Assimilation and Acculturation in Helen Papanikolas's Rain I

Greek Homeland Traditions in the USA and Identity Transformation: Assimilation and Acculturation in Helen Papanikolas’s Rain in the Valley and Nia Vardalos’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding 1 & 2 by Kristen Pitou A dissertation submitted to the department of American Literature and Culture, School of English, Faculty of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki June 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………... i Abstract…………………………………………………………………………. iii INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………... 1 CHAPTER 1 Ethno-religious Customs and Identity Transformation………………………… 11 CHAPTER 2 Ethno-Cultural Customs and Assimilation…………………………………….... 42 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………… 70 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………….. 74 Pitou i Acknowledgements This dissertation marks the end of the unbelievable journey that has been this whole MA program. I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart my supervisor, Professor Yiorgos Kalogeras, for being an endless source of knowledge and information on Greek- American issues, for supporting me and gently admonishing me when I needed it. I will never forget the conversations I was engaged in every time we met to discuss my thesis, often getting off topic and ending up talking about non-academic trivia that made me fall even more in love with Greek America. Secondly, I would very much like to express my gratitude to the amazing woman who inspired me more than anyone else during this Master program. Dr Anastasia Stefanidou and her stimulating lectures during our courses were the reason why I had a change of heart regarding my interests in literature. I used to be a 19th-century British literature freak when Dr Stefanidou turned me into a Greek-American literature and culture lover. I discovered my true passion and for that, I will be forever grateful to that woman whom I am proud to call a mentor and a friend. Moreover, I would also like to thank some Greek Americans who helped me gain a deeper understanding of what Greek America is all about. It has been an honor chatting with Dan Georgakas. Each and every e-mail I received by Dan carried unique knowledge on Greek-American issues that was of great assistance not only during the writing of this thesis but other papers as well. A big thank you is in order for Zeese Papanikolas, as well, for taking the time to answer various questions about his late mother’s novel and his own experiences as a Greek- American and a writer. Furthermore, during this MA program I felt my mind opening up and being introduced to new, unlimited territories. For all those discussions shared in our conference room—were Pitou ii they academic or not—I would like to thank all of our teachers but most importantly, my fellow classmates who have been my friends and confidantes: Christine, Katerina, Elli, Zefy, Ada, Ria, Ioanna, Stella, Maritina, Iliana, and Dimitris, I cannot thank you enough! The biggest thank you goes out to my family: my father, Vaggelis, for supporting me in every way possible and teaching me to love my Vlach origin and tradition in general, my mother, Vivi, for helping me make wise choices and pursue dreams I wouldn’t even know I had if it wasn’t for her, my sister Aspa, for being there since the day I was born, supporting me and being the only one who can put me at ease whenever I stress out, and my brother and roommate Chris, for loving me and putting up with all of my quirks. A heartfelt thank you also goes to my significant other for all those hours he had to drive to be by my side whenever I needed him and for giving me the courage to complete this project. Finally, I want to thank God, for blessing each day of my life, for helping me become part of this MA program, and for making me feel your soothing presence when I need You the most. Thank You All!! Pitou iii Abstract Customs and traditions can help keep track of the process of assimilation in the Greek- American community by examining how and if each generation passed them on to the next. In this thesis, I discuss the portrayal of Greek traditions in Helen Papanikolas’s Rain in the Valley and Nia Vardalos’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding 1 & 2, connecting the former with the concept of assimilation, and the latter with that of acculturation. This distinction is made based on ethno-religious and ethno-cultural customs, terms which I am borrowing from Alice Scourby. Indeed, Papanikolas’s story about three generations of fictional Greek Americans reveals that the vast majority of both ethno-religion and ethno-cultural customs which were brought to the USA by the first generation from their homeland did not fare well among the following generations. By the end of the book, assimilation has become a reality for the third generation. Vardalos’s films on the other hand, share a different, more optimistic perspective, showing that both the American and the Greek culture can co-exist and shape the Greek- American identity. What is the future of non-fictional Greek America though? Can we make general assumptions about the potential assimilation of a whole generation based on some individuals, be they fictional or not? Pitou 1 Introduction “Ethnic minorities, we are told, often carry their ideals, political rivalries, and traditions with them wherever they settle, and the Greeks were no exception. Being among the last European peoples to reach United States, they were also among the last to cling tenaciously to their faith and traditions” (The Greeks in the United States 96). The identity of a human being can be characterized by various denotative adjectives such as ethnic, cultural, social and political. The issue of identity becomes all the more challenging to analyze when referring to that of the immigrant subject’s. In his article “Of our Spiritual Strivings,” which was published in his book The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois coined the phrase “double consciousness” (896) to describe how African- Americans felt, being Africans by origin but also Americans, born and raised on American soil. This “twoness” is also felt by “the hyphenated Greek Americans bordering two words” in Alice Scourbys’ words (“Three Generations of Greek Americans” 44-45). Greek Americans are caught in-between two distinctive spaces; their forefathers’ culture and everything that this entails (traditions, customs and distinct behaviorism), and the ways and progressive mannerisms of the American culture, so very dissimilar to the Greek one. The first generation of Greek Americans had to build a new home based on the Greek values they had brought from Greece, whereas the following generations were asked to adopt and sustain the Greek ideals in an environment that had very little to do with the authentic Greek setting that nurtured their parents. In this respect and according to Brian Neve, it is the second generation of Greek Americans that had the most difficult time trying to keep a balance between two worlds, whilst being “alienated . both from their parent’s values and those of the dominant culture” (63). This must be how generations of Greek-Americans have felt striving to preserve the values their Greek family passed on and catechized about, while Pitou 2 living their lives so far away from their ancestors’ country of origin, a country some of them have not ever set their eyes on. In this paper I am interested in exploring aspects of the cultural identity of the fictional Greek immigrant in the USA and how this part of their identity is connected to their sense of ethnicity. The works of fiction I am analyzing here include the noteworthy Rain in the Valley, written by the late Helen Papanikolas, and Nia Vardalos’ pop-culture film phenomenon My Big Fat Greek Wedding, as well as its less popular sequel My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. In order to define cultural identity and indicate how I am using this especially tricky term here, I will refer to Stuart Hall who, bearing in mind that it is exterior factors such as history that define this kind of identity, claims: [C]ultural identity is not a fixed essence at all, lying unchanged outside history and culture. It is not some universal and transcendental spirit inside us on which history has made no fundamental mark. It is something [sic]— not a mere trick of the imagination. It has its histories—and histories have their real, material, and symbolic effects. The past continues to speak to us. It is always constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative, and myth. Cultural identities are the points of identification, the unstable points of identification or suture, which are made, within the discourses of history and culture. Not an essence but a positioning [sic]. Hence, there is always a politics of identity, a politics of position, which has no absolute guarantee in an unproblematic, transcendental “law of origin.” (237) Thus, cultural identity does not connote something stable and unchanged in time; it constantly undergoes transformation. Moreover, it is my firm belief that the notion of cultural identity is inextricably linked to that of ethnic identity, which, in my opinion, refers to the ethnic group with which a subject identify themselves. Hence, I would like to demonstrate some of the plethora of these transformations which permeated the cultural— Pitou 3 and subsequently ethnic—identity of the Greeks in America as projected in the works of fiction I am analyzing, starting from the first generation of immigrants, moving on to the second and the ensuing ones that originated from Greek immigrants.

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