The Forgotten Half, or the Plight of the Twice Hyphenated, by Gerasimus Katsan, The Voices of the Other Greek America # 16

The Voices of the Other Greek America # 16

The Forgotten Half, or the Plight of the Twice Hyphenated

by Gerasimus Katsan

"If insist on 'purity,' where does that leave the better than two-thirds of Greeks who have intermarried? What secular cultural institutions do we currently have that don’t alienate the children of intermarried families or create the othering of 'half-Greeks' and the twice-hyphenated Greek-African-Americans, Greek-Latino-Americans, Greek-(white ethnic)-Americans, Greek-Asian-Americans? Naturally it is true that specific communities have addressed this problem in their own ways, some finding solutions to the question of inclusion and negotiating the boundaries of identity. There is a kind of arrogance in the insistence that to be a 'real Greek' you must be only Greek and nothing else, and to gain acceptance you must put aside the other side of your identity. It also begs the question of who gets to decide who is a “real Greek” in the first place.4 Intermarried couples always have to negotiate this issue within their own families. Which culture will be dominant, which will be subordinate? Preferably a balance could be found between the two."