(This article is a part of the web-exclusive series that complements our latest print quarterly 'Diaspora: Southasia Abroad'.)
Khem Khadka was only seven when his entire family was evicted from Bhutan in 1991. His family's eviction, along with that of tens of thousands of others, was a result of the government's enforcement of the 'one nation, one people' policy, and its active opposition to ethnic pluralism. Khadka, like so many others, spent most of his young adult life in refugee camps in Nepal. His hope for a better future was, however, realised in 2007, when the United States and seven other Western countries offered the prospect of third-country resettlement. Even as his parents remained firm in their decision to await repatriation, Khadka immediately declared his interest in third-country resettlement. For him, the possibility of gaining US citizenship was preferable to remaining stateless in a refugee camp in Nepal. Khadka finally made it to North Carolina in the summer of 2009, some two years after the policy of resettlement was first announced.
SOUTHASIA: DIASPORA ABROAD
WEB-EXCLUSIVE PACKAGE
In search of the 'authentic' diasporic subject by Parvathi Raman