The guest of honour at the Holy Epiphany celebrations in Florida’s Tarpon Springs was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece Terence Quick, who is currently visiting the US and is in charge of affairs concerning Greeks abroad.
At the end of the festivities, and while addressing the thousands of Greek Americans who had gathered in Tampa, he diverged from his original speech to address his fellow speakers and community leaders.
“I will begin my speech with a confession,” the deputy minister said.
When I was leaving my home 24 hours ago to come to Tampa, Tarpon Springs, I knew I’d come to a city with a strong Kalymnian heritage. I believed that the Greek diaspora here would have preserved the language of the homeland. You took me by surprise. You confused me. I am saddened.
“There is only one key-note speaker left to go on stage after me for this Greek event. Even though minutes before we were all sitting at the table, chatting candidly in fluent Greek, not one of the previous speakers addressed the public in their native language, Greek. Everyone chose English, putting their mother tongue aside,” he added, asking for the audience to allow him to freely express his emotions.
Drawing on the fading Greek connection of the fourth and fifth generation Greeks in America, he stressed the importance of the Greek language as part of the Hellenic identity.
“This is why I choose to continue this address in Greek, the mother of all languages,” he said. “Promoting Greek language teaching in every diaspora community, in every continent, is at the top of my ministerial agenda.
“I applaud the diaspora’s requests for the Hellenic state to support Greek language teaching. We have commissioned hundreds of teachers regardless of the crisis to come and teach Greek, but expats should do more than just ask for help. They too should contribute to the preservation of their cultural identity by speaking Greek, not just English.”