Immigrants and Exile

Edward Said's explanation of the "metaphysical" state of exile, and the example of immigrants placed in a new environment, raised some interesting questions for me. Being an immigrant myself, I have never viewed my state or condition in the Canadian society as any form of exile since it was my and my family's voluntary decision to relocate ourselves to a more desirable environment. In a sense, immigration was our way of escaping from an intellectual state of exile forced upon us in our country of origin. What I want to question, then, is if there can be individuals and/or groups who struggle back and forth the two states of exile throughout their life?

I think this idea, of one's struggling back and forth between two states of exile throughout their life, is exactly the point that Said raises when he says that "the exile therefore exists in a median state" (493). Rather than readily reasserting their place in the new setting, the struggling individual is still trapped because of the nostalgia of the past setting. This results in a tension within the individual and his/her group members. I think that the issue that Said is trying to get at is: through forms of displacement, the individual is exiled as a whole being by being exiled from both (the previous and current) states. This is an interesting relationship−the struggling individual is metaphysically exiled from being actually exiled. In the former and possibly harsher type of exile, the exiled individual does not fit in here or there. The tension leaves the individual with a lack of self-identity and belonging (which is a crucial source of self-awareness and self-consciousness). This begs the question: how can robust communities be developed from groups of intellectuals whose "consciousness [is] unable to be at rest anywhere" (494)? Said points to some examples like Jonathon Swift who have surpassed our expectations toward exiled people, but there are only a handful of cases like such.

As an international student who has been here for only 3 years which is not long, I've been feeling that I'm adapting to the current environment and slowly being isolated by the previous one. It's interesting that I don't feel entirely Canadian or Chinese, I think this is the "median state" that Said talked about. It sometimes confuses my sense of identity because I am still kind of like a foreigner for both countries, but I do know about both cultures and languages. I think there may be a lot of people like me.

I can definitely relate to that. Even Canadians who are born and raised here can also be considered an exile, what more to immigrants like us.

Definitely. I spent three years in India and about 5 years in Canada, while I'm originally from Korea. It is now hard for me to make sure what typical lifestyle/ personality/ insight of the world I can fit in. Based on that, I can say I'm in the median state as well but not like those who are exiled, because it was my voluntary decision to move to other countries, but not being forced to move out of my homeland. That makes a difference between myself and the exiled explained by Said.

I would like to comment on Barbara's remarks and the insightful question of: "how can robust communities be developed from groups of intellectuals whose "consciousness [is] unable to to be at rest anywhere" (494)?" I do not aim at providing an answer, and I may actually take it quite on a detour from its original scope of query, but there are interesting layers that could be added to it, and that actually tie this issue with most of the others that have been raised in these threads and that are dealth with by the other readings as well - issues such as oppression, racism and racialization, the Syrian refugee crisis, and ultimately the processes of othering and integration, that we could imagine as the tense extremes of a dialectical relation in the life of an exile, especially if an intellectual. In the first place, it is useful to keep in mind the personal and cultural history behind Edward Said's intellectual career and standpoints. As a Palestinian, he knows and carries better than anyone else today what it means to be displaced and systematically oppressed for generations, floating in that limbo of being costantly hoping yet not having concrete perspectives of returning, to be adjusting to a new place and yet to be nostalgic and attached to one's "native" identity, which is particularly threatened and longed in the case of the Palestinian people. Now, it is fundamental, in my opinion, to frame Said's piece within his broader work and theories before being able to make inferences or deepen our reflections. The only text I have read from him entirely and that I feel confident enough using as a reference point is his major book Orientalism. One of the book's main arguments could be summarized (altough probably over-simplified), just to the limited means of our limited discussion, by Said's claim that "“Neither the term Orient nor the concept of the West has any ontological stability; each is made up of human effort, partly affirmation, partly identification of the Other.” This importantly leads to theories of decoloniality and postcolonial thought, of which Said is considered to be one of the fathers exactly through his work Orientalism. Being aware of this and especially keeping in mind the arguments made by Fanon and Wilson, and even DuBois, in the extracts we have been reading, everything seems to connect together in depicting the modern world as one of scattered "exiles" whose own consciousness undergoes complex processes of attempting to reconcile itself within a distorted, liquid (referring to Bauman's theories of liquid modernity, for example) conception of space and time, such as that of the globalized society. Furthermore, in this world, the exile with a restless, because aware, consciousness, enters relationships with the people of the country he enters as foreigner that are fundamentally relations of power, where the possibility of a positive and desirable notion of "integration" is made ever slighter by the nude facts of colonization, cultural appropriation and inequality itself. How can there be (and should we wish there was) real integration or adjustement, as it seems to be mentioned by the several testimonies of our own immigration as international students to Canada, when our relationships with the Other, may that be the foreigner or our host if we are the foreigners, are so much shaped by the material and cultural power embedded within our identities? Is the process of othering unavoidable, especially in a global capitalist consumer society where we relate to each other on material bases of individual advantage?

I think you brought up some very interesting points, I myself am not an immigrant but my parents are so I have had encounters with how immigrants feel. My parents and family also don't feel like exiles and I don't think they've ever even thought of it that way because they wanted to come here and start a new life. But sometimes my parents do talk about going back home and visiting India but when they go there they don't feel like they fit in there anymore now and want to come back home to Canada. In this situation it can be hard to understand what home is, I also wonder if both Canada and India are both states of exile for them? I think we think this way because we are so used to belonging to one nation and one territory; I learned about this idea of territorial boundaries in my Sociology of Migration class.

My parents and grandparents are also immigrants that came here to start a new life because Hong Kong was very fast paced and they wanted to be in a more carefree society where it was more slow paced. When my grandparents do go back to Hong Kong they almost feel as if they're out of place and they actually think they're outsiders because of how quick things go so definitely they think that it is a state of exile for them but they do feel somewhat familiar just with speaking the language. They definitely feel like they belong and are insiders in Canada compared to Hong Kong

My family is also immigrants and the culture of where I came from and Canada is very different. Therefore after living here for almost 10 years, my mother and I are unable to adapt to life back in China anymore. Coming from Shanghai, a very fast paced and busy city, Vancouver is the complete opposite. By visiting home last summer, we realized that the city life is not for us anymore. However my dad never got used to the life in Vancouver, he feels more comfortable in the original setting. Therefore both my mom and I are at a state of exile while my dad is not.

I totally understand what you are saying, because my dad does the same, and I think the exile can be both way that your dad may in the state of exile while he tried to fit in Vancouver lifestyle because his family is here, in some level, he is exiled based on the unit of family since he cannot get used with Vancouver.

Just what Barbara said about the "median state", there are people who still hang on to the good memories from their previous place while enjoying the perks of living in their new environment. I am sure a lot of immigrants can relate to this.

It was interesting for me, not have immigrated to Canada, but moving back and forth from British Columbia to Saskatchewan, and back again, reading in terms of not only what I was able to relate to, but that which I certainly was not able to relate to. Despite only being from 2 provinces away, upon moving back to British Columbia after having passed K-Gr. 6 in Sask., I can certainly say I took on a bit of an 'outsider' role, someone 'new' to the province, the city, the classroom. In discussions pertaining to weather, for example, I somewhat scoffed at complaints at the "cold" winter in B.C., as it was much warmer than in Sask. at the time, and likely almost anywhere else in Canada. I could certainly relate to the "curmudgeonly disagreeable" kind of 'role', thinking back (I'm truly not usually a stuck-up curmudgeon, for context). This piece I find interesting, as I feel that "this" piece of Said's interpretation can be applied more broadly than just to those in exile, if my curmudgeonly personal experience is not uncommon among intra-Canadian travellers. That said, indeed I can not relate to many of the descriptors, e.g. "being part of a more general condition affecting the displaced national community", etc.