ABSTRACT
Anthropological inquiries into the fate of people who have moved from one place to another often emphasize the accommodations that these migrants make to their host societies. While some may focus on the upheaval and disorientation incurred in the wake of migration (Thomas and Znaniecki 1927; Zwingmann and Pfister-Ammende 1973; Shuval 1993), researchers more frequently center their inquiries on the ways that individual immigrants group together-be it through familial structures (Lewis 1952; Watson 1975; Kemper 1988), the creation of voluntary organizations (Little 1957; Fallers 1967; Howe 1976; Fisher 1980), or the formation of communities (Gans 1962; Rogg 1971; Kim 1981; Markowitz 1993)—to make their lives meaningful and satisfying after migration. No matter which strategy is used, whether it be active or subtle, radical or gradual, immigrants will amend and reinterpret their ethnic identity as they respond to a new sociopolitical environment (Keyes 1981), shifting the locus of their social orientation away from the place of origin towards that of their destination.2 Since political immigrants and refugees are usually precluded from returning to their home countries, this orientation shift and the accompanying changes made in their personal identity may be all the more complete for them (see Bernard 1976; Eitinger 1981:22-25; Grinberg and Grinberg 1989:147).
