American civic life and networks of diasporic cultural flows offer a more spacious terrain for living multifaceted identities.
This is a largely underexplored landscape. But there is ample evidence to start a rudimentary mapping of some political and cultural practices traversing it.
• Instead of critiquing Greek American neoliberal narratives, individuals act against neoliberalism in American society.
• Instead of critiquing in public exclusionary Greek American identity narratives, dissenting individuals practice inclusivity in their social lives and politics.
• Instead of muting political beliefs for the sake of maintaining “community unity,” they practice their political identities elsewhere.
• Instead of surrendering their autonomy, cultural producers wishing to critique reductive and exclusionary narratives consciously do so outside official structures and networks–– acting independently from the margins.
• Instead of compromising independence due to pressures for conformity, individuals seek cultural self-realization elsewhere, in small scale social circles, local cultural events (music), privately (books, online sources, travel), selective cultural events (music, theater, film festivals, lectures).
• Instead of seeking recognition in ethnic microcosms (often but not always rewarding conformity in the realm of culture), a number of professionals in the arts, the humanities and the social sciences, seek it in US institutions.
Policy implications
Ongoing patterns of “community” internal differentiation and privatization of identities (individuals nourishing and practicing identities outside community structures) present challenges for parishes and institutionalized secular communities and organizations.
Secular communities are positioned best to engage these developments: offer quality and diverse cultural programming addressing the needs of a changing demographic. Film and book festivals as well as cultural and history seminars open to new ideas have been successful in creating Greek worlds where community is created through interpersonal interaction, conversation and learning, deliberation and reflection. (A comparative study between Greek NYC and Greek Melbourne will be most instructive.)
Ethnoreligious communities face greater challenges due to their particular boundaries of identity. They confront the dilemma of either turning inward, protecting traditional markers of identity, or alternatively deploy creative tactics and strategies to expand structures of belonging. This presents major political dilemmas, requiring a great deal of thinking…
Recent Greek American self-narratives work toward this direction offering insights and opening lines toward initial deliberation, signaling venues toward greater inclusivity.
You could start exploring them in the “Voices of the Other Greek America” initiative (see link in the top comment). Read for example the writings of Anastasia Panagakos, Leah Fygetakis and Artemis Leontis. Additional material is forthcoming. Follow the conversation.
Y. Anagnostou
January 2, 2026
