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C Ch ha ap pt te er r 2 26 6 The Persistence of Greek American Ethnicity among Age Cohorts Under Changing Conditions STAVROS T. CONSTANTINOU AND MILTON E. HARVEY The purpose of this chapter is to present the major themes of Greek American ethnicity and to examine their change across generations. Historically, the Greek nation was burdened by a long and tumultuous history, which resulted in a synthesis of the classical Hellenic tradition and Byzantine Orthodoxy. Greek immigrants brought this complex cultural identity to America. Although Greek immigrants made some adjustments and changes within the pluralistic American society, they maintained certain core aspects of the Hellenic cultural triad: language, the family, and the Orthodox church. Language is central to the Greek Diaspora as asserted by Moskos: “one’s cultural roots and political sensitivities must be nourished by a responsiveness to contemporary Greek realities — even at a distance” (Moskos, 1990, pp. 145–146). The Greek language links Greeks across the globe, who “… share a destiny somehow connected with other people who call themselves Hellenes” (Moskos, p. 146). The family, by encouraging the use of the Greek language at home, acts as the transmitter of the Hellenic culture. The church and its affiliated organizations sponsor a great variety of religious services and sociocultural activities, which are well attended by all Greek generations. Regional and local organizations also reinforced the role of the church in transmitting ethnic values across generations. The process of maintenance and transmission of Greek-American ethnicity is best understood from the historical context in which Greek migration to the United States occurred. GREEK EMIGRATION IN A HISTORICAL CONTEXT At anygeographic location, such as a place of residence, an individual is exposed to stressors from the external environment. When stress occurs, the individual invokes stress-coping mechanisms that may reduce the stress to tolerable levels. In a migration context, when such strategies fail, however, the individual considers relocation and initiates a search process that maylead to either migration or adjustments that result in coping at the same location. Greek emigration is an example of the migration decisions made by many individual Greeks who were willing to travel thousands of miles for a new beginning in places that were culturally and linguistically very different from their homeland. Emigration is a phenomenon that has characterized the Greek nation throughout itslonghistory. Given thegeographical limitations of the country and its insular character, the Greeks turned to the sea as a means of improving their economy. A rich seafaring tradition has been an integral part of Hellenic life from ancient timestothepresent. In ancient times, Greek communities existed mostlyalong the Mediterranean littoral, but in modern timestheymigrated and established settlements in distant countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Russia(Clogg, 1999). 340 Stavros T. Constantinou and Milton E. Harvey United States as Destination The first documented Greek to arrive upon American shores was Don Teodoro (Theodoros), who served on the Narvaez expedition of 1528 (Moskos, 1980). The first serious effort to establish a Greek presence in America was undertaken in 1768 by Andrew Turnbull, a Scottish physician (Panagopoulos, 1966), who sponsored an estimated 500 Greek laborers from the region of Mani in the Peloponnesus to set up the ill-fated colony of New Smyrna, about 75 miles south of St. Augustine, Florida. During the years following the New Smyrna expedition, immigration from Greece was sporadic and small until the latter part of the nineteenth century, when a large number of Greeks arrived on American shores. In a historical perspective, we analyze immigration from Mediterranean Greece to the United States from the perspectives of the receiving and the sending country. Conceptually, immigration to the United States is an example of the push-pull forces that initiate and maintain a migration process. Certain political events and the role of institutions in Greece and the U.S. slowed or accelerated the influx of Greek immigrants and the rate of emigration from Greece. Greek immigration to the U.S. has been characterized by an uneven pattern (Constantinou and Diamantides, 1985), resulting from developments on both sides of the Atlantic. The high point of immigration from Greece, part of a larger flow of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, was reached during the period 1901 to 1920. As noted in earlier chapters, the U.S. passed a new immigration law that created the quota system in 1921. This law limited annual Greek entries to a total of 3,294. Three years later, in 1924, the restrictive Johnson...

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