Overview Of Steven Vertovec's Outcasts United

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As the world’s technologies advance and people immigrate to other countries, the way diversity is measured no longer works. In Steven Vertovec’s article “Super-diversity and its Implications” Vertovec describes super diversity. A new way to look at diversity in a more in depth way than previously done. Warren St. John’s novel Outcasts United is about the town of Clarkston, a town outside of Atlanta which is settled by many refugees. Vertovec’s theories about super diversity, specifically, space/contact, and transnationalism can be applied to the town of Clarkston and the events showcased in Outcasts United with the struggles of the refugees and the struggles of the original citizens of the town. The problem of space/contact can be solved by looking at settling patterns of immigrants in cities around the country. Transnationalism issues can be solved by by taking into account immigrants’ cultures when making policies.

“New immigrants often settle in areas with established immigrant communities from the same country of birth”(Vertovec, 19). This is a known fact for any large city around the world, there’s a chinatown in any large metropolitan area, an area where many italians settle, and so on. But if these immigrants are all settling in their respective area in the cities, it must be questioned if these immigrants are integrating into the the society of their new country. As mayor Swaney said, “they don’t want to get involved. In their country, I guess, they didn’t have council meetings or get involved with city governments or any kind of governments”(St. John, 188). It could be interpreted that these immigrants just want to keep to themselves in their own environment that they feel safe in with their fellow immigrants. But it is this safe space for them that inhibits them from truly integrating into the culture of their new