Exile and diaspora in an atypical context: Chileans and Argentineans in the United States (1973-2005)

This article focuses on two groups of Southern Cone exiles’ communities, Chileans and Argentineans, choosing to settle down in an atypical destination: the United States. After estimating some qualitative and quantitative findings, the article delves into the ways these communities settle down, remember their relationship with politics, maintain their connection with exiled fellow-countrymen worldwide and perceive their national identity. By relying on an empirical, single-case perspective, with no theoretical ambitions to extrapolate its conclusions to other contexts, this article examines the extent to which the conceptualisation of the exile and diaspora categories changes when applied to these two communities.