Transnational diaspora and rights of heritage

Abstract

The sweep of history has witnessed the movement of large numbers of people over vast territories, beginning with the first hominid migrations. Post-Columbian history also has had its share of mass migrations, and these more recent migrational events have resulted in culture contact situations around the globe, as European superpowers have sought wealth and power in various colonial enterprises. The United States itself has seen at least four waves of mass immigration prior to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Through time, disparate peoples entered North America: colonialist northern Europeans and Iberians, enslaved Africans, Irish and Asians, and the so-called "new immigrants" from eastern and southern Europe. These migrations, stretching in time from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, have defined the cultural history of the continent. © 2007 Springer-Verlag New York.