Philotimo (φιλότιμο), the ‘friend, or love, of honour’, has become a “corporate brand” developed by Greek business elites, for the Greek Diaspora in the United States, says visiting Greek studies scholar Professor Georgios (Yiorgos) Anagnostou.
The marriage of Greek business elites, the Greek Orthodox Church and the US government, suggests the visiting scholar, has actively limited discourse and a more plural view of the Greek American Diaspora. The Director of the Modern Greek Program at Ohio State University will deliver public lectures at the Greek Community of Melbourne and the Global Diasporas program at the University of Melbourne next week.
Anagnostou talks of the “plurality of diasporas” that constitute the American Greek experience, which does not hinge on the normative and mainstreaming narrative of ‘success’ that underscores much of our history as a diaspora. In his many books and essays, the scholar seeks to reveal “plural diasporas” by looking at the complexities and the “conscious” attempts to erase or recast the past.
The problem of a biologised notion of Greekness
He says a “biological” notion of Greekness emerged, which concerns him. This racialised notion generates an ersatz narrative that links “national ideals with ancient Greek connection to the foundations of the American polity, the American Dream, heroism and courage, meritocracy, and the value of the integrated, harmonious ethnic community in multiculturalism.”
“This biologised, ‘philotimo discourse’ emphasises the projecting of Greek migrant success and protecting a positive image, so when a crisis hits, it poses a grave threat to that image.”
In America (and, to a degree, Australia), Greeks sought to ‘whiten’ themselves. They were confronted with primeval racism in the 1920s when the Ku Klux Klan re-emerged as an urban movement against Greek and other southern European immigrants. So, a concerted effort emerged to make them ‘American’, which was code for white.
“You saw Greek men shaving their moustaches, trying to assimilate, and ‘teach’ their peers how to be ‘real Americans’. There’s a biological element, a racism, inherent in all that,” he says.
More recently, the Greek Financial Crisis immediately created racial tropes about Greeks as less than the Anglo-Germanic modern world. Atavistic stereotypes of lazy, corrupt, and backward Greeks re-emerged, creating a crisis of identity and self-loathing in the Diaspora.
The philotimo brand is born of a “triadic relationship” that limits, or can, undermine secular, “reflective”, and critical thinking in the Greek-American community, or more importantly, its self-proclaimed leadership. Anagnostou says in Australia, the existence of secular Greek organisations, like the Greek Community of Melbourne, creates a “public sphere” for the exchange of ideas.
“What is refreshing about the Greek Australian community is the existence of a secular community and a secular society that is inclusive and creates a public sphere for the exchange of ideas, different perspective from the kind of reflective community that.
The Greek Orthodox Church in the United States, with the acquiescence of Greek American business elites and the US state, has limited public engagement. In contrast, he says that in Australia, “there is discussion, there is active engagement with certain issues, and for me, this is extremely refreshing.”
Over 25 years, he has studied how Greek Americans represent themselves through documentaries, films, and literature. “I look at prominent individuals and how they see their past. What is it that they forget many times consciously, and for what purpose? ”
His vast work – books, blogs, magazines, and research – looks at three Greek American generations from the late 19th Century, the 1920s, and 1960s. Currently, “1.3 million Americans identify as having Greek heritage, and 500,000 are members of Greek Orthodox Church.”
“My sources form part of an exciting phenomenon in Greek America, where the communities, and individuals, non-academics were making documentaries and creating cultural products.
“These popular ethnographers, without degrees, feminists, artists, transgressive thinkers, many with a passion for history; there are documentaries produced by businessmen, who feel that they have the authority to represent the group.
“I am looking into other resources and how a discourse develops, how individuals deploy it, and for what purpose.
He points to the work of Helen Papanikolas, “a Greek-American ethnic historian, novelist and folklorist” who documented the immigrant experience in Utah and the American West through histories, memoirs, fiction, and poetry.
“She addressed native Chicanos and Native Americans would emphasise that we feel for you as Greek immigrants. ‘We understand we have empathia’.” Her narrative was, “Indigenous people, we Greeks, also went through this.”
Then there is Harry Mark Petrakis, who penned 24 books, fiction, essay collections, memoirs, and biographies that “highlight discrimination, violence, discrimination”. In one book particularly he draws from his immigrant parents’ actions, urging Greek immigrants to ensure America becomes a sanctuary for all. He writes about his mother Presvytera Petrakis, raised in Chicago,
“These people would stand up and speak, addressing their community whenever the community showed some racist attitudes.”
“For example, in 1955, he talks about his mother Presvytra, who stood to call out the racism faced by a Greek immigrant who married an African American GI serving in Europe. They married, and everybody closed the doors on them because they had crossed the racial divide; the Greek community and the African American community closed the door, so Presvytera Petrakis takes on the moral authority to say ‘don’t forget what we went through and how can we be right reproducing the same racism.?'”
Anagnostou says there may be similarities with Australia, but “there are significant differences compared to the US, different political contexts and different histories.”
The problem of the Helladic Gaze
Anagnostou says a “Helladic gaze” of the Diaspora engineered by Greece, which does “not reflect the reality.”
“We hear in America that we are an extension of Greece and some sort of imaginary homogeneity.”
The gaze locates Greece as the centre and seeks “to appropriate the Diaspora as an extension of Greece and where Hellenism is only about seeing the Diaspora as a reproducing Greek culture in the outside.
“Things like the church, the love of the patrida, (nation) creates a discourse that suggests we have held on to our traditions more than Greeks in Greece, but from that, Greeks in Greece view the Diaspora as backwards.
While we may share “certain experiences”, Greeks in Greece still approach diasporas from a “stereotypical way with anecdotal caricatures, but in the diaspora, we have a space where we can negotiate two cultures.”
“The Helladic gaze of the diaspora is that we deviate, that we are an abomination, a pariah,” Prof Anagnostou says. The reality for Anagnostou is that diverse diaspora cultures emerge in “diaspora networks.”
“Greek diaspora writers, poets, and filmmakers are producing narratives of identity, which are unique and do not conform to the Helladic gaze.”
“Narratives that are incredibly interesting but do not have to do with national Greek culture, at the end of the day, the poet Cavafy was part of the diaspora,” Anagnostou adds.
We may in Australia also add author Christos Tsiolkas, filmmaker Geoge (Milliotis) Miller, and many others.
As a Diaspora member, Prof Anagnostou “feels at home in Australia” only after a week, “I feel part of the diaspora.”
“The conversation we have now with a Greek Australian, I cannot have it in Greece, but I may have it in Chicago, New York, or Melbourne.”
Professor Georgios (Yiorgos) Anagnostou has written ‘Contours of White Ethnicity: Popular Ethnography and the Making of Usable Pasts in Greek America (Ohio University Press, 2009), two poetry collections and is a co-editor of the volume Comparisons, Encounters, Identities: Italian and Greek Americans in Conversation, forthcoming from Fordham University Press.
The event, ‘Professor Georgios (Yiorgos) Anagnostou Diaspora’s Cultural Future: Greek America, Public Memory, Making Identity takes place on October 6 at 7pm at Greek Centre Lonsdale St.
