ABSTRACT
Thousands of East African Asians were confronted with mass displacement during the 1960s and 1970s. Patterns of Ugandan Asian deracination could be traced, and indeed were mirrored elsewhere in the region. Faced with social, ethno-political and economic persecution, South Asians were also excluded from the new nation states of Kenya and Tanzania. Altogether, approximately 103,500 East Africa Asians relocated to Britain during this period. East African Asians have been discursively constructed and then reconstructed as subjects, citizens, aliens, exiles, others and refugees. As like Hannah Arendt sets out in her influential essay 'We Refugees', East African Asians have sought to re-define their ascribed refugee status on their own terms. East African Asians were deemed British subjects and imperial citizens of the Commonwealth. Britain pledged responsibility for East Africa's minority South Asian population and repeatedly assured them that their citizenship status was not under threat–even in the event that they were displaced.
