Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Bringing "Chinatown, Manhattan" to Athens – Chryssa Vardea, a Greek American sculptress, dies



«Το έργο της Mott Street (1983), επηρεασμένο από την Chinatown του Μανχάταν, βρίσκεται στον σταθμό Ευαγγελισμό του Μετρό της Αθήνας». 

Monday, December 23, 2013

To all those navigating multiple belongings



"[Me] Vivian Ernestine Begay Manion Twostar. Coeur d'Alene-Navajo-Irish-Hispanic-Sioux-by marriage. I liked to think a version of American history was contained in that logjam of names" (11).

"I've read learned anthropological papers written about people like me. We're called marginal, as if we exist anywhere but on the center of the page. Our territory is the place for asides, for explanatory notes, for editorial notation. We're parked on the bleachers looking into the arena, never the main players, but there are bonuses to peripheral vision. Out beyond the normal bounds, you at least know where you're not. You escape the claustrophobia of belonging, and what you lack in security you gain by realizing–as those insiders never do–that security is an illusion. We're jealous of innocence, I'll admit that, but as the hooks and eyes that connect one core to the other we have our roles to play. 'Caught between two worlds,' is the way we're often characterized, but I'd put it differently. We are the
catch.

I could relate to Columbus, stranger to stranger. There he was, no matter what version of his life you believe, pushing and pulling at the city limits of whenever he found himself. An Italian in Iberia. A Jew in Christendom. A
Converso among the baptized-at-birth. A layman among the Franciscans. He spoke all languages with a foreign accent, and his sight was always fixed away from the hearland. He didn't completely fit in, anywhere, and that was his engine. He was propelled by alienation, by trying to forge links, to be the link, from one human cluster to the next. It's no wonder he positioned himself in the Atlantic, on the western horizon. He had to think global because the whole world was the only context in which he was unambiguously a full member" (124).

Michael Dorris & Louise Erdrich


Sunday, December 22, 2013

The Normalization of Greek Yogurt in American Supermarkets



Not in the "Ethnic Food" Aisle


Saturday, December 21, 2013

Greek Americans and African Americans in Conflict and Solidarity


Review of George Pelecanos'
The Turnaround 

I was well into my first reading of “The Turnaround” last November when a newspaper headline demanded my attention. An Ecuadorian immigrant was brutally killed in Long Island – a hate crime. Haunted by the atrocity, I pulled away from the novel for reasons that I will explain below. Once again, one of the nation’s most harrowing dramas had played itself out. Teenagers, commonly male, banding together to hunt and hurt immigrants or minorities. Young men, most often white, bonding to harm those not conforming to racial or sexual norms. It is at night when this ritual of terror occurs. The pursuit takes place with some regularity, cruising neighborhoods in search for a target. Alcohol or drugs may be involved, conspiring with the darkness of the hour to unleash racism in its full horror. The moment when hate flashes – in the razor-sharpness of a denigrating slur, the stain of a stabbing knife, or the finality of a gunshot – the human cost is insufferable, and the scars inflicted upon those involved may take a lifetime to heal.


I felt compelled to return to the novel later that day. “The Turnaround,” you see, fictionalizes a real-life incident somewhat comparable with the one in Long Island, this time a 1972 lethal confrontation between white and African American teenagers. In Pelecanos’ fictional telling the drama takes place in an all-black community, Heathrow Heights, in Washington, D.C. Two out of the three youth who intrude into the secluded neighborhood are Greek American. Billy Cachoris is at the wheel, while Alex Pappas coils at the back, an unwilling participant. Billy and the third passenger, Pete Whitten, insult a group of local teens, inciting violent retaliation in turn. This racial incident leaves Billy shot dead, and condemns James Monroe to lengthy imprisonment, sentenced for manslaughter. Pete manages to flee the scene unharmed. Alex survives the melee, his face permanently disfigured by Charles Baker who is convicted for assault. Raymond Monroe, James’ brother, is also involved.

An act of racial domination turns deadly, but the line between the perpetrators and the victims is blurred. In the ensuing trial the court punishes the black teens who exercised physical violence, and absolves the white teens who inflicted symbolic cruelty. It can be said that the novel begins when the official investigation closes and the trial concludes. Once it establishes the specifics of the incident, the plot fast forwards more than three decades later to address how the participants, now in middle age, fare in life. The novel asks, how do human beings attend to the emotional wounds in the aftermath of violence? How do the physical survivors cope after the bloodstain in the cement has washed away, but the strain in the psyche still refuses to go away? Where can justice be found if, according to the narrator, the justice system fails to administer full justice? That November evening, when literature and reality locked in a haunting unison for me, it was to “The Turnaround” that I turned, grappling for answers.

The novel is the second installment in a $1.5 million three-book contract, a lucrative deal that underlines its author’s spectacular rise in the literary marketplace since his first appearance in the trade, in 1992. Recognized as a prominent American mystery and detective writer, and a noted television scriptwriter, Pelecanos employs fiction to critique the class and racial divide in American society. He also examines social definitions of manhood, father-son relationships, and relations between white ethnics and racial minorities. His work has attracted the attention of both highbrow and popular media, including The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, and Your Flesh Quarterly, not to mention newspapers and magazines in Greek America and Greece.

“The Turnaround” retains its author’s interest in crime fiction. It features an investigation of sorts, an amateur one by Alex Pappas, which eventually solves a puzzle surrounding the killing. But the book moves beyond the conventions of the genre of detective novel. It is ultimately preoccupied with the causes of racism, the consequences of hate crime, and the possibility of inter-racial redemption.

A Washington D.C.-based writer, Pelecanos is known for illuminating those parts of the city that lay beyond a tourist’s itinerary, places of crime, despairing poverty or working class endurance. Similarly in “The Turnaround,” the sociology and the history of Heathrow Heights is critical to the story. Originally a community of relocated former slaves, Heathrow Heights strives for a modicum of civic pride under layers of abandonment, racism and scarcity. It is a place under siege, assaulted by the neglect of city officials and absentee landlords during daytime, and by racist intruders at nighttime. “To some of the middle- and working-class white teenagers of the surrounding area, who learned insecurity from their fathers,” the narrator lets out, “Heathrow Heights was the subject of ridicule, slurs, and pranks. They called it ‘Negro Heights.’” The place is devalued, and its residents face class exploitation and racial discrimination. “Calling my mother a nigger after she’s been on her feet all day, wearing that cleaning uniform of hers,” James Monroe despairs over her dual domination. “She who has never judged anyone.”

It is not unusual for the public to refer to this kind of places as ghettoes infested with social pathologies, and to blame dysfunctional families and resident passivity for inner city plight. Pelecanos refuses to succumb to this popular mythology. He is too sociologically alert, too sensitive to the complexities of race and class to allow his fiction to function as an incubator of racial stereotypes.

His answer is to portray Heathrow Heights as a diverse place, and its residents as human beings capable of both lofty achievement and petty failure. Individuals may toil to improve their lives and sacrifice themselves for others, but may also collapse under the weight of hopelessness. Ernest Monroe for instance, a family man, takes pride in his work as a bus mechanic, serving as the role model for his son James. A gas station attendant, James emulates his father’s work ethic, and aspires for middle class respectability, his ambition only to expire in the aftermath of the racial incident. Charles Baker, in contrast, the one who scars Alex Pappas’ face for life, finds himself engulfed in resentment and violence. His masculine toughness is displayed against a background of family disintegration – father’s absence and mother’s alcoholism – and the trauma of sexual molestation.

Pete, Billy, and Alex also represent different worlds. Pete, a son of a successful lawyer enjoys great class privileges, groomed for an elite college and eventually a lucrative career. To the consternation of his father he associates with ethnic peers, considering them, however, his social inferiors. In contrast, the social ambition of Billy, the son of a car salesman, and Alex, son of a diner owner, is rather limited; they are both mediocre students. But a vast gap separates them. Billy shares Pete’s condescension toward Alex. And they fundamentally differ in their racial attitudes. Billy is taught by his father to despise black people, to be afraid of them; Alex, who works at his father’s diner with an all-black crew, learns to respect them.

Despite their differences, however, Pete, Billy and Alex share an important asset. The dominant society does not judge them by the color of their skin; race does not interfere in their everyday realities. This is unlike the experience of James Monroe when he steps outside the boundaries of Heathrow Heights in search for work. As a gas station attendant, the prejudice of blacks as unreliable workers places him on a daily trial, a disadvantage he compensates for to his own detriment: “never calling in sick, even when he was sick.”

The racial divide catapults the teenagers into violent collision. Their worlds clash because their worlds are arranged hierarchically. Insulting Heathrow Heights becomes a rite of passage where white teenagers learn to exercise a sense of social and racial superiority. Humiliating the locals serves Pete as yet another occasion to assert his dominant social position. And for Billy racial abuse offers a convenient venue to assert masculine bravado.

“The Turnaround” meanders through worlds of petty crime, vicious violence and family dissolution. It offers glimpses of hypocrisy and self-interested calculation among the wealthy; hedonism among nouveau rich drug dealers; and quiet despair or angry restlessness among the underprivileged. Devoid of authenticity and meaning, these worlds spin in moral void. In juxtaposition to this vacuum, the novel offers a working- and middle-class ethic defined by hard work, care for family, immense self-sacrifice, fairness to employees, pride in professional work, and decency in social conduct. These values crosscut the racial divide, as both the Pappas and the Monroe families possess them.

The novel works as a morality tale, detailing how both families strive to keep at bay the external forces that threaten their moral fabric. But this world is fundamentally threatened by yet another force, an internal one: the racial incident that set Alex against the Monroe brothers in the past continues to divide and torment these fundamentally decent people. To overcome this racial divide a redemptive solution is necessary, a closure.

“The Turnaround” offers no in-depth exploration of the inner lives of the characters in the aftermath of the incident. Instead, the characters function as social types, standing for different resolutions to the injuries of the past. Charles Baker is consumed by rage, seeking retaliation through blackmail. In contrast, Raymond looks for reconciliation through mutual trust, an attitude that seems to also console James. The narrator merely states the posture of Pete Whitten, who pursues a successful career unaffected by the incident, still blind to the humanity of the Monroe brothers. On the contrary, Alex builds a relation of trust with Raymond, acknowledging his culpability in the incident. The narrator leaves no doubt as to Alex’s regret: “Alex could have demanded that Billy stop the car. He knew that what they were about to do was wrong. He’d let it happen. Because of his inaction, many lives had been broken.”

In the figure of Alex, the author construes a Greek American hero who refuses to forget inter-racial conflict in the past and who initiates action to restore injustice in the present. He is portrayed as a dreamer, who invests in solidarity between Greek Americans and African Americans.

“The Turnaround” navigates an uncharted terrain in Greek American history, doing so from a unique vantage point. Instead of focusing on ethnicity alone, it concentrates on race relations. It thus demonstrates that in addition to ethnicity, racial issues also shape Greek American lives. In this respect, it rings a bell for artists, researchers, and educators. It signals that cultural and historical renderings of Greek America will remain one-sided unless one situates Greek America in the wider landscape of U.S. racial relations. In other words, the novel cautions against speaking about ethnicity as if ethnicity is a self-contained entity insulated from wider national issues. And race, Pelecanos reminds us, has been such an issue, a harrowing one.

One wishes however, that “The Turnaround” probed deeper into the race-issues that it raises. One is struck, for example, by how sparingly its characters reflect on racial prejudice, a process that so decisively stains their lives. Whatever little Alex and Raymond let out on how racism infiltrates lives is simplistic, inchoate. Even Alex, the only character drawn to reading shows no interest in probing the topic. When he is called by Raymond to account for the incident, Alex’s explanation is offensively timid; and his defense of Billy rings as unconvincing, a cliché: “I really believe that [Billy] would have turned out fine.” But, really, how can we tell?

Furthermore, the novel is shy in addressing the multifaceted ways in which race may still be an issue in the multicultural present. For socially underprivileged African Americans such as Charles and yet another black character, Deon, race matters; stepping outside their circles and into the world of expensive establishments and stores is an uncomfortable reminder of their social and racial marginality. But what about Raymond? Because “The Turnaround” does not chart his transition from inner city to middle class respectability it is as if his racial identity and underprivileged background ceased to be a factor in the aftermath of the incident. Does the novel imply that race no longer matters in the lives of educated, middle-class blacks such as Raymond, particularly those who have escaped inner city? If so, a more upfront treatment would have been necessary to engage with this highly contested political issue.

Last but not least, a related question: Alex and Raymond find themselves connected in what seems an equal relationship. Championing hard work, enjoying meaningful relationships, building on the possibility of redemption and healing the wounds of the past, both enter middle life contently, contemplating the potential for further fulfillment. But there is an economical asymmetry between the two. Unlike Raymond, Alex owns commercial property. It is this asset that affords James an opportunity to set up his own auto-repair business in partnership with Alex, making possible inter-racial redemption. The novel acknowledges the economic asymmetry between Alex and Raymond but abstains from exploring it head-on. Was race a factor in this inequality? Historians argue that working- and middle-class white ethnics were afforded far greater opportunities than their African American counterparts. As a work concerned with the effects of the racial past in the present, “The Turnaround” owes a more substantive look on how Alex’s past positions him as economically superior to Raymond. One only hopes that Pelecanos, a writer so much invested in exploring the racial divide, will tackle these delicate issues in future work.

Yiorgos Anagnostou


Originally printed in The National Herald, Vol. 12 (611), June 27, 2009:7.


Friday, December 20, 2013

Βιβλιογραφία Τζόρτζ Πελεκάνος στα Ελληνικά



http://www.biblionet.gr/author/131/Τζόρτζ_Πελεκάνος


Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Ελληνοαμερικανικές Γραφές - «Χάρλεμ» του Γιώργου Χουλιάρα


Μια άλλη φορά στο Χάρλεμ δίδασκα σε πρόγραμμα κολεγίου που είχαν ιδρύσει Ουρσουλίνες καλόγριες έξω από τη Νέα Υόρκη στις αρχές του εικοστού αιώνα. Σκοπός ήταν να μπορέσουν οι φοιτητές να αποκτήσουν πτυχίο Μπάτσελορ, με θετικές συνέπειες προαγωγής στη δουλειά τους, γιατί πρέπει να προσθέσω ότι όλοι στο μάθημά μου ήταν τουλάχιστον δέκα χρόνια μεγαλύτεροι από εμένα. Η πιο επιμελής φοιτήτρια αποφοιτώντας θα μπορούσε να αναλάβει επικεφαλής νοσοκόμα σε τμήμα πρώτων βοηθειών, που αντιμετώπιζε συνεχώς περιστατικά λόγω ατυχημάτων ή βίας. Ο φοιτητής που μιλούσε ωραιότερα, κάπου μεταξύ ιεροκήρυκα και ράπερ, ασχολίες όχι ασυμβίβαστες, εκπροσωπούσε τη γειτονιά του σε συνεδριάσεις της τοπικής αυτοδιοίκησης. Το πτυχίο θα του επέτρεπε να προσληφθεί συνεργάτης δημοτικού συμβούλου, που όπως και εκείνος προερχόταν από την Αϊτή, με απολαβές αρκετές για να στηρίξει τρία παιδιά και ισάριθμες πρώην συζύγους, που για την ώρα μοιράζονταν το τμήμα των διδάκτρων του που δεν κάλυπτε υποτροφία.

Συνέχεια, http://bibliotheque.gr/?p=32198


Monday, December 16, 2013

Lost in Translations: The Academic as Public Intellectual



"There are two necessary characteristics of a public intellectual: that the person's work is engaged with substantive social questions; and that the person actively attempts to communicate with a public"
 (Judith Brett)

Tasks of the Academic as Public Intellectual

• Learn the complex and highly specialized language of one's discipline; learn to communicate in this language both orally and in writing.

• Unlearn the complex and highly specialized language of one's discipline; learn to translate this language for the educated public in an accessible and appealing language, both orally and in writing.

• Learn the complex and highly specialized language of teaching pedagogies; learn to perform this language both orally and in writing.

• Unlearn the complex and highly specialized language of teaching pedagogies; learn to translate this language for your students in an accessible and appealing performance, both orally and in writing.

• Learn the assumptions of one's discipline

• Unlearn the assumptions of one's discipline for the the purpose of interdisciplinary work.

• Learn to translate interdisciplinary work for the educated public without indicating that you perform this translation 


Multiply the volume of the above tasks by several factors in the case of the 
Immigrant Academic as Public Intellectual



Greek American Authors in the Greek Media


Interview with Harry Mark Petrakis – Συνέντευξη με τον Harry Mark Petrakis

To 1916 o ιερέας Μάρκος Πετράκης εγκαταλείπει την Κρήτη με τη γυναίκα του Στέλλα και τα τέσσερα παιδιά τους για να προσφέρει τις υπηρεσίες του σε μια πολυπληθή παροικία Κρητικών ανθρακωρύχων που βρίσκεται στην πόλη Price της πολιτείας Utah των Η.Π.Α. Το 1923 γεννιέται στο St. Louis το πέμπτο παιδί της οικογένειας ο Χαράλαμπος Πετράκης, ο πιο σημαντικός ελληνοαμερικανός συγγραφέας της γενιάς του με δέκα βιβλία, έξι νουβέλες, τρεις συλλογές μικρών ιστοριών, και μια αυτοβιογραφία, δύο φορές υποψήφιος για το Εθνικό Βραβείο Βιβλίου στις Η.Π.Α. και βραβευμένος με τα Friends of American Writers Award, Friends of Litterature Award, Society of Midlands Authors Award και Ο’ Henry Award. O συντάκτης των ΣΤΙΓΜΩΝ Παύλος Λιόντας μίλησε με τον Harry Mark Petrakis για την μακρόχρονη οδύσσεια του συγγραφέα στη ζωή και τη λογοτεχνία, και παρουσιάζει μερικά από τα έργα του, που παραμένουν άγνωστα στο ευρύ κοινό στην Ελλάδα…

Όταν ο διευθυντής των ΣΤΙΓΜΩΝ Νίκος Καρέλλης μου μίλησε για τον Harry Mark Petrakis, έναν Κρητικό συγγραφέα που διαπρέπει στην Αμερική και μου ζήτησε να εστιάσουμε ένα άρθρο πάνω του, ένοιωσα αμήχανα. Όπως ίσως οι περισσότεροι από σας, δεν γνώριζα για τον άνθρωπο και το έργο του και το μόνο εργαλείο που είχα στη διάθεση μου ήταν το διαδίκτυο. Από τις πρώτες ιστοσελίδες-αναφορές που έφερε η μηχανή αναζήτησης Google ήταν ένα άρθρο της εφημερίδας Chicago Tribune στο οποίο υπήρχαν οι απόψεις τριών ελληνοαμερικανών καθηγητών πανεπιστημίου για το έργο του Πετράκη: Charles Moskos, Vassilios Lambropoulos, Yorgos Anagnostou. Το άρθρο αναφερόταν και στα πανεπιστήμια που δίδασκαν, οπότε η έρευνα ξεκίνησε μέσα από τους δικτυακούς τόπους των πανεπιστημίων για τον εντοπισμό των προσωπικών διευθύνσεων e-mail των καθηγητών. Την επόμενη μέρα έλαβα απαντητικά e-mail και από τους τρεις Έλληνες καθηγητές με τα στοιχεία επικοινωνίας του Harry Mark Petrakis ο οποίος απαντά επίσης άμεσα με e-mail, μολονότι είναι 82 ετών και ο φόρτος εργασίας μεγάλος εφόσον πρέπει να παραδώσει το καινούριο βιβλίο του στον εκδότη σε σύντομο χρονικό διάστημα. Κανονίζουμε μια συνέντευξη που ολοκληρώνεται εν μέρει με τηλεφωνική επικοινωνία και εν μέρει με ηλεκτρονική αλληλογραφία. Η αρχική μου αμηχανία αντικαθίσταται από τη μαγική αίσθηση που καταλαμβάνει τους εξερευνητές που ανακαλύπτουν ένα νέο συναρπαστικό κόσμο. Ας μοιραστούμε λοιπόν αυτό το ταξίδι…

Μιλήστε μας για τους γονείς σας και το πως πήραν την απόφαση να μεταναστεύσουν στην Αμερική.

Ο πατέρας μου ήταν ιερέας της Ελληνικής Ορθόδοξης Εκκλησίας και ήρθε στις Η.Π.Α. για να προσφέρει τις υπηρεσίες του σε μια κοινότητα ανθρακωρύχων από την Κρήτη στην πόλη Price της πολιτείας Utah. Πήρε μαζί του και την οικογένεια του, τη μητέρα μου και τέσσερα παιδιά, αγόρια και κορίτσια μεγαλύτερα από μένα. Στην οικογένεια προστέθηκαν άλλα δύο παιδιά που γεννήθηκαν εδώ στην Αμερική, εγώ γεννημένος το 1923 στο St. Louis και η αδελφή μου το 1924 στο Σικάγο. Το Σικάγο ήταν η τελευταία ενορία στην οποία υπηρέτησε ο πατέρας μου μέχρι το θάνατό του το 1951. Η μητέρα μου έζησε άλλα 29 χρόνια, τα 24 από τα οποία τα πέρασε μαζί με την οικογένειά μου, τη γυναίκα μου τη Δήμητρα και τα τρία αγόρια μας.



Friday, December 13, 2013

Greek American Texts Translated in Greek – Ελληνοαμερικανικά Κείμενα Μεταφρασμένα στα Ελληνικά



Τίτλος: «Αμοιρολόιτος: Ο Λούις Τίκας και η σφαγή στο Λάντλοου» 
Συγγραφέας: Ζήσης Παπανικόλας 
Θέμα: Ελληνική πεζογραφία, Ιστοριογραφία 
Εκδότης: Κατάρτι 
Μετάφραση: Πελαγία Μαρκέτου 
Σελίδες: 404 
ISBN: 9789608747401 

Ημ. Έκδοσης: 01/11/2002 

ΚΡΙΤΙΚΗ

Ο Ζήσης Παπανικόλας είναι Ελληνοαμερικανός τρίτης γενιάς και διδάσκει Ανθρωπιστικές Σπουδές στο San Francisco Art Institute από το 1968. Μια υποτροφία στο Creative Writing τον οδήγησε στη Δημόσια Βιβλιοθήκη του Στάνφορντ για να αναζητήσει ιδέες και υλικό για το μυθιστόρημα που σκόπευε να γράψει. Εκεί βρήκε πληροφορίες για ένα δραματικό περιστατικό που συνέβη στο Κολοράντο, τον Απρίλιο του 1914, όταν οι εργάτες των ορυχείων, με την παρότρυνση της Ενωσης Ανθρακωρύχων, κατέβηκαν σε απεργία διεκδικώντας την αναγνώριση του σωματείου τους και καλύτερες συνθήκες ζωής. Ο μεγαλύτερος καταυλισμός των απεργών, που αναγκάστηκαν να εγκαταλείψουν τα σπίτια τους αφού ανήκαν στην εταιρεία, στήθηκε στο Λάντλοου, όπου η ένοπλη σύρραξη μεταξύ των εργατών και της Εθνοφρουράς δεν άργησε να ξεσπάσει, με αποτέλεσμα να σκοτωθούν πολλοί απεργοί, γυναίκες και παιδιά. Μετά την τραγική σύγκρουση, γνωστή στην Ιστορία ως η Σφαγή στο Λάντλοου, η Εθνοφρουρά συνέλαβε και σκότωσε εν ψυχρώ δύο απεργούς και τον υπεύθυνο της κατασκήνωσης Λούις Τίκα. Η έκπληξη στο άκουσμα ενός αμερικανοποιημένου ελληνικού ονόματος στην πρωτοπορία του αγώνα και οι ελάχιστες πληροφορίες γύρω από αυτό το πρόσωπο στάθηκαν η αφορμή για τη μακρόχρονη έρευνα του Ζήση Παπανικόλα που κατέληξε στην έκδοση, αρχικά στην Αμερική και πρόσφατα στην Ελλάδα, του ιστορικού του αφηγήματος.

Συνάντησα τον Zeese Papanikolas στο σπίτι του, στο Οκλαντ του Σαν Φρανσίσκο, και εντυπωσιάστηκα από το πόσο φιλόξενος και ζεστός άνθρωπος είναι. Υπονομεύοντας, με αίσθηση του χιούμορ και έναν διακριτικό αυτοσαρκασμό, την εικόνα του τυπικού ακαδημαϊκού, θεώρησε χρήσιμο να ορίσει το πλαίσιο της κοινωνικοπολιτικής κατάστασης στην Αμερική όταν ο ίδιος άρχισε την έρευνά του. «Ηταν το 1967, εν μέσω τρομακτικών αναταραχών. Το κίνημα των ανθρωπίνων δικαιωμάτων είχε αρχίσει με διαδηλώσεις, πορείες, κάναμε καταλήψεις για να σταματήσει ο πόλεμος του Βιετνάμ, κάποιοι είχαν σκοτωθεί στον Νότο. Τα εργατικά σωματεία ήταν κατά μέγα μέρος σιωπηλά και έτσι για μένα και τους εικοσάχρονους συνομηλίκους μου το να ανακαλύπτουμε το ριζοσπαστικό παρελθόν της Αμερικής ήταν σαν να προσπαθούμε να κατανοούμε τον κόσμο και τη ζωή του αμερικανικού καπιταλισμού που υπήρχε τότε». Για τον Ζήση Παπανικόλα, ο οποίος γνωρίζει ελάχιστα την ελληνική γλώσσα αλλά θυμάται έντονα τον παππού του και τους φίλους του γύρω από το τραπέζι της κουζίνας να συζητούν ασταμάτητα ακροβατώντας ανάμεσα στο αδιέξοδο ελληνικό παρελθόν και στο άγνωστο αμερικανικό μέλλον, ο προσδιορισμός ανάμεσα στον Ελληνα που υπήρξε και στον Αμερικανό που έγινε ήταν κάτι πολύ ιδιαίτερο. «Οι Ελληνες τα είχαν καταφέρει στην Αμερική. Πολύ λίγοι είχαν παραμείνει στα ορυχεία. Εγιναν επιχειρηματίες με πούρα και μεγάλους λογαριασμούς, με παιδιά μορφωμένα. Και φθάνει μια στιγμή που θέλεις να καταλάβεις από πού προέρχεσαι. Νομίζω ότι η σιωπή που περιέβαλλε τον Λούις Τίκα ήταν η σιωπή μέσα στην οποία μεγάλωσα».

Στο βιβλίο του Μπάμπη Μαλαφούρη Ελληνες της Αμερικής 1528-1948 δίνεται μια συγκλονιστική περιγραφή των συνθηκών και των συμβολαίων εργασίας των Ελλήνων, κυρίως πρώην αγροτών, χωρίς εργατική συνείδηση. Συχνά μάλιστα δέχονταν να γίνουν και απεργοσπάστες υπακούοντας στις επιταγές των εργολάβων και των πατρώνων τους, θύματα της έλλειψης εκπαίδευσης και της άγνοιας της γλώσσας. Για τον Λούις Τίκα ελάχιστα γνώριζε ο ερευνητής-συγγραφέας: ότι γεννήθηκε το 1886, ότι το 1906 έφυγε από την Κρήτη μετανάστης, ότι το 1910 ζήτησε να πολιτογραφηθεί αμερικανός πολίτης και το 1914 δολοφονήθηκε ως αρχηγός του καταυλισμού. Η μητέρα του Παπανικόλα, συγγραφέας Ελεν Παπανικόλα, η οποία ως ιστορικός και ανθρωπολόγος ερεύνησε και κατέγραψε τις άγνωστες πτυχές της ελληνικής μετανάστευσης και εγκατάστασης στην Αμερική και κυρίως στη Γιούτα, από όπου προέρχεται, γνώριζε το γεγονός και τον έφερε σε επαφή με έναν από τους παλιούς που θυμόταν ακόμη τον «στρατηγό», όπως ονόμαζαν τον Τίκα. Ο Παπανικόλας άρχισε να ταξιδεύει στο Κολοράντο προσπαθώντας να μάθει περισσότερα. Εγραψε σε όλους τους δημάρχους των χωριών γύρω από το Ρέθυμνο. «Στις αρχές του 70 ένας φάκελος έφθασε από την Κρήτη. Υπήρχαν τρεις-τέσσερις σελίδες στα ελληνικά και μία φωτογραφία. Ηταν ο Λούις Τίκας! Το γράμμα ήταν από τον ανιψιό του Τίκα, τον Μανόλη Μαραγκουδάκη. Μου έγραψε ό,τι ήξερε γι αυτόν: ότι ήταν πολύ έξυπνος, ότι δεν κατάφερε να ολοκληρώσει την εκπαίδευσή του, ότι το χόμπι του ήταν να εξημερώνει ζώα μαθαίνοντας στα πουλιά και στις γάτες να ζουν μαζί. Ο τρόπος ντυσίματός του στη φωτογραφία ήταν αυτός που είχαν οι Κρήτες από τον 17ο αιώνα, στη μέση είχε ένα παμπάλαιο όπλο ενώ στο χέρι έφερε κάτι σαν σφεντόνα. Οταν επισκέφθηκα το σπίτι του στη Λούτρα Ρεθύμνου, είδα ένα πρωτόγονο πέτρινο λιοτρίβι. Καταλαβαίνετε ότι ο άνθρωπος αυτός, σχεδόν παιδί, ήρθε από έναν προβιομηχανικό κόσμο στην πιο ανεπτυγμένη βιομηχανικά χώρα του κόσμου;»

Ο Τίκας έμαθε γρήγορα τη γλώσσα, επιβλήθηκε στον κύκλο του και αναδείχθηκε σε ηγετική φυσιογνωμία του συνδικαλιστικού κινήματος. «Ο Λούις Τίκας, όπως τον αναπαριστά ο Παπανικόλας» αναφέρει στο βιβλίο ο Γιώργος Καλογεράς, καθηγητής της Αμερικανικής Λογοτεχνίας και Πολιτισμού στο ΑΠΘ, «όταν διαμεσολαβεί μεταξύ των Ελλήνων, του συνδικάτου και της εταιρείας, είναι για τους συμπατριώτες του ο λεβέντης και για τους συνεργάτες του ο ψύχραιμος διαπραγματευτής. Ετσι εξυπηρετεί τα συμφέροντα τόσο της τάξης του όσο και της εθνοτικής του ομάδας». Στο βιβλίο Αμοιρολόιτος. Ο Λούις Τίκας και η Σφαγή στο Λάντλοου τα κενά στην έρευνα για τη ζωή του Τίκα ο συγγραφέας τα συμπληρώνει με τις μνήμες από τον παππού του Τζορτζ Ζήση-Γιώργο Ζησιμόπουλο από τον Κλεπά Ναυπακτίας. Οι δύο άνδρες γεννήθηκαν την ίδια χρονιά, έφθασαν με κάποιους μήνες διαφορά στη «Γη της Επαγγελίας», δεν συναντήθηκαν ποτέ, αλλά βρέθηκαν ξένοι στην ίδια πόλη της Δύσης. Ερευνώντας τη ζωή του Λούις Τίκα ο Ελληνοαμερικανός Ζήσης Παπανικόλας συναντάται συχνά με τον παππού του και τους ομοίους του και οδηγείται τελικώς σε ένα ιστορικό αφήγημα όπου συντελείται και ένα εσωτερικό ταξίδι αναζήτησης της δικής του εθνικής και ιστορικής καταγωγής αλλά και της προσωπικής του ταυτότητας.

ΜΑΡΙΑ Π. ΚΟΥΦΟΠΟΥΛΟΥ

ΤΟ ΒΗΜΑ , 02-02-2003
http://www.protoporia.gr/amoiroloitos-p-146058.html


Thursday, December 12, 2013

Modern Greek Studies – Teaching Resource – Athens


ΑΘΗΝΑ, ΕΠΙΣΤΡΟΦΗ ΣΤΗΝ ΑΚΡΟΠΟΛΗ (1983)

Ελλάδα. Έγχρωμη. Διάρκεια 43'.

«Η δυσεύρετη ταινία του Θόδωρου Αγγελόπουλου. Δυστυχώς εκεί όπου πέφτει το σήμα της ΝΕΤ λείπουν μερικά λεπτά (≈5')»


Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Empowering Greek American Studies



Empowering Greek American Studies



“Not to act to remedy our bleak
under-representation is to squander a wonderful
set of opportunities and resources.” 
–Artemis Leontis 

“Power is the ability to take one’s place in
whatever discourse is essential to action and
the right to have one’s part matter.” 
–Carolyn Heilbrun 

“Why study Greek America”? “Who studies Greek America? “What is the scope of Greek American Studies?” We keep returning to these questions, inevitably, in an ever-changing academy. Calls to sharpen and explain our subject matter keep knocking at our door. “Establish scholarly relevance,” we are startled by the volume of the cries, “or else…”

The style in which these questions are asked matters. The probing may signal a hostile or skeptical predisposition, interrogating the value of the field, demanding its defense. Alternatively, it may assert a profound faith in the inherent value of this enterprise; a posture of “let me tell you” why this subject matters. One style questions, the other affirms.

But matter to whom? Context is crucial. It is no longer possible to celebrate Greek American Studies independently from the scrutiny of the institution that enables its practice. In this relationship, the question, “Why Greek America,” performs power. A “minor” field of knowledge is summoned to explain itself to the dominant, to demonstrate relevance; to apologize for its mere claim of existence.

The implication of this questioning goes beyond intellectual concern. Directed firmly to junior scholars and Ph.D. students intended to research Greek issues in U.S. immigration and ethnicity, it also carries ideological, material and psychological weight. It may erect roadblocks to a dissertation. It may abort a book project. It may deny a young scholar’s creativity, vision, and politics. It may weigh negatively in a publisher’s decision. All in all, it may compromise the field’s position in discussions about ethnicity, diaspora, and the transnational.

The violence imminent in this disciplining is felt viscerally among practitioners. It represents an alarming reality, and an ominous future for the field. How to continue a critical tradition without a vibrant new generation of academic researchers? How does a young scholar garner the courage to propose a research project when this project is to be subjected to a harsh trial, its title alone making it a dubious enterprise? Or when – to momentarily enter the loaded terrain of the academy’s multicultural identity politics – a scholar’s Greek heritage is seen as a liability to the critical study of Greek America?

There is too much at stake here to neglect the issue; we cannot simply wish the problem to walk away on its own. It won’t. New testimonies of researchers add to the urgency to intervene. Faculty in various disciplines advise graduate students against Greek American topics. The reasons are not always evident, though recurrent questions are by now familiar to us: “what could the Greek case possibly tell us about immigration that the Italian, or the Jewish cases have not already told us?” There is also outright dismissal. Isn’t it true that “European America [is already] dead?”

Greek America is neither exotic nor culturally thick enough for anthropology; it is too cultureless or anti-minority for ethnic studies; not multilayered enough for literary studies (unless a Pulitzer prize turns it into American literature); not textured enough for Film Studies; not adequately victimized for academic multiculturalism. For these reasons it has only been allotted a narrow space within the University, endangered now in an environment of fiscal constraints.

Greek American Studies is not an exception in facing this challenge. Colleagues in Italian American Studies also confront interrogation. This, let’s note, despite a record of impressive scholarly output. In 2001, writing against the “death of European Americans” thesis, Josephine Gattuso Hendin, brought attention to the “explosion of interest in Italian Americana,” appreciating Italian American Studies “as an important current in contemporary literature and criticism.” If Italian American studies – which enjoys high visibility in departments of anthropology, history, folklore, diaspora, and English in major American Universities – faces opposition, what then of Greek American Studies – which claims a much smaller academic and demographic share?

Engaging these questions requires, ironically, a dissertation, or a book-length analysis. It takes us to the loaded question of how disciplines circumscribe their subject matter. At the heart of this construction is the notion of European Americans as people without culture, even without historical specificity, as in the questioning of Greek America’s value to immigration studies. We are witnessing a brand of academic colonialism, which triggers the voluble dismay, anger, and – one of the weapons of the “weak” – irony, in the writings of scholars working on marginalized ethnicities. As early as 1973, Michael Novak registered a wry complaint about the ethnographic neglect of “white ethnics”: “Our anthropologists know more about some tribes in New Guinea than about the Poles in Warren or Lackawanna.”

And my own recent reaction to the “end of white ethnic culture” proclaimed in ethnic and racial studies: “In Greek America, for instance, diaspora attachments currently inspire novels, poetry, popular ethnographies, and literary societies, activities that necessarily require in-depth, and long-term commitments. The insistence on the superficiality of ethnic identities – the “minimal impact” identities – mutes artists, researchers, and those sectors of the public whose social imagination is nurtured by diaspora. Relegating meaningful lives to a footnote exercises epistemic violence.”

It is necessary to situate this crisis in the context of the abysmal academic market for European Americanists. Seen from this angle, the motivation of an advisor steering a graduate student away from Greek American topics may register realism and professional ethics. A recent article in the New York Times goads the University to alert graduate students about the stark realities of the marketplace in the Humanities, and restructure the curriculum to train for non-academic careers.

In some academic quarters, an open discussion of these matters is seen – by otherwise well-intended colleagues – as self-defeating. “It is to the best interest of graduate students not to dwell on the problem,” they insist; “it is nerve wracking and demoralizing; paralysis may lead to a massive exodus from the profession.”

But no longer is it possible, or desirable, to hide from graduate students the tribulations that wait out there for them just around the post-graduation corner. The crushing reality is here to stay. We already bear witness to the flight of talented young scholars with dissertations on Greek America, both in Europe and North America. Confronted with the lack of academic positions and fellowships, they make a decisive turn to marketable topics (i.e. theories of transnationalism, globalization, American studies, or non-European American ethnicities).

How to prevent this exodus? How to avoid Greek American Studies dropouts? A dialogue is long overdue to empower – both professionally and psychologically – graduate students interested in Greek American or Greek diaspora topics. Dissuading them is not an option. Developing strategies to navigate the challenge is urgent.

For one, we can turn the academy’s question(ing) on its head. Instead of lamenting its colonial ethos, we practice scholarship that interrogates and defamiliarizes dominant paradigms; that introduces new knowledge that troubles its assumptions and disciplinary boundaries. In this respect, the challenge, “Why Greek American Studies?” calls for intervention, a strategy practiced by critical Modern Greek Studies facing comparable challenges.

From this perspective, the questioning of Greek American Studies is productive: it comes as a wake up call against insular, self-referential scholarship. It calls for self-reflection and critique. I join here recent discussions in Greek Film Studies to reiterate that without the aspiration to bring the Greek subject into a scholarly conversation in current intellectual and theoretical issues rather than ethnic concerns, we will be relegated to a very tiny research territory; we will remain irrelevant beyond a narrow ethnic audience. Let’s face it. We cannot possibly chart twenty-first-century Greek America with mid twentieth-century methodologies.

Let me elaborate on the notion of scholarship as critical intervention. My own experience convinces me that one solution to the academy’s devaluation of Greek American Studies lies squarely in a specific kind of scholarly performance: Practice scholarship that demonstrates the intellectual relevance of the Greek case. In this mode, the question, why “Greek diaspora,” can be effectively engaged with the answer, “because X and Y books, because Z and A articles have made the case convincingly.” This strategy turns our ec-centric position into an asset. From this location we intervene to problematize the center, interrogate its assumptions, offer alternative angles of inquiry, even open the space for paradigm shifts. This engagement skirts away from slavishly reproducing the dominant, to question it instead. This orientation may have in store some pleasant surprises, including dialogue with unexpected interlocutors.

But intervention may not be possible for (or even permissible to) a young scholar operating within a dominant discipline (American studies, anthropology, film, literature, sociology). A junior scholar can rock the boat only so much without jeopardizing academic survival. One’s position is immersed in power relations, as we all know very well after cultural studies.

This is precisely the juncture where senior scholars in Modern Greek Studies can make a difference. If they make themselves command cutting edge scholarship; if they are adept and powerful agents in the academic game, they are in a position to steer academic debates. And even if Greek America is not their specialty, they can still produce an essay, a position paper, an article, a book review, even a blog entry that demonstrates the value of Greek America in their respective disciplines. The idea is to perform critical engagement to speak to academic power.

Of course there is even greater potential for linking Greek American and Modern Greek Studies. Gregory Jusdanis, for instance, brings together the necessity of practicing “scholarship and engagement with current theoretical discussions” and expanding the boundaries of Modern Greek Studies. He proposes to reframe the study of Greece “as a transnational community.”

This makes us pause and reflect on the scope and subject matter of Greek American Studies. What is it? “Greek America” – as I have discussed elsewhere – points to a transnational field of cultural, material and political relations; a field of exchanges and circulations; of cross-cultural contacts and fertilizations. In this respect, Greek America is not an identity; it is not an ethnicity; it is neither a diaspora nor a community. Seen as a field of exchanges, Greek America raises scholarly questions at the heart of Modern Greek Studies, if the latter imagines its practice in a transnational and not in a nation-centric framework. “Greek American Studies” brings in conversation the “Greek” and the “American,” making it a transnational project. Archaeologists, historians, and cultural studies scholars working on Greek subjects – among others – are increasingly casting a transnational net and keep illustrating the research prospects of Greek–American Transnational Studies. If it continues, this practice stands to empower Greek American Studies in the latter’s interest to investigate ethnicity, “community,” immigration, and diaspora.


What to Do Next? 

How to promote Greek American Studies in the University? How to empower the field? What are some methodological and institutional priorities? I outline below several prospects, some ongoing, some emergent:

• Create vibrant critical communities. A recent initiative, the MGSA Greek–American Transnational Caucus, speaks to this need. It aims to foster intellectual exchange and promote this subject matter; to reflect about strategies of placing the field in an ever shifting academic context; to establish dialogue across disciplines; to bring together senior and junior scholars; and to provide a support network to animate the intellectual valence of Greek American Studies.

• Practice sophisticated Comparative Studies that incorporates Greek America as a vital component. Enter in conversation with European Americanists, Asian Americanists, etc.

• Bring insights from and cross-fertilize with Ethnicity, Diaspora, and Transnational Studies, among others. Draw a lesson from Italian American Studies, for instance, whose growth “was sparked by the recovery and organization of a wealth of writing through the publication of major anthologies.” (Josephine Gattuso Hendin)

• Situate research within contemporary academic discussions; engage with emergent questions in one’s discipline; question dominant assumptions with methodological and empirical rigor.

• Cultivate strong disciplinary identities (Americanists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, literary scholars); engage with and publish on cutting edge questions in one’s field. Explore the interdisciplinary potential of Greek–American Transnational Studies.

• Produce scholarship which demonstrates how dominant research has excluded, marginalized, or co-opted Greek American texts which in alternative readings could have troubled conventional categories and epistemologies. (For an early example of this sort of intervention see Yiorgos Kalogeras’ “Greek-American Literature: Who Needs it?). Extend this approach to U.S. and/or Canadian media and popular representations of Greece and Greek America.

• Reach out to establish endowments and fellowships specifically supporting the field.


Additional Work 

Identifying neglected or underrepresented topics is a common practice in Greek American Studies – not surprisingly, given the field’s marginalization in the Profession. More than twenty years since Dan Georgakas and Charles Moskos listed a host of research projects and “new directions” needing attention, we witness, more than ever, a vast cultural production leaving us behind. “We find ourselves, frankly,” I wrote elsewhere, “in a position of frantically chasing the very end of its dusty trail.”

I share below ideas and insights from internal discussions I had with colleagues about the state of the field. By no means comprehensive, the list offers a map to generate further interest and discussion (credits to specific contributors in parenthesis):

• Analyze Greek American cultural production in Greece (the state, the academy, translations, journalists, artists, intellectuals, everyday encounters between Greeks and Greek Americans, reception of Greek American authors, artists, and celebrities, etc.). Related to the above is the topic of Greek American Studies in Greek Universities: Discuss contributions, and identify ongoing research projects. (Kostis Karpozilos)

• The internationalization of Greek American Studies calls for a comparable inquiry in Europe and elsewhere; situating this production within a critical network of exchanges and debate seems paramount for cross-fertilization of findings and ideas.

• Follow travel routes and cultural cross-fertilization between Greece and “America.” (Martha Klironomos, Artemis Leontis)

• Identify Greek American artistic and cultural achievements that do not fit the prescriptions of the American Dream. (Peter Jeffreys)



• Encourage the writing of new biographies in the field; or even revisiting aspects of well-known figures’ lives in the area of their ethnicity and cultural affiliations, which has not been researched very well (e.g., see existing biographies of Elia Kazan or John Cassavetes, etc.). What about encouraging the writing and researching of new biographies of well-known political figures? Spiro Agnew, George Christopher (former mayor of San Francisco), Paul Tsongas, Michael Dukakis, Paul Sarbanes, Olympia Snowe, George (Andreas) Papandreou, etc.? Also literary biographies on writers such as Harry Mark Petrakis, Helen Zeese Papanikolas and others, etc. (Martha Klironomos)

• Reflect upon the role of North American Modern Greek Studies in reaching out to Greek America and Greek Canada to establish bridges with non-academic publics.

• Continue documenting Greek American testimonies; transcribe oral histories and make them available to the public; analyze the existing ethnographic archive.

• Dialogue with non-academic audience; issue of the intellectual autonomy of those we interact with: “It seems ‘we’ academics and intellectuals (do we know who *we* are?) find ourselves trying to walk many tightropes, such as between funding and maintaining relative critical autonomy. Between encouraging intellectual pluralism in the academy and staying committed to an agenda like ‘reconfiguring a narrative’ that is meant to rectify or improve upon other narratives which academics have had a hand in along the way. I frequently find myself wondering to what extent we are afforded, and to what extent we afford to others (such as our students, the groups we ‘study’, etc.) real opportunities to raise and to address questions like these. So there’s also this tightrope between our own critical autonomy, and the intellectual autonomy of those we interact with. I guess for me, an important question is how these ‘interactions’ can become dialogues (yes, of course power-laden, never innocent of politics or complicity). Also, how can ‘we’ academics continue to exercise the craft of not missing important opportunities for such dialogue when (remarkably enough) they are still afforded to ‘us’ on occasion?” (Anonymous)

• Reflect on pedagogies – how do we teach Greek America and why? How do we bring Greek American examples and situations into other subjects, including Greek language instruction. (Collective)


• Create public venues to disseminate reflections and ideas about the transnational field “Greek America,” and reach out to both English- and Greek-speaking audiences. Besides ethnicity/diaspora, include the wider political and cultural interconnections between Greece, the U.S., Canada, and beyond. (Yiorgos Anagnostou, Kostis Karpozilos)



• Given the proliferation of Greek American cultural expressions, undertake “small scale” projects, in addition to long-term ones (reviews of museum exhibits, selective interviews, book reviews, etc.).

• Prospect of collaborative projects? How viable is this practice?

• Bring Greek America into bilingual fora (translations, bilingual blogs, etc.).



• Enter into conservation with Greek-affiliated scholars outside Modern Greek Studies who write about transnational systems of difference (ethnicity, diaspora, racism, globalities, educational pedagogies, gender, racial constructions, etc); their position vis-a-vis Greek American Studies?

• Continue the collective discussion on how to inject rigor and vitality in Greek–American Transnational Studies.

I welcome your thoughts and comments; your ideas to further reflect on and expand this Project.

Yiorgos Anagnostou
Modern Greek Program
Ohio State University

November–December 2013 


Sunday, December 8, 2013

«America, America»





Greek American Poetry and Art – Astoria: Exile People Places (Bilingual)



Astoria : exile people places

Author: Nicholas Alexiou

Publisher: Boston, Massachusetts : Somerset Hall Press, 2013.

Edition/Format: Book : English

Summary:  "A bilingual collection of poetry in Greek and English about Greeks in America, particularly in the Astoria section of New York"--Provided by publisher.


Review (in Greek): 




Nikos Alexiou on Greek American Studies


"An interview with professor Nikos Alexiou of CUNY Queens College in New York City, who discusses his extensive research on the historical development of the Greek-American community and how it has changed over time. In addition, Prof. Alexiou discusses his recently-launched oral history project of the Greek-American community"

Listen to the interview:


Greek Transnational Media – Dialogos


An introduction

Dialogos Media was founded in 2010, and since then, has developed a presence in broadcast, online, and print media, both in the United States and in Greece. Our group of media outlets includes Dialogos Radio, a weekly radio program which airs on two radio stations in the United States and two in Greece; Dialogos Radio 24/7, an online radio station broadcasting quality Greek music and the best programming from the Dialogos Radio archive; and our column, “Dialogos,” which periodically appears in Truthout, the Huffington Post and the Daily Kos. All of our media outlets operate on an entirely non-commercial, non-profit basis.

Humble beginnings

Dialogos Media started as a weekly radio program by the name of Austin Hellenic Radio, which aired on the student-run KVRX 91.7 FM in Austin, Texas beginning on August 27, 2010. Initially airing in the early mornings, Austin Hellenic Radio soon made a name for itself in the Austin area for its broadcasts, which featured quality Greek music from multiple eras and genres, special segments on Greek music and culture, and weekly interviews with notable personalities from the Greek and Greek-American communities. The launch of our broadcasts coincided with the the beginnings of the economic and political crisis in Greece, which received a tremendous amount of international media attention, and which Austin Hellenic Radio covered, through its broadcasts, practically from day one. After a year of early morning broadcasts, Austin Hellenic Radio moved to a “prime time” slot on KVRX’s schedule in August 2011, while in early 2012, the program began to be rebroadcast by WUSB 90.1 FM for listeners in the Long Island, New York region, with the name Long Island Hellenic Radio.

New identity: the birth of Dialogos Radio and our expansion into print

Beginning in the summer of 2012. Austin Hellenic Radio and Long Island Hellenic Radio, following almost two years of steady growth in both listenership and popularity, were unified under a new name, Dialogos Radio. Our broadcasts continued on both KVRX and WUSB, and in addition, our Huffington Post column was launched in June 2012, to provide an additional outlet for news and commentary about Greece. In September 2012, the host of Dialogos Radio, Michael Nevradakis, earned the opportunity to relocate to Greece as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar, and he took Dialogos Radio and Dialogos Media along with him. In collaboration with the Star Radio Network in Greece, Dialogos Radio continued its weekly broadcasts from a new studio in Athens, and soon began to be rebroadcast on Star Radio 104.6 FM for listeners in the islands of Rodos and Symi, Greece. Our writing in the Huffington Post also continued, and soon expanded to another online outlet, the Daily Kos, as well. In November 2012, Dialogos Radio launched its new online radio counterpart, Dialogos Radio 24/7, which featured an extensive and diverse playlist of quality Greek music, as well as programming and interviews from the vast archive of Dialogos Radio and Austin Hellenic Radio. In April 2013, Dialogos Radio expanded again, as our broadcasts began to be aired on City International 106.1 FM in Thessaloniki and Central Macedonia. In October 2013, Dialogos Radio further expanded, launching its broadcast in the city of Volos, Greece on Radio Mythos 102.2 FM and in Australia on the 24-hour Greek-Australian radio station Radio ENA, which broadcasts in the greater Adelaide region. Dialogos Radio is now heard on six radio stations in three continents! In November 2013, the Dialogos Radio network few further, as our program began to be rebroadcast twice per week on the Radio Symi web radio station.
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Saturday, December 7, 2013

«Πού Είμαι; Α, ναι... στην Αμερική...» – Ιστολόγιο



«Tον Ιούλιο του 2012, και εξ’ αιτίας της οικονομικής κρίσης, μετακόμισα με την οικογένειά μου (ελπίζω προσωρινά) στην Αμερική. Η προσαρμογή έχει υπάρξει επίπονη. Το ιστολόγιο αυτό, το οποίο ξεκίνησα ως αντίδοτο στις μοναχικές ώρες και στο συνεχή υπαρξιακό προβληματισμό που μου προκαλεί η καινούρια μου πραγματικότητα, έχει σε πολλές στιγμές αποδειχθεί ιδιαίτερα ανακουφιστικό. Εύχομαι, μέσα από τα κείμενά του, να βρω, τόσο εγώ, όσο – γιατί όχι; – ίσως κι εσείς, κάποιες απαντήσεις σε ερωτηματικά που δεν σταματούν να με απασχολούν.»
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A Greek-American's Greek Identity Crisis in Athens


ATHENS, Greece—"Hello, my name is Matt Vasilogambros," I say, introducing myself to a businessman here. I put an emphasis on the "lo" in my five-syllable surname (VA-SI-LO-GAM-BROS), rolling through the end of my name with Mediterranean ease.

It's a strong Greek last name meaning "The King Groom" or "William the Groom," depending on whom you ask. It's the name of my immigrant father who came to the United States in 1966, leaving for the promise of a new life and higher education.

"Are you Greek?" the man asks.

"Yes, my dad was raised in a village near Sparta," I say confidently, thinking he would embrace me as the prodigal son, returning home after a long absence. (I was last here when I was 6.)
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Wednesday, December 4, 2013

A Last Song to Xenitia – A Documentary Film by Athena Scotes


Documentary 


Songs – Memories of Xenitia (Lakis Halkias) – CD




Monday, December 2, 2013

John Tatassopoulos & Roger King Mozian - Bouzouki & Latin (Mediterranean Merengue & Greek Cha-Cha)



"Από τη latin σκηνή των Η.Π.Α του 50-60 ο φημισμένος τα χρόνια εκείνα αρμενο-αμερικανός τρομπετίστας Roger "King" Mozian με τη μπάντα του και ο μέγας μπουζουξής Γιάννης Τατασόπουλος, στη Νέα Υόρκη των αρχών του 1960.  MUSIC in COLORAMA, στην κυριολεξία... Άλλα 2 από τα 7 ορχηστρικά θέματα που κυκλοφόρησαν στον μεγάλο δίσκο "A Musical Odyssey" από το ελληνοαμερικάνικο label της NINA Records."