paired with “Vão/Vòng A Conversation with Katrina Dodson”

This introduction to “South-South” migration could be used as an assignment for writing during or outside of class. Instructors could use portions of this activity to supplement in-class discussions of the text or for free-writing activities in class.

Introduction

DU: The interview between Katrina Dodson and Madhu Kaza explores connections between Brazilian Portuguese and Vietnamese. To deepen our understanding of the larger questions in this text – particularly the ways in which the authors discuss translation, interpretation, and transculturation – consider the issue of “South-South” migration, a term that may be new for you.  The issue of “South-South” migration is an interesting parallel to the major ideas in “Vao / Vong.”

As Dodson points out in the interview, “imperialism makes for strange bedfellows, and it turns out that the romanized Vietnamese alphabet is derived from the Portuguese because the Portuguese missionaries who came to Vietnam from Macau and Goa in the early 1600s were the first to convert the language from Chinese script into Roman characters.”  This Portuguese/Chinese/Vietnamese connection is a little-known fact.  Attending to these particular histories deepens our appreciation and understanding of how cultures and languages intersect during particularly intense historical moments of transculturation as in the period of early imperialism in the 1600s.

While there are many terms to discuss cultural contact, we use the term “transculturation” purposefully.  The concept was first theorized by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz in the 1940s.  As described in the interview in The New Humanitarian that we ask that you read below, one of the key reasons for studying “South-South” migration is to understand the importance of making visible knowledge production in places outside of the “Global North.”  If we don’t, we have a limited understanding of the world.

Since migration is one of the most contested questions in our current historical moment, students will find it interesting to deepen their understanding of global movement. While defining these terms is difficult, the “Global South” generally refers to regions in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and parts of Asia and the “Global North” is roughly defined as Europe, United States, and Canada. Complex and fraught, the Global South/Global North framework is nevertheless helpful when making a richer, fuller sense of both individual and collective migrant stories.

Guide

Reflect

Take some time to reflect on your reading of the Dodson and Kaza interview and make connections to your own experiences and contexts.

• Do any of the issues in the Dodson and Kaza interview resonate with you?
• What kinds of stories do you know that showcase surprising linguistic connections? For example, the everyday verb for “I wish” in Spanish is “ojala,”
  which comes from the Arabic (this originates from the long moorish presence in the Iberian Peninsula from 711 through 1492).
• Think of some of these everyday intersections between languages, culture and history that you or your peers may be familiar with. What do we learn about language and culture when we attend to these intersections?

Extend

Most representations of migration in the media focus on movement from the “Global South” to the “Global North” even though at least a third or more of all movement is “South-South.”  Scholars have pointed out that ignoring “South-South” migratory flows can lead to misunderstandings both on a policy level and on how we tell stories about immigration generally.

As a brief glimpse into this complex question, read “South-South Migration Has Long Been Overlooked–Why?,” an interview with Joseph Teye, the director of the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana.

Then, respond to the following questions in writing or discussion:

• Why do you think “South-North” stories are more visible than “South-South” migratory flows? What is the importance of shifting focus to “South-South”?
• Do you have any newer understandings of migration after this activity?
• Can you collect any personal histories in your community of “South-South” migration?

This short video, “The Story of Migration” elaborates on many of these points and may deepen your thinking on why we should know more about “South-South” flows.

The Story of Migration – English

Write

After exploring these texts, write freely on your choice of prompts below.

1. Dodson mentions that “having to speak some Vietnamese with my relatives and listening to my mother talk on the phone in Vietnamese for hours definitely gave me a more imaginative relationship to English and to the givens of language in general than I otherwise would have had.” Has the interview in The New Humanitarian or the accompanying video challenged any of the givens you have concerning migration?  What is gained when we complicate our “imaginative relationship” to the movement of people?
2. Research a little-known story of “South-South” migration. Elaborate on how your research helps us capture a deeper understanding of global migration.
   • To get started, you might look at some migration data for a country in the Global South from MIDEQ, the Migration Policy Institute, or the UN Migration Report. Identify a pattern of migration to that country from another country in the Global South and do some research to determine why, for instance, Bangladeshis are migrating to India.