A word “diaspora” denotes the forced or voluntary displacement of groups of people from their homeland and their dispersal across the world. The term has become so popular and important in the 1990s as feminists paid particular attention to how gender shapes both the material experience of migration and the ways in which diaspora is conceived and represented in gendered terms.
The author of Out on Main Street Shani Mootoo was born in Ireland and raised in Trinidad, and now resides in Canada. In her novel, Mootoo represents diaspora generated by different factors (ex. historical trauma, colonialism, globalization). Her work explores the characteristics of diaspora- home and banishment, loss and longing, and so on. But the work still remains in a woman-centered perspective that privileges female experience. Thus, these female subjects have power to subvert masculinist conceptions of diaspora and ideologies of home and nation.
Overall, Out on Main Street addresses the question of how women have re-shaped prevailing conceptions of diaspora, as well as how diaspora has shaped contemporary women’s writing. It informs us the ways in which dislocated ones convey the feelings of alienation that accompany the status of alien, stranger or foreigner. In the end, Mootoo’s writings help us to re-consider and question the problematic notion of “Mantra for Migrants”.
I really enjoyed reading what you had to say Jane. I agreed with your use of the term diaspora. I am a History major and have learned a lot about this word. It jumped out at me right away and was nice to see. I think this story shows the use of this word quite well. People who were living here were displaced even though it was their home.
I also agree with the fact that Out on Main Street did a good job of showing what women have done for this term and how they have done it. I believe this story showed us just how big of a role woman can play and how times have changed as well as how their writing has changed as a whole.