Village Among Nations : : "Canadian" Mennonites in a Transnational World, 1916-2006 / / Royden Loewen.

• VerfasserIn: Loewen, Royden,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2019]; ©2013
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (340 p.) :; 7 maps

Between the 1920s and the 1940s, 10,000 traditionalist Mennonites emigrated from western Canada to isolated rural sections of Northern Mexico and the Paraguayan Chaco; over the course of the twentieth century, they became increasingly scattered through secondary migrations to East Paraguay, British Honduras, Bolivia, and elsewhere in Latin America. Despite this dispersion, these Canadian-descendant Mennonites, who now number around 250,000, developed a rich transnational culture over the years, resisting allegiance to any one nation and cultivating a strong sense of common peoplehood based on a history of migration, nonviolence, and distinct language and dress.Village among Nations recuperates a missing chapter of Canadian history: the story of these Mennonites who emigrated from Canada for cultural reasons, but then in later generations "returned" in large numbers for economic and social security. Royden Loewen analyzes a wide variety of texts, by men and women - letters, memoirs, reflections on family debates on land settlement, exchanges with curious outsiders, and deliberations on issues of citizenship. They relate the untold experience of this uniquely transnational, ethno-religious community.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Maps -- Introduction -- 1. Leaving the "British Empire" in Canada: Promises in the South, 1916-1921 -- 2. Drawing Lines on God's Earth: Settlers in Mexico and Paraguay, 1922-1929 -- 3. Dreaming of "Old" Canada: Nostalgia in the Diaspora, 1930-1945 -- 4. Rethinking Time and Space: East Paraguay and Beyond, 1945-1954 -- 5. Meeting the Outside Gaze: New Life in British Honduras and Bolivia, 1954-1972 -- 6. Crystallizing Memory: The "Return" of the Kanadier, 1951-1979 -- 7. Imagining a Pan-American Village: Reading Die Mennonitische Post , 1977-1996 -- 8. Homing in on the Transnational World: Women Migrants in Ontario, 1985-2006 -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index