Our Responsibility in Representing Greek American History _ And Why it Matters

At least two iconic images capture legendary moments of solidarity between Greek Americans and African Americans. One, of course, is that of the late Archbishop Iakovos marching next to Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in support for Civil Rights. The other one is a photograph taken at a Greek immigrant diner in Pittsburgh’s Hill District circa 1930s, where the owners are seen serving African American patrons.

This is an important part of the history of Greek American–African American encounters that needs to be told, discussed, amplified, and developed.

But to have these photographs alone posted in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing does disservice to the anti-racist movement. It hides other instances when Greek Americans vocally opposed Iakovos's advocacy of Civil Rights. It silences other instances where Greek Americans opposed Greek immigrant/African American solidarities. And much more...

The publication of these iconic photographs without the acknowledgment of the multiple facets of the Greek American/African American story is absolutely misplaced, disrespectful, and dangerous in today's context. It produces ethnic amnesia and encourages ethnic celebrationism. In doing so it contributes to missing a historical opportunity for genuine self-reflection.

Ethnic self-patting on the back is disingenuous and hypocritical. What we urgently need in this heartbreaking moment is to find the courage for an open discussion about the ways in which sectors of European Americans, including Greek Americans, have contributed (and are contributing in direct and indirect ways) to the making of racial hierarchies in the United States. To transform the ways we understand ourselves in our aim to make our country a better Union.

Jewish Americans are leading the way. We cannot afford to be passive observers or merely issue general statements of support. We must indeed decide on which side we are on and identify concrete ways to act to better our country.

June 3, 2020

Bibliography (in Progress) about Greek American–African American Encounters

The urgency of these days provides the context to learn about Greek Americans in connection to African Americans

Sources: Documentaries, novels, short stories, autobiography, biography, commentaries, book reviews, scholarship

• Mini-documentary, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DziGTSRMQic&t=193s

• Dan Georgakas, "Black Metropolis," chapter in his book, My Detroit: Growing Up Greek and American in Motor City
Review by Nicholas Alexiou, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/475991/pdf

• George Pelecanos, The Turnaround
For a review see, http://immigrations-ethnicities-racial.blogspot.com/2013/12/greek-americans-and-african-americans.html

• Harry Mark Petrakis, A Tale of Color
For commentary see, http://www.newdiaspora.com/a-tale-of-color/

• Apollo Papafrangou, https://www.apollopapafrangou.net/category/african-american/

• Yiorgos Anagnostou, "Do the Right Thing: Identities as Citizenship in U.S. Orthodox Christianity and Greek America."
https://ergon.scienzine.com/article/articles/do-the-right-thing

• George Lipsitz, Midnight at the Barrelhouse
The Johnny Otis Story
https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/midnight-at-the-barrelhouse

• Athanasios Grammenos, https://www.thenationalherald.com/archive_church/arthro/the_late_archbishop_iakovos_u_s_greece_relations-19342/

and

• “The African American Civil Rights Movement and Archbishop Iakovos of North and South America,” Journal of Religion and Society 18 (2016): 1–19.

May 30, 2020

Diaspora Literacy_The New Frontier

• Diaspora books translated into Greek.

• Novels about diaspora in Greek win European literary prizes.

• Diaspora poetry featured in Greek literary journals.

• Diaspora documentaries competing in film festivals in Britain and Greece.

• Diaspora films shown in Europe.

• Diaspora music performed everywhere.

There can be no meaningful conversation (and processes of evaluation) in all of the above without knowledge of the histories and cultures of the diaspora.

Hence the necessity for a diaspora cultural literacy across the diasporas and Greece.

In other words, it is necessary for Greek and diaspora institutions––schools, modern Greek programs everywhere, journalism, museums, literary and cultural criticism––to embrace a diasporic framework to discuss Greek cultural production.

Περί Διασπορικής Ετερογένειας: ΄Ενα Ελληνοαμερικανικό Παράδειγμα

(Το παράδειγμα αυτό προσφέρεται ως παράθεμα στα πλαίσια ενός ευρύτερου άρθρου μου για το θέμα της διασποράς, υπό δημοσίευση.)

Εμπειρικές μελέτες καταδεικνύουν ότι η διασπορά αποτελεί ένα ετερογενές κοινωνικό πεδίο. Αναγνωρίζεται σαν ένα πεδίο δράσης όπου οι ταυτότητες δημιουργούνται σε συνάρτηση με διάφορες (ταξικές, έμφυλες, πολιτιστικές) συνιστώσες. Στην μεθόριο των απεργιακών κινητοποιήσεων στην Αμερικανική Δύση στις αρχές του εικοστού αιώνα για παράδειγμα, βιομηχανικοί μετανάστες-εργάτες από την νοτιοανατολική Ευρώπη βιώνουν την καπιταλιστική εκμετάλλευση στο μεδούλι τους και μυούνται στην ιδεολογία του ταξικού αγώνα, επιτελώντας την μετάβαση από τον αγροτικό γενέθλιο χώρο στην Αμερικανική βιομηχανική νεοτερικότητα. Γίνονται Αμερικανοί με ένα συγκριμένο τρόπο: συναντούν και υιοθετούν τις αρχές και πρακτικές του Αμερικανικού εργατικού κινήματος. Μαθαίνουν να αγαπούν το μπέιζμπολ. Αλλάζουν κάποιες προγονικές συνήθειες ενώ διατηρούν άλλες. Έλληνες μετανάστες εργάτες αναγνωρίζουν αυτές τις μεταβάσεις, και διαμορφώνονται ως Ελληνοαμερικανοί, το οποίο και δηλώνουν (1).

Ταυτόχρονα, Έλληνες μετανάστες επιχειρηματίες της ίδιας περιόδου παίρνουν αποστάσεις από την εργατικά προσδιορισμένη Ελληνοαμερικανική ταυτότητα, και την στιγματίζουν δημόσια. Ακολουθούν ένα εναλλακτικό μοντέλο Αμερικανοποίησης, αυτό της μεσαίας τάξης, που έρχεται σε άμεση σύγκρουση με τα συμφέροντα των εργατών. Σε μία περίοδο όταν οι συνδυαστικές ταυτότητες που ευθέως ανακαλούν την χώρα καταγωγής των μεταναστών (Greek American) θεωρούνται ένδειξη αντιαμερικανισμού, ένα τμήμα της μεσοαστικής τάξης δημιουργεί μια νέα ταυτότητα (American Hellenic) που θέτει σαν κυρίαρχο σημείο διασπορικής ταύτισης την αρχαία Ελλάδα, η οποία αποτελεί και Αμερικανικό ιδεώδες. Τονίζουν έτσι την συμβατότητα του Ελληνικού και του Αμερικανικού σύμφωνα με τις επιταγές του κυρίαρχου αφηγήματος της αφομοίωσης και τα μετασχηματιστικά πλέγματα εξουσίας που θέτει σε κίνηση.

Το παραπάνω παράδειγμα απεικονίζει εμπειρικά δύο συσχετιζόμενες διαδικασίες:

(1) Η διασπορά συνδέεται με την δημιουργία νέων ταυτοτήτων σε διαπραγμάτευση με ιστορικά προσδιορισμένες ζώνες επαφής.

(2) Η παραπάνω επιτέλεση δεν πραγματοποιείται με τον ίδιο τρόπο για το σύνολο της διασποράς. Οι νέες ταυτότητες διαμεσολαβούνται από την ταξική θέση των εμπλεκομένων καθώς και τα όρια ταύτισης που επιτρέπουν κυρίαρχα αφηγήματα στην χώρα υποδοχής. Το Αμερικανικό εργατικό κίνημα και η πίεση για ολική αφομοίωση προσδιορίζουν αντίστοιχα την δημιουργία δύο τουλάχιστον αναδυομένων και αντιμαχόμενων ελληνικών ταυτοτήτων κατά την ιστορική περίοδο που αναφέρθηκα και μέσω των πλεγμάτων εξουσίας που την διαπερνούν. Η εσωτερική διαφοροποίηση είναι το σαφές αποτέλεσμα.

Να θέσω αυτές τις διαδικασίες σε ευρύτερο πλαίσιο: η ταξική, έμφυλη, σεξουαλική και άλλες πολιτικές θέσεις διασπορικών υποκειμένων οδηγούν σε διαφορετικές συνδυαστικές ταυτότητες συμβάλλοντας σε περαιτέρω εσωτερική διαφοροποίηση και ιδεολογικά ρήγματα μέσα στους κόλπους της διασποράς. Η μεθοριακή κατάσταση καθιστά την διασπορά όχι με όρους ομογένειας αλλά όρους ετερογένειας.

Γιώργος Αναγνώστου

Note

1. Anagnostou, Yiorgos. 2019. “Poetry Traversing History: Narrating Louis Tikas in David Mason’s Ludlow.” In Retelling the Past in Contemporarty Greek Literature, Film and Popular Culture. Gerasimus Katsan and Trine Willert eds., 49–66. Lexington Press.

About "Ergon: A Journal about Greek/American Culture"

“Years in the village. My father in America. Not sharing the mornings, the mountains, / the rose bush, the air. Moving past the yellow hills, the blue, the almond blossoms, / separately, in separate countries.” Written by Tryfon Tolides, an award-winning poet, the narrative verses above evoke the fragmentation of a family that immigration may bring about. The father is no longer present in the everyday routines of the family. Not being a part of village life and the surrounding landscape either, his absence looms large. His separation creates a void. He is nowhere to be seen in the midst of rose bush, the yellow hills, and in the background of the blue. His departure creates a drab emptiness, which the poet contrasts dramatically with a landscape filled with colors.

Immigration deeply affects individuals and families, those who leave and those who stay behind. It is an experience of new beginnings, difficult adjustments, filled with longing and anticipation. It is about growing roots as well as building institutions. For the American-born sons and daughters of immigrants, life also presents various challenges. Navigating two worlds, two languages, and two cultures is a common experience for the second generation. Immigration and ethnicity entail complex, often life-defining experiences. Not surprisingly, individuals, like Tolides, often resort to poetry, literature, film, photography, and scholarship to tell their stories, to make sense of the experience, to share it with others, to document it.

In order to convey this literary and cultural experience of immigration and diaspora, I launched almost a year ago, in October 2017, Ergon: Greek/American Arts and Letters, an online, free access journal. I wanted to share with readers news about and analysis of the latest documentaries, films, museum exhibits, or books about Greek America. I invited authors, photographers, and scholars to tell their stories. I encouraged scholars to write about the political and cultural relations between the United States and Greece. I wrote about available archives and shared information about resources where readers can learn about Greek American history and culture.

Ergon is a forum that brings together poetry, literature, interviews, film, photography, book reviews and scholarly analysis written in a manner that is accessible to non-academic audiences. Because this kind of venue was absent, I felt it was my responsibility as an educator to create one so that I could make this knowledge available to the public.

The narratives we tell about Greek America have been proliferating. New documentaries, novels, and films are produced, both in the United States and Greek, sometimes earning prestigious international awards. The novel Dendrites (2015), for instance, a story written in Greek about two generations of a Greek American family in Camden, NJ, received the 2017 European Union Prize of Literature. The film Brides (2004), a compelling visual narration of the phenomenon of early twentieth century arranged marriages between Greece and the United States, won the first prize in the Greek State Film Awards. Ergon informs the public about the availability of these narratives and offers perspectives for understanding their significance.

Ergon is a labor of love. It has received grants by OSU’s Humanities and the Arts Discovery Theme, and the Modern Greek Studies Association (MGSA). Several individual donors have also contributed financially. These valuable gifts cover the cost associated with editing, copy editing, and website maintenance, making the operation of the journal possible. For this I am grateful.

Please visit us at http://ergon.scienzine.com/.

Yiorgos Anagnostou 

Reprinted from the Modern Greek Program Newsletter, Spring 2009. p. 6.

What Makes a U.S. Greek Orthodox Community?

What makes a community? What are the informal practices, building of institutions, rituals, history, memories, commemorations, words, gatherings, gestures that bring about the sense of sharing and belonging that the notion of community entails?

In this writing I reflect on the idea and a reality of the U.S. Greek Orthodox community. What makes a Greek Orthodox community beyond the obvious connecting thread of faith?  My point of departure is the following tribute to a person recently lost to a local parish in Columbus, Ohio:

“Mike moved his family to Columbus from Youngstown (Campbell) ... . He had a prolific career and was well respected by his peers. And for me, Mike embodied the Youngstown mentality I have known my entire life of a strong work ethic, always giving back to our local community and our church, a passion for maintaining a strong Greek culture, and most importantly the love of family and so many friends.

But it is his work with the Columbus Greek Orthodox church and Greek Olympic Society, where we learned how passionate he was about sustaining a Hellenic community in central Ohio.

Mike truly provided powerful leadership in shaping the direction of our small Greek community from the 1980’s to become the largest church community in our diocese. He spent countless hours with me and our Greek Olympic board members guiding us to choose wisely with our donations for causes locally and internationally and even donating to individuals in an effort to make a difference in their lives.

Mike’s honesty, integrity, humor, witty comebacks, laughter, kindness, compassion for others, work ethic and his drive to do the ‘right thing’ even in times of adversity will forever remain in my heart.” (from the Greek Olympic Society Facebook site) 

These words of praise speak to a particular Greek American ethos: the propensity to work tirelessly for building a community and advancing its interests. The venue of commitment to the community in an educational and cultural organization, namely The Greek Olympic Society, which is attached to the parish and its organizational structure (http://www.greekolympicsociety.org/). The aforementioned ethos is recognized as pervasive feature and fixture to a particular locality. But it extends its operation elsewhere, the midwestern city of Columbus, Ohio, pointing to a wider regional resonance. 

In the Midwest where I live I have been witnessing for many years the many practices that materialize this Greek American world: the volunteering of professional work (architecture, art, cooking expertise) among parishioners toward building–literally and metaphorically–community life; writing for the community's magazine and funding its publication (see, https://immigrations-ethnicities-racial.blogspot.com/2016/02/writing-about-community-publication.html); grass-roots volunteering in festivals, language schools, religious and heritage organizations; acts of charity and cultural philanthropy such as supporting University Modern Greek Studies Programs. 

Notably, this is work regularly performed as a labor of love, mostly undertaken without fanfare, with no expectation of formal recognition. It speaks to a wider historical trajectory: the commitment to an institution, the parish, that historically has functioned not merely as a place of worship, but as a place enabling all sorts of social relations, including, significantly, that of mutual support. It speaks to a deep consciousness that this community matters, a consciousness translated into real involvement.

The power of this ethos is that it is enacted concretely and materially, in countless everyday micro-practices, which also include professional and social support to young people. It is through these social practices that many parishioners and their children experience ethnicity in the United States, in all its cultural expressivity (food, dance, social intimacy) as well as social and economic benefits. Beyond its obvious religious implications, the meaning of being Greek Orthodox in Greek America is shaped through participation in numerous family, social, and professional networks, which often overlap and reinforce each other. 

I am not idealizing community here. Authors and scholars have documented the community’s fault lines, points of rupture, disagreement, exclusion, even outright conflict and fragmentation. 

But I feel it is necessary to point out the operation of an ethos that we cannot afford to ignore if we wish to understand “community” making, and ethnoreligious reproduction in Greek America. 

The commemorative tribute above contributes an answer toward a broader question. How is community produced? And what kind of community is constructed and lived? 

Community in this sense entails the collective recognition of a person’s habitual commitment to an array of virtues–hard work, “giving back” to the community, heritage preservation, faith, family and enduring friendships. These are the normative values offered as a template to be emulated. They are the symbolic boundaries around which the parish constructs itself. 

Offering a definitive answer to the question of community, the tribute raises several others. What is the “right thing” to do as a Greek Orthodox?  How is this negotiated and decided within community politics? How is it practiced?
(see, https://ergon.scienzine.com/article/articles/do-the-right-thing) 

Ethnographers and sociologists are best positioned to explore this terrain. But authors and filmmakers also engage with these questions. I will pursue this subject in future postings, discussing the insights they offer and the vision of a community that they project.    

Yiorgos Anagnostou
June 2–15, 2019

Related publications:
https://immigrations-ethnicities-racial.blogspot.com/2016/12/narrating-community-history.html

Making the Archive, Animating It

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This summer I decided to devote time into putting some order to the pool of Greek American articles, magazines, newsletters, pamphlets, posters, postcards, photographs, brochures, newspapers, community publications, catalogues, LPs, CDs, letters, announcements, and notes I have been accumulating through decades of research. This personal archive of largely public documents covers the recent past between the early 1990s, when I started graduate work, up to 2010 or so, when I started e-filing most of the relevant resources.

The sheer immensity of sorting through pile after pile of paper dwarfs me. Even this relatively small-scale archive looms as an overwhelming task. It does not help that I have no training as an archivist. I cannot devote myself full-time to this ordering either, as summertime is the time of the year calling for reading and writing.

But I persist toiling through amateurish methods. To add a layer of ordering I have even created the website Archiving Greek America featuring selective documents (https://wordpress.com/stats/day/archivinggreekamerica.home.blog).

The site provides motivation and meaning in turning a journey of private collecting into an act of public sharing. It is fulfilling to know that I contribute, albeit in a tiny way, to a larger archival project gaining momentum in Greek America.

Numerous archival initiatives, some funded by international foundations, others by prestigious national organizations, and some by local communities, are in full swing in Greek America. This institutional recognition of the value of the archive and the willingness to invest resources for digitizing it is gaining momentum, expanding and enhancing its public visibility. It preciously adds to the vast–and largely underresearched–available archive (www.mgsa.org/Resources/gkam.html).

***

Sorting through my documents has been far from a mechanical enterprise of neat arrangements. Like any archaeological excavation my delving into the disorganized, I admit, microcosm of paper chaos, holds the prospect of exhilarating findings. The randomness in the order in which some documents appear next to each other produce all sorts of delights (but also frustrating realizations). An editorial declaring pride in ethnic success next to an issue of a valuable magazine now defunct, unable to sustain itself. A document whose existence I had forgotten and so relevant to my current writings. Contradictions abound. Serendipity stretches itself in triumph. Unexpected connections call attention out of random juxtapositions.

The excavation of this material proves productive for bringing into fuller view several contours of Greek America, for making discernible some uncommon linkages.

I trace one contour along the lines of several magazines that left a considerable public imprint before receding from public view, morphing into something else, or ceasing to exist.

Another contour is barely perceptible, dotted by fragmented traces of conversations framed by volumes of silence. We know little if anything at all about the reasons why a cultural initiative which incited interest among some failed to animate interest among others, eventually fading away from contemporary concerns.

Yet another contour points to a well-marked line of interests that continues to make headlines in the popular media.

Through the practice of archiving, a seemingly amorphous terrain starts taking shape into a cultural space crisscrossed by identifiable continuities, recognizable shifts, or perceptible ruptures. And still, it feeds the imagination with a multitude of unknown recesses, unexplored areas, unrecognized resonances. Also, other angles and terrains that escape me.

My archive asserts a presence while making visible, alarmingly so, a gaping absence. I am overwhelmed by the realization, once again, that these documents (scattered but available in the public record) remain largely unexamined. For a substantial volume, if not for all, of this cultural network, there is absolutely no analysis; no scholarship; no public discussion. Consequently, there is no understanding of the processes through which certain projects gained prominence while others faded away. 

***

I return home from the office late at night, blanketed with a sense of dejection. Inevitably, or so it seems. Once again, the urgency to animate the archive presses itself.

To animate an archive, like any past, is to infuse it with another life: study it, circulate the findings, identify its contemporary significance, challenge and inspire researchers, contribute to cultural understanding. It is about linking the archive with the making of books, dissertations, articles, essays, reviews, blogs, commentaries, and documentaries that frame and reframe its significance.

Several dedicated archival activists, academics, researchers, and public intellectuals work intensely and intensively as we speak to materialize these linkages.

But it is not a secret, we all in the field of Greek American studies know what is missing. The critical mass of human resources necessary to fill the multiple gaps, to chart the multiplicity of connections in the record is not (yet?) available.

Perhaps this is what defines the experience of doing Greek American studies, a field that finds itself in lack of cultural and material capital. (Relative lack in some quarters, dire lack in others.) Practicing this field cultivates a heightened consciousness of incompleteness, a partiality in tension. On the one hand, the condition of an underresearched archive feeds the feeling of expansive prospects. On the other hand, the reality of resource scarcity, both material and human is limiting. In turn, it drives the urgent obligation to keep cultivating the archive for greater relevance, for the sheer determination not to allow it to wither; not to allow the displacement or silencing of certain histories and knowledges.

And hence the productive tension residing in the  coexistence between opening prospects and limiting aspects, offering, for me, an ethical and political purpose that makes the dust of the archive and the thrust of achieving its animation a well worthwhile project.

Yiorgos Anagnostou

June 6-8, 2019