This document summarizes Jonathan Dresner's work on transnational immigrant patterns and the relationship between diaspora, modernity, and nationalism. It discusses how chain and return migration lead to concentration in sending and receiving areas. Immigrant communities invest in their home countries through remittances and local institutions. Assimilation occurs across generations as ethnic nationalism develops. Modern infrastructure like travel, communication, and media help maintain connections across borders while invented traditions form new identities. Migration must be understood in the context of modernity and the systems that structure the globalized world.

1. Diaspora and Modernity:
Infrastructure and Nationalism
in Transnational Immigrant
Patterns
Jonathan Dresner
Dept. of History, Philosophy,
and Social Sciences
Pittsburg State University

3. The Domestic Crusaders
by Wajahat Ali
• 1st Generation issues
• 2nd Generation issues
• Intergenerational Issues
• Issues with American society

4. Diaspora
• Chain migration and return migration
• Concentration on both ends of migration
• Community Investment
– Remittances and philanthropy
– Local cultural institutions
• Assimilation by generation
• Ethnic Nationalism
• “Bridge”

5. Nationalism and Infrastructure
• “Invasion” v. “Frontier” v. “Bridge”
• Citizenship
• Assimilation
• Travel and Communication
• Media
• Invented Tradition
• Gender roles

6. Conclusions
• Migration is not a modern
phenomenon, but modern migration is
inseparable from modernity. The
attitudes and systems that structure the
world have to be accounted for.

7. Select Bibliography
• Wajahat Ali, The Domestic Crusaders: A Play,
McSweeney's, 2004, 2010. introduction by Ishmael
Reed, 2010.
• Erika Lee, The Making of Asian America: A History,
Simon and Schuster (2015).
• Adam McKeown, Melancholy Order: Asian
Migration and the Globalization of Borders.
Columbia University Press: New York. 2008.
• Osterhammel, Jürgen. The Transformation of the
World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century.
Translated by Patrick Camiller. Princeton University
Press: Princeton, NJ. 2014.

8. Sources
• “Domestic Crusaders: a Play by Wajahat Ali”
cover art by Daniel Krall.
• Background Image: Stone Bridge in
Liliokalani Park, Hilo, Hawaii, by Jonathan
Dresner