What can Greek American Studies learn from Italian American Studies?

I first had a close look into Italian American studies in 2009, while working on an article about the ways in which diaspora has been discussed in Greek American studies (see, http://immigrations-ethnicities-racial.blogspot.com/2012/09/where-does-diaspora-belong-view-from.html). I was curious about the scope and range of this field, about the kinds of questions Italian Americanists were asking. What can Greek American studies learn through a dialogue with Italian American studies? The effort was tentative and I did not include my observations in the published paper due to space limitations. Since then my interest in Italian American studies has grown in the context of my wider research interest in European ethnicities. I will therefore make it a habit to start posting news and developments from that field. As a start, here is what I originally wrote in 2009:   

"I cannot resist the temptation here to report a number of achievements by Italian American studies. This is not for comparative purposes, as this field is attached to different demographics and histories of development, but to instigate thoughts for further research on Greek America. It is instructive, for example, to reflect on the topics covered in the 2005 conference “Speaking Memory: Oral History, Oral Culture, and Italians in America” (November 2-6, 2005). I reproduce the panels almost in their entirety because of their impressive range and scope:“Italians of Los Angeles,” “The Building of Urban Spaces and Neighborhoods,” “Creative Writers on Italian-American,” “Communication in Talk and Gesture,” “Re-Tracing Family Memories: Autobiography, Family Narrative, and Poetry,” “Italian American Writers of Southern California,” “Women: Omissions, Transmissions, Transformations,” “Festival, Ritual, Reclamation,” “Oral Expressions: Proverb, Folktale and Narrative, “Californians' Mediterranean Fascination,” “Authenticity and Storytelling,” “Narrating Musical Experience: Italian Traditional Musicians Speak,” “Community/Academic Bridges: Promise and Problems,” “Varieties of Religious Experience,” “Italian American Heritage: Preservation and Advocacy,” “Italian/American "Stories": Different Perspectives,” “Performing Style: Memory and Meaning in the Music of 20th-Century Italian Americans,” “Italians of California,” “Orality and Orature in Italian and Italian American Experiences,” “Museums and the Depiction of Italian American Identity,” “Food Preparation, Presentation, and Representation,” “Italians and Italian Americans: Perceptions and Misperceptions,” “Blending Genres: Methodological Explorations in Working with Memory,” “Italian Americana Presents Its Authors,” “Fascism: Propaganda and Responses outside Italy,” “Language and Cultural Identities,” “Italian/American Cinema: Formal Re-presentations,” “Italian American-ness in Literature: From Individual Authors to Anthologies,” “Generational and Cultural Crossing: From Oral History to Memoir,” Traditional Music and Dance in Contemporary Diasporas,” “Do the Films We Watch, Watch Us? Hollywood and Italian American Culture,” “What Is Italian American Poetry?,” “Italian American Identity between Construction and Negotiation,” “Branching out into the Community: Grass Roots and Genealogical Resources for Scholars of Italian America,” “Oral History Research: Methodologies and Applications,” “Stories from the Ancestors, Past and Present (Reading),” “The War Experience,” “Truth, Dare, Consequences, Promise or Repeat? (A Reading-Performance),” “Musical Crossings,” “Nurturing Italianità: Nourishing Italian American Identity,” “The Italian American Way of Death (Open Mike),” “Italians in Hollywood, Theatre and Radio,” “From Oral Sources to Written and Visual Resources,” “Our African Black Mother and a Just, Not Violent, World,” “Italian Translation of Work by Italian American Poets.” The impressive range and scope of the conference shockingly illuminates the unrealized potential of our field. For the full program see http://www.iohi.org/aiha/schedule.html. For yet another conference see, “‘Italians in the Americas’: An International Conference,” April 24-26, 2008 (http://www.i-italy.org/1693/italians-americas-international-conference)."

The Diffusion and Cultural Power of Espresso

Museum Collections in Greek America

For those Greek American cultural organizations envisioning to establishing ethnic museums yet lacking the necessary funds, a partnership with local institutions may provide an alternative strategy for heritage preservation (and enhanced cultural visibility). The following, a job opening for a curator for an Italian American collection, may provide a starting point for thinking about this route.

Curator, Italian American Collection at the Senator John Heinz History Center, Museum Division

The Curator of the Italian American Program's principal responsibilities are the documentation of the Italian American community in Western Pa. through artifact collections, archival collections, and oral histories, and the interpretation and presentation of the community's history through programs and publications, including articles, books, exhibits, lectures, events, web-site, computer interactives, and demonstrations. The Curator works with History Center staff and the Italian American Advisory Committee to develop a strategy for collecting and programming that supports and accommodates the overall strategies of the History Center. He/she implements that strategy by soliciting collections or responding to offers of donations. Also in keeping with the strategy, pursues oral histories, attends conferences related to Italian American and immigrant history, writes articles for publication, and organizes public programs and events.

Because the Curator's activities must dovetail with the goals and mission of the History Center, he/she must participate in department/division planning, project meetings, Museum Division projects where his/her expertise is needed, or in those projects which require the participation of all Museum Division staff, such as exhibit installations. This is a full-time position reporting to the Museum Division Director.

Requirements: Masters in history, museum studies, or cultural studies. A knowledge of material culture (how to look at and understand objects), historical interpretation, experience with oral histories and community work, object handling according to museum standards, and strong written and oral communication skills are required. Experience with digitization and using technology to share content preferred. A working knowledge of the Italian language is a plus.

Contact: We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin or disability. Qualified applicants should submit a cover letter (including salary requirements) and resume to: Renee Falbo, Director of Human Resources, Senator John Heinz History Center 1212 Smallman Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 hr@heinzhistorycenter.org

Fax:
412-454-6358
Website:
www.heinzhistorycenter.org

Greek American Positions Against Golden Dawn

http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=2821

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151176266778058&set=a.10150352566188058.369188.712013057&type=1&theater

http://www.left.gr/article.php?id=8858

http://ahepa.org/dotnetnuke/News/NewsReleases/tabid/82/EntryId/190/AHEPA-Deeply-Concerned-about-Rise-of-Extremism-in-Greece.aspx

Review of "Italian Folk: Vernacular Culture in Italian-American Lives"

Joseph Sciorra, ed. Italian Folk: Vernacular Culture in Italian-American Lives

New York, Fordham University Press, 2011, pp. 288, $ 28

If immigration and ethnicity entail a process of becoming, the vernacular serves as a key resource in personal and cultural transformation. This volume powerfully brings this point home with insight and conviction. It does so in an interventionist spirit, entering a terrain where immigrant folkness has been historically reified along a rigid polarity either as an undesirable sign of vulgar backwardness, or as a sanitized marker of celebrationist pride. Italian Folk, edited by Joseph Sciorra, effectively moves beyond this duality to reclaim folk expressivity as an agent shaping meaningful lives, informing artistic communication, and offering means for coping with cultural dislocation. It underlines its role in contesting hegemony, but also notes its capacity in reproducing hierarchies.

It is only appropriate, therefore, that the editor’s introduction situates the vernacular as a contested expression, to subsequently advocate a particular scholarly location of exploring it: «listening with accent» (p. 7). This calls for a research practice that is attuned to the multiplicity of experiences associated with living between cultures. Heeding this invitation, a host of folklorists, ethnographers, art historians, historians, literary scholars, and ethnomusicologists set out to chart the importance of Italian-American expressive culture in a variety of contexts. This review discusses three prominent threads in the book, namely the significance of the vernacular in a) making Italian-American landscapes; b) in reclaiming, even inventing, family and ethnic inheritance; and c) in forging transnational links and ethnic genres. The creative appropriation of folk resources is a theme running throughout all three trends.

Landscapes and the built environment are sources of deep human attachment, yet the least transportable. Immigrants, it turns out, often creatively transform places in the host country to establish a sense of transnational continuity. Significantly, the vernacular arts have been vital in easing immigrant dislocation, as Kenneth Scambray shows in his discussion of two «ethnic» landscapes in California, Baldassare Forestiere’s Underground Gardens, and Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers. Folk art here provides the expressive means for immigrants to inscribe upon the landscape memories of a life abandoned yet not forgotten, mobilizing a poetics of built environment.

The residential landscapes of urban and suburban Italian-American yards in the New York Tri-state region provide yet another example of creative transformation of place shaped by folk knowledge. As Joseph Inguanti notes, «the aesthetics of labor, thrift, and abundance» shape the ways in which Italian Americans express religious affiliation and mobilize recollections of horticultural knowledge, including water and land use, to produce public «landscapes of memory» (p. 84) within open residential spaces. What is more, as Lara Pascali illustrates, the past enters into conversation with the present in the organization and usage of domestic space, this time in the interior architecture of the ubiquitous two kitchen homes of postwar immigrants in three cities, Toronto, Montreal, and New York City. If the upper floor of these dwellings represents «dream spaces» (p. 59) of formality and social distinction, the basement kitchen sustains vernacular activities associated with traditional food preparation, consumption, and sociability, while embracing the material comforts of American modernity in a hybrid combination of cultural influences.

It is not only artists and homeowners who ethnicize space. Ethnic collectives have also an interest in claiming a presence in places of national significance. Joan Saverino navigates the politics to assert an Italian presence during the interwar period in Reading, Pennsylvania, where the ethnic manipulation of national symbols, like the figure of Columbus, were instrumental in redefining national spaces into «ethnic sites of memory» (p. 153).

Inheritance, the claiming of deep connection with the past, centers ethnic identities. It establishes, oftentimes invents, family and cultural continuity to address contemporary concerns. Simone Cinotto, for instance, discusses the economic and social imperatives leading to a particular invention of the ethnic family in Italian Harlem (1920-1940), which, he argues, must be understood in the context of immigrant adaptation, including the socialization of the second generation into ethnicity. Reacting against the idea of naturalized familism in Italian culture, he points to the ideology of the ethnic family as a site of cohesive ties and mutual support, actualized around domestic food rituals in the context of a public sphere hostile to new immigrants’ foodways and values. The invented dimension of continuities is also the focus of Luisa Del Giudice’s contribution. In her deeply personal narrative, she delves into the legacy of female healers in her family to confront «broken lines of inheritance» (p. 194) across generations: through this «spiritual archeology» she identifies the self-healing power of folklore. 

The reclamation of inheritance, this time ancient folk-magic practices in the context of neo-paganism, is the focus of Sabina Magliocco’s piece, which connects Stregheria (Italian-American revival Witchcraft) with identity politics in the 1990s. Access to folk-magic among Italian Americans entails identification with «the forgotten and the oppressed» (p. 213) thus aligning ethnicity with the subaltern to rebuff accusations of white ethnic dominance.

The personal and the scholarly are entangled in this volume when researchers further incorporate their own family inheritance in their analysis. Thus Peter Savastano’s thick description of the ritual changing of St. Gerard’s clothes at St. Lucy’s in Newark, NJ, demonstrates the power of enactment in religious observances to reclaim heritage and for him personally «to arouse emotionally and physically what had been dormant» (p. 176) during the years of personal lack of involvement with the Catholic religion. Savastano renders visible the multiple perspectives circulating among the Saint’s devotees who often challenge the Church’s teachings, particularly those connected with alternative sexualities. Ritual spaces may function as sites of contesting hegemony. Similarly, John Allan Cicala’s insider status enables a nuanced exploration of his family’s relation with the traditional preparation and consumption of a ceremonial meal, Cuscuszu. Tradition here requires that family cohesion is maintained, albeit in a highly controlled setting to prevent the eruption of past conflicts. Certain aspects of the past are animated while others are suppressed, bringing to the fore the analytical importance of family biographies.

Ethnicity, of course, is never a self-sustained entity. It is produced through transnational connections, cross-fertilizations with the host society, commerce, and social contingencies. Marion Jacobson’s analysis of the making of Valtaro musette is paradigmatic in this respect. It traces the emergence and eventual consolidation of a new musical genre, simultaneously fluid in its capacity to enter in cross-cultural exchanges, but also static in its folklorizing claim of representing an ethnic essence. The negotiation between the past and the present propels creative change. This point is at the heart of Sciorra’s analysis of Vincenzo Ancona’s (1915-2000) art in relation to life history. A multifaceted immigrant artist, Ancona grappled with the trauma of displacement, animating vernacular poetry as a venue for self-transformation. «Self-authoring» here entails engagement with history, memory, transnational connections, the experience of the present, and the prospects of the future, encapsulating a host of attachments, and registering art as a site of critique as well as a place for the self to inhabit cultural betweenness.

In its attention to expressive diversity, Italian Folk documents the pervasiveness of the vernacular in ethnic lives without losing sight of power relations, opening up rich prospects for research. Folk ideologies not only anchor lives but also sustain regional, class-based, and inter-racial hierarchies. Ethnic foodways, for instance, may be celebrated at the expense of alternative culinary traditions. The question of pedagogy, appreciating expressive culture while simultaneously critiquing its ideological potential to harm Others, presents the challenge of translating this dynamic to an «ethnic» audience that increasingly understands the vernacular via the apotheosis of heritage as a positively valued resource. A new scholarly territory takes shape in exploring the interface between the vernacular and wider social discourses. How and in what ways, for example, the receding immigrant knowledge about horticulture could be animated in relation to contemporary environmentalism? How to appreciate the aesthetics of the vernacular without asserting cross-cultural hierarchies? These trajectories inevitably guide questions about the ways in which the personal, the familial, the ethnic, and the transnational intersect with wider discourses beyond the «ethnic community». Engaging with this task, Italian Folk positions Italian-American folklore as an interdisciplinary endeavor that charts the vernacular as a usable past not merely in the service of ethnicity but also social movements committed to environmental causes, anti-racism, and the empowerment of historically stigmatized identities.

Yiorgos Anagnostou (The Ohio State University)

Altreitalie 44, 2012
http://www.altreitalie.org/Publications/The_Journal/Altreitalie_44/Review/Books_Review/Joseph_Sciorra_Ed_Italian_Folk_Vernacular_Culture_In_Ital-Ian-American_Lives.kl

Greek American Studies Resource Portal – Fall 2012 update

The Transnational Studies Committee has now compiled its latest update of The Greek American Studies Resource Portal. The new material will soon be incorporated into the existing Portal (http://mgsa.org/Resources/port.html)

We list the update below for convenient perusal.

Lia Kindinger, committee member
Yiorgos Anagnostou, Peter Jeffreys, Co-Chairs

The Greek American Studies Resource Portal – Fall 2012

Anthropology and Cultural Studies

b) Anthropology and Cultural Studies - Book Reviews

Papailias, Penelope. Rev. of Contours of White Ethnicity: Popular Ethnography and the Making of Usable Pasts in Greek America, by Yiorgos Anagnostou. Journal of Modern Greek Studies 30.1 (2012): 144-7.

Zervas, Theodore G. Rev. of The Greek American Community of Essex County, New Jersey, by John Antonakos. Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 38.1-2 (2012): 132.

Autobiographies – Memoirs – Biography

Constant, Constance M. Austin Lunch: Greek-American Recollections. River Vale: Cosmos, 2005.

Daniels, Elaine Makris. Growing Up Greek in South Bend: The Early Years 1926-1964. Gaithersburg: Tegea Press, 2001.

Halo, Thea. Not Even My Name. New York: Picador, 2000.

Hayes, Philia Geotes. Twice My Child. From the Aegean to the American Midwest: The Stories of Five Generations of Island Mothers. N.p., 2010.

Kalafatas, Michael N. The Bellstone: The Greek Sponge Divers of the Aegean. Hanover: Brandeis UP, 2003.

Kulukundis, Elias. The Feasts of Memory: Stories of a Greek Family. 2nd ed. Portsmouth: Randall, 2003.

Matsakis, Aphrodite. Growing Up Greek in St. Louis. Chicago: Arcadia, 2002.

Sarrinikolaou, George. Facing Athens: Encounters with the Modern City. New York: North Point, 2004.

Thomopoulos, Nick T. 100 Years: From Greece to Chicago and Back. Bloomington: Xlibris, 2011.

Vlanton, Jennie C. 761 Aubert Avenue: My Greek American Sanctuary. Lincoln: iUniverse, 2007.

b) Autobiographies – Memoirs – Biography - Scholarship

Xinos, Ilana. “Narrating Captivity and Identity: Christophorus Castanis’ The Greek Exile and the Genesis of the Greek-American.” Transcultural Localisms: Responding to Ethnicity in a Globalized World. Eds. Yiorgos Kalogeras, Eleftheria Arapoglou and Linda Manney. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2006. 203-20.

c) Autobiographies – Memoirs – Biography - Reviews

Alexiou, Nicholas. Rev. of My Detroit: Growing up Greek and American in Motor City, by Dan Georgakas. Journal of Modern Greek Studies 30.1 (2012): 147-9.

Panourgiá, Neni. “Effacing Athens.” Rev. of Facing Athens: Encounters with the Modern City, by George Sarrinikolaou. The National Herald, May 26, 2007. 16-7.

Sutton, Dan. Rev. of The Bellstone: The Greek Sponge Divers of the Aegean by Michael N. Kalafatas. Journal of Modern Greek Studies 21.2 (2003): 294-97.

Blogs and Resource Portals

a) Blogs

“The Pappas Post” (entries on various Greek American topics, including diaspora, society, and culture)
http://www.pappaspost.com/greek_america

“The Greek Reporter” (various entries concerning Greek American topics such as economy, history, and events, also entries on Greek topics in Europe, Australia and across the world) http://greekreporter.com/about/

b) Resource Portals

“Anistoriton” (publishes research papers from faculty and encourage the submission of well written and researched studies from graduate and advanced undergraduate students as well as from independent scholars) http://www.anistor.gr/english/enback/index.htm

Comedy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axkzcO2511w&feature=endscreen&NR=1
(interview with comedian Yannis Pappas)

Dissertations and Theses

Kyrou, Alexandros K. “Greek Nationalism and Diaspora Politics in America, 1940-1945: Background Analysis of Ethnic Responses to Wartime Crisis.” Diss. Indiana University, 1993.

Lillios, Emmanuel Nicholas. “The Relationship Between Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help, Religious Orientation, and Greek Orthodox Religiosity.” Diss. University of Iowa, 2010.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of the relationship that attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help have with religiosity and religious orientation among members of the Greek Orthodox Christian Church in the United States. In addition, this study also investigated the nature of the relationship that confessional involvement has with the following variables: intrinsic religious orientation, extrinsic religious orientation, religiosity, attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help, and ethnic background. This is important because Greek Americans, for reasons perhaps related to culture and religion, have historically displayed a reticence to seek professional psychological help when there are psychological problems. There is a paucity of research on the role religiosity and religious orientation has on seeking professional help for mental health problems. Taking a sample from the members of an urban, large-sized Greek Orthodox parish, participants will complete a questionnaire consisting of demographic data, the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help scale (ATSPPH) short form-revised (Fischer & Farina, 1995); the New Indices of Religious Orientation scale (NIRO) short form (Francis, 2007); and the Christian Orthodox Religiousness Scale (CORS) (Chliaoutakis et al., 2002). The results will be analyzed to provide information useful in understanding the relationship between religiosity, religious orientation and attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help among members of the Greek Orthodox Church. Implications of these findings and suggestions for further research will be discussed.

Tsiartsionis Karapanagiotis, Fay. “Greek-American Couples: Examining Acculturation, Egalitarianism and Intimacy.” Diss. Drexel University, 2008.

Film

c) Film Scholarship

Georgakas. Dan. “Kazan, Kazan.” Cineaste 36.4 (Fall 2011), 4-9.

Kalogeras, Yiorgos. “Retrieval and Invention: The Adaptation of Texts and the Narrativization of Photographs in Films on Immigration.” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 29.2 (2011): 153-70.

Globalization, Transnationalism, Diaspora

Bucuvalas, Tina.“The Greek Communities of the Bahamas and Tarpon Springs: An

Intertwined History.” Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 38.1-2 (2012): 29-70.

Gotsi, Georgia. Η διεθνοποίηση της φαντασίας: σχέσεις της ελληνικής με τις ξένες λογοτεχνίες τον 19º αιώνα (The Internationalization of Imagination: Relations of Greek with Foreign Literatures in the 19th Century.) Gutenberg, 2010.

Koundoura, Maria. Transnational Culture, Transnational Identity: The Politics and Ethics of Global Culture Exchange. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012.

b) Globalization, Transnationalism, Diaspora - Reviews

Kindinger, Evangelia. Rev. of Women, Gender, and Diasporic Lives: Labor, Community, and Identity in Greek Migrations, by Evangelia Tastsoglou. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 37.8 (2011): 1291-1293.

Mike, Mairi. Rev. of Η διεθνοποίηση της φαντασίας: σχέσεις της ελληνικής με τις ξένες λογοτεχνίες τον 19º αιώνα (The Internationalization of Imagination: Relations of Greek with Foreign Literatures in the 19th Century), by Georgia Gotsi. Journal of Modern Greek Studies 29.2 (2011): 300-2. [in Greek]

Greek American Canon

This list consists of seminal texts that define Greek American Studies as presented by Dan Georgakas in his article "Toward a Greek American Canon" (Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 31.2 [2005]).

Antoniou, Mary. “Welfare Activities Among the Greek People in Los Angeles.” Master’s Thesis (1939). University of South California.

Burgess, Thomas. Greeks in America: An Account of Their Coming, Progress, Customs, Living and Aspirations. Boston: Sherman, French, and Company, 1913.

Callinicos, Constance. American Aphrodite: Becoming Female in Greek America. New York: Pella Publishing Company, 1990.

Castanis, Christophorus Plato. The Greek Exile, or A Narrative of the Captivity and Escape of Christophorus Plato Castanis, during the Massacre on the Island of Scio by the Turks, together with Various Adventures in Greece and America. 1851. New York: Cultural Chapter of the Chian Federation, 2002.

Contopoulos, Michael. The Greek Community of New York City: Early Years to 1910. New Rochelle: A. D. Caratzas, 1992.

Counelis, James Steve. Inher itance and Change in Orthodox Christianity. Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 1995.

Economidhou, Maria. E Ellines Tis Amerikis Opos Tous Eidha (The Greeks in America as I Saw Them). New York: Divry Publishing, 1916. [in Greek]

Georgakas, Dan and Charles C. Moskos. “The Greek American Experience.” Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora (Special Issue) 16.1-4 (1989): 5-8.

---. New Direc tions in Greek American Studies. New York: Pella Publishing Company, 1991.

----. Greek America at Work. New York: Labor Resource Center of Queens College and Greek American Labor Council, 1992.

Hatzidimitriou, Constantine. Founded on Freedom and Virtue: Documents Illustrating the Impact in the United States of the Greek War of Independence, 1921-1829. New Rochelle: A.D. Caratzas, 2003.

Karanikas, Alexander. Hellenes & Hellions: Modern Greek Characters in American Literature. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981.

Kopan, Andrew. Education and Greek Immigrants in Chicago, 1892-1973: A Study in Ethnic Survival. New York: Garland Publishing Co. Inc., 1990.

Kourvetaris, George. Studies on Greek Americans. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

Laliotou, Ioanna. Transatlantic Subjects: Acts of Migration and Cultures of Transnationalism Between Greece and America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Moskos, Charles C. Greek Americans: Struggle and Success. New Brunswick: Transaction Press, 1989.

Orfanos, Spyros, ed. Reading Greek America: Studies in the Experience of Greeks in the United States.

New York: Pella Publishing Company, 2003.

Papanikolas Helen. Toil and Rage in a New Land: The Greek Immigrants in Utah. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1970.

---. Emily-George. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987.

---. An Amulet of Greek Earth: Generations of Immigrant Folk Culture. Athens, OH: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 2002.

Papanikolas, Zeese. Buried Unsung: Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1982.

Peck, Gunther. Reinventing Free Labor: Padrones and Immigrant Workers in the North American West-1880-1828. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Petrakis, Harry Mark. Reflections: A Writer's Life, A Writer's Work. Chicago: Lake View Press, 1983.

Psomiades, Harry J. and Alice Scourby, eds. The Greek American Community in Transition. New York: Pella Publishing Company, 1982.

Scourby, Alice. The Greek Americans. Boston: Twayne Press, 1984.

Thomopoulos, Elaine, ed. Greek Pioneer Women of Illinois. Chicago: Arcadia Publishing 2000.

Tsemberis, Sam J., Harry J. Psomiades, and Anna Karpathakis, eds. Greek American Families: Traditions and Transformations. NY: Pella Publishing Company, 1999.

Xenides, J. P. The Greeks in America. NY: George H. Dorman Company, 1922.

Greek American Studies

Georgakas, Dan. “Greek American Studies in the Twenty-First Century.” Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 38.1-2 (2012): 7-28.

---. “Toward a Greek American Canon.” Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 31.2 (2005): 7-28.

History

c) History and Historiography Scholarship

Lagos, Taso G. “Poor Greek to ‘Scandalous’ Hollywood Mogul: Alexander Pantages and the Anti-Immigrant Narratives of William Randolph Hearst’s Los Angeles Examiner.” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 30.1 (2012): 45-74.

Trent, James W., Jr. The Manliest Man: Samuel G. Howe and the Contours of Nineteenth-Century American Reform. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012.

The book explores Howe’s efforts for social reform. Chapter 2 covers Howe’s involvement in the Greek War of Independence between 1824 and 1830, and Chapter 7 recounts his return to Greece in 1867 to support the Rebellion in Crete.

d) History Reviews

Bowman, Steve. Rev. of Confronting the Greek Dictatorship in the U.S., by Orestis E. Vidalis. Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora38.1-2 (2012): 133.

Identity & Immigration

Christou, Anastasia and Russell King. “Migrants Encounter Migrants in the City: The Changing Context of ‘Home’ for Second-Generation Greek-American Return Migrants.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 30.4 (December 2006): 816-35.

---. “Cultural Geographies of Counter-Diasporic Migration: Perspectives from the Study of Second-Generation ‘Returnees’ to Greece.” Population, Space and Place 16 (2010): 103-19.

Literature and Poetry

c) Poetry

Αναγνώστου, Γιώργος. Διασπορικές διαδρομές. Αθήνα: Απόπειρα, 2012.

Η ποιητική συλλογή Διασπορικές διαδρομές προτείνει μια χαρτογράφηση της σύγχρονης ελληνοαμερικανικής μετανάστευσης. Κεντρικές συντεταγμένες της είναι οι ποικίλοι επαναπροσδιορισμοί του μετανάστη με το «άλλο» και το «αλλού». Πώς το διαφορετικό ορίζεται σε οικείο; Πώς το οικείο διαμορφώνεται σε αποχρώσεις ξένου; Πώς καλλιεργεί κανείς τη συνέχεια σε μια εμπειρία που έχει την ασυνέχεια ως συνθήκη. http://apopeirates.blogspot.com/2012/04/blog-post_20.html

Kalamaras, George. Your Own Ox-head Mask as Proof. Brooklyn, New York: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010.

Rouskas, Basil. Redrawing Borders: Selected Poems. Georgetown: Finishing Line Press, 2010.

d) Poetry Reviews

Kenny, Adele. Rev. of Redrawing Borders: Selected Poems, by Basil Rouskas. Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 38.1-2 (2012): 127-29.

Kostos, Dean. Rev. of Your Own Ox-head Mask as Proof, by George Kalamaras. Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 38.1-2 (2012): 130-31.

e) Literature and Poetry Scholarship

Gatzouras, Vicky. “Negotiating the Hyphen: Ethnic and Female Identity in The Priest Fainted by Catherine T. Davidson.”Collusion and Resistance: Women Writing in English. Ed. Kerstin W. Shands. Flemingsberg: Sodertorns Hogskola, 2002. 174-188.

Kindinger, Evangelia. “Of Dópia and Xéni: Strategies of Belonging in Greek American Return Narratives.” Journal of Mediterranean Studies 20.2 (2011): 389-415.

---. “‘I was a tourist and a comer-home all simultaneously’: Crossing Borders in Greek American Return Writing.”Transnational American Studies. Ed. Udo J. Hebel. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter: 2012.

McInery, Dennis Q. “Love and Death in the Fiction of Harry Mark Petrakis.” Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 38.1-2 (2012): 99-126.

Tsimpouki, Theodora. “Bi- or Mono-Culturalism?: Contemporary Literary Representations of Greek-American Identity.” On the Road to Baghdad or Traveling Biculturalism: Theorizing a Bicultural Approach to Contemporary World Fiction. Ed. Gönül Pultar. Washington D. C.: New Academia Publishing, 2005. 15-26.

Sociology

Balodimas-Bartolomei, Angelyn “Greek American Identities in the 21st Century: A Generational Approach.” Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 38.1-2 (2012): 71-98.

Constantinou, Stavros T. “Profiles of Greek Americans.” Geographical Identities in America: Race, Place, and Space. Eds. Kate Berry and Martha Henderson. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2002. 92-115.

---. “The Persistence of Greek American Ethnicity.” Race, Ethnicity and Place in a Changing America, 2nd edition. Eds. John Frazier, Eugene L. Tettey-Fio, and Norah F. Henry. Binghamton: State University of New York Press, 2011. 57-70.

Constantinou, Stavros T. and Milton E Harvey. "The Persistence of Greek American Ethnicity Among Age Cohorts Under Changing Conditions.” Race, Ethnicity and Place in a Changing America. Eds. John Frazier and Eugene L. Tettey-Fio. Binghamton: Global Academic Publishing, 2006. 339-352.

Canada

Resource Portals

“Greek Canadian History Project”
http://archives.library.yorku.ca/gchp/

Australia

Amanatides, Dina. Dreams of Clay Drops of Dew: Selected Poems. Melbourne: Owl Publishing, 2011.

Frangouli-Nickas, Eleni. Athina and Her Daughters: A Memoir of Two Worlds. Melbourne: Owl Publishing, 2009.

Kalamaras, Vasso. Expatriates: Contemporary Australian Tales. Melbourne: Owl Publishing, 2011.

Karalis, Vrasidas. Recollections of Mr Manoly Lascaris. Blackheath, Australia: Brandl & Schlesinger, 2008.

Kefala, Antigone. Sydney Journals: Reflections 1970-2000. Artamon, NSW: Giramondo, 2008.

Riak, Patricia. “Cross-Cultural Children in Melbourne: Thoughts of Getting Married in Greek- and Ukranian-Australian Families.” Greek Research in Australia: Proceedings of the Biennial International Conference of Greek Studies, Flinders University June 2007. Eds. E. Close, G. Couvalis, G. Frazis, M. Palaktsoglou, and M. Tsianikas. Adelaide: Flinders University of South Australia, 2009. 193-206.

This paper is an ethnographic portrayal of Greek and Ukranian cross-cultural children in Melbourne at an age where marriage is a topic of discussion between parents and children, when ethnic traditions are discussed, comparing the views and expectations of these two ethnic cultures. Parents mention their pre-migration experiences of marriage, also encompassing their parents’ life stories. Marriage, as a rite of passage, is explained through the theory of Arnold van Gennep.

Trakakis, Nick, ed. Aegean Light: Poetry by Second-Generation Greek-Australians. Melbourne: Arcadia, 2011.

Warhaft-Holst, Gail. Reviews of Dreams of Clay Drops of Dew: Selected Poems by Dina Amanatides, Athina and Her Daughters: A Memoir of Two Worlds by Eleni Frangouli-Nickas, Expatriates: Contemporary Australian Tales by Vasso Kalamaras, Sydney Journals: Reflections 1970-2000 by Antigone Kefala, and Southern Sun, Aegean Light: Poetry by Second-Generation Greek-Australians by Nick Trakakis. Journal of Modern Greek Studies 30.1 (2012): 137-44.

Αχάριστη - Vassilikos Διασκευάζει Τσιτσάνη

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHLvsPVj84s

Δε ρώτησες τόσον καιρό για μένα

πώς πέρασα, τρελή, στην ξενιτιά

σ' αγάπησα, δυστύχησα για σένα

και σέρνομαι, κακούργα, μακριά

Τα βάσανά μου μ' έριξαν στα ξένα

και μ' έχουν της ζωής κατάδικο

αχάριστη, δεν πόνεσες για μένα

κι αυτό το βρίσκω να 'ναι άδικο

Μου είπανε πως ζεις ευτυχισμένη

θεότρελη, στα πλούτη κολυμπάς

μα μια κατάρα πάντα θα σε δέρνει

του προδομένου ο πόνος της καρδιάς

Στίχοι: Βασίλης Τσιτσάνης, Βλάχος

Μουσική: Βασίλης Τσιτσάνης, Βλάχος

Πρώτη εκτέλεση: Ιωάννα Γεωργακοπούλου & Στελλάκης Περπινιάδης & Βασίλης Τσιτσάνης, Βλάχος ( Τερτσέτο )

Άλλες ερμηνείες: 

Βαγγέλης Περπινιάδης

Γιάννης Πουλόπουλος

Χαρούλα Αλεξίου

Βασίλης Παπακωνσταντίνου

Embracing the Humanities and the Arts: A Cultural Renaissance in Greek America?

Essay for Greek Ethos, a Community Publication in Columbus, Ohio

Yiorgos Anagnostou (Issue 15, Fall 2012)

How do we celebrate a community’s anniversary? Anniversaries are certainly occasions for reflection, inviting thinking about the past through the lens of the present. How has a community changed? Anniversaries call us to consider the possibilities imagined in the past and the achievements realized in the present.

To approach Greek America from this angle will illuminate constancy and change: The longevity but also adaptability of its institutions; the retention of a hyphenated identity more than a century since the era of mass Greek immigration; the struggle to slow the tide of language loss; the interest to understand how the next generation connects with their Greek and American affiliations; the effort to preserve the past.

Still, anniversaries call for an alternative, even if neglected, line of inquiry: To chart new developments, and ponder on their significance. They could serve as milestones, in other words, to contemplate future directions for a community.

A single, yet powerful, development makes this kind of exploration worthwhile. A considerable sector of the Greek-American “next generation” (second, third, and beyond) embraces the humanities, the arts, and the social sciences, to produce fascinating accounts about identity and history. If the immigrant generation, understandably, adopted by and large a pragmatic view on education as a means for mobility, the offspring, many entrenched in the middle class, turn to creative pursuits. It is of interest to chart this landscape and imagine its future potential as a way of celebrating this anniversary.

Greek American studies presents itself as a promising point of departure for this discussion. The increasing output of scholarly work on Greek America has prompted the initiative to compile this corpus and make it available to the public. The result is a web resource, The Greek American Studies Resource Portal. If you are interested in learning about the experience of Greek-American youth visiting or settling in Greece, Greek immigrant women, or the history of Greek Orthodox liturgical music in the U.S., the Portal helps you locate informed analysis about all aspects of the Greek-American experience. Established under the umbrella of Modern Greek Studies Association, it is available at http://mgsa.org/Resources/port.html.

The Portal does not merely feature scholarly work. It includes all kinds of Greek-American writings and performances produced outside the academy. It makes a point to list the latest work by comedians, novelists, amateur historians, filmmakers, bloggers, artists, documentary makers, and autobiographers, among others. For those who appreciate Greek America’s letters, enjoy its popular culture, or wish to start exploring this terrain, the Portal is an ideal resource for navigation. The site is updated twice annually.

I wish to draw attention to a particular development that stands out in the midst of this vibrant scene. In what could be seen as a promising literary trajectory, a new generation of authors writes about Greek America or Greece, earning great acclaim both in the United States and Greece. An early example of this trend is George Pelecanos’ highly praised crime fiction. Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Tryfon Tolides won the prestigious 1998 Yale Younger Poets prize. Most recently, Natalie Bakopoulos’s The Green Shore enjoys critical attention in both sides of the Atlantic. A new anthology of Greek-American poetry is now available (http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/7516863), and a young Greek Californian is about to launch the Voices of Hellenism Project, a web literary venue (www.voicesofhellenism.org/index.html). Universities now hold readings of Greek-American Poetry.

We are witnessing an explosion of literary and scholarly interest in Greek America. Is this a lasting phenomenon, a cultural renaissance of sorts with some enduring power? Or is it merely the climax of fleeting fireworks to only dissipate once they dazzle us? History teaches against predictions. Who would have expected during the era of 100% Americanism, in the 1920s, that ethnic festivals would be the mainstay of American society in the 1990s and beyond? The longevity of cultural and artistic achievements depends not only on the energy and commitment of the individuals who make them happen but on a variety of factors, including supporting audiences and institutions. The future does not just happen, we have a saying in steering the direction of its happening.

It is the fragility of this process that makes the following question urgent: What is the place of Greek-American arts and letters in our lives? There is no way to tell without discussing these issues with Greek Americans themselves; without eliciting their point of view. But one thing is for certain. The visibility of arts and the letters leaves its stamp in national culture, adding yet another layer in the ways we imagine our future as Greek Americans.

The arts and scholarship are arduous endeavors, laborious pursuits that require perseverance and long-term commitment. In supporting them a reader extends one of the most precious gifts that the community of artists and scholars longs for: An audience that participates in the unfolding conversation of what it means to be a Greek American in the twentieth first century. 

A "Greek American" Noir in Utah

A retro image of Americana

historically real yet at the same time 
an echo
from an (unrealized) future 

in a parallel imagined history

of what "Greek America" could have

 almost been like

had 100% Americanism become the national paradigm

Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/54892215-80/customers-desserts-george-johnny.html.csp

Many thanks to GK for bringing this to my attention