The CHARIOTEER an ANNUAL REVIEW of MODERN GREEK CULTURE
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The CHARIOTEER AN ANNUAL REVIEW OF MODERN GREEK CULTURE NUMBER43 2005 SPECIAL ISSUE The Greek American Experience DAY OF DISEMBARKATION BY GEORGE ECONOMOU THE ANATOLIAN SMILE OF ELlA KAZAN BY DAN GEORGAKAS KYTHERA BY CHRISTOS PAPADIMITRIOU ' INTERVIEW WITH ATHAN KARRAS ~ / BY MARIA KOTSAFIS ,. J DAY TRIPPERS BY PENELOPE KARAGEORGE KYRAIRINI BY E. D. KARAMPETSOS THE OTHER EUGENIA BY THEANO PAPAZOGLOU-MARGARI OF A HOMELESS, OR ADRIFT IN A SEA OF CULTURE BY MARIA KOTSAFIS IN ALL OF US: THE LIFE AND WORK OF WILLIAM PAPAS BY REBECCA MOERMOND EXCERPT FROM AN UNPUBLISHED NOVEL BY HELEN PAPANIKOLAS IN NANOS VALAORITIS'S PLAY: LES TABLES RONDES BY VASSILIKI RAPTI THE FAMILY BUSINESS BY NICK SMART BOUNDARIES: LANGUAGE, ORTHODOXY, AND HISTORY IN THE POETRY OF NICHOLAS SAMARAS AND DEAN KOSTOS BY ANASTASIA STEFANIOOU POETRY BY DEAN KOSTOS,jOHN MANESIS, NICHOLAS SAMARAS $20.00 I I I I I I I I I I I I The CHARIOTEER AN ANNUAL REVIEW OF MODERN GREEK CULTURE Formerly published by PARNASSOS Greek Cultural Society of New York NUMBER43 2005 SPECIAL ISSUE The Greek American Experience Guest Editor: E. D. I<ARAMPETSOS Publisher: LEANDROS PAPATHANASIOU Editor: APOSTOLOS N. ATHANASSAKIS Associate Editor: THEONY CONDOS Managing Editor: SusAN ANASTASAKOS The CHARIOTEER is published by PELLA PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. Editorial and subscription address: Pella Publishing Company. 337 West 36th Street, New York, NY 10018-6401. Tel.: 212-279-9586, Fax: 212-594-3602. One-year subscription $20. Copy right 2005 by Pella Publishing Company. Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America by Athens Printing Company. 337 West 36th Street, New York, NY 10018-6401. The CHARIOTEER solicits essays on and English translations from works of modern Greek writers. Translations should be accompanied by a copy of the original Greek text. Manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by a stamped self addressed envelope. No responsibility can be assumed for theft, loss or damage. ISSN 0577-5574 HELEN PAPANIKOLAS- 1917-2004 Born june 19, 1917, in Utah, Helen Papanikolas personally experienced the struggles and the suffering of the Greek immigrants she wrote about in her historical work and fiction. When she was five or six she watched from the front yard of her home in Helper, Utah, as a mob of bigots and racists attacked Greek businesses. She went to public schools where the children of Greek immigrants were treated as inferior, where saying one was Greek could lead to a beating with a rubber hose. She witnessed, not fully com prehending, processions of Cretan workers carrying Greek flags protesting the death of a Greek immigrant killed during the 1922 Carbon County Strike. After the 1924 coal mine disaster, she followed the newly-orphaned children of Greek miners to school. While most children of her generation attempted to assimilate as quickly as possible and to forget their origins, Helen rescued and celebrated the history of her people. Helen decided to become a writer instead of a doctor "because I was so squeamish." In 1941, in spite of warnings that an intelligent, educated woman would be a bad "noikokyra" (housewife), she and Nick E. Papanikolas, a business graduate from the University of Utah, married and had two children, Thalia and Zeese. An invitation from the director of the Utah Historical Society to contribute an article about the Greeks in Utah for the Utah Historical Quarterly led to "The Greeks of Carbon County" (1954), which was followed by numerous articles and books. She focused on the difficulties faced by the Greek women who came to Utah to marry and raise families. She made a place for the Greeks in the history of Utah, where once it was synonymous with Mormonism. In particular, she drew attention to the contribution of immigrant labor to Utah's economic development. She insisted on presenting the facts no matter how unpleasant. "I'm a realist. I don't write fantasy. I dislike fantasy. That's how I see it. It's life. I have no other way to explain it." At the same time she felt she had a mis sion to make Greek Americans aware of the Romiosini culture brought to America by the immigrants. "I want them to be aware that they have this treasure. They should keep it." A few years ago Helen invited my family to visit her in her home in Salt Lake City. The feast she prepared for us and the warmth of her home will remain indelible in our souls. She was a rare combination: a great Hellene and a great American all in one. Memory eternal. - Theony Condos TABLE OF CONTENTS E. D. KARAMPETSOS, Preface . 5 GEORGE ECONOMOU, "Day of Disembarkation" . 9 DAN GEORGAKAS, "The Anatolian Smile of Elia Kazan" . 11 CHRISTOS PAPADIMITRIOU, "Kythera" . 21 MARlA KOTSAFIS, Interview with Athan Karras . 29 PENELOPE KARAGEORGE, "Day Trippers" . 41 E. D. KARAMPETSOS, "Kyra Irini" . 61 THEANO PAPAZOGLOU-MARGARI, "The Other Eugenia" 69 Translated by HELEN KOLIAS MARlA KOTSAFIS, "Confessions of a Homeless, or Adrift in a Sea of Culture" . 79 REBECCA MOERMOND, "To the Greek in all of Us: The Life and Work of William Papas" . 91 HELEN PAPANIKOLAS, Excerpt from an unpublished novel 95 VASSILIKI RAPTI, Surrealist Ludics in Nanos Valaoritis's Play: Les Tables Rondes . 99 NICK SMART, "The Family Business" . 115 ANASTASIA STEFANIDOU, "Crossing Ethnic Boundaries: Language, Orthodoxy, and History in the Poetry of Nicholas Samaras and Dean Kostas" . 125 DEANKOSTOS "Imminent Leopard" . 141 "Panayia" ........................................ 142 JOHN MANESIS "Something from the Heart" . 144 "His Own Epitaph" . 146 "The Return" . 147 "The Stay" . 148 NICHOLAS SAMARAS "There are Five Words for Love in the Greek Language" 149 "The Name is Constantinople" . 150 "Farasa" . 152 "Retreat Center, Harriman" . 154 "The Sound of My Voice like a Foreign Language" ....... 155 "Wedding Gift" . 156 ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS . 158 PREFACE BY E. D. KARAMPETSOS Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on. She tested our strength to e,stablish realities. Those in the emigrant generations who could not reassert brute survival died young and far from home. Those of us in the first American generations have had to figure out how the invisible world the emigrants built around our childhoods fit in solid America. Maxine Hong Kingston, "No Name Woman," The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts. New York: Knopf, 1977. p. 5. In her essay, "No Name Woman," Maxine Hong Kingston investigates a cautionary story her mother told her after she had her first period. The story was about a Chinese aunt who became pregnant while her hus band was in America and its tragic consequences. Her tnother's inten tion was to prevent her daughter from having sex outside marriage, not the story of the aunt who remained nameless. In her essay, Kingston imagines what the aunt was like and the social, economic and cultural context in which she lived and died. Kingston wrote her essay, as she says, because it is the duty of the children of immigrants to critically examine the "invisible worlds" their parents bring with them from abroad. It permitted her to understand her mother's story and make a place for it and the aunt in her life. I grew up hearing similar stories. My mother warned me to stay away from the Missouri River, because of the Greek who drowned while swimming in it. She encouraged me to be a good student with stories of Greek philosophers and poets. When I seemed to be take her too literally, she warned me that too much read ing would lead to glasses and, even worse, madness. She frequently told me the story of the boy in her village who went mad from reading too much. While she told the story, her friends would nod in agreement. It seemed that every village in Greece had a bespeckled, but well-read, madman. I loved reading. I had to take my chances. 5 6 THE CHARIOTEER Children of immigrants feel the double pull of American sqciety and of their parents' homeland. America has all the advantages. America has power, prestige, and it is present in front of our eyes. The Old Country is over there and invisible. Even so there were moments when I felt the power of Greece as an almost overwhelming force. When my commu nity had one of its occasional horoesperides in the church hall, everyone would dance Greek folk dances. We had only a few scratchy 78s and we'd play them over and over. I didn't count how many times we'd play I Gerakina or Mana mou, matzourana mou, but the joy of the dance kept us dancing until very late. I'd walk home in the dawn light totally exhil arated. I felt a similar power at Good Friday services or on listening to the old folks tell about their villages and their early experiences in America. Unfortunately, the occasional experience of even the best of Greek folk life isn't enough to constitute an identity or a way of life. If that was all there was to it, it would have been better to get away and leave it all behind as many did. Those who tried to keep alive the world the immi grants created were condemned to live in a world too cramped for their dreams and aspirations. In my case, literature accidentally came to the rescue. One day, when I was in my early teens, I went into a bookstore and saw a book entitled The Greek Passion sitting next to the cash reg ister. It was the first time I'd seen a book with the name of a living Greek on it.