Languages and Linkages: Explaining Diaspora Attitudes Toward the Ancestral Homeland

Abstract What explains the attitudes of diasporas toward their ancestral homeland? One answer suggests some pull toward the country of origin (“ancestral homeland”) based on a shared cultural identity. In contrast, another explanation looks at how host country (“contemporary homeland”) politics surrounding the “perpetual foreigners” can push the diaspora toward their ancestral homeland. In this paper, we recognize that the link between the diaspora and the ancestral homeland is malleable. Specifically, we focus on the linguistic link—which can vary both spatially and temporally. We argue that when individuals of the diaspora do not speak the ancestral homeland language with their family at home, the primordial ethnic bond is weakened, and thus, they are less positive toward their ancestral homeland. We test our argument by focusing on the ethnic Chinese diaspora globally. Using the Sinophone Borderlands Survey, we identify and test whether those who speak Standard Chinese at home are more pro-China than their coethnics who speak a non-Standard Chinese vernacular. The results highlight that while the ethnic Chinese diaspora is more positive toward China than the non-ethnic Chinese respondents, what matters is whether a, and if so, which, Chinese vernacular is spoken.