This paper deals with the migration of people from Hadramaut, in Yemen, to Singapore, looking both at the historical circumstances that led to their early success in the city and also at the contemporary ones that constrain the maintenance of Hadrami identities and the community’s continued involvement in its traditional adaptations to the Singaporean environment. The paper discusses transnational movement, the character of the nation-state and the nature of contemporary globalization as frameworks for the various ways in which different groups of Hadramis define themselves within a global city such as Singapore. It also examines internal Hadrami ways of organizing themselves. Traditional factors, such as kinship and marriage, are central, as are associations like the Tariga al-Alawiyya, a network based partly upon the bonds of kinship and partly upon the organizational principles found among Muslim Sufi groups. More modern cultural organizations, such as the Arab Association, are contemporary adaptations for the maintenance of identity and for the promotion of links to the Middle East and to the Yemeni homeland, links through which commercial interests can be pursued. By way of these discussions, the paper tries to deal with issues of importance to the further development of an historically-oriented anthropology.