Preservation of American Hellenic History
Many people have asked why I volunteered three times for hazardous duty with Greek-American units and why I have so much empathy for Greece and Greek Americans. For those of you who are too young to remember, or have not researched early 20 century Greek-American history, it wasn't chic to be Greek in America prior to WW2.
This was the era when we were called dirty Greeks.
If we attended high school in middle- or upper-class neighborhoods, we were not welcomed into fraternities; we could not date the popular girls, and often we were the outcasts.
Second generation Greek Americans, the children of immigrants, grew up during the era of xenophobia in this country fueled by the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. The Klan had targeted minorities and ethnic groups, and Greeks were singled out because they were the most recent immigrants.
Following are four examples of the deep prejudice:
In many cities signs were posted in store windows reading, Help Wanted ~ Greeks and Dogs Need Not Apply.
Another interesting sidelight happened during the 45th Oakland High School reunion. By then I was one of the most well-known Oakland citizens from my class, and a classmate, Dr. Clinton Lee, a Chinese American, was one of the wealthiest. At the reunion Clinton would not communicate with anyone but Mary and me. Mary asked him why.
He told her, They wouldn't talk to me then, and I won't talk to them now.
He also told Mary that if it weren't for the Greeks and Italians, the few Asians in Oakland High would have had a much more difficult time in school with the rowdy kids.
The Greek-American communities during the 1930s and early 1940s, unlike many of the ethnic groups, provided Greek youth an excellent alternative. The second-generation youngsters were deeply immersed in Greek-American culture. In Oakland as in most American cities, we attended church every Sunday, three times a week we had Greek language school after our regular school hours, organized sport teams, scheduled basketball games against other Greek communities, organized dances, picnics, and plays, formed our own youth groups, and we dated our beautiful Greek girls.
So when I was drafted into the army it was an easy choice for me to volunteer in a Greek-American combat unit, and not once but three times.
The prejudice faced by second-generation Greek Americans eased up some after the successful and valiant stand of the Greek Army against the Italians in Albania in 1940, the first Allied victory in WW2. While the Greek Army fought valiantly, Greek America rejoiced in the news of those victories and reveled in its newfound status in America.
My generation related to the terrible events of pre-WW2 much more than to the events that took place over a quarter of century later. The "Chic to Be Greek" chapter was ushered in by Melina Mercouri and Jacqueline Onassis. Greece became a tourist attraction with the Oscar-winning movie Never on Sunday, and glamorized when Jackie Kennedy married the Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis.
In the Greek Battalion I discovered that the vast majority of Greek Americans, who were from every part of America, had an upbringing similar to mine; it was the logical choice for the young Greek-American men who volunteered and joined the Greek Battalion. We had the best of two worlds: we were members of the United States Army and we would help liberate Greece, our parents' homeland.
My father's influence was also very important in my joining the Greek Battalion, albeit if he knew that I would be joining a frontline unit he would never have mentioned the Balkan War. He would reminisce and relate stories of his family in Greece and often mention how he left America in 1912 and joined the Greek Army to fight against the Turks in the Balkan War. My father was an excellent storyteller and blessed with a beautiful singing voice. During our family dinners he sang Greek songs that he had learned as a young boy before coming to America. He repeated the stories often and they were imbedded in my mind. Though I had never met my uncles, aunts, cousins, grandmother, and especially my grandfather, Andreas, who lived in Greece, I loved them as if I knew them personally because of my dad's stories. Unfortunately I did not have an opportunity to meet my relatives in Greece during WW2. My paternal grandfather died in 1944 while I was in the mountains of Macedonia.
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