Αιμιλία-Γεώργιος; Emily-George (review)

156 Reviews alveolars), but sensibly refrains from proposing any solution to the admittedly intractable problems involved. Joseph and Warburton will deservedly become a source book for all linguists who are not already specialists in the language, but it will also provide valuable information and explanation for the teacher and researcher in Modern Greek. Peter Mackridge University of Oxford Helen Papanikolas, Αψιλία-Γεώϕγιος; Emily-George. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. 1987. Pp. xiv + 321. $19.95. The wave of Greek immigration to the United States crested in 1903-1921, when some 400,000 fled the endemic poverty of their homeland. While thousands of Greek immigrants settled in the industrial Northeast, many young men and a few young women boarded trains bound for the West. Among them were Emilia Papahristu and Geórgios Zisimópulos, the subjects of this moving biography by their daughter. In the winter of 1907—08 twenty-year old Yioyis left for Des Moines, Iowa. Five years later Emilia stepped off a ship and onto a train for Salt Lake City, Utah. Their paths crossed in Pocatello, Wyoming, and they married on 15 May 1915. Well-known for her pioneering studies of Greek immigrants in Utah, Helen Papanikolas here relates the saga of her parents, the old life they left in Greece, the new one fashioned in America. The recollections of her parents which the author recorded over ten years as well her own memories enrich this piece of Greek-American history. Papanikolas' story illuminates why and how Greek women and men like her parents were able to overcome barriers of language, culture and prejudice. This book is notable for Papanikolas' celebration of her mother, "a slow-moving woman, often illogical, always realistic" (p. 307). Unlike the first immigrant fathers whose lives are twice-told tales, the founding mothers of the Greek-American community have been generally neglected. With her poignant portrait of Emilia, Papanikolas begins to redress the imbalance. Born to a poor family in a Macadonian village, at an early age Emilia became a servant to a middle-class couple in Thessaloniki. She then moved with them to Constantinople. The first of her family to leave the village, Emilia had courage and independence rare in Reviews 157 Greek women of that time. Later, on her own and alone she immigrated to America, where no one waited for her. Three years later she became a kiria, with a house of her own at last. Always intolerant of disorder and impropriety, Emily Zeese imposed order in her home and insisted that her four daughters be "proper." A complex and silent woman, not always satisfied, she nevertheless found joy in motherhood. Papanikolas also pays tribute to her father, "a quick, honorable man" (p. 307) who was born in Klepá, a poor mountain village in Rúmeli. Early in life Yioryis had experienced degrading poverty which he cursed for chasing him and others away from Greece, dooming them to exile in foreign countries [henitia). In the first eight years in America he wandered through the West, working at whatever job he could find. He spent nothing on himself in order to provide for his parents' needs and for his sisters' dowries. Twentyfive dollars were sent back to Klepá during the first fifteen months in the promised land. Marriage and modest economic advancement brought stability into Yoryis' life. Beginning with a coffeehouse (the oasis for Greek males whoever they be) in Carbon County, Utah, he became a businessman. By hard work George Zeese finally achieved the economic well-being that was denied him in the patrida. His story of success is typical of the Greek-American experience. In the last paragraph of her fascinating book Papanikolas comments "how quickly immigrant life vanished" (p. 321). Much of it vanished along with those pioneer immigrants, the ones who came in the first two decades of this century. Unless others act now to preserve records and memories of that period, the history of many heroic Emily and Yoryis will be forever lost. What Helen Papanikolas has so ably done for the history of her family and of those Greek immigrants who settled in the vast intermountain West should also be done for those who...