Assimilation and Belonging: Identity in Migrant Accounts

In our very first class, we discussed why migration tends to elicit such big emotions. Why is the topic of migration, for example, such an emotive political issue in the United States? De Haas says that migration is contentious and emotive because it conjures up themes of belonging and identity, both of which are very […]

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The Turkish Experience in the Russian Federation

When we talk about migration to the Russian Federation, the main receiving countries that come to mind are those in Central Asia, but rarely do we think about Russia’s southwestern neighbor, Turkey. Towards the end of the Cold War, Turkey improved their relations with the Soviet Union through trade deals, which allowed Turkish companies to […]

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Exodus of Cultural Capital: the Migration of Jewish Uzbekistanis from Bukhara to Broadway

If you walk down 108th Street in Queens, NY, you’ll see some familiar sites of an Uzbek diaspora community: tandoor restaurants, traditional clothing stores, and newspaper stands carrying a publication called the Bukharan Times. More curious things you may find are signs with Hebrew alongside Uzbek Cyrillic, synagogues, and Jewish community centers. One does not […]

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