ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the historical trajectory of emigration from Egypt and the formation of Coptic diasporic organisations following a critical event in al-Khanka in 1972. At a time of escalating sectarian tensions in Egypt, a diasporic sense developed among certain immigrant Copts who lived a form of transnationalism that tied them to the homeland while living fully in Canada and the United States. Adopting a comparative approach, this chapter charts the internal and external dynamics affecting Coptic associational life in North American cities. It argues that immigrant Copts engaged in a two-way process of acculturation to establish vital social, cultural and political associations in new environments. In that process, certain Copts mobilised a politicised diasporic identity to respond to activism in the homeland, which changed the relationship between immigrants, the Orthodox Church and the Egyptian state.
