettes. After Munich the landscape got more and more orderly. Austrians took symmetry and tidiness for beauty, their windows vomiting carnations from houses built to last forever. The train entered the tunnel and came out in Slovenia. I expected to see the big steel factory, once the pride of Yugoslavia , but only one chimney still stood, covered with ads for supermarkets and foreign brands. Nobody entered my compartment— Slovenia was now part of the EU and there were no more border policemen or customs officers in Europe. But at the Croatian border I was asked for my papers. A pair of Slovenian officers browsed my​ 92 ecotone documents: “Den Haag—The International War Crimes Tribunal for crimes committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia.” They looked momentarily bewildered, until the policeman, still a kid, sucked air into his spreading chest, soaking his words in venom. I looked into his eyes and the air left him. His partner, the customs officer, elbowed him out the door. The Croat officers didn’t know how to react and quickly went away; they had their own war with the Muslims and some of their heroes had been my prison buddies. When the train stopped in Zagreb, I bought myself some newspapers . The Croats had buried one of their fascist commandants from the Second World War. In his camp they had killed at least seventy thousand people. Though he fled to Argentina after the war, escaping hanging, he had been in prison, unrepentant, for the past decade, after having finally been extradited. At the funeral the priest said the prisoner had slept peacefully throughout his life, since he knew that God had forgiven him everything. The train entered Bosnia on the Serbian side of the country and when I offered my papers to the officers, they stood at attention, saluting me like windup toys, while they retreated backward. The staff of the small border station started walking up and down the platform, pretending to be running errands, stealing glances through my window. I dug into the corner and shame covered me like an icy blanket. The Sarajevo train station looked forlorn , as though no one had used it since the war began, sixteen years ago. Cigarette smoke drifted from the cafés in front of it. I waited on the abandoned platform until my bus arrived and I almost ran for it, my head lowered. I had not called anybody in my village to let them know I was coming. The last time I had seen my former wife was in court, on the witness stand. She was talking about how she had begged me to dissolve the factory but I had beaten her into silence. I stopped listening to her. The knowledge that this must be the same lie my daughters were hearing from her I had not called anybody in my village to let them know I was coming. The last time I had seen my former wife was in court. 93 miha mazzini dripped from my heart through my body like acid, leaving just burnt hollowness inside. For her testimony she got a change of identity and...

Eva Underground (review)

Reviewed by: Eva Underground Loretta Gaffney Mackall, Dandi Daley Eva Underground. Harcourt, 2006 [256p] ISBN 0-15-205462-6$17.00 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 7-12 It is 1978, and seventeen-year-old Eva Lott is upset about moving from Chicago to Communist Poland. However, her professor father has been encouraged by his faith and a line of Polish ancestry to join the anti-Communist resistance, and he teaches a group of young writers and activists who are part of an underground free-press movement. Eva is initially appalled by the lack of amenities in the mountain village of Zakopane—a piece of bread coated in lard is considered a luxury—and she attempts to sneak away and fly home. Soon, though, she realizes that Poland has gotten into her blood—helped by the hunky good looks of Tomek, one of her father's students; she pledges to help the cause, only to be accused of betrayal after Tomek is arrested and beaten by soldiers. What is essentially a fairly unsurprising, solid depiction of a young adult dealing with her mother's death and her own first love is given fresh life through the unexpected and unusual setting of Poland under Communism—and yes, Karol Wojtyla (future Pope John Paul II) has a role to play in the story. More historical context would have been welcome—it's never explained how the free-press movement relates to Catholicism—and Eva's father's role in the movement (especially since he doesn't speak Polish) is contrived. Nevertheless, budding activists and historians and romance fans intrigued by the edgier setting may find a revolutionary flavor here. Copyright © 2006 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

When Dogs Can Fly: Level of Abstraction as a Cue to Metaphorical Use of Verbs

How do people recognize metaphors? In nominal metaphors, such as "My lawyer is a shark," the metaphor vehicle "shark" refers to an abstract category of predatory creatures, not to the basic-level concept, the literal fish we call "shark." People can use the level of abstraction of the metaphor vehicle (shark) as a cue that the expression is intended metaphorically rather than literally (Glucksberg & Keysar, 1990). Can the metaphorical use of verbs, as in "he hopped on his bike and flew home" be recognized in the same way? We investigated whether the level of abstraction of a verb's referent provides a cue that the verb is used metaphorically rather than literally. We varied level of abstraction of verb use, and obtained judgments of metaphoricity as a function of abstraction level. As with nouns, verbs that are understood at a higher level of abstraction are rated as more metaphorical than when the same verbs could be interpreted at the basic (literal) level. Furthermore, this effect is graded: the higher the level of abstraction, the higher the rated metaphoricity. These findings suggest that people use level of abstraction as a cue to metaphoricity for both nominal and predicative metaphors.

Concluding Commentary: On Migration, Diasporas, and Transnationalism in Asian American History

Concluding Commentary:On Migration, Diasporas, and Transnationalism in Asian American History Evelyn Hu-Dehart I am reading and reflecting on these provocative essays in Tokyo, where I have been living since June, gaining first-hand contact with two diasporic communities: the Chinese in Japan, and the descendants of Japanese Brazilians, Peruvians, and other Latin Americans returning to the proverbial "ancestral homeland." One group, the Chinese, is a very old diasporic community in Japan, having established a small trading presence in Nagasaki in the seventeenth century even as the new Tokugawa shogunate decided to close Japan off from contact with almost all foreigners. Over the centuries, this small but old Chinese community has been sporadically replenished by new arrivals, among them Japanese-speaking and acculturated Chinese from the then Japanese colony of Taiwan. Today, Chinese from the PRC rank very high among newcomers to Japan, often using relatively lax student visas to enter the country but with intention to work rather than study. They readily learn Japanese; may join thriving existing Chinese communities in Yokohama or Kobe; easily find work in the service and restaurant sectors, or as professionals; work in a co-ethnic business or start one themselves; and marry Japanese spouses. Although gaining Japanese citizenship is extremely difficult, they can acquire long-term work visas and permanent residencies. Of course, they use cell phones and email, and fly home regularly to visit. This is a history that enriches and reinforces what we already know about the Chinese diaspora, about which a good deal has been written. [End Page 309] Latin Americans are another prominent group of newcomers to Japan, having been granted a privileged migration status if they have at least one Japanese grandparent who had settled in a Portuguese or Spanish-speaking country in the Americas. Known commonly as degaseki, these Latin Americans in Japan present an unusual twist on the diaspora paradigm, because now fifteen years into this migration, it is not at all certain whether the degaseki constitute the Japanese diaspora coming home, or should be more properly considered extensions of the Brazilian, Peruvian, Bolivian, and Argentinian diasporas to Asia. While given the right to return to Japan to work and help alleviate the country's labor shortage, they do not automatically re-naturalize as Japanese. To both Japanese and degaseki alike, Asian heritage and faces juxtaposed with Latino cultures create complex identities that defy expectations on both sides. Many degaseki are already of mixed Japanese-Latin American heritage, have spouses with no trace of Japanese heritage, and hence children with little connection and practically no memory of things Japanese. Many migrants do not speak Japanese and have difficulty and little incentive to learn, given the predominance of factory jobs into which they are hired. In school, the children are taught in Portuguese or Spanish, their primary language, and only secondarily and often poorly in Japanese. They may prefer the Latin American meat-laden churrasco to the delicate bite-size sushis, and they don't forget to celebrate major Latin American fiestas, such as the Brazilian carnaval, and read Portuguese and Spanish newspapers published in Japan to stay abreast of political and, most importantly, sports news from "home." So what is home, what is their core identity, what culture do they mostly identify with? Given their original incentive to "return home" to find work, they find themselves pining for another "home," to which they vow to return, no matter how long they have been away in Japan. Just like the subjects in the four essays gathered for this special issue, the histories of the Chinese and the degaseki in Japan begin with migration, that is, moving out of home and relocating to another place, voluntarily or under duress, as labor migrants, as exiles or political migrants seeking refuge from war and its aftermath, in desperation or in protest. Historians have discovered and largely agree, however, that the old push-pull immigration model is inadequate to fully apprehend and appreciate [End Page 310] the experiences and mind-set—subjectivities in post-modern parlance—of people on the move who relocate and settle elsewhere, forging new relationships out of necessity and desire without having to abandon old networks...