Is an American Diaspora Underway?

Or are we just bad expats?

The Costco in Täby, Sweden

When Costco came to the Stockholm suburb of Täby in 2021, it was all we could talk about for weeks. “Have you been?” every American I know was asking. “Do they have Kraft Ranch Dressing? Pumpkin puree? Crisco? What about Nexium?” 

“Can you get Velveeta?” one friend asked, in a guilty tone. ”I mean, I’m only asking because I have this queso recipe from my mom.”

Everyone went at least once, because we all miss home.

It doesn’t matter that within Stockholm City (the area “between the tolls,” as the locals say), most apartments could not accommodate a 30-pack of Charmin Ultra Soft toilet paper rolls, or a box of 72 Starbucks Pike Place coffee pods, or enough Tide Plus Downy Liquid Laundry Detergent for 111 loads of laundry. Stockholm apartments also don’t have the freezer space for three pounds of Japanese Wagyu center cut New York strip steaks, much less 10 pounds of Northwest Fish Colossal Alaska Dungeness crab sections. In fact, many kitchens here don’t have a freezer at all, because there’s enough ice outside, thank you very much. We still all went.

Because I had been reading about the African diaspora, the whole thing got me thinking. Diaspora comes from the Greek for “disperse” or “scatter across” and refers to a group of people who have been displaced from their homeland, but still maintain a strong connection to it through food, language, religion, and cultural practices. Unlike migrants, they regard their place of origin as their true home. And unlike expats (according to my definition thereof, and this is a very contentious question), they can’t go back.

Diaspora can stem from voluntary migration, but also from outside forces, such as war, slavery, colonialism, and natural disasters. And to this list we must add Trump, the former president and future convict, because he single-handedly made the U.S. so disgusting that clean people could no longer live there. And some of them are coming here.

No one tracks emigration out of the U.S., which I find weird. They could but they don’t. The Census Bureau does nothing about Americans living abroad, and individual U.S. embassies can offer only rough estimates. But anecdotally, I can tell you it’s going up. In my work here with American expats, I see new folks coming every week, and they are saying that life there is increasingly untenable. A Monmouth University survey released this March found that more than one in three (34%) Americans polled said they would settle in another country if they could. And, as the saying goes, those who can, do.

Once here, we’re not hard to spot. Many of the Americans I know (and I know a lot of them) are not knocking themselves out to integrate into Swedish society. That’s partly because it’s fucking impossible. Swedes are very nice people, but they are also shy, inward and solitary. They established their circle of friends in kindergarten. They don’t need you. So unless they are very drunk or linked to you through some sort of association like work or a sports league, you don’t stand a chance. And that’s true no matter how well you speak Swedish or how long you’ve been here. So most of us eventually turn to each other.

“I’ve made two Swedish friends in 15 years,” one woman complained at a monthly meetup I organize for American expats here.

“That’s pretty good!” I said. 

I hear this plaintive tone again and again. The defining characteristic of diasporic literature is the displaced individual’s feelings of isolation, alienation, and disorientation in their new country, as they struggle to fit into a new society and culture. These feelings are intensified if you didn’t want to come in the first place, or if you felt you had no choice. 

Some Americans don’t integrate because they’re planning to return to the U.S. and so don’t want to invest the time and effort. But a lot of us simply aren’t willing to give up our American identity. This is true even if, as in my case, they will never go back. That’s the hallmark of diaspora: Holding the homeland in the collective imagination.

A serving of about 7 oz. of red beans. Swedes don’t buy in bulk

Diaspora communities retain a strong connection to their homeland through food, language, religion, and cultural practices. Enter Costco, which represents at least three of those, and possibly four. Maybe to shop at Costco is to participate in American culture, even if you’re not in America. It requires a car, for one thing. That’s us. And you can buy in bulk. And that is very much who we are. We consume big.

All of this was on my mind when I went to my friend Peter’s cafe the other day. It’s by a large park with outdoor seating and the sun was glorious. Peter sat down with me to chat. He was born in Sweden, but his parents are Christian Palestinians from Jerusalem. In the late ‘60s, they joined what is now an estimated six million Palestinians living outside of Palestine. Like many diasporans, the family splintered: One uncle went to the U.S., another to Canada. Peter’s father chose Sweden.

“Do you feel Swedish?” I asked, because I know as well as anyone that cultural identity doesn’t necessarily dovetail with your place of birth.

“Yes,” he said. “In my neighborhood, growing up, they wouldn’t let me be anything else.” 

“So that’s what you are, to yourself?”

“Of course not. I’m Palestinian,” he said. He is, in fact, the only Palestinian on his ice hockey team, he noted drily.

“What about you?” he asked, smirking a little, because he already knows. 

I’ve got a Swedish passport and a Swedish husband and I live in Sweden with my half-Swedish children, but I feel 100% American. It’s in my bones. I tell him that and he asks if my Swedish has improved since we last met, with a decent dose of sarcasm in his tone. When I first moved to Stockholm, I studied with some discipline. But once it sank in that 100% of Swedes speak perfect English, my motivation disappeared, like a fist when you open your hand

There has not been a great improvement, I reported, and he scoffed.

“You guys are too much. The whole world’s supposed to work around you, right?”

“Give us a break,” I tell him. “This diaspora shit is new to us.”