- You lived in the USA for about 40 years, so you can tell us about the Greek communities there, do they respect enough the Greek traditions? Or it has to be done more about it?
M.F. The answer depends on who and what passes for Greek or Hellenic and that is complicated given our history spanning over millennia. For example, unexpectedly the recent award winning Netflix movie “Nyad” about the US long-distance swimmer Diane Nyad endeavors into the question. Her life-long achievements and her last name are anything but a coincidence. Nyad’s stepfather who had also adopted her, was Aristotle Z. Nyad, a Greek-Egyptian land developer living in the US. The film makes it graphically obvious that her father spoke Greek and not Arabic at home. Through passing his last name to his daughter, he inspired her explicitly to become what ancient Greeks would have called a “water nymph,” an aquatic deity. At one point in the movie, Annette Benning playing the title role confides to her closest friend played by Jodie Foster, how she doubts that she could be a real nyad because technically, her biological parents were not Greek! That is the Greek way of believing that being Greek is contingent upon genetics (“omoaimo”), instead of external factors, which define the American nationality. In that sense, Nyad, credited or discredited according to some with being the first person ever who swam from Cuba to Florida at the astonishing age of being 64 years old, is more Greek than many other Greeks, even if she does not speak the language and claims to be an atheist. She may be a modern demi-goddess herself after all.
Traditionally, the institutions which collectively have worked for the preservation of what passes for Greek in the US over decades more than any other are the Greek Orthodox churches, although the degree of their contribution to our heritage varies greatly depending on each parish.
Another institution of Greek culturalization which has gone unnoticed is Greek pop-folk music, especially after the advent of the .mp3 catering to younger generations. That technology may have violated the rights of artists, but also it made them famous to people who could not, or did not know how to buy their music beyond our borders. Pop-folk music broke down barriers. For example, among people I knew, an African-American acquaintance was captivated by the soulful singing of Dimitris Mitropanos, a Colombian by the catchy tunes of Anna Vissy and an American friend of Ecuadorian-Peruvian parents in NYC attends concerts by touring artists like Mazonakis and Economopoulos consistently. I had the honor of introducing her to the genre. She did not miss the historic last Mitropanos US tour, seeing him singing live at New York’s Radio City. She also fashions herself of having our “omoaimo,” because of an alleged Greek ancestor. I have never seen the certificate.
As for formal Greek education, less Greeks participate in it, or take it seriously. Greeks tend to study technology instead of liberal arts. A newer challenge is the recent “woke” movement. It has targeted classical studies for elimination. Fortunately, it is not as successful as it was thought to be initially. As for the studying of Greek history, due to Greek laws which criminalize the act of criticizing the dead, greater opportunities exist in the US. See for example Professor Kyriakos Almpantis’s doctoral dissertation, attached, about WWII guerilla warfare having taken place in or near Thrace, a great example of an academic’s work preserving our history and heritage in the US.
- When you lived in America did you use your native language or not? Do Greeks have the custom of keeping alive their native language?
M.F. Give to Anna Vissy, Despina Vandi and to many other artists their metals for preserving our language! After all, our church sermons are in the light Ancient Greek idiom or in English, which even Greeks in Greece do not speak. They are the singing unsung heroes of promoting modern Greek in the US. We may also consider contributions by composers like Hadzidakis and Theodorakis. Does anybody still remember the Belafonte/Mouskouri LP exclusively with Hatzidakis songs in the 1950s? Even if our neighbors did not speak Greek, we called each other on the phone and spoke Greek almost daily.
- It is estimated that more than 1.000.000 Greeks live permanently in America, most of them in Astoria and some other cities. We want to create a site that will address all Greeks who live all around the world. How do you find the idea of having a site where you can find news about Greeks in the different countries of the world?
M.F. President Ford had elevated that figure to around 2-3 million talking with Prime Minister Karamanlis, A’. Astoria has stopped being a magnet for Greeks. Arabs tend to migrate there now, Greeks have left Astoria for greener and posher Long Island pastures. In the era of sound and videobite shooting stars, news sites are struggling to survive. How about building a hub for Greek internet influencers instead?
- Would you like to learn about Greeks who have great success in different sectors in the countries they act? Which sectors would you specifically prefer?
M.F. My answer depends on how do you define success? for certain, Kasselakis is not successful. I noticed that until recently, he wore the same pair of worn-out shoes in every picture.
- I think you are fond of the idea of putting links that concern Greek history on our site. Tell us more about it, and tell us your opinion.
M.F. One suggestion will be to recover papers like the one by Prof. Almpantis and seek their permission to provide links to the papers through a web site. Conducting and posting audio or video interviews with historians who write about Greeks and our history is another idea. The quirk will be to have the interviews conducted in English for a greater audience. A point that burns me on every interview I watch in Greece is that Greek interviewers always fail to mention the education of their guest and also, they only mention their names once at the beginning. So much for promoting Greek culture.