Educating Greek Americans: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Pathways ed. by Fevronia K. Soumakis and Theodore G. Zervas (review)

The crucial role of education in preserving Greek-American identity has long been recognized, but serious scholarly studies of institutional and community-based efforts to provide identity-reinforcing education to Greek-Americans have been rare and often confined to unpublished doctoral dissertations. Some work has appeared thanks to the pioneering efforts of Pella Publishing Company in New York City (Psomiades and Scourby 1982; Orfanos, Psomiades, and Spiridakis 1987; and Orfanos 2002, which reprints essays on research done in the 1990s) and other useful information can be found elsewhere for example, (Lagios 1976, still unpublished; Konstantellou 1995; Kyrou and Frangos 2000; and, for recent and ongoing research, see the website of the Modern Greek Studies Association 2021) but it has been many years since a collection of serious overviews of research on Greek-American education has been published. So it is important that a new study has finally appeared to address this gap and introduce the work of a new generation of scholars.

The volume edited by Soumakis and Zervas presents research on past and current educational efforts implemented by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, individual schools, and community-based organizations. It provides insights into the current state of Greek-American education and discusses efforts to cope with the challenges and changes facing Greek-American education in the twenty-first century. The book's appearance is timely in that it coincides with the recent publication of a study of the Greek church in America which provides new information on the broader context of community-based religious education and demonstrates that the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese has continually sought to develop educational programs that respond to the changing needs of Greek-Americans (Kitroeff 2020, 9, 44–49, 68–74, 128–135, 154–60). The studies in the Soumakis-Zervas volume indicate that this effort by the archdiocese continues. The book deals with secular educational efforts as well.

The studies in the book are preceded by an excellent foreword by Dan Georgakas, who contextualizes them through an overview of efforts to preserve Greek-American identity. There is also a brief introduction by Soumakis, who discusses gaps in the existing research. At the end of the book, Zervas offers moving closing remarks concerning what it has meant to be a Greek-American and how Greek-American identity is likely to change in the future. As Georgakas correctly points out, "in the twenty-first century, the majority of Greek-Americans are of mixed ethnic heritage . . . [and] ponder if they want to be Greek at all and if so, how being Greek is defined" (vii). In general, the volume's authors present new research into how the challenges posed by these new generations of Greek-Americans can be met.

Soumakis's own contribution to the collection (chapter 2) offers a historical overview, based on archival research, of the challenges faced by the archdiocese through the end of the 1980s in organizing and supporting day and afternoon schools in New York City. Soumakis's purpose is to show that the church provided more than symbolic support for its schools and collaborated with the community to meet the need for Greek-language education in both private and public institutions. She also points out that the educational models promoted by the archdiocese were characterized by an "intense symbiotic relationship between Orthodoxy and Hellenism" (13), encompassed classical, Byzantine and Greek revolutionary history, and incorporated symbolic elements that appealed to first-generation immigrants. The essay contains a great deal of statistical information on New York's Greek-American schools and the development of archdiocese's educational efforts. It also discusses how the church dealt with conflicts between the needs of newer and older immigrants by adjusting its pedagogical practices and materials and by balancing centralization with the decentralized educational organization of parish communities. One is left wishing, however, that Soumakis had continued her survey...