Ethnic associations were once vibrant features of societies, such as the United States and Canada, which attracted large numbers of immigrants. While the transplanted cultural lives of the Irish, Scots and continental Europeans have received much attention, the English are far less widely explored. It is assumed the English were not an ethnic community, that they lacked the alienating experiences associated with immigration and thus possessed few elements of diasporas. This deeply researched new book questions this assumption. It shows that English associations once were widespread, taking hold in colonial America, spreading to Canada and then encompassing all of the empire. Celebrating saints days, expressing pride in the monarch and national heroes, providing charity to the national poor, and forging mutual aid societies mutual, were all features of English life overseas. In fact, the English simply resembled other immigrant groups too much to be dismissed as the unproblematic, invisible immigrants.

Drawing on extensive archival and library sources, Karsten explores these collisions and arrives at a number of conclusions that will surprise.

This book explores the experience of religious communities that have migrated from South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) to live in Britain, Canada, and the United States, three countries sharing a common language (English) and an interwoven history. The work introduces the migration history of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs along with the cultural nuances of these traditions. The contributors discuss the various communities' experiences that grow out of or are related to religion. The book shows how traditions are reformed or reinvented and how they are passed on, both through the family and through institutions. Issues related to public policy and minority status are also addressed. While the main focus is on the Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh communities, specific sections also cover South Asian Christians, the Zoroastrian diaspora, and new religious movements in the West led by South Asians. The book strikes a balance between stories and statistics in order to emphasize the narrative of the immigrants' experience. [Contributors include: Roger Ballard, Judith Coney, Harold Coward, Diana L. Eck, Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, John R. Hinnells, Kim Knott, Gurinder Singh Mann, Sheila McDonough, Jørgen S. Nielsen, Joseph T. O'Connell, and Raymond Brady Williams.]

Explains the reasons for the large Irish emigration, and examines the problems they faced adjusting to new lives in the United States.

This book offers the first integrated study of the formation of diasporas from the islands of Ireland and Britain, and explores how the examples and experiences of the constituent nations and peoples of those islands compare.

This provocative volume investigates the origins of contemporary African American Vernacular English (AAVE), one of the oldest, yet unsolved, questions in sociolinguistics.

A study of the emergence of community among African Americans in Nova Scotia.