Seen through the lens of diaspora, some of the traditional, even paradigmatic concerns of American studies (for example, immigration and assimilation) are thrown into question or rendered peripheral (Mishra 1996). With regard to community affiliation and self-description in the contemporary conjuncture, it is crucial to consider the reasons that groups that not long ago might have called themselves “minorities” are increasingly calling themselves “diasporas” (Clifford 1997). An emphasis on diaspora also necessitates a new approach to the study of foreign policy, as evinced in the growing scholarship that has begun to consider the impact of “mobilized” diasporic pressure groups on U.S. foreign affairs (Mathias 1981; Edmondson 1986; Shain 1994/95; Von Eschen 2004). The term likewise opens up new avenues of inquiry into the history of U.S. imperialism, not just in relation to its attendant dispersal of military, labor, diplomatic, and administrative populations, but also because of the ways in which transnational population movements in the Americas, especially those involving groups of those considered “others” in the U.S. nation-state, necessarily take shape in the shadow of U.S. globe-straddling ambitions.

This is an excerpt from Brent Hayes Edwards’s entry in Keywords for American Cultural Studies (p. 84).