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.

Since I am more preoccupied with the cultural part of their identity, I will attempt to produce conclusive proof that the concept of tradition and the preservation—or not—of customs, as well as the general mindset and social attitude brought by the Greek immigrants from their homeland, are inextricably linked to their ethnic identity and the changes that this has undergone through the process of assimilation. The connection between assimilation and the alteration of certain cultural singularities of the Greek immigrants and their progeny becomes evident in the definition of the term by Theodore Saloutos as a process “to include changes in the cultural patterns of Greeks or children of Greeks who came into contact with groups of other ethnic or cultural backgrounds" (“The Greek Orthodox Church in the United

States and Assimilation” 396). In my opinion, assimilation is another tricky term for it may connote not only the process of change and accommodation into the host culture, as Saloutos argued above, but also the general outcome, should that process end with the complete eradication of the old country’s cultural characteristics. Through the works of fiction I am analyzing in this thesis, I am to demonstrate that total assimilation is a reality for some people, as Georgakas himself proposes when he refers to the “assimilationist Greek

American” (“The Now and Future Greek America: Strategies for Survival” 2).1 In addition, I am showing that the model of the American Greek which, according to Georgakas, entails “a modified diaspora response” where “the central identity is a Greekness that is modified by

American [sic]” (1) is also an existing reality.2 More explicitly, in this essay I am connecting

Papanikolas’s novel with assimilation, which corresponds to gradual loss of Greek traits in

1 I am providing my own page number here as the essay from which the quote is taken, “The Now and Future Greek America: Strategies for Survival,” lacks pagination. 2 I am well aware of the fact that my primary sources include works of fiction so the use of the word “reality” may seem incongruous. However, as I will demonstrate later on, all of my sources include biographical elements just as most of immigrant fiction does. Pitou 4 the fictional immigrant’s identity, and Vardalos’s films with acculturation, which connotes the immigrant culture’s accommodation into the host culture without loss of its own cultural essence. Furthermore, I am investigating the reasons why these two artistic forms—a novel and a film—are chosen by their creators to promote these different aspects of integration into the American reality through the generations of Greek immigrant families and the transformation of their identity throughout this process.

In his abovementioned essay on the subject of assimilation and how this phenomenon is connected with the Church and Orthodoxy, Saloutos accentuates the importance of the Church and its efforts to maintain the ethnic identity of the Greeks in

America. Thus, the link between identity and tradition into which I am investigating in this thesis will be explored in the area of the Greek Orthodox religion, in which all the customary practices around major religious events take place, as well as the broad area of cultural practices brought from the homeland—which include ethnic cuisine, celebrations and festivities, specific mannerisms and behavioral tactics towards social issues. I will be referring to these two areas on which I am to focus as ethno-religious and ethno-cultural categories, borrowing the terms Alice Scourby uses in her rather illuminating research

“Three Generations of Greek Americans: A Study in Ethnicity.” The ethno-religious3 category deals with the “ethnic identification associated with the 1st generation,” and connotes “religion, language and nationalism” (46), while the ethno-cultural category

“reflects a wider range of cultural values” such as “Greek history, dance, music, cuisine and social organizations” (46).

Since my thesis is very much inspired by the late Helen Papanikolas, whose extraordinary research in the ethnological studying of Greek Americans—and mostly those

3 The concept of religion seems to be inextricably linked to that of the ethnic identity which is why Chrysie Mamalakis Constantakos calls Church “an ethno-religious institution” in the introductory abstract of her book (iv), The American-Greek Subculture: Processes of Continuity (1980). Pitou 5 of the Mid-Western area—can only be marveled at, her work will constitute the basis of my paper. Papanikolas—whom Yiorgos Anagnostou has called “an authoritative chronicler of

Greek-America [sic], who made the case about gradual erosion and eventual disappearance of rural Greek culture in the United states” (“Against Cultural Loss” 355)—was born in

Utah, in 1917, to Greek immigrants, and moved to Salt Lake City when she was a teenager.

As Artemis Leontis informs us, due to Papanikolas’s research on her Greek ancestry, as well as on the issue of its possible future extinction, “scholars have recognized her as the premier author of the Greek-American experience” (“What Will I Have to Remember?’: Helen

Papanikolas’s Art of Telling” 17). Both her fiction and non-fiction work are indicative of

Papanikolas’s insatiable thirst to know more about her ancestors’ history and traditions, the difficulties the first generation of Greek-American immigrants faced, and the pains they took to transfer the Greek customs intact, and to establish them in their new homeland. In her essay, Leontis makes various references to Papanikolas’s research, which involved interviews with Greek Americans among whom are her own parents, George and Emily

Zeese (22). Leontis also argues that Papanikolas asks some thorny questions through her work concerning the Greek Americans’ place in the USA as well as the role of memory and its importance. Papanikolas wonders, “are we a presence in this country only through remembering? The flip side of this: what will we have after we remember?” (24).

Evidently, memory constitutes a notion of major significance for Papanikolas—just as it does for Hall in defining cultural identity as shown above—and this is demonstrated by her desire to “honor[ing] the values taught by her ancestors, encouraging others to remember their past, building a sense of community through feeling of a shared past” (22). Thus, for

Papanikolas, not only is memory an instrument that assists in defining the individual’s identity, but it also constitutes the means that unites the Greeks of diaspora by employing their common past to build a common future. This vision of hers along with her thirst to preserve her forefathers’ traditions and keep her parents’ memories alive, make Papanikolas Pitou 6 a unique scholar and the motives behind her research the purest. The essence of

Papanikolas’s persona as a folklorist and ethnic historian is wonderfully captured by

Anagnostou:

Example after example, she painstakingly documented instances where

immigrant practices and values of immense importance for organizing social

life in the rural past—lamentations, celebrations, holiday customs, and oral

expressive culture—were abandoned or forgotten, suppressed or rejected,

rendered functionally irrelevant and discarded. Reading the corpus of her

work is to witness the power of modernity to sweep the past away from the

present. Immigrant folk culture collapsed due to assimilation into American

modernity. As a result, early twentieth-century Greek immigrants stood for a

bygone chapter in history—“the vanished peasant folk”—the documentation

of whose culture Papanikolas pioneered in the 1950s. Confronted with what

she saw as a way of life on the verge of extinction, she turned to salvage

ethnography—primarily oral history—to rescue from oblivion the experience

of pioneer immigrants. (“Against Cultural Loss” 356)

Indeed, Papanikolas’s sensitivity about the issue of assimilation and the eventual loss of everything that reminds those of Greek descent of their rich cultural heritage is mirrored in her inexhaustible research on her own ancestry and her burning desire to bequeath it to the next generations of Greek descendants. Being personally touched and impressed by her work, in this thesis, I am making use of the valuable information Papanikolas shares in some of her non-fiction work, such as her noteworthy essay titled “Greek Immigrant Women in the Intermountain West.” Most importantly, I use her swansong Rain in the Valley (2005) which, although fiction, it employs some biographical elements. Few works of Greek-

American literature indicate this angst and fear of Americanization and possible loss of the

Greek part of the Greek Americans’ identity through the generations the way Helen Pitou 7

Papanikolas’s Rain in the Valley does. Drawing from her own experiences, Papanikolas sets

Rain in the Valley, in her familiar regions of the Mid-West where she grew up. As most of her previous work, her last novel has also many ethnographic themes, focusing on Greek-

American immigrants and their lives, accompanied by a plethora of Greek customs and traditions. Therefore, what is especially interesting about this book is the reality of it; a reality that hundreds of the first generation—as well as the ensuing ones—of Greek immigrants, must have experienced. While reading the book the reader finds it impossible to distinguish what is fiction from what is not. Indeed, can a story written by immigrants—or their progeny—about immigrants be pure, unadulterated fiction? Is it at all possible that memory, which is a tool of the most powerful nature for Papanikolas, does not constitute a vital source of inspiration when writing a novel about Greeks in America? I think not. The use of real people whom Papanikolas had met in real life—such as the Greek vice-consul

Stylian Staes, the folkhealer and bootleg liquor manufacturer during the Prohibition, Barba

Yiannis, and his wife Yiannina, whom Papanikolas distinguishes as one of the “first pioneer women” the writer had met (“Greek Immigrant Women in the Intermountain West” 19)— aid towards that conclusion. Thus, Rain in the Valley is much more than a representative work of Greek-American fiction; it constitutes yet another valuable source of information provided by Papanikolas about Greek-American identity and the ever significant issue of assimilation.

Papanikolas does not only keep true to real facts, recounting tales where the protagonists are people she had met. She also manages to perfectly capture the cultural setting her story unfolds in, as well as the details that signify change in that setting. True, even before one finishes the first half of the book, they come across numerous instances where different customs are referred to or displayed with a most accurate description by the author; from rituals that relate to the Greek Orthodox Church, such as ecclesiastical mysteries during the Holy Week, nuptial ceremonies and memorial services, to more Pitou 8 culturally based customs that deal with food, music and ways of celebrating important events and National Days, in general. In fact, it is exactly through such descriptions referring to homeland rituals, traditions, and beliefs that one can realize the differences among the three generations of Greek Americans portrayed. The process of Americanization, the stages of which are also visible throughout the novel, the gradual elimination of certain Greek customs and mentalities, the existence of outmarriage to people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, all constitute elements that alert the reader to the imminent assimilation. By the end of the book, which ends with the obliteration of the second generation of the fictional Greek Americans, the reader is left with a feeling of angst and wonder regarding the future of the generations that are to follow—a feeling that is not necessarily applied only to the characters of the novel but the readers as well. Will there be anything to remind them of where they came from and which culture they were raised in?

Will the process of full assimilation be completed and the Greek-American community

“culturally perished in approximately four to five generations,” (1) as Dan Georgakas fears?

These questions bring me to the other two primary sources which emanate a more optimistic aura when it comes to the much discussed issue of assimilation. For many people in Greece—sad as this fact may be—the Greek-American reality became better-known through Nia Vardalos’s independent film My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002). Although this blockbuster may have been underestimated by some, due to its exaggerated representation of immigrants, and its quite typical love story that plays by the rules of romantic comedy

(“When ‘Second Generation’ Narratives and Hollywood Meet: Making Ethnicity in My Big

Fat Greek Wedding”4 140), it provides an insight into the lives and times of the first and second generation of Greek-American immigrants, whilst its sequel, My Big Fat Greek

Wedding 2 (2016) provides a glimpse into the third generation, as well. As Anagnostou

4 All subsequent references are to the same essay by Anagnostou and are indicated by page numbers. Pitou 9 suggests regarding the first film, although it embraces some of the most popular clichés of immigrant representation in ethnographic cinema, it also manages to produce “varied ways of seeing ethnicity” especially “in relation to dominant categories such as romantic love, femininity, whiteness, modern anomie, immigrants, and autonomy” (140). Thus, this filmic narrative is more than a mere blockbuster for it succeeds in reversing the power relations between the culturally dominant and the other, construing “WASP subjects as willing to accept, at least partially, the cultural logic of ethnicity” (141). What is more, in spite of having been characterized as “[a] washed-out recycling of ethnic clichés and exhausted jokes,”5 the film’s sequel portrays WASP subjects as able to transcend the barriers of the cultural differences between themselves and the ethnic other by taking part in the latter’s cultural practices.

It is true that some may question the legitimacy of Vardalos’s films as sources in a discussion about hot issues such as assimilation and cultural identity. Some may even render its correlation with Papanikolas’s meaningful novel as questionable. Nevertheless, we need to bear in mind the artistic form via which Vardalos constructs her Greek-American personae. According to Anagnostou, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding is produced at the intersection of ethnic narratives (comedy and memoir) dramatizing cultural betweeness and a well-connected elite with ethnic affiliations who promoted it in the context of the

Hollywood film industry”6 (142). More explicitly, all the exaggerations and clichés employed by Vardalos are used for the sake of comedy, which in no way lessens the validity of this filmic narrative which is, at large, autobiographical as will be discussed later in the chapters. Furthermore, the filmic representation of the ethno-religious and ethno-cultural aspects—which are of great interest in this essay—of Greek-American life in Vardalos’s

5 From a review written for the New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis. 6 Anagnostou here refers to the well-known fact that it was Rita Wilson who saw Vardalos’s one-woman- play version of the movie and convinced her husband, Tom Hanks, to see it and subsequently produce it for the big screen. Pitou 10 films is truly illuminating. In this respect, and putting all the comic exaggerations aside, both films can be compared and contrasted with Papanikolas’s Rain in the Valley. Indeed, although these two Greek-American narratives are very different in various ways—the most obvious difference being that of artistic form—they are also very similar when it comes to the representation of some cultural traits such as those that are involved in celebrating a wedding. The correlation between these works will very much help my discussion about the

Greek-American cultural and ethnic identity, and the transformation it has undergone through the generations. Moreover, it will help draw a distinction between assimilation and acculturation.

To sum up, this thesis is concerned with the Greek-American identity as it is projected in two different genres, and the alterations this identity has been through from the first Greeks that set their foot in America, to their children and their grandchildren. In short, the first three generations of Greek Americans will be thoroughly examined in terms of the manner in which they treat religious and cultural customs and traditions. By the end of the thesis, I aspire to demonstrate how the honoring, or not, of the Greek homeland’s traditions and lifestyle by the fictional Greek Americans of all three generations is inextricably linked to the transformation of their identity and their pending complete assimilation into the

American reality. In this endeavor of mine, Papanikolas’s Rain in the Valley as well as

Vardalos’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding 1 & 2 will be of great assistance. At the end of this thesis, I will share my thoughts on the future of Greek Americans, or American Greeks, based on my research, fully knowing that I lack the credibility of a Greek-American scholar on that issue.

Pitou 11

Chapter One

Ethno-religious Customs and Identity Transformation

As the title of the first chapter of my thesis indicates, I will deal with the ethno- religious aspect of the Greek-American tradition, and by that I mean, as I already explained in the introduction, all those customs and mentalities referring to the notions of nationalism, religion and the Greek Orthodox Church, and language. The target of the analysis of the ethno-religious customs is the three generations represented in the works of fiction I am using. By analyzing the conditions under which ethno-religious traditions are followed or not, I aspire to meet two main goals by the end of this chapter: first, to indicate that assimilation is a process that has been completed by the third generation of some Greek-

American families,7 and second, to draw a distinction between the ways in which a novel and two film portray and deal with the issues of identity transformation, assimilation and acculturation. Nevertheless, first I need to show how one’s identity relates to change and why customs such as the ones I analyze in this—and the following—chapter help define the complex construct that is identity. In order to succeed in my endeavors related to this chapter and my thesis in general, I bear in mind that every individual is unique; they respond differently to various ethnic and cultural stimuli. Thus, it is impossible to draw definite conclusions that correspond to a whole generation of Greek Americans on the basis of a few individual cases.

To begin with, a person’s identity formation is an especially challenging subject to examine, for it is built both through their individual choices, and situations/experiences over which they have no control. Thus, on the one hand, the individual’s personal identity is

7 At the end of this paper I will draw a connection between fiction and reality. However, during the analysis of my primary sources wherever I refer to Greek Americans or generations of Greek Americans, I mean the fictional characters created by Papanikolas and Vardalos. Pitou 12 constantly subjected to processes they do not control, such as evolution and therefore, change. According to Ritivoi,

personal identity evolves in time, but it evolves within certain limits and in

accordance with a logic of its own, which deems certain changes or

developments useful, necessary, or acceptable, and dismisses others as being

not representative of, or inadequate for a specific individual. (45)

Indeed, maintaining certain characteristics that have built one’s personal identity is at large a personal matter, a matter of choice. On the other hand, as Ritivoi also suggests, the identity of an individual is the outcome of their own life story (45). More explicitly, each person’s life story is connected with factors such as family and origins. In other words, the formation of personal identity is also linked to factors, such as the past, that are beyond the control of the individual. In fact, Hall himself emphasizes the importance of the individual’s positioning in terms of history and culture (237) to define the cultural aspect of personal identity which he deems very important. Both of these aspects that form one’s personal identity reinforce the argument that “every individual, in any culture, possesses at least two selves: an independent self and interdependent self [sic]” (Aaker, Schmitt 562). The independent self deals with “individual personality traits, which are seen as residing in the person and being independent from social context and situational constraints,” whereas the interdependent self “involves cognitions concerning characteristics that are inherently more indicative of how one relates to others” (562). As a result, a person’s identity varies depending on which of their two selves they rely more on, which further strengthens my argument that no general assumptions can be made when it comes to identity and its transformation. Furthermore, as Aaker and Schmitt claim, culture is one of the “antecedent variables” that influence the “chronic level of accessibility of the two self-views” (562).

Thus, culture, which includes both tradition and religion as its core essence, can constitute a strong foundation on which we can stand should we wish to start a discussion about identity Pitou 13 transformation. This is precisely why I have chosen customs and traditions to show the evolution of the Greek-American identity as viewed in Rain in the Valley and My Big Fat

Greek Wedding 1 & 2. Moreover, I believe that the different ways in which those customs are understood—and subsequently represented—by Papanikolas and Vardalos are also worth examining.

Having already discussed and defined some of the key terms I use in this chapter, I will examine the axis of this part of my thesis: the Greek, ethno-religious traditions. Since I am borrowing the term “ethno-religious” from Alice Scourby, I need to refer to her social study on the subject of ethnicity of the three generations of Greek Americans, a subject which is of great interest for my thesis, as well. Her essay which bears the title “Three

Generations of Greek Americans: A Study in Ethnicity” measures the notion of ethnic identity in three generations of New York Greek Americans. Published in 1980, the results of her research indicated that, apart from the differences found in each generation regarding how their ethnic identity is defined, “the majority of Greeks still have a relatively strong attachment to their ethnic culture,” (43)8 despite the fact that they have reached an advanced level of assimilation into the American ways. The issue of the Greek Orthodox Church comes up rather early and quite inevitably in Scourby’s paper. This provides us with an indicator that no discussion of the Greek-American identity can be considered legit or complete without mention of the Church. Scourby very eloquently informs the reader on the double standards regarding the Church’s role through time. According to her, on the one hand, “the Church has been remiss in providing its parishioners with an understanding of

Hellenism and, as a result, has led Greek-Americans to view Hellenism in parochial and tenuous terms” (43). Nevertheless, she does not fail to also stress the opposite opinion, most significantly held by Theodore Saloutos, according to whom, as paraphrased by Scourby, the

8 Any subsequent reference to the essay will be indicated to the text by page number. Pitou 14

Church played a considerable part in providing “the solidarity and inspiration, without which a Greek-American community would be impossible” (43).

Because this thesis focuses on the first three generations of Greek Americans, Rain in the Valley offers the perfect text for analysis. The novel’s story is weaved around a

Greek-American family, the Demopoulos, and it starts in 1915. The Demas brothers, as is the Americanized version of their last name, came to America along with so many other

Southern European immigrants, aspiring to get a taste of the American dream. Indeed, they succeed financially and in 1915 they are able to acquire their very own car agency (Rain in the Valley 29). The three brothers along with their wives constitute the first generation of

Greek immigrants and the first half of the book deals with the hardships they face in trying to make it in the US, build a family, and raise another generation. Still, when reading the novel the reader bears witness to the fact that those first fictional immigrants took great pains to preserve their homeland’s traditions and customs, whichever political, financial, historical and social obstacles they had to face.

Needless to say, the above does not constitute a new theme in Greek-American or US immigrant literature in general. Many Greek-American writers have produced works of fiction that deal with the hardships those first immigrants faced, including Theano

Papazoglou - Margaris and Harry Mark Petrakis. Others, such as Dan Georgakas and Helen

Papanikolas herself, have also written extremely informative non-fiction essays and books which refer to the lives and experiences of the first generation of Greek Americans. This is precisely why, when reading a novel such as Rain in the Valley, one cannot help but wonder: to what extend is it fiction? True, Papanikolas was not just a fiction writer. Above all,

Papanikolas was an ethnographer. Her professionalism and devotion as an ethnographer can be witnessed in Aimilia – Giorges / Emily – George (1987) where she manages to record and

9 Any subsequent references to the novel will be drawn from Rain in the Valley: A Novel. Logan: Utah State UP, 2005. They will be indicated in the text by page number. Pitou 15 talk about her family history in a most professional, yet engaging manner. Moreover, the ways in which she approaches and describes various events, such as customs and traditions, manifest, if not ethnographic knowledge alone, then a first-hand experience which

Papanikolas definitely had as a second-generation Greek American. Thus, every piece of information she provides regarding the life of the Demas’ in America has been filtered through her own empirical knowledge about the Greek Americans’ life in the mid-West.

Every representation of religious or cultural tradition she details is taken from her own experience. Subsequently, the noticeable transformations that take place in the identity of the second generation, and the eventual complete assimilation of the third generation, are also narrated by Papanikolas from an empirical point of view. As a result, Rain in the Valley, although not autobiographical, has definitely had biographical and autobiographical elements and, therefore, factual representations of customs.

The customs that are based on Greek-Orthodox religious practices were the easiest to preserve by those first immigrants—as can also be witnessed in Rain in the Valley. Exploring the reasons why that was the case is important for it will help fathom their meaning in terms of the subject of assimilation in Papanikolas’s narrative. The reason why that was the case lies within the very relationship between Greece and Orthodoxy. As Saloutos informs us in his definitive study of the Greek Americans—The Greeks in the United States—the love for the

Orthodox faith and the homeland was the only solace in the lonesome, full of hardships reality of the Greek immigrant (96). Although thousands of miles away from Greece, the hold that the “state church” (97) had on the immigrants was of tremendous strength and its leading figures worked hard to make sure that this would continue to be the case. As Saloutos reports:

The Greek Orthodox Church became the badge of Hellenism in the United

States, as it had at home. “Preserve it and strengthen it,” was a constant

admonition, “or else face the danger of becoming Protestants and idolators.”

(97) Pitou 16

In order to escape such a dreadful possibility the customs which were directly connected with the church and Orthodoxy needed to be preserved and carried on to the next generation, so that the faith itself would survive. Moreover, what made the need to support their religion and its customs all the more imperative was the very fact that religion for the Greeks was inextricably linked to Greece both as the place of their origin [πατρίδα] and as their nation.

According to Saloutos,

[i]t was customary for communities to celebrate Greek national, as well as

religious, holidays, which gave patriotic parishioners the opportunity to rise

to great rhetorical heights. In San Fransisco, for instance, one priest in

exhorting his listeners about the “national dream” cast a magnetic spell over

them and caused many to shed tears as he elaborated on the historic

aspirations of the mother country. A thunderous ovation climaxed his sermon,

followed by the singing of a patriotic song. “To Greece,” and the collection of

funds for support of the Holy Synod and the Greek army. (97)

Indeed, such information about the relationship between the Church and the general sentiment of patriotism and nationalism makes Scourby’s hybrid term “ethno-religious” all the more appropriate.10

As mentioned earlier, their religion bore a unique significance for the first generation of Greeks in America. This also explains why the Church, according to Scourby, “became the major vehicle through which the immigrant’s world was protected” and “language, religion, old world customs and endogamous marriages were the accepted indices of Greek identification”11 (“Three Generations of Greek Americans” 44). The danger of assimilation into the American ways was not a prominent one—yet—since the majority of the first Greek immigrants set their foot in the States after they had reached adulthood, and therefore had

10 “Ethno-“ has its root in the word “ethnos – έθνος” meaning “nation.” 11 Paraphrasing M. J. Stycos “The Spartan Greeks of Bridgetown: Community and Cohesion.” Pitou 17 been raised in the Greek mentality and general lifestyle. However, even if they emigrated from Greece at a very early age, in their American home the memories of their homeland and family burnt too bright for them to forget. They recognized one faith to be true, one country to adore, and one language as their mother-tongue: Greek. A reason that could provide us with an explanation as to why the Greeks were so persistent in maintaining the general mentality and the traditions they had in Greece lies, according to Saloutos, within their rural background (96). True, the majority of the Greeks who saw in America an ideal destination that would fill their pockets with money12 and would help provide their sisters with a desirable match,13 came from a rural background. That background ruled their every thought and was amazingly difficult to shake off. As Saloutos elaborates,

[t]he Greeks were rooted into the soil and bound by customs that had been

handed down from generation to generation. They obtained their living from

the family lands which they all helped to cultivate. Beyond the family was the

village, which also fastened its hold on them. As a rule, they did little original

thinking. (Saloutos 96)

Thus, they all thought in a more or less similar way, idolizing certain aspects of their life, such as the place of their origin, their family and their religion. All these aspects that characterized the average Greek immigrant’s idiosyncrasy are included in almost every

Greek-American narrative, with the possible exception of the ones written by Theano

Papazoglou-Margaris, where religion is a thematic concern not often referred to by the writer.14

In Rain in the Valley, however, the presence of Orthodoxy and the influence the

Church has on the characters constitute a central theme that compliments, in a way,

12 Needless to say, there were also other reasons for immigration to the States and elsewhere besides financial, including political and social ones. 13 One of the most popular reasons why the Greeks emigrated to America was to raise money and provide dowries for their sisters. 14 Margaris was reportedly an agnostic and her work had a more internationalist approach. Pitou 18

Papanikolas’s story. Religiosity is deeply rooted in most of the characters either superficially or in a more profound way. Rina, Chris’s sister-in-law, for instance, is zealously religious.

She blindly follows her faith’s written rules and the customs associated with Orthodoxy she was taught as a young girl. Moreover, she constantly urges others to do so, as well.

Although she is not what would appear to be a true Christian, being devious and resentful, her religion has a strong hold on her. The same goes for other characters who are not so pious themselves, yet they are religious by custom. Such a character is Chris who, in more than one cases, refers to the name of Virgin Mary as if by habit and not while praying, saying in exasperation “My Virgin[!]” (42). Furthermore, in general, even if they were not able to go to the church on a regular basis, mostly due to long distances, the Greeks in

America managed to have a place—however limited—in their home, to address their prayers to God. In Rain in the Valley, one of the most truly pious characters, Kosta, who lives in a small wagon, has a corner where one of his most precious belongings lie; an icon of the

Virgin Mary (7). Kosta keeps this icon even when he moves in the room of the retirement home where he lives until his death (210).

Religious customs in the Greek Orthodox Church are inevitably connected to the major religious events in Christianity. Such an occasion is Easter, the most significant one in

Orthodoxy. As witnessed in Rain in the Valley, the first generation of Greeks in America remains loyal to their religion’s traditions and celebrates Easter accordingly. They fast during the “sarakosti, the forty days of Lent” (53), and the girls of Greek Town learn the laments sung during the Good Friday (53)15. The way Papanikolas describes Easter in the

15 This is considered to be the most sorrowful day of the year for Christians. Traditionally, they fast harder that day denying themselves not only meat and dairy but olive oil, as well. In the morning, the believers go to the church to watch the body of Christ being taken down from the Holy Cross. The bells toll in a most mournful pattern all day long, while believers kiss Christ’s body and kneel before the Epitafeios, his casket, which is beautifully decorated with flowers. In the evening, Christ’s funeral’s march commences; everybody follows the casket with lighted candles, young men hold the Lord’s casket, the priests chant psalms, and young murofores dressed in black sing the laments. Pitou 19

Greek Town around 1920, it would be hard for anyone to find differences between Easter in

America and Easter in Greece. In her words,

Bessie, Peggy, and Lia joined the neighborhood girls to practice three weeks

before Easter under the priest’s black, piercing eyes. Two weeks later when

Holy Week began, they sat with their mothers on the left of the nave, the

women’s side of the darkened church, hungry for the forbidden meat and

dairy foods. The chandeliers were unlit; small votive lights in red glasses

hung before the horrific account of Christ’s last days was solemnly chanted

by the priest and chanter. On Friday morning all girls except the older ones

having their monthly bleeding, were driven to church to decorate the bier of

Christ. Over a chicken-wire, domed-shaped form, Bessie, flaunting her cut

hair, Peggy, and Lia followed the older girls’ example and inserted ferns and

spring flowers, blue iris, pink carnations, and yellow daffodils, into the metal

mesh until it became the wondrously transformed Tomb of Christ. (53)

The way the author describes the religiosity of the Greek Americans is admirable. Not only do they keep their homeland customs, but they also manage to sustain the pious atmosphere in which those customs are performed, keeping their faith pure and solid, without any interference from American protestant traditions.

Other customs, which are also represented in the Greek immigrant’s reality, are commonly related to the holy mysteries of the Orthodox Church. The first instance where the authority of the Greeks’ faith becomes visible in such an event in the novel is when the youngest of the Demas’ brothers gets married. Although he had already been married to

Emma, an “Amerikanidha” (1), in a civil ceremony, that “was not a real wedding; it had to be a Greek wedding” (4). We should bear in mind that by 1915, around which time the wedding ceremony is performed, the first immigration wave from Greece to the United

States, which according to Georgakas lasted from 1890 to 1920 (“The Greeks in America” Pitou 20

6) was at its peak. Still, in the small mid-western town where the events of Rain in the

Valley take place the Greeks had already built a “new Byzantine church” (4) fully equipped with everything their faith required; incense, candles, and the so familiar byzantine paintings of the saints on the walls (4). Only in such an environment—similar to the one back in their home country—could a real wedding be performed. The influence of religion did not stop with the wedding ceremony, however. It was imperative for those first Greeks in the States that their mates shared a common faith and similar traditions. Ideally, they wished for spouses from the same village or general area they came from. The very well-known Greek proverb “παπούτσι από τον τόπο σου κι ας είναι μπαλωμένο”16 became a way of life for the first generation of immigrants from Greece. In fact, based on this proverb’s wisdom the customary tactic of mail-order brides from the homeland commenced.

Photography became the means through which the brides were “advertised”17 to the

Greek immigrants in the USA. The brides would have their photo taken and if there were expatriates who fancied the potential wife’s appearance, they would fund her journey to the

States, where the wedding would take place, most of the times. Nevertheless, as more and more Greeks decided to stay in the USA—however temporarily—and raise families, the arrangement of marriage between Greeks who already resided in the States became the norm. This custom was already popular in Greece. Moreover, having realized that the risk of assimilation was upon them as it found a fertile ground to blossom within the second generation of Greek Americans, the arranged marriage or προξενιό seemed to be the ideal solution. Rina resorts to an arranged marriage in order to “save” her daughter—and the reputation of her family—from the sinful lifestyle she thinks America promotes. She desperately wants to avoid having as son-in-law a person from a different ethnic and

16 “Take a shoe from your own place of origin, even if it is patched” which loosely translates into “take a spouse from the place you come from, even if they are not ideal” (my transliteration).

Pitou 21 religious background. That would be a fate worse than death for any first generation Greek

American as such a union would threaten “their security, self-image, traditional roles and well-being” (“Three Generations of Greek Americans” 44). As a result, Rina decides to marry Soula with a Greek from Chicago whom she had only seen in a photograph.

Everything is conducted according to the Greek customs and the Orthodox Church’s traditions. Upon meeting with the groom, the bride-to-be greets him with a “hospitality tray”

(63) and the two parties, from the bride and groom’s sides, exchange wishes for the future of the couple.

In the pages where Soula’s engagements and wedding’s festivities are described

Papanikolas’s writing manages both to convey the climate of a—supposedly—joyous event and to masterfully capture the ceremony’s proceedings like an expert folklorist. In those pages the reader also realizes that Soula’s wedding constitutes a splice of two cultures.

Despite the fact that her engagements’ and wedding ceremony’s affairs are entirely expedited by her parents, Soula belongs to the second generation of the novel’s Greek

Americans who have already been in America more years than they had lived in Greece.

Thus, this wedding is affected by certain Americanisms. For instance, while in the Greek

Orthodox tradition, apart from the couple, there is only one more participant in the nuptials called the koumbaro (64),18 in Soula’s wedding there are also two bridesmaids; her sister

Mellie and her best friend Zeffy Papastamos (67). Both of the bridesmaids hold identical bouquets of sweet peas and wear similar dresses (67). Nevertheless, every other guideline dictated by the Orthodox Church concerning the wedding ceremony is observed down to the last detail. As Papanikolas describes it, during the hour-long sacrament, “the priest led the bride and groom and best man around the table in the Dance of Isaiah” (68) in a church where the candles were burning, the incense smelled intensely and the room was filled with

18 Best man. Pitou 22

Greeks wearing their best clothes. This Greek-American wedding verifies what Scourby’s research revealed regarding the Church; that it became an integral part of their lives, just like the Greek school and language, even though they were “reluctant participants” (44).

What is more, religious events and “obligations” towards the Greek Church accompany the mainland Greek Orthodox, almost since the moment of their birth. The same went for the first generation of Greeks in the States. Faithful to all the traditions that dealt with religion, after giving birth to her first child, Niko, Emma—although she is not a Greek

Orthodox herself—waited forty days after his birth and then went to the church to be read by a priest in order to be considered cleansed from the childbirth (4). Interestingly, a similar tradition to the abovementioned is also associated with death, where the mother of the deceased, provided she outlived her child, was required by unwritten laws to remain inside her residence for forty days. Nevertheless, when Rina orders Emma to follow that custom, as well, she refuses to do so (102), becoming a resistant figure who breaks not few of her husband’s country customs. Although Emma’s way of thinking was not always compatible with that of her husband’s family, she abode by most of the traditions and rituals that were associated with mourning and the burial ceremony that followed Nicky’s death. The magnanimity of this event is indicated in many ways by the author. For starters, being almost in the middle of the book, it signifies the end of the novel’s first half. With Nicky’s death comes the downfall of the first generation of Demas. Rina starts facing the ramifications of her doings concerning Soula’s fate, Chris’s health deteriorates following his son’s demise, until he passes away himself, and many of the characters that represent the first generation of Greeks in America also die. With Nicky’s death, Papanikolas brings about the end of a generation and the advent of another. From this point on the various differences between the first and second generation become all the more evident especially when it comes to preserving customs. Most importantly, however, the occasion of Nicky’s death is turned into a most conducive opportunity that allows Papanikolas to describe, once again, Pitou 23 how the first generation of Greek Americans experienced mourning and how their homeland and religion’s customs and rituals, respectively, were recaptured. More than that, it allows the reader to realize that the representation of these traditions is very much connected to the identity of the first generation of Demas. As a result, by tracing this connection, we can also understand how heavy the ceasing—or tampering with—of such traditions weighs when it comes to the following generations’ identity transformation and assimilation.

Just like most of the occasions in Greek culture—be they joyous or sorrowful—

Nicky’s funeral also includes food that each of the family’s friends and acquaintances bring.

The day before the funeral, Chris’s house was filled with Greeks who had come to pay their respects to the family of the deceased. The preparations that take place two days before the funeral are just as important for the Greek Orthodox as the funeral itself. Even this stage of the mourning process proves how customs are observed by Rain in the Valley’s first generation of Greek Americans. As tradition dictates, men, in this case Pete and Gus, are those who assume the funeral arrangements (96). They have to talk with the priest and the mortuary attendants so that everything is done properly, including the “savanon, four or six yards of muslin” (97), with which the body is wrapped, and the wedding crowns to put on

Nicky’s head.19 The women, on the other hand, are left in the house to prepare it, receive the mourners and console the mother or wife of the dead (97-98). As witnessed in the novel, the influence of the homeland’s rituals and customs is very powerful even after more than thirty years in xenitia.20 Chris Demas, devastated by the loss of his son and the only male offspring of his clan, keeps repeating how he regrets not giving his son the “Teleftaio Fili” (96)21 to say farewell. Also, the manner in which the interior of the house is arranged resembles a similar occasion in Greece. Even today, mostly in the Greek countryside, the dead body is

19 In many regions of Greece, when the person being buried has died unwed, they are dressed as if they were a bride or groom to be married. 20 Exile, diaspora in foreign lands. 21 Last kiss. Pitou 24 kept into the house—after it has been properly prepared for the burial—and friends and family stay with it, usually overnight. The closest relatives of the deceased, like the parents and the siblings, sit on the head of the open casket, whilst women sit around it, “lining the wall” (98), as Papanikolas describes the scene. These women act like the chorus on an ancient tragedy; “[a]ll in black, they s[i]t with their arms folded on their laps, listening to the ancient laments” (98) sung monotonously by Nicky’s aunts, Rina and Katina (98).

From the plethora of information this part of the novel provides on the ways a Greek

Orthodox experiences the loss of a loved one, the aforementioned one regarding female communal lamentation is distinctly unique. In her description, Papanikolas deliberately accentuates the ancient roots of the moirologia, the lamentations for the dead (98). Those laments and “a great commotion of shrieks . . . shook the house” (96) the day of Nicky’s wake and the one before that. In the moirologia sung by Rina and Katina there is a well known personification of Charos, Death, who is “ever watchful” (98) around his prey;

They tricked me, the birds, the nightingales of Spring.

They told me Charos would never take me. . . .

I see Charos coming to take me.

Black he is, black his clothes, black his horse

Black too the kerchief round his neck. (98)

During this particular moiroloi, American neighbours and Emma’s parents come in to give their condolences (98). At this point, the juxtaposition between the American and the Greek culture is truly apparent. Being Protestants, Catholics, Jews or Episcopalians the Americans are stunned at the view of an open casket inside the house and two women dressed in black lamenting in a foreign language. Instead of participating in the process of mourning, they leave while the keening for the dead continues (98). In this very scene it becomes evident how otherworldly and irrelevant the Greek Orthodox religious customs are in the American context. As shown later, the second generation of Greek Americans develop the same Pitou 25 aversion for such traditions, being more influenced by the place they were born and raised in, than the homeland they had been taught to love.

Quite interestingly, in Greece the songs that are about the people who emigrate from their homeland in search for a better life, are often correlated with the act of lamentation; since they leave their family and country and they do not know whether they will ever set their eyes on either, the immigrants-to-be are treated as if they were going to meet their death. Thus, Papanikolas—via Rina’s mouth—draws this connection between migration and death by changing the lyrics of a well known song about the immigrants to refer to the dead person:

What shall I send you, my eyes, down in the underworld?

If I send an apple it will rot, quince wither,

grapes dry rose petals fall.

I’ll send you my tears, tied in a handkerchief. 22 (99)

The improvised laments by Nicky’s aunts go on with the inevitable reference to God and the bitter complaint about taking their nephew in such a tender age (99). Moreover, Nicky’s body is not left unguarded on its last day above the earth and the next morning, before the burial ceremony takes place, Rina orders Mellie “to remain behind to keep Nicky’s soul, unwilling to begin its journey, from entering the house” (100). Hearing Rina’s word, Mellie and Lia, who belong in the second generation of Demas, exchange glances and make a silent pact that they would respect Rina’s order and “let the old ways be” (100). After that, Rina leaves a candle burning into every room in the house and then breaks a plate (100). When

22 The lyrics are taken by a Greek folk song titled “Ξενιτεμένο μου Πουλί” and originally go as follows: Τι να σου στείλω ξένε μου, ν’αυτού στα ξένα πού’σαι. Να στείλω μήλο σέπεται, Κυδώνι μαραγκιάζει Να στείλω και το δάκρυ μου σ’ένα χρυσό μαντήλι.

Pitou 26

Lia asks what the meaning of that act is Rina replies that she does not know the reason why, yet “that’s how it’s always been done” (100). Indeed, to know that this sacred tradition was a rule that had to be obeyed was enough for Rina and the rest of the first generation. Of course, the majority of that generation was insufficiently educated—if not illiterate—and raised in Greece, where such performances (my emphasis) were the norm. On the other hand, the second generation of Greek Americans was raised in America, learnt about other religions and cultures at the American school, but most importantly, they were educated and therefore taught to call into question everything. Thus, they could not fathom or accept a tradition whose existence was not properly justified. As a result, when the first generation is no longer in control, either because most of its representatives have passed away or simply because they had no power over their children’s decisions anymore, many traditions have ceased, putting the process of assimilation in motion.

In Nicky’s actual funeral, everything is conducted according to the Greek Orthodox tradition. Just like the believers perform the funeral march behind Christ’s tomb during the

Epitafeios Threnos every Good Friday, so do Nicky’s family, friends and acquaintances, accompany Nicky to the church where “the waiting priest in a brocaded robe swung the censer, with the black-suited ushers behind him holding the casket” (100). Inside the church, the coffin is placed in a way that faces the east where the sun rises and Heaven allegedly is

(100). The Liturgy for the Dead is performed just like it would be back in their homeland and during its procession the mourners try to find consolation in the psalms and hymns they listen to (100). At the end of the holy mystery, the attendants are invited to give the Last

Kiss to Nicky. When they do so, after they make the sign of the cross, some of the elderly send regards to their loved ones who have already passed away, and some others ask of

Nicky to tell their people that they will be seeing them soon (101). This is another point where the pain of the immigrant becomes apparent in such an occasion; since they have not seen their families and friends for so long—and will not be back to see them, as they may Pitou 27 once thought they would— they will meet them in the afterlife. Thus, the promise of

Resurrection bears a promise of the desirable return to the homeland and that may be the reason why the first generation of Greek Americans is so keen to keep the religious customs and rituals intact. Lastly, after Chris says his goodbyes to his son, the priest pours consecrated oil and dirt on the body and then closes the lid of the coffin which is consequently carried outside so that the funeral cortege to the cemetery can commence. This part of the book ends by closing a circle; the novel starts with the joyous news of Nicky’s birth and the gleeful phrase “‘The Demopoulos name lives in America!’” (1) and the first half ends with a sorrowful “‘The Demopoulos name is now lost in America’” (101).

The religious rituals and cultural customs performed in Nicky’s funeral organised by first generation Greek Americans, are juxtaposed with what we witness in Chris’ wake. This coincides with Scourby’s conclusion that the ethno-religious category includes tools that indicate how the first generation of Greek Americans identified themselves on an ethnic level (“Three Generations of Greek Americans” 46). The moirologia are not sung because

Emma, the “Amerikanidha, the outsider nyfy” (Rain in the Valley 44) does not like “that singing over the casket” (134) and Lia, a second-generation Demas daughter, agrees. It must have seemed extremely gloomy, or even vulgar, to an American the picture of black-dressed women singing in front of the dead person. True, Emma thinks it inappropriate to sing such songs in public (134). Moreover, both she and Lia reject the idea of the body being brought inside the house to be with the company of loved ones on its last day above ground, even though Rina, adamantly supportive of her country’s traditions, insists on it (134). Both Rina and Katina are firm believers of communal mourning. Not only does the dead person need to be lamented, but lamentation should be intense for the good of the deceased’s soul. That is precisely why both of Lia’s aunts are disturbed when they see that Emma and her daughter are “not grieving enough” (136). Nevertheless, the funeral feast, the “parhgoria” (136) as

Papanikolas calls it, is held according to custom and Emma complies with having her Pitou 28 sisters-in-law bring the “kolivo” (137) which is “the memorial wheat mixed with parsley, currants, nuts, and pomegranate seeds that was eaten forty days after a death” (137). Thus, it becomes evident that assimilation is indeed a process that occurs in stages and not all at once. First, some customs are differentiated in order to fit American norms, such as the ones that deal with the wedding ceremony, as will be shown later on. Then, some parts of the customs start to be omitted as a result of outmarriage, like it happens with Chris whose wife fails to understand the significance of these customs. Finally, after a while, these traditions are completely put to rest.

Indeed, the process of assimilation as it happens from the first generation to the second is slow yet steady. As mentioned above, this process involves the accommodation of certain traditions into American ones. For example, Lia and her cousins’ weddings are characterised by certain Americanisms that get fused with the Greek Orthodox practices.

More specifically, Bessie and Peggy are married at a double wedding ceremony, a “novelty”

(131) which makes the parishioners of the Holy Trinity Church flock there. Furthermore, affected by how the weddings are performed in America, Peggy desires a dinner reception at a hotel (131), which would mean that the women of the family would not be responsible for the feast that would follow after the nuptials. This wish of hers is not fulfilled, however, due to the shortage of foods the war23 brought on. Nevertheless, both Bessie and Peggy get to have a matron-of-honor—since Lia who would perform that role was already married and therefore, could not be a “maid”—and bridesmaids, a wedding tradition that is certainly not

Greek.24

A discussion about a Greek-American wedding inevitably leads to the most famous one yet; that of Toula Portokalos’s in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. In that film, the audience

23 World War II. 24 In Greece, instead of bridesmaids, the bride is usually accompanied by paranyfakia, young girls and (sometimes) boys dressed in white gowns and suits, respectively, holding little baskets full of rose petals and rice to throw at the newlyweds. Pitou 29 views some of the thoughts and opinions that the first generation of Greek Americans25 have around the issue of marriage. Needless to say, these opinions are conveyed to the viewer through the filter of comic exaggeration and, of course, Vardalos’s own opinions and experiences as a Greek immigrant offspring.26 There are two major differences and issues we need to bear in mind when discussing My Big Fat Greek Wedding in correlation with

Rain in the Valley. First, although both Toula and Lia belong to the second generation of

Greek Americans, Toula’s story takes place in the 21st century. This time gap is justified by the fact that the Demas and the Portokalos emigrated to America in different periods, as will be further discussed later on. Second, the artistic form, namely a romantic comedy, in which

Vardalos presents her story, is much different than Papanikolas’s novel in terms of representation. These significant differences between the two works I employ in this thesis, explain why I associate Rain in the Valley with assimilation and My Big Fat Greek Wedding

1 & 2 with acculturation, as will be shown in due course. Nevertheless, both narratives are

“second generation” narratives, to use Raymond Williams’s words (qtd. in Anagnostou

142)27 which means that both of them constitute “narrativization[s] of outsiderhood, betweenness, negotiation of class and cultural boundaries, and gender and ethnic identity”

(142).

As Anagnostou observes, Toula is a “doubly oppressed” character, both “as an ethnic woman and worker” (142). She works long hours at her family’s restaurant, her father constantly devalues her by commenting on the fact that she looks old and she feels confined in the claustrophobic rules and restrictions he imposes on her. One such restriction includes the inviolable rule that Toula should marry within her ethnic group. Because of her family’s

25 Once again, when I refer to the Greek Americans in terms of the films, I mean the fictional characters created by Vardalos. 26 Vardalos is Greek-Canadian by birth but became a U.S. citizen in 1999. 27 Since I use more than one essays by Anagnostou, any subsequent references about My Big Fat Greek Wedding will be taken by “When ‘Second Generation’ Narrative and Hollywood Meet: Making Ethnicity in My Big Fat Greek Wedding” (2012). Pitou 30 indiscretion, Toula feels trapped even after she has made her personal rebellion by getting engaged to a non-Greek. Thus, although her wedding takes place in 2001, she has no control over the specifics of her wedding as it is arranged completely by her parents and the rest of the family. Toula is not even allowed to pick out her own wedding gown, invitations, bridesmaids’ dresses or even guests! Since the wedding is mostly organized by the family’s first generation everything—except for certain American wedding traditions, such as the existence of bridesmaids—is conducted according to the Greek Orthodox tradition. Once again, it is revealed that the first generation of Greek Americans is strongly identified with the

Greek Orthodox religion and the customs it dictates. More than that, this generation—even in a plot that takes place in the 21st century—strongly opposes outmarriage. Obviously, many would support that this is yet another exaggeration by Vardalos for the sake of comedy.

However, the writer was inspired by real-life events, as it was herself who also got married to a “xeno,”28 29 Ian Gomez, also an actor.

Just like it happened in real life, where Gomez converted to the Greek Orthodox faith, Ian Miller, Toula’s husband-to-be, does the same in order to be allowed to get married to her in the Greek Orthodox Church. Moreover, this decision of his is the only reason why

Gus, the dominant first generation representative in the film, is persuaded to talk to Ian and give the couple his (Gus’s) wish. Ian becomes a Greek Orthodox through the holy mystery of baptism, a ceremony which is of extreme significance in the Orthodox faith. In the film, even in the humorous way Ian’s baptism is depicted—with him being baptised in a portable, plastic, swimming pool for children—the importance of this religious event is highlighted.

Unsurprisingly, Gus accentuates himself the greatness of this ceremony. All kidding—and childish swimming pool—aside, the scene where Ian becomes Ioannis is a rather significant one for it shows the religiosity of those Greek Americans. More explicitly, the baptism takes

28 A person from a foreign country. 29 Any subsequent reference to scenes and lines will be taken from. Joel Zwick, dir. My Big Fat Greek Wedding Perf. Nia Vardalos, John Corbett and Michael Constantine. Gold Circle Films. 2002. Film. Pitou 31 place in an environment which makes the viewer forget that it takes place in a church in

America; the inside of the church is fully lit and decorated with Byzantine pictures of the

Saints, while a Greek-American priest chants the hymns of the sacrament. Furthermore, the scene that follows with Toula thanking Ian for converting in a room filled with icons of

Saints constitutes a break from all the comic elements. Becoming a Greek Orthodox makes

Ian believe that “[he is] Greek now.” Even if that is not technically true, this religious practice seems to affect Ian’s ethnic identification, which makes the connection between the themes ethno- and religious all the more evident.

Nevertheless, this film is not globally known as the most highly-grossed independent films of all time thanks to Ian’s baptism sequence, but due to the Greek-American wedding that takes place shattering ethnic and cultural boundaries. Although, as mentioned above,

Toula’s wedding was mostly arranged by her parents and the rest of the family, the influence that life in America has on the event cannot but be observed. Just like in Bessie and Peggy’s wedding, Toula, apart from the παρανυφάκια30 is also accompanied by ten bridesmaids, a role assumed by her cousins and sister. Even though it would be much too rare a sight to see an American wedding with so many bridesmaids, the custom that has the bride’s friends dressed in the same gowns, or at least wearing dresses with the same color, and standing next to the bride during the ceremony became well-known in America. Moreover, the bride is not handed to the groom the way she would in most Greek weddings. Instead of waiting for the bride outside the church, Ian stays inside with his best-man—who is not his best friend because the latter is not a Greek Orthodox and therefore, cannot be part of the holy sacrament—and some of Toula’s male relatives in the place where the couple is to stand.

Gus walks with Toula her last steps as an unwed woman, moving towards the groom while another popular Americanism occurs. In Greece, there is no music inside the church but for

30 See footnote no. 24. Pitou 32 the chanting of the psalms and hymns which is strictly conducted without any musical instruments. In Toula’s wedding, however, the universally-known Mendelssohn’s wedding march, is being played while she walks down the aisle with her father.

Just as it can be seen in Bessie and Peggy’s wedding ceremony, the aforementioned

Americanisms that also take place in Toula’s Greek-American wedding show that assimilation is a slow process that becomes evident during the second generation. However, by this generation, assimilation is still at a relatively early stage, that of acculturation. In other words, accommodation to the American culture is witnessed in the wedding ceremonies of this generation’s members. This indicates that abiding by the exact rules their religion dictates is not such a priority for second-generation Greek-Americans, possibly because—unlike the first generation—they do not depend on their faith to verify their ethnic identity; they are Greek Orthodox American citizens with Greek origins. Even so, the second generation keeps most of their religion’s traditions and rules. As witnessed in My Big

Fat Greek Wedding, the holy sacrament of Toula’s wedding is performed the same way it would in Greece with the union ceremony climaxing with the dance of Isaiah, where the couple “takes their first steps as husband and wife,” as Toula informs Ian. Thus, as Scourby concludes regarding the “hyphenated Greek Americans” (“Three Generations of Greek

Americans” 44-45)—meaning the second generation of Greeks in America—they turned out to be “reluctant participants” (44) of the Church which, along with the Greek school and language, “became integral parts of the[ir] self-image” (44).

Although the second generation constitutes a rather intriguing subject for analysis, for it is this hybrid generation in which Americanization found a fertile ground to grow, it is also the third generation that needs to be examined. That is because, depending on when each Greek-American family’s first generation came to the States, the third generation is for most the current one. In other words, it constitutes the present and future of Greek America.

Also, the third generation can provide us with a general—I cannot stress this enough— Pitou 33 pattern that can be used when discussing the next generations. While studying Rain in the

Valley closely in order to track down any description of or reference to customs—both religious and cultural—that would be of interest to my thesis, I found out that by the third generation of Greek Americans in the novel those references became almost obsolete. Of course, one needs to bear in mind that all seventeen members of the third generation the

Demas clan produced, married people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, as

Peggy points out rather disappointed (229). The chasm between the second generation is most perfectly demonstrated near the end of the book where Peggy makes an effort to organize a family reunion—for her own devious purposes—during the Easter of 2003 reminding everyone that “Greeks always return to the family on Greek Easter” (234).

Sadly—and partly due to Peggy’s own lack of interest and apathy towards Greek culture—

“this was news to her children and grandchildren” (234). From the great number of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren she invites, only twenty respond “but none of them attend[s] the Resurrection services” (234). Finally, the end of anything Greek in what is left of the Demas clan is—quite ironically—depicted in a religious event; a Greek Orthodox funeral.

At the funeral half of the nave on the right side was taken up by the dead

women’s families. The great-grandchildren of the patriarchs had so little

Greek blood in their veins that they looked no different from children seated

in a Protestant church, that is, all except one teenager with the prominent nose

of the Demas clan. (237)

Indeed, one needs to bear in mind that Papanikolas’s novel gives a glimpse into a third generation which, as shown above, has fully embraced outmarriage. We may laugh at

Gus Portokalos’s obsession with his daughter not marrying a xeno, yet in Rain in the Valley marrying outside their ethnic group eventually leads to the extinction of the Greek element in the third generation’s identity. It should also be mentioned, however, that the novel’s third Pitou 34 generation is raised by quite an apathetic second generation that does not, for instance, insist on their kids attending the Greek school, as Toula Portokalos is seen doing at the end of the first film, even though she did get married to a xeno. Of course, another issue that needs to be taken into consideration is the place where Lia and Toula’s generations were raised. In an email exchange with Zeese Papanikolas, whom I will also be quoting in this paper, I realized that there is a huge difference between having been raised in the mid-West (Lia) and

Chicago (Toula). As Z. Papanikolas observes,

Greeks on the East Coast, in Chicago and in other major cities—I’m not sure

of Los Angeles and San Francisco—have had a tendency to remain ghettoized

much longer than Greeks in the Mountain West, simply because there were

more of them. This is what my mother observed, and what I’ve observed as

well . . . . Greeks in the intermountain West were often fairly spread out in

mining towns and so forth, thus had a tendency to form business and social

relations outside of the Greek world, while city Greeks had businesses that

kept them clustered.

Indeed, it makes sense that the larger an ethnic group is clustered at a place, the more likely it is for that group to hold on to their homeland cultural traits and traditions. Thus, factors of geography need to be taken into consideration when discussing identity transformation, both in terms of loyalty to customs and in general. More specifically, it makes sense that Gus

Portokalos, who resides in Chicago,31 is characterized by an unswerving devotion and loyalty to his religion and country’s tradition. This devotion is facilitated by the Greek community which is significantly larger in Chicago than it is in Utah, where Rain in the

Valley takes place. This is a major reason why assimilation is resisted with greater ease by the Portokalos family. Finally, the Portokalos generations to come are also likely to cling on

31 Chicago still has one of the largest Greek-American communities in the States. Pitou 35 to their origins and the customary practices they entail more so than the Demas second and third generations did.

As I mentioned earlier, when analyzing generations of Greek Americans—fictional or real—there are bound to be multiple inconsistencies depending—among others—on the issues of family, time and place. This makes comparison and reaching general conclusions all the more challenging. This is also shown in Scourby’s research results regarding the third generation for they revealed that religion became the basic agent that defined that generation’s ethnicity (45). These results can be applied neither to Papanikolas’s novel nor to the Vardalos film. Furthermore, as far as I am concerned, Scourby’s results are not applicable to Papanikolas’s own family either. As Zeese Papanikolas, a third-generation

Greek American, pointed out to me, Rain in the Valley’s third generation resembles his own when it comes to the fading of the Greek identity—which also entails devotion to Greek

Orthodox religion. Nevertheless, we should always keep in mind variables and recognize that Scourby’s research was focused on the third generation of Greek Americans during the

1950s. It would make sense to assume that Americanization becomes easier and easier a process as time goes by, especially now, in the 21st century. This may be due to globalization that makes interchanging of cultural traits more accessible everywhere in the world, even so in multicultural America. Also, the western world has rendered obsolete some of the most extreme practices regarding marriage. By and large, people are now free— with exceptions depending on the individual case—to marry whomever they wish, without considering their faith or nationality. Nevertheless, there is always a more optimistic side in how we view things and this one is offered by Vardalos in the sequel of My Big Fat Greek

Wedding. In spite of marrying a non-Greek, her daughter is finally persuaded to accept her family’s distinctiveness, embrace Greek customs and even find a Greek boyfriend to complete Vardalos’s happy end. As utopian as this may sound, there is something even more encouraging concerning the third generation of Greek Americans in the film. All of Gus and Pitou 36

Maria’s grandchildren seem to cherish their Greek ancestry and love their family’s traditions. Certainly, it would be more suitable to call this generation “American Greeks,” for they express “a modified diaspora response” (“Strategies for Survival” 1) regarding ethnic identity which, according to Georgakas, is a new model where “the central identity is a Greekness that is modified by American [sic]” (1).

According to Scourby, however, the ethno-religious category that this chapter examines does not entail only a discussion about customs and traditions that deal with religion. It also includes the issues of nationalism and language, as mentioned in my introduction and although these two major categories are not directly associated with Greek homeland traditions, they constitute areas which are linked to the issue of customs’ survival.

Most importantly, however, the aforementioned ideas are vital when discussing the issue of identity transformation. Both the issues of nationalism and language are portrayed in

Vardalos’s film, mostly through the character of Gus Portokalos. Gus is a stereotypically formed persona representing an exaggerating version of a first generation Greek American.

Having come to the States “with 8$ in [his] pocket” he worked hard to make a living and build a life in America. Already a married man when he reached Ellis Island, Gus had three kids in the States and became the owner of a Greek restaurant named “Dancing Zorbas.” As

Toula narrates at the beginning of the film, her father takes real pride in his Greek heritage and never misses a chance to show that he comes from Greece. Although the Portokalos family resides in a typical middle-class Chicago neighbourhood, where all houses are—more or less—designed in the same architectural lines, theirs is a completely distinct one. As

Toula resentfully states, her house is “modelled after the Parthenon complete with

Corinthian columns and guarded by statues of the Gods.” This over-the-top structure is also complemented by Gus’s “subtle tribute to the Greek flag” which he had painted over the garage door. Moreover, Vardalos exploits the stereotypes that people of the diaspora had regarding their homeland; everybody thought that theirs was the best, with the greatest Pitou 37 language, customs and religion. This is also demonstrated in a short story by Papazoglou-

Margaris, titled “Αμήν”32 where the Polish mother rejects the idea of her son getting married to a Greek, deeming the latter inferior for being neither Catholic nor from Poland (37).

Needless to say, so does the Greek party by the bride’s side and, so does Gus Portokalos.

One of his firmest beliefs is that, except for Greeks, all the other people in the world are just humans who wish they were Greek and it is his obligation, among else, to “educate non-

Greeks about being Greek.”

Gus tries to succeed in the completion of this holy duty he feels he has by indicating how everything is connected to Greece and, most importantly, the Greek language. He constantly dictates that each and every word’s root derives from Greek. This opinion of his which is a source of great laughter in the film, is so strong that he manages to trace—not in a linguistically valid manner of course—the root of the word kimono to that of the Greek word for winter, χειμώνα. Moreover, as witnessed in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, which is more of a caricature of its prequel, Gus seems to have passed his uniquely peculiar prowess at etymology into the third generation of Portokalos, his grand-children, two of whom are seen proving that the root of the word “chimichanga”33 is found in the Greek language and concluding that Greeks invented hockey by connecting the word πάγο, which is Greek for

“ice,” with the word “puck.”34 However comically Gus’ obsession with the Greek language is portrayed, he exemplifies—in his rather exaggerating manner—how great their mother tongue is in the mind of the first generation immigrants and ultimately, how imperative they feel the need for its survival in America to be. In spite of living overseas, both he and his wife Maria constantly speak in Greek in front of their children and also send them to Greek

32 “Amen.”

33 Any subsequent reference to scenes and lines will be taken from. Kirk Jones, dir. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 Perf. Nia Vardalos, John Corbett and Michael Constantine. Gold Circle Films. 2016. Film.

34 The rubber disk used in hockey. Pitou 38 school. Toula, belonging to the hybrid second generation of Greek Americans, seems to resent the idea of Greek school much like Bessie, Peggy, Nicky and other second-generation

Greek Americans did in Rain in the Valley. Nevertheless, when asked by Toula why she has to go to Greek school, her mother provides her with an incredulous justification that somehow connects the hot issue of (out)marriage with that of the language. She answers back: “when you get married, don’t you want to be able to write your mother-in-law a letter?” rendering both marriage to a non-Greek and inability to write in Greek out of the question.

For Gus, the issue of language is another way to project his cordial feelings about his ethnic background. Although he is an American citizen who displays the starspangled banner in his house, Gus favors his Greek nationality the most. His general stance towards

Greek nationalism resembles the one he has about his mother tongue; he is a fervent supporter of his homeland, believing it to be always on the right side of history and even tampering with it for the sake of his ancestry, as seen in the sequel more explicitly. One of his most memorable lines that indicate how superior to anyone else Gus believes Greeks to be occurs in the first movie when his foreign, soon-to-be son-in-law attempts to wish him in

Greek and Gus answers: “Όταν οι Έλληνες γράφαν Φιλοσοφία, εσείς ακόμα κρεμόσασταν

απ’τα δέντρα” which translates into “When the Greeks were writing philosophy, your people were still swinging from the trees.”

Nevertheless, it is in the second movie—as already mentioned—that Gus’ goodhearted fanaticism is more pronounced. In My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Gus is seen arguing with a representative of the Northwestern University in his granddaughter’s school’s college fair. A borderline fanatic, Gus claims that “the Greeks invented the Italians” and when he is contradicted, he even insists that the representative—a Sephardic Jew with

Spanish origins—is ultimately Greek because “Alexander the Great went through Spain spreading his seed.” As seen throughout the film, the subject of one’s ethnic identity truly Pitou 39 interests Gus. He keeps inquiring after people’s ethnic origin determined to prove, through his false knowledge of history, that everyone—even an Iranian he meets while he does his physical therapy—is ultimately Greek. This anxiety, of a sort, that Gus has about proving that everybody is Greek does not only signify the need to highlight his ethnic superiority. It could also be the result of a mild paranoia that can be traced to the core of nationalist ideology. As Eriksen argues, “the nation-state is based on nationalist ideology; that is the doctrine stating that state boundaries should correspond with cultural boundaries” (279).

Consequently, being from a country where the vast majority is of the same ethnicity, share more or less the same customs, and belong to the same faith, USA and the issue of multi- ethnic and multi-cultural identities perplexes Gus and makes him obsessed with it, as it is witnessed in the scene where he questions his peers about their origins during physiotherapy. His obsession with his own identity, however, is even greater. He finds every bit of information he owns about his family’s genealogy and painstakingly inserts it into a site which will supposedly prove that he is a direct descendant of Alexander the Great.

As already mentioned multiple times, no conclusions that are completely valid can be drawn and neither can we make general assumptions that would be of assistance in a discussion about ethnography based on a film. However influenced Vardalos was by real- life events and experiences, the films are partly the result of exploiting the stereotypes that

Americans have about the Greeks and the views that the Greeks themselves have about their ethnic and cultural identity. Nevertheless, both films are specimens of what the Greek-

American experience can be for a family’s three generations of Greek Americans. There is cohesion between past and present and even Gus’ eccentric persona is justified by the presence of his own mother who personifies Greece. Even though I drew multiple connections in my discussion between Vardalos’s films and Papanikolas’s novel, there are also many differences and the personified link with the homeland that Gus’ mother constitutes is one of them. She is not a Greek American and therefore, she does not belong Pitou 40 to the first generation of Greeks in America, for she is brought to the States years after her son has made a new life there. “Μάνα-γιαγιά”35 is a typical Greek, old widow dressed in black from head to toes, as Greek tradition dictates. Suffering from a slight case of dementia

μάνα - γιαγιά is obsessed with the past. Consequently, she does not change her habits and— admittedly strong—opinions, even after she has been living in America for at least thirty years. In the first film she is seen as trying to escape from the house believing that her own family is the Turks who have abducted her. Moreover, she either speaks Greek or not at all.

True, she is another comically constructed character through which the writer lampoons some nationalistic anxieties, and a mere representation of what Vardalos thinks the generation to which μάνα – γιαγιά belonged was like. Yet, μάνα - γιαγιά constitutes a mirror to the life the first generation of immigrants had before they arrived in the States. Thus, it becomes easier for the viewer and the people from the second and third generations in the films to fathom out some of the first generation’s attributes and, more specifically, Gus’ peculiar persona.

To conclude, the ethno-religious category is of major significance in the discussion about identity transformation. Religion and the customs associated with the Greek-Orthodox faith, the Greek language and the sense of Greek nationalism are all issues that cannot be absent from a discussion around the ethnic identity of Greek Americans. They all constitute links that connect the generations of Greeks in America and have the ability to shed light into the process of identity transformation. More explicitly, studying these areas and examining their own course in time, being passed on from generation to generation, reveals that they were all transformed, just like each generation becomes more and more assimilated into the American reality with the passing of time and the gradual Americanization—or eradication—of certain customs and traditions. To my mind, exploring the issue of identity

35 Mother-grandmother. Pitou 41 transformation through Greek-American fiction may not lead to as valid conclusions as a research such as Scourby’s would. Nevertheless, both Papanikolas and Vardalos’s works are based on their own experiences as offsprings of Greek immigrants and can raise interesting issues. Different as they may be in form, style and genre, these products of fiction and pop culture reveal that, indeed, the survival—or not—of religious customs, the attendance—or not—of the Greek school and the perseverance—or not—of a sense of Greek nationalism is inextricably linked to the transformation of the ethnic identity of Greek Americans.

Outmarriage and the complete elimination of certain religious customs, such as the funeral laments which are “gone with the wind” (230), in Rain in the Valley eventually lead to a third and fourth generation of Greek Americans who do not care about the Greek part of their identity. On the other hand, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 1 and 2 also validate my thesis, yet in a more optimistic way. Despite the slight Americanization that is inevitably witnessed in religious events such as the wedding ceremony, the survival of the language by the second and third generation, and converting the foreign party to Orthodoxy, in the case of outmarriage, create ethnic identities that do not get lost into the American ways. Instead, only acculturation is witnessed with the Greek element being stronger than the American; they are American Greeks rather than Greek Americans.

Pitou 42

Chapter Two

Ethno-Cultural Customs and Assimilation

This chapter of my thesis will discuss the fictional Greek Americans’ identification with ethno-cultural indices that are connected with assimilation, acculturation, and identity transformation, in general. The indices that are being included in the ethno-cultural category

“reflect[s] a wider range of cultural values, i.e., Greek history, dance, music cuisine and social organizations” (46). With the exception of Greek history—which I personally associate more with nationalism and have already discussed it earlier—all remaining areas are to be discussed in this chapter. Through this discussion, I aspire to connect, once again, the degree of assimilation into the American life and culture based on the erosion—or not— of the Greek cultural customs, traditions and secular organizations linked to them. More explicitly, by the end of this chapter I hope to have shown that the ways in which

Papanikolas makes use of the abovementioned cultural traits, help us associate Rain in the

Valley with complete assimilation. On the other hand, I aspire to indicate that Vardalos’s depiction of Greek music, dancing, and cuisine in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 1 & 2 show that those indices remain at the centre of the Greek-American life, the way she represents it, raising the issue of acculturation rather than assimilation. As I have already stressed, no final conclusions that will illuminate all areas that ethnographers and ethnologists deal with can be drawn from analyzing works of fiction. Yet, it is interesting to examine how such different artistic forms understand, represent and review the connection that survival of customs and traditions has with the identity transformation of the first Greek immigrants in the USA, as well as that of their offsprings.

While the ethno-religious category was associated, according to Scourby’s research, mostly with the first generation of Greek Americans (46) and the more reluctant second generation (44), the ethno-cultural one is more closely linked to the third generation which

“showed a greater identification with the broader cultural values of the Greek-American Pitou 43 community” (50). Nevertheless, however illuminating Scourby’s research is regarding issues such as the relationship of each generation with the church, it is also problematic due to the

“myriad of inconsistencies [it has] revealed” (50), as Scourby herself admits. Indeed, the issue of ethnic identity and identification is an extremely challenging one to examine for ethnic identity constitutes a “fluid concept” (44) due to the fact that “so much of ethnic identity is an unconscious experience as well as an ambivalent experience” (50).

Nevertheless, if we were to define the Greek-American ethnic identity, the ethno-cultural category that Scourby proposes would be just as important as the ethno-religious one. In fact, one might argue that it is of even greater interest, for it constitutes a largely unexamined area.

True, many a scholar has focused their research on the importance of religion and the

Church in constructing and supporting the Greek-American ethnic identity. For instance,

Saloutos discussed the subject of Orthodoxy in America along with that of assimilation in his seminal essay “The Greek Orthodox Church in the United States and Assimilation” published in 1973. Indeed, the matter of one’s faith was of great significance in understanding and determining the Greek Americans’ ethnic identity, especially those who belonged to the third generation in the 1950s, as Scourby argues (“Three Generations of

Greek Americans” 45). Up until then, the ethnic identity was mostly defined by factors other than religion, such as nationality and language (45). That changed though with the advent of the third generation who used religion as an applauding means of acceptance by the

American society. Ultimately, that acceptance would help the Greek Americans to smoothly accommodate into the US reality and, in certain cases, to assimilate completely. According to Scourby,

Belonging to a religious institution was not only a new way of determining

one’s ethnicity, it was a legitimate way of being an American, because while Pitou 44

one was expected to give up the ways of the “old world”, [sic] one was never

expected to give up one’s religion. (45)

The above argument is supported by the results of Scourby’s survey who questioned several third-generation Greek Americans on the issue of identity in the mid-1960s and found out that religion did “provide the context of self-identification for them” (45). However ambivalent this identification was proven to be by the same survey, being Greek Orthodox during that time automatically meant being Greek (45).

Nevertheless, any discussion that correlates the Greek Orthodox religion with the

Greek-American identity has recently been rendered old-fashioned, if not obsolete. In Peter

Moskos’s words36 “although the church is still prominent in Greek-American life, the era of the church as the defining element of the Greek-American community may have ended”

(qtd. in “Recollecting Greek America: Reflection on Ethnic Struggle, Success, and Survival”

150). What does this new turn of events signify though? As Moskos suggests, the decline of the role that the Greek Orthodox Church played in defining the Greek America renders the future the Greek-American “ethnicity far more questionable” (150). With the absence of the religious factor in defining the Greek-American identity, the task now lies with other indices that deal with a different sense of “secular ethnicity” (150). According to Anagnostou, this type of ethnicity—that is less defined by religious indices and more by cultural ones—

“reconfigures identity boundaries and makes it impossible to hold on to the notion of” (150) what Moskos calls “one Greek America” (150). Is this thought a realistic one or is Moskos being a pessimist?

From what Anagnostou maintains, it is safe to assume that the issue of ethnic identity has become more complex now than it ever was. If religion has indeed ceased to constitute the primary locus of identification for the average Greek American, that role is assumed by

36 Peter Moskos, the late Charles Moskos’s son, revised and brought out the third edition of his father’s highly acclaimed Greek Americans: Struggle and Success (2013). Pitou 45 other sectors such as social organizations, cultural customs, music, and cuisine. Whatever the case, however, we once again need to be reminded of the danger of over-generalization.

The inconsistencies revealed by Scourby’s research convince us that no generation, no matter what era it has lived in, can be characterized by only one area of identification. The ethno-religious category may be correlated more with the first generation of Greeks in

America (46), yet Greek-American works—be they fiction or non-fiction—show how important ethno-cultural indices were for those first immigrants, as well. As a result, we can never make a claim that is valid and legitimate enough to represent all of Greek Americans, or American Greeks’ issues concerning their identity. Thus, has there ever been “one Greek

America” (3) the way P. Moskos means it? Can a whole generation be assigned loci of ethnic identification based on a survey? I think not and, although the primary sources I am examining are works of fiction with some auto-biographical elements, they assist me in substantiating the above argument.

As it is understood by now, however, the focus of this thesis lies not within the general area of Greek-American ethnic identity studies, but in the transformation it may have undergone during the complex process of assimilation. This thesis also attempts to show that the survival of Greek customs and traditions—or lack of it—can illuminate the particulars of identity transformation. In my research about the subject of this thesis,

Marilyn Rouvelas’s book A Guide to Greek Traditions and Customs in America has been proved enlightening. As a Greek American, Rouvelas provides the reader with the most detailed descriptions possible of every Greek and Orthodox custom and tradition. This guide includes everything, from the way to perfectly arrange a Greek-Orthodox baptism, to a detailed description of a traditional Greek feast. Although it is strictly for the broader public and not written for academic purposes, Rouvelas’s commentary helps the reader fathom the meaning of the Greek traditions and how to preserve them best away from Greece. Charles

Moskos commented on the book: “I learned more about Hellenism and Greek Orthodoxy Pitou 46 from A Guide to Greek Traditions and Customs in America than from any other book I have read”.37 What is intriguing about the book is that it refers to customs that are no longer part of Greek America, such as the nature of certain family ties. For instance, it used to be customary in America for the children to stay with their family until they got married

(Rouvelas 154). It was also customary for the aging parents to move in with their children

(154); however, as Rouvelas informs, such “traditions are being modified as Greek

Americans become more assimilated, mobile, and affluent” (154).

It is true that in the US reality many immigrant traditions are forgotten or abandoned inadvertently. Nevertheless, there are those traditions that seem to be more difficult for a

Greek American to dispose of. For the Greeks in America, as is the case for the homeland

Greeks, food bears great significance for it characterizes every aspect of their everyday life.

The Greeks take pride in the Mediterranean dietary norms and the excellent quality of the produce the Greek earth offers that have made Greek cuisine popular around the whole world. The connection the Greeks—and subsequently the Greek Americans—have with their food represents something deeper; the bond with their family, their religion and their country, as well. Thus, one cannot really discuss what being Greek American really means without mentioning food. In the Greek cuisine, which is one of the ethno-cultural indices

Scourby refers to (46), every ingredient matters as it carries the smell and memories of

Greece. In a most significant scene in the film Brides (2004) by Voulgaris, Niki, a mail- order bride, takes with her in the transatlantic voyage to America lentils, a head of garlic, and a few bay leaves in order to cook for Prodromos, her future husband, lentil soup, per his request. As she relates to other mail-order brides, Prodromos says that the American garlic does not have the distinct smell of the Greek.

37 This comment is taken verbatim by the endorsement section at the back of my edition (2002). Pitou 47

Granted, this scene is only Voulgaris and Karystiani’s take on Greek America. For them, food obviously symbolizes nostalgia. Indeed, it indicates how important authentic

Greek food must have been for the Greeks in the States, for they missed it as much as they missed their homeland. Also, it reveals the close relationship between food—along with the cultural significance it conveys—and women. According to Georgakas, “the number of

Greek women who immigrated to America, many as ‘picture brides,’ increased in the late

1910s” (“Greek America 1915-2015” 4)38 and it was this “small but persistent influx of

Greek women” that “slowly brought some stability to the Greek communities” (“The Greeks in America” 24). More than that, those women brought with them the very essence of

Greece that is its customs and traditions. In Papanikolas’s words,

Of those who came to America, few could read and write with ease; most had

no education at all. They came with traditions and folklore, though, that

reached back to recorded time. These gave them strength to endure in this

foreign land, this xenitia.

Thus, those first women brought to the States the values and traditions necessary to build a

Greek-American community making sure the Greek element was more prominent than the

American. The question at hand though is whether they instilled this attributes to the women of the following generations. The answer to that question, as seen in the previous chapter, varies.

As I already mentioned, the culinary culture and the traditions that go along with it were the means that maintained Greekness in America. Before exploring the correlation between food, tradition and ethnic identity, it would be helpful to discuss the social connotations that food bears for the Greeks. Firstly, preparing the food is just as important as

38 This document was emailed to me by Dan Georgakas on 3rd June 2015 and was also published in a special National Herald issue the same year. I am citing it as a Microsoft Word document at the Works Cited section. Pitou 48 eating it; it needs to be prepared with great care regarding the ingredients and their quality, as well as with love for the people who will taste it. Knowing the recipe’s symbolism is also vital and will be discussed later in this chapter. In addition, even if there is not a great occasion or special holiday at hand, eating for the Greeks is a ritual that promotes togetherness and solidifies the family ties. It is widely believed by the Greeks that quality food can help solve any problem. This very belief is employed by Vardalos in My Big Fat

Greek Wedding, most notably in the scene where Toula is downcast over her father not approving of Ian. Her mother’s advice regarding Toula’s problem is “oh, Toula, eat something.” Moreover, as it is also satirized in the film, the Greeks can draw many a conclusion about a person from their diet and are—stereotypically—believed to be great meat-lovers. In one of the most popular scenes of the film, aunt Voula (Andrea Martin), cannot fathom how Ian can be a vegetarian, and shocks every Greek American present with this piece of news. Eventually, she promises she will cook a vegetarian dish for Toula’s fiancé, lamb. Finally, Ian’s eating habits make Gus resolve, in the sequel, that his son-in-law is not manly enough and this is why he had a daughter instead of a son. Thus, food is indeed a really essential cultural trait and that is exactly why Vardalos makes such an extensive use of it.

Food’s significance can also be witnessed in Rain in the Valley where Papanikolas makes various references to the Greek cuisine. First of all, she describes various occasions where food constitutes a most basic indication of Greek culture. It is, as Rouvelas claims,

“an integral, emotional part of [the Greek American’s] ethnic identity and one of their most satisfying traditions” (183). Celebrations that deal with religion are always associated with food. The dishes always depend on the event at hand. For instance, the food served in a wedding reception and a funeral is very different. In Rain in the Valley, the only— Pitou 49 typically—39 first-generation wedding ceremony we witness is that of Chris and Emma’s.

Despite the fact that it takes place in America, this wedding is being celebrated almost as if it would have been celebrated in Greece. Still unassimilated to the American ways, Chris’s family organizes the reception in the backyard of Pete and Gus’s houses (4), instead of renting a room someplace else. Organizing the glenti40 along with the preparation of the food is taken over by the family, while the entertainment part is taken over by other Greeks.

As Papanikolas describes,

[l]ambs in spits, cheese pastries, all the Greek delicacies the immigrants could

now afford in America were devoured. Three miners with the instruments

they had brought with them from Greece played nostalgic folk tunes; dancing

and singing went on until morning. (4)

The meaning of the glenti, however, is much deeper than just a party. Anna Caraveli defines it as “a ritual celebration” and “[a] formalized arena for the expression of individual identity and the negotiation of community boundaries” which forges “important relationships and systems of meaning” (261). Thus, a Greek-American glenti celebrating any occasion provided with the opportunity of self-defining the cultural and ethnic identity of the participants. Moreover, choosing to organize it the way they had learnt to do so back in the old country automatically meant resistance towards assimilation and identity transformation.

Another wedding in the novel is followed by a traditional Greek glenti. Soula marrying Nonda constitutes a wonderful example of a second-generation Greek-American wedding in a work of fiction. Organized by her parents, Soula’s engagement and wedding reception indicate that the cultural traits brought from Greece are very well respected even by the second generation. Americanisms are witnessed neither during the preparations

39 Soula may belong to the second generation of Greek Americans, yet her wedding is completely assumed by her parents, so her wedding, as already mentioned in the first chapter, can be characterized as first- generation. 40 Wedding party. Pitou 50 before the wedding nor on the wedding day. The evening before the wedding, relatives, close friends, and the children’s godparents are invited to the bride’s house for a feast (65).

All day long, the women of the family who are experts in Greek cuisine, Rina and Katina, work hard to prepare the food for the feast and the wedding reception. “Dolmadhes”(65)41,

“pilafi,42 pites,43 salads, and honey-nut pastries” (66) are served in great quantities. Not everything is done according to tradition, however, since the groom sings contemporary

Greek songs instead of allowing the older men to sing songs they were used to sing in the homeland, called “Tragoudhia tou Trapeziou, the old songs of the table, about their heroes fighting the Turks” (66). Nevertheless, one old wedding song is finally heard on the phonograph which sends a wave of nostalgia across the room. Even though many of the old country’s wedding customs are maintained, there are still great changes in the whole procedure, as part of accommodating US reality. As Yiannina exclaims in nostalgia,

“[t]hat’s all we have left in America. A wedding song. No seven days of glendhi [sic]” (67).

Discussing a Greek-American glenti inevitably leads to the best-known of them all, the one that followed Toula Portokalos’s wedding. In 2002 Vardalos showed the world her version of a Greek-American wedding and wedding party. The Portokalos family is quite adamant regarding the way they wish Toula’s wedding to be. Not only do they keep vital traditions from their homeland such as the Greek traditional music played in the glenti, but they also stick to other, less well-known customs such as the advice given to the bride by her mother and other female relatives about the wedding night and the bride’s sexual duties. Of course, the culinary part of this wedding and all the social attitudes it comes with are also of great significance as it becomes yet another means at Vardalos’s disposal to highlight the plethora of differences between Toula’s Greek family and Ian’s American one. Such dissimilarities are witnessed first, in Toula’s in-laws house where they have a quiet

41 Rice, mince meat and spices wrapped in vine leaves. 42 Rice. 43 Pies with phyllo pastry. Pitou 51 candlelight dinner to get to know her followed by coffee and cheesecake. This comes in stark juxtaposition with the great feast the Portokalos family holds in order to meet Ian’s family. Instead of being a quiet dinner for the couple and their parents, all siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins are invited by Toula’s mother. The Miller family arrives and is startled by the sight; lambs are roasted on spits in the front yard, torches shoved in the ground are burning bright, Greek folk music is being played loudly, and more than twenty members of the Portokalos family are seen dancing to it. In this cornucopia of traditional Greek food and music, Ian’s mother brings an American kind of cake called “bundt” which confuses the

Greeks and further accentuates the dissimilitude between the Greek and the American parties of this union. As witnessed through the scenes mentioned above, Vardalos succeeds in doing something that Papanikolas opts to omit; firstly, she provides the audience with the opportunity to compare and contrast a mid-Western, middle-class, American family with a

Greek American one, and secondly, she demonstrates how the Greek Americans are seen and experienced by some Americans.44

Furthermore, in the first film’s pre-wedding feast the viewer encounters the famous

Greek hospitality. As Rouvelas argues, when it comes to the Greek culture, a bounteous food table is essential as it “suggests well-being and generosity” (183). More than that, it is believed that a guest should not leave a Greek residence with an empty stomach, just as they should not pay a visit with empty hands. This is also verified in Rain in the Valley where coffee and koulourakia are always present when a friend or relative comes over, a habit honored by the second generation, as well (142). Having something, however small or humble, to treat a guest to is so important that even during the Depression, the Demas’s households were equipped with traditional pastries “for name days, Easter, Christmas, and

44 Again, I am strictly referring to the films’ Greek Americans and Americans. Pitou 52

Day of the Virgin45 celebrations” (77). Moreover, according to Rouvelas, “guests are continually urged to eat and to take second helpings” (183) which can also be seen in My

Big Fat Greek Wedding. True to their homeland’s rules of hospitality and traditions associated with it, which are allegedly rooted in the myths about Ξένιος Δίας,46 Toula’s family sits the Millers, makes sure they are comfortable, offers them spanakopita 47meat and potatoes, and treats them to ouzo48 again and again. Each time they drink a shot of ouzo the

Greek Americans cheer “στην υγειά σας”49 and exclaim the very popular Greek “opa!”

Furthermore, it is made certain that the guests are always with a family member. In this case, aunt Voula is the one who assumes the task of constantly conversing with the Millers. In her attempt to keep them entertained and develop a sense of closeness, Voula resorts to an odd habit Greeks are (stereo)typically charged with. She starts sharing a very personal matter that has to do with her own medical history. After all, as Voula claims, the Millers “are family now” so it is vital to develop such bonding intimacy with them.

As seen from the above paragraph, there are customs and traditions created from habits which have been passed over by the past generations and whose meanings are not very clear. Yet, they are accepted as customs and the Greek Americans in the films abide by them. For instance, it used to be customary that all women of the family got dressed in the bride’s house, along with the paranyfakia/flower girls,50 whereas the men would go to the bridegroom’s house to get ready. This Greek “habit” seems to be as important as the

American one which considers the groom seeing the bride in her gown, before the wedding, to be a bad luck. Aunt Voula is very adamant about this tradition and is seen admonishing

Gus and Toula’s brother, Niko (Louis Mandylor), for still being in the bride’s house and not

45 August 15th when the Assumption of Virgin Mary is honored and celebrated. 46 Zeus Xenios: the God of hospitality (among else). 47 Spinach pie with phyllo pastry. 48 Traditional Greek drink made of grape juice and anise. In the Greek culture, these drinks are served as appetizers, food accompaniments, or as a welcome drink usually in short glasses. 49 It loosely translates as “may you have a healthy life.” 50 Explained in the first chapter. Pitou 53 in her husband’s, Takis (Gerry Mendicino). Right after that, all the women of the Portokalos family gather around the bride to do her make-up and hair, while her mother brings in the wedding gown, signifying once again that—as is the case in many other cultures—a Greek wedding is a family matter more than anything else.

Most of the Greek wedding traditions, however, are witnessed in the after-wedding party. Although several American customs are observed, such as the renting of the limo that picks up the bride and groom, or the renting of a reception hall for the glenti instead of it taking place in the bride’s house with food prepared by her own relatives, this second- generation, Greek-American wedding respects and maintains many of the Greek wedding traditions. As Toula informs, the name of the hall her family has rented is called

“Aphrodite’s Palace.” This hall accommodates Greek-American weddings and serves Greek food. In the first scene that shows the hall, the music played by the band is not Greek, proving once more that, even though it involves many Greek traditions, this wedding bears also many American characteristics. Yet, the American music poses a great juxtaposition with the rest of the scene which consists of a hectic crowd of Greek-American guests, most of them standing, greeting each other or clinking glasses filled with ouzo together. Later, the music stops in order to allow Gus to make a toast—in which he hilariously traces the root of his son-in-law’s surname, Miller, to the Greek word for apple—51 and offer his daughter and her husband a wedding gift. This is a very significant Greek tradition to which Gus and

Maria remain faithful and it may be considered a modernized52 version of the dowry custom.

When Toula’s parents hand her the deed to a house, Voula explains to the American in-laws:

“that’s what we do; the parents, they give a gift.” The sequence ends with the cast dancing

51 Μήλο (milo). 52 In the past, the dowry would be provided to the groom by the bride’s parents. However, it included towels, undergarments, carpets and sheets among else. In addition, in some regions of Greece such as Trikala, the bride’s dowry was exposed in her parental home the weeks before her wedding for everyone to see. Pitou 54 around in one of the most recognizable wedding songs in Greece; “ωραία που ‘ναι η νύφη

μας.”53

The occasion of a Greek-American wedding offers indeed a unique opportunity to study how the American reality has affected the customs and traditions brought from

Greece. Toula’s wedding shows that a great deal of customs and traditional habits survived the journey overseas and through the second generation, yet certain Americanisms can also be witnessed, as I have demonstrated earlier. In Rain in the Valley, a similar conclusion can be drawn by studying Bessie and Peggy’s weddings where—at least—the cultural traditions associated with food are honored. The women cook traditional dishes, same as at Soula’s wedding, such as dolmadhes,54 sweet bread, cheese and spinach pies, roasted lambs, and honey-and-nut pastries (131). In addition,

[t]he younger daughters made the koufeta, the wedding favors. For each one

they placed eleven Jordan almonds—the number had to be uneven for good

luck, their mothers said—on a square of white net, gathered it together, then

secured it with white ribbon tied in a bow. (131)

Although neither Rain in the Valley nor Vardalos’s films offer a glimpse into a third- generation Greek-American wedding, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 provides us with an equally interesting occasion. In this sequel, it is revealed that the priest who married Toula’s parents had not actually signed the necessary papers that would allow them to be formally married. Thus, they need to re-marry which results to witnessing a first-generation Greek-

American wedding where the bride and groom are more than seventy years old.

Even though I believe that Vardalos’s sequel lacks the qualities that made My Big

Fat Greek Wedding a world-acclaimed box-office success, when I watched it I realized that, through Gus and Maria’s wedding, it brings into question a subject that has generally been

53 Loosely translates to “how beautiful our bride looks.” 54 Explained earlier. Pitou 55 put to rest; that of the first generation’s assimilation. Research via surveys and various case studies, such as Scourby’s, and even works of immigrant literature focusing on Greek

Americans, such as the ones I use in this thesis, serve to indicate that the first generation was never completely Americanized. Their dual nationality, the native language they could not abandon, the traditions and mentalities they were raised with back in Greece, as well as the

Greek Orthodox faith made the process of assimilation—in most cases—unfeasible. That is a legitimate conclusion regarding the ethnic identity of the first-generation immigrants and it can very well be witnessed in Rain in the Valley where characters such as Rina, Katina, Pete,

Gus and Chris refuse to “abandon”55 their essential Greekness. Nevertheless, when talking about generations of immigrants it is occasionally imperative to place them temporally. It is very different to talk about the first generation of Greek Americans. Some of them are not alive anymore, such as those who emigrated from Greece during the years 1890 and 1922,56 and others have immigrated to the USA only recently. How about those who came around the mid-1960s, for instance, and constitute a first generation of Greek Americans, however?

Where do they stand in the process of assimilation/Americanization? Gus and Maria

Portokalos are such Greek Americans; they belong to the fourth period57 of Greek immigration to the USA. As witnessed in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Gus got married to

Maria in 1963, on the island of Mykonos, and, as it is implied by Maria later on in the film, they emmigrated to America soon after their wedding. Having lived at least until their adulthood58 in Greece, both Gus and Maria brought to America the mentalities of the culture they were raised in. They still speak Greek better than English, value their religious faith extremely highly, honor Greek traditions such as the ones associated with food, and believe

55 My emphasis. 56 The first—out of four, according to Georgakas— period of Greek immigration in the United States (“The Greeks in America” 6). 57 This period, according to Georgakas, extends from “1960 to the present” (“The Greeks in America” 6). Georgakas wrote this essay in 1982. 58 I am making some necessary speculations here as I lack other pieces of chronological information. Pitou 56 in the power of the family, the strongest pillar of Greek identity. All these beliefs of theirs are passed down to their children and grand-children. Nevertheless, that does not mean that they were untouched by the force of Americanization and that is proven through another big fat Greek wedding: theirs.

In the sequel which premiered in March 2016, Gus discovers that the priest who got him and Maria married neglected to actually sign the wedding document. As a result, he and

Maria are not legally married and this needs to be fixed by a second—this time valid— wedding ceremony. Although Gus thinks that this will easily be resolved by a simple ceremony, Maria thinks quite the opposite. Having experienced the American reality for more than fifty years, she expects things to be done accordingly, embracing all the

American-movie-inspired chichés. First, she wishes Gus to make a romantic proposal to her and then, after she accepts, she wants to organize her wedding in a way that does not resemble a traditional Greek wedding of the 1960s. She even hires a wedding planner—who quits after a while due to her client’s tasteless choices—picks a wedding cake and a limo.

Eventually, all of Maria’s wedding arrangements are conducted by the family, including the food preparation, and the after-wedding party turns out to be quite a traditional, blue and white backyard glenti, with Greek folk music playing, people dancing and drinking ouzo.

So, what is the degree of assimilation for Maria’s generation? Even though the Greek customs are honored at the end, the American mentality has definitely influenced Maria.

Does that mean that part of her has been Americanized? Possibly, and that is more than justifiable after spending most of her adult life in the States.

A wedding is indeed linked to the Greek customs and traditions. However, this is not the only religious occasion that can help one appreciate the strong bond between cultural traditions and ethnic identity. Not only did the various events of the Orthodox faith become the reasons why many of the Greek traditions were initially concocted, but they also constitute the very means that help the Greeks fathom those traditions, and by extent, a part Pitou 57 of their own identity. Once again, the food that accompanies religious holidays offers an excellent indication of culture and indeed “brings a renewed appreciation of tradition” as argued by Rouvelas (183). As she relates,

[d]uring Lent, fasolátha (bean soup) reminds one of sacrifice and restraint. At

Easter the traditional red eggs, Easter bread (tsouréki), a soup called

mayerítsa, and roasted lamb enhance the joy of the Resurrection of Christ.

Cracking red eggs symbolizes Christ’s emergence from the tomb. The cutting

of the New Year’s Vasilopita (bread for St. Basil) and finding the lucky coin

focuses everyone on the coming year. Eating and sharing kóllyva (boiled

wheat) following a memorial service for a departed loved one reinforces the

hope of afterlife. These special foods strengthen beloved Greek traditions.

(183)

Thus, each of these traditional courses has its own symbolism and tasting them, as well as learning and teaching the recipes to the next generation are of great significance, for they are part of the Greek ethnic identity. As a result, whether these customary dishes and habits surrounding them die or live on is inextricably connected with the Greek-American identity and its assimilation—if any.

Understandably, in order to preserve certain traditions and secure the Greek part of their ethnic identity from becoming Americanized, the Greek Americans made use of their most sacred institution; the family. In my opinion, the family and the bonds between its members number among the oldest customs of the Greek culture and they should certainly be considered some of the strongest ethno-cultural indices of Greek identity. The link between family and culture is also noticed by many theoreticians who attempted to define the notion of family, including Betty G. Farrell who recognized that families “are in no small part also constructed by cultural myths and social forces beyond any individual’s controls” (qtd. in Gatzouras 64). Thus, being a cultural construct—and a most essential one Pitou 58 within the spectrum of Greek culture—the institution of family has become for the Greek

Americans one of the most valuable vehicles of Greek tradition, customs, mores, and awareness of one’s ethnic identity. Indeed, Vicky Johnson Gatzouras, whose doctoral dissertation “Family Matters in Greek American Literature” deals extensively with the notion and importance of family, names family as a “[s]ite of [e]thnic [i[dentity [f]ormation”

(63). As a result, the level of assimilation of certain Greek Americans’ sense of ethnic identity is connected to the family they were raised in, just as much as the time and circumstances of that family’s immigration to the States.

In Rain in the Valley the issue of the family is an ever-present one and could even be considered a prominent thematic concern of the novel. Papanikolas expertly demonstrates both how the family becomes the crucial means which can assist in the survival of

Greekness in the United States, and how it can also be so discouraging that it may actually lead to the eclipse of Greek traditions and, consequently, identity transformation. The first generation of the novel’s Greek Americans is characterized by an obsession over anything that might destroy the carefully constructed environment of the Greek Town, where everything functions according to the unwritten rules of a Greek village; the father makes sure to provide for his family, the mother is in charge of the household and the children’s upbringing, the kids attend Greek school in the afternoon, the neighbors gossip about each other yet come together with a unique sense of solidarity when there is need, and all special days are celebrated the Greek way. There is absolutely no tolerance towards any such element of the American lifestyle that could possibly threaten this reality and lead to its alteration. Rina, a strong advocate of the prudery she was taught in her village, becomes hysterical when she witnesses the preposterous modernisms the western world offers and frets over the short skirts worn by women who drive cars and smoke in public (12). Of course, it is the potential dangers for her family’s morality that Rina is mostly afraid of.

However, Rina can also see the imminent danger of assimilation and this is why she dictates Pitou 59 that everybody, and especially the mothers, “would have to be more diligent about their children’s Greek school attendance and about teaching them the Greek ethoi and ethimata— customs and nationalism [sic]” (12) so that they would one day return to Greece unaltered.

True, the first generation of Demas tries its best to instill the love for Greece and its traditions in their children. Nevertheless, they are not successful and one reason why that happens is because of their own—unaware—acculturation into the American ways. Rina and

Katina may have frowned upon life outside the Greek Town’s barriers, for it was there, “in the good part of town” (12) where parties with loud music and plentiful alcohol took place, yet they eventually moved there themselves becoming more accustomed to the American reality. As part of this attempt to “fit in,”59 and rise in the social pyramid by disposing of their immigrant status, they even sacrifice some of their most characteristic traditions, masking this whole ordeal as a step closer to getting back to Greece:

The Demas family had left behind Greek Town’s mud-plastered outdoor

ovens, large gardens, and sheep pelts drying over wire fences. No longer did

Gus and Pete roast the Easter lamb in the backyard; it was not done in the

“good part of town.” Gus and Pete still made toasts to “Kali patridha,” the

good fatherland, perpetuating their wives’ notion that eventually they would

return to it. (75)

Understandably, living most of their adult lives in America changed the first generation of

Demas, as well. Although the Greek portion of their identity was still stronger than the

American one, Americanisms found a way to become a part of their lifestyle. In this respect, it is very interesting how most of them attempt to deny this fact by either harboring hopes— which deep down they realize are false—about a return to Greece, as Gus, Pete, Rina, and

59 My emphasis. Pitou 60

Katina do, or by guiltily hiding it altogether, like Chris, who supposedly hated his wife’s

“Mormon food” (139), yet secretly ate roast beef with gravy in an American diner (139).

Before discussing the Greek Americans’ association with social organizations which constitutes a most noteworthy branch of the ethno-cultural category, I would like to further examine the effect that the traditional Greek type of entertainment has on the Greek-

American identity, a matter that I briefly touched on earlier. A large portion of Greek

Americans emphasize their Greek heritage and even identify themselves with it through

Greek dance and music, rather than religion. Some of these areas of identification are problematic, though, according to Scourby, due to the fact that they are often deprived of their significance and ability to unify and solidify the Greek-American community:

Some Greek Americans identify ethnically with a popular fair [sic] of music,

dance and food, only to have it demeaned as trivial by others who impose a

hierarchy of values that alienates most of the population of Greek descent.

Since a pecking order functions to affirm one's own worth in most societies,

this need to rank groups from Brahmins to Untouchables should not strike us

as too unusual. It is true that the cultural app[u]rtenances that are deemed

trivial are, in and by themselves, meaningless. Yet, in the collective sharing

they are transformed from something profane to something sacred by

providing the esprit de corps so essential to a collective sense of belonging

and community. (44)

Indeed, there is no reason to diminish the value of cultural traits, such as music and cuisine, as means at the Greek Americans’ disposal to identify themselves ethnically. Besides, time goes by and so do the first and second generations; outmarriage has become the norm; the

Greek school is almost obsolete; less and less Greek Americans learn at a satisfying level the

Greek language. Yet, the customs and traditions—which constitute indices of ethnicity and which can be carried through food, dance and music—are more likely to survive. This is Pitou 61 because, nowadays, it is easier to search for a Greek folk song in the internet and find a part of your ethnic identity in it, than learn a structurally and phonetically demanding language such as Greek, or become a Greek Orthodox, without having been taught this language and faith at home.

When it comes to Greek music and dance, the same rules with Greek cuisine apply; there is always a deeper meaning, an essential symbolism to them. As Rouvelas supports,

“[f]or the Greeks the sounds and rhythms express their very essence: their dreams, sorrows, joys” (189). This is why there are so many different sounds and dances. The Greek traditional dances vary according to the occasion and the sentiments that need to be expressed. For instance, the dance which will be performed by two families who have just been united by marriage is a lot more different than the sad lament or moiroloi which is only meant to be listened to. The first will be a happy tune that celebrates the union of the two families who dance to it by holding each other’s hands, whereas the latter will be a low-key sound, usually performed by a clarinet expert, whose prowess may even result in tears by the audience. Of course, apart from the folk music and traditional dances, or else dimotika, there are also other major categories, such as the laika and rebetika, which are mostly accompanied by a bouzouki.60 There are principles that are applied in the last two categories, as well, and they mostly deal with the sentiment that needs to be expressed and the way in which each song can be danced.

As mentioned earlier in this paper while discussing the concept of the glenti, it becomes evident that the first generation of Greek Americans remains faithful to the Greek traditional entertainment and honor its principles. Gus Portokalos organizes a pre-wedding feast with the traditional sounds of the island he comes from. In Toula’s wedding reception tradition is honored in the last scene where the bride and groom’s families join hands and

60 A string instrument with either three or four courses. Pitou 62 dance together the kalamatianos.61 Moreover, this particular wedding party satisfies one more prerequisite for a good glenti the way Caraveli describes it; that of the figure of meraklis. Caraveli defines meraklides (the plural form of meraklis) as “[t]hose knowledgeable in the complex rules of the glenti and capable of experiencing and conveying true kefi” (264). She also refers to kefi as “a heightened form of experience” (263). More explicitly, the meraklis at hand is Takis, Gus’s brother, who presumably slaughtered the lambs for the pre-wedding feast, which gains him a kiss and a “bravo” from Maria. Indeed, the men who are generally in charge for the preparations regarding the lamb, which is the most important part of a traditional Greek feast, are viewed with high respect. Takis’s credentials as a meraklis though are also witnessed in the glenti after Toula and Ian’s wedding. When the folk dancing is about to commence, Toula says to her aunt “Theia62

Voula, we’re gonna dance!” to which Voula replies “I know, dear, let me get Taki” who is clearly some kind of a connoisseur of dancing and glentia.63 Nevertheless, it is not only an occasion such as a wedding that demands the accompaniment of traditional entertainment.

To this day, many Greeks listen to folk tunes and dance traditional dances when they celebrate Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday, while the lamb and kokoretsi64 are getting roasted on the spits. Faithful to that tradition, the Portokalos family celebrates the most important event in Greek Orthodox religion but with a few changes, as the celebrations take place on Saturday night right after the priest has announced that Christ has risen from the dead, while enjoying the mayeiritsa.65 In this glenti there is no clarinet, yet there is a

61 Traditional 12-steps dance originating from the region of Kalamata in Peloponnesus, Greece, from where it takes its name. 62 Aunt. 63 Plural form of glenti 64 A Greek delicacy consisted of the lamb’s offal and intestines, traditionally eaten on Easter Sunday. 65 Soup usually consisted of the lamb’s offal and intestines. Pitou 63 bouzouki player who plays various tunes including zeibekiko66 to whose sound the family’s members dance exclaiming the worldwide known stereotypical opa!.

When it comes to Rain in the Valley the first generation of Greek Americans similarly try to maintain the music and general entertainment traditions that are associated with various celebratory occasions, yet they are not that successful, as is shown in Soula’s wedding where they only manage to listen to one wedding song from their homeland (67).

In fact, most of the times there is mentioning of Greek music in the novel, it regards the feelings of nostalgia and homesickness rather than joy or desire to reach the stage of kefi.

For instance, when Chris hears some shearers singing, it reminds him of “his first years in the country and the songs the Greeks sung of homesickness in this ksenitia, this exile” (46).

Furthermore, when he is in low spirits, he listens to “[t]he folk songs of the revolutionary war against the Turks” with “the low tones of the clarinet, rising tortuously to a peak, presaged horror and death” (83). Later, when Chris dies of the unbelievable sadness that followed his son’s death, the feelings of nostalgia, homesickness and sorrow are once again connected to music. In Chris’s funeral many Greeks come to pay their respects. As

Papanikolas narrates,

[T]hey had not had to bury a patriotis67 since the first two decades of the

1900s when young village friends had died from coal falls, explosions, and

railroad accidents. They were men who had sat in the three Demas houses and

talked of their life in the villages, of festivals, and weddings, of gypsies

playing bagpipes, clarions, and drums—the daoulia—whose thud rolled from

the mountains to the valleys. They had talked of the early days in the new

country, about their miseries and hunger and yet also of barbecuing a lamb

66 A Greek folkdance which, according to tradition, is strictly performed by men in order to express negative feelings usually caused by love and life’s troubles. There are no predetermined rhythm or steps to the zeibekiko which means that the dancers make up their own movements on the spot based on their feelings and their dancing prowess. 67 Somebody from the same place of origin. Pitou 64

when they had a little money and, after eating their fill, singing the old songs

of the revolutionary klefts (135-6).

Regarding the generations following that of Chris’s however, apart from constant mention of the Greek cuisine which the second generation of Demas use their whole lives, there is no mention of traditional Greek entertainment in special occasions. Even when the family gathers on name days, they do not listen or dance to Greek music. Thus, music and dancing become another means through which the fading of Greek identity in the later generations of the novel’s Greek Americans manifests itself.

Finally, apart from cuisine and entertainment, there is also the issue of social and political organizations in the ethno-cultural category of indicators of ethnic identity. True, the Greeks have always been interested in politics and this fact is even satirized by some who infer that every Greek is a potential politician. Popular obsession with political and social affairs is mostly connected with the kafenion mentality. During the 20th century, the kafenion, coffeehouse, is a place where men gathered to drink coffee, or other beverages including alcohol, play cards or backgammon, and talk about politics and social issues. The first Greeks who travelled to the USA carried the institution of the kafenion with them. It had been very comforting for an immigrant from Greece to have a place where fellow

Greeks gathered after work. Every Greektown had its own kafenion, sometimes many more than one as the influx of Greek immigrants to the States grew. According to Georgakas, these coffeehouses were the heart of every Greek community in America (“The Greeks in

America” 16). Georgakas underscores the significance the kafenion held, especially for the

Greeks that had recently arrived to the States and did not know much about the new country or the English language:

Using the kafenion as headquarters, the few bilingual and literate Greeks

handled correspondence with the homeland and negotiations with new world

institutions. Here, a man could ask about employment and marriage Pitou 65

opportunities, enjoy a game of cards, and debate political issues. Many

kafenions had regional or political constituencies which were reflected in

names such as "The Peloponnesian," "Spartakos," and "The Constitution."

(16-7)

Thus, although not in Greece anymore, a large—and rather important—part of those Greeks’ identity was maintained.

At first, since most of the first generation Greeks in the States quite innocently believed that their xenitia would last only a couple of years, they remained attached to their homeland’s political affairs. Indicative of this attachment are the two most prominent Greek- language newspapers; the royalist Atlantis, founded in 1894 and the venizelist Ethnikos

Keryx, founded in 1915 (10). Even though both of these papers expressed views on the

American social and political reality, as well, they were mostly occupied with taking sides in

Greek political affairs such as the conflict between the King and Eleftherios Venizelos at the dawn of the 20th century, or the pre-civil war dispute between the self-exiled government in the Middle East during the German occupation in Greece and the leftist guerilla forces such as EAM-ELAS in the mainland (11). Nevertheless, when the fact that most of the Greeks in

America would remain there started to really sink in, there was the need for organization, social and political, in the American reality. Since, according to Georgakas, the majority of

Greek Americans during the first half of the 20th century belonged to the working class and worked for low wages (Greek-American Radicals: The Untold Story), the ideals of socialism—and later on Marxism—greatly affected their political orientation. Thus, the

Greeks were among the first to enroll in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union

“less than a year after it was founded in 1905” (“Greek-American Radicalism” 7). Also, fourteen years later, the Greeks “were among the founders of what became the Communist

Party-USA (CP)” (7). The Greeks became the spear of the labor movement, establishing Pitou 66 unions and fighting—even to their death, as is the case of Louis Tikas68—to defend their rights as workers and protect other laborers, as well.

Being a popular comedy, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 1 & 2 make no reference to any political or social organizations in America. Firstly, once again we need to bear in mind that the first generation of the Portokalos family arrived right before the 1970s, after the great political upheavals such as the New Deal or McCarthyism were put to rest, so it makes sense that no such affairs are touched upon, especially since most of the events in the movies take place in the 21st century. Secondly, the most obvious answer to the question why there is no reference to any political issue in Vardalos’s films is that they are—above all—romantic comedies. This is generally considered to be a “light”69 genre which revolves around a love affair the course of which, according to M. H. Abrams “does not run smooth, but overcomes all difficulties to end in a happy union” (28). Moreover, although Vardalos’s films are based on true facts, and they project very interesting Greek-American personae, they are also largely based on general stereotypes about an ethnic group which they satirize. Thus, the lack of any commentary on real political or social matters is understandable.

When it comes to Rain in the Valley, however, things are a lot different as it is written by a charismatic writer whose non-fiction work about the Greek Americans— especially the Mid-Western ones—speaks volumes. Thus, although Helen Papanikolas’s son, Zeese, has verified70 that Rain in the Valley is not autobiographical, his mother does make use of the valuable knowledge she procured in her research of the Greek Americans.

More explicitly, she incorporates in the story information about real events such as the strike of the United Mine Workers in 1922 (22) and a Cretan striker’s murder by a deputy sheriff

68 More information on Tikas can be found in Zeese Papanikolas’ pivotal work Buried Unsung: Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre (1991) about the Cretan miner who was murdered in cold blood during the miners’ strike in Luddlow, in April 1914. 69 My emphasis. 70 This piece of information was given to me through an email exchange I had with Mr. Papanikolas. I cite this information in the Works Cited section. Pitou 67

(24). She even mentions the miners’ strike in Ludlow in 1914, “where Louis Tikas, the

Greek leader, was riddled with militia bullets” (168). In addition, Papanikolas verifies that the Greeks were late in entering the American political field, for they cared more about

Greek politics; as she narrates, “a Cretan killed a Peloponnesian over Greek politics” (12).

Most importantly, however, in Rain in the Valley there are characters, such as Gus and Pete

Demas, who get involved in social politics. Gus bribes coffeehouse habitués and gets elected president of the church, a title that makes him boast and think that his village’s president would suffer from jealousy if he could witness Gus’s status in America (12). Moreover, when AHEPA71 and GAPA72 were organized, all of the Demas brothers join them. GAPA was more Greek-oriented, its main goal being to “perpetuate the Greek culture in America”

(51), and in its meetings the members would speak in Greek, and even roast lambs on spits

(51). Chris joined it as he preferred it to the AHEPA organization which was clearly more

Americanized due to the fact that it aimed at showing the Americans that the Greeks “were peaceful, patriotic citizens” (51). They would speak in English during their meeting and their attire would be proper to the American fashion (51). Chris, who feels that GAPA’s ideals express him more, joins the GAPAns along with Pete and Gus joins the AHEPAns where he gets elected president (52). Nevertheless, this is the only instance in the novel where these social organizations are mentioned. As the forces of assimilation start luring the later generations into the American reality, the inclination to get involved in such social organizations that remind them of their origin—including AHEPA—wanes, along with the desire to attend Greek school and use the Greek language, as analyzed in the previous chapter. Thus, the existence of this type of organizations is yet another tool that indicates the identity transformation from the first generation on.

71 American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association. 72 Greek American Progressive Association. Pitou 68

To conclude, it needs to be underscored that although cultural traits are often disregarded as not quite a valid indication of ethnic identification, they are extremely important in a discussion about people such as the Greeks. True, for most of the Greek

Americans—or the Americans of Greek descent—religion “remains the center of Greek life in America,” as Zeese Papanikolas has been so kind to inform me. Others, such as Petros

Moskos, seem to believe that the role of the church in defining the ethnic identity of the

Greek Americans has been greatly diminished. Whatever the case, we should not fail to stress the significance of cultural customs, traditions, ethnic cuisine and participation in social and political organization as means which demonstrate—thanks to their very magnitude in the Greek mentality—identity transformation and further assimilation as the number of generations increases. Once again, I am well aware that I am merely analyzing fiction here, yet I think that Rain in the Valley mirrors many Greek Americans’—or descendants of Greek immigrants’—lives in the USA. Outmarriage, lack of religiosity, and loss of the Greek language as there is no desire to attend Greek school, are some of the reasons why Greekness in the USA has been growing closer to extinction slowly, yet steadily. This is particularly true for the families whose first generation emigrated from

Greece during the first and second waves of immigration. Indeed, the more years they lived in America, the easier it became to lose their Greek identity. Even though there are cases where the Greek Orthodox Church remains a valuable constant in Greek-American life, cultural traditions do not fair so well, as they were the easiest to disregard. On the other hand, however, there are those Greek Americans—the post World War II ones—whose families have lived in the United States for years and have been able to hold on to the values and customs they brought from Greece, either due to the fact that they maintain a fresh memory of their homeland, or because technology assists them in keeping touch with it and everything it entails. Thus, even though My Big Fat Greek Family 1 & 2 may be judged as a source from which no serious conclusions can be drawn, it is imperative to bear in mind that Pitou 69 both films mirror some Greek Americans’ reality, even in the grossly exaggerated and stereotypical manner that reality is projected.

Pitou 70

Conclusion

The true measure of Greek[-]Americans is the immigrants

themselves. They came to America without knowing the

language and without education. They had their share of

rascals and more than their share of infighting, but on the

whole they worked incredibly hard. They raised solid

families in the new country and shouldered responsibilities

for those in the old. They brought Greek Orthodoxy to a

new world. They laid the basis for an enduring Greek-

American community. We shall never see the likes again.

(Charles C. Moskos qtd. in Greek Americans: Struggle and

Success, Preface to 3rd edition)

During my research about this essay I realized that it is extremely difficult to discuss the issue of assimilation in regards to the representations of Greek Americans in films and/or fiction. No identical conclusions could be reached that could successfully be applied to all the members of an ethnic group. This means that it is also extremely challenging to measure the transformation that the non-fictional Greek Americans’ cultural identity has undergone.

In the introduction I used Stuart Hall’s definition of cultural identity in which he linked the term with the past which manifests itself through the people’s memories and narratives among else (237). Assimilation and identity transformation are concepts which, to my mind, are also indirectly linked to the general concept of the past. More explicitly, they signify that the influence an individual’s past history has had on their identity is no longer strong enough to affect them. But can we suppose that there is only one past corresponding to a whole ethnic group? Moreover, should we expect that each and every member of that group values that past and responds to it in the same way? As the results of my research reveal, the answer to both of those questions is negative. Pitou 71

Nevertheless, I also realized that we can make some assumptions about each generation of Greek Americans more easily. As this thesis demonstrates, the first generation of Greek Americans in Rain in the Valley are strongly attached to their past and value their cultural heritage highly, considering it to be part of their own personal history. Having been born and raised in Greece, they resist assimilation and make strong efforts to ensure that the second generation will do the same. However, the second generation is obviously affected by the USA culture and steadily accommodates to the US socio-cultural reality. Although the second generation preserves a great deal of Greek customs—both ethno-religious and ethno-cultural—various factors including outmarriage gradually lead to that generation’s failure to instill Greek traditions into the third one. Ultimately, we are left with a sense of pessimism due to the fact that Greek cultural traits are lost in the third generation, rendering the process of assimilation73 complete.

On the other hand, scriptwriter Nia Vardalos projects a different view on Greek

America and its future. The first generation of the Portokalos family came to the States much later than the Demas. Thus, although the former resists assimilation, some of its members—especially the female ones—have accommodated the American reality. Placing importance on the preservation of the Greek language and the Greek Orthodox religion, the first generation manages to pass Greek values and customs to the second and third generation. Despite the fact that the promotion of the Greek lifestyle is met with some opposing reactions, at the end, there is a balance between the Greek and American parts of the characters’ identities, with no imminent risk of assimilation.

Both Rain in the Valley and the two My Big Fat Greek Wedding films were largely based on the experience Papanikolas and Vardalos respectively had as second-generation

Greek-Americans. However, Papanikolas’s family emigrated to the States much earlier than

73 According to my own definition of assimilation, which I provide in the Introduction. Pitou 72

Vardalos’s and that greatly affects her work. Indeed, as manifested in my thesis, there are notable differences between these women’s works regarding the representation of each generation of Greek Americans and the issue of assimilation. These differences are all the more underscored through the artistic form via which Papanikolas and Vardalos relate their stories. Indeed, by writing a novel that reminds the reader of a piece on ethnography,

Papanikolas presents her own view of Greek America’s evolution during the course of a century. That evolution ends with a rather gruesome realization: Greek America’s future is complete assimilation. Vardalos, on the other hand, employs popular culture and the film industry to present a Greek America which stands by its Greekness. Even though she lampoons certain ethnic stereotypes in order to induce laughter and satisfy her audience,

Vardalos manipulates comedy to show her rather optimistic point of view. Judging by the

Portokalos family and its third generation in particular, accommodation to the US life is performed in a way that does not threaten their Greek cultural identity and assimilation does not constitute an eminent threat.

Having analyzed the relation between customs and identity transformation in one novel and two films, and having reached to some rather intriguing conclusions, I believe that this research could be further expanded. Ideally, I would like to do the same research but among actual Greek-American families. In my opinion, customs and traditions constitute a vital part of our lives and identity as they reveal where we come from. Moreover, they also play a vital role when it comes to the future of Greek America. More explicitly, preserving the Greek cultural identity amidst the American reality could mean that there is hope. Hope that complete assimilation is not a threat yet. Bearing that in mind, it would be rather interesting to see how each generation of real Greek Americans accommodated the US culture. What Greek customs did they abandon and why? More particularly, I would like to focus on the third and fourth—in some cases—generations and find out what their relationship with Greek traditions and customs, in general, are. Needless to say, it would be Pitou 73 very challenging to write about real Greek Americans without being one. Another reason why this would be a demanding task is the fact that no conclusions, be they optimistic or pessimistic, can be applied to a whole generation because identity is indeed a fluid concept and there is a plethora of factors influencing it. Nevertheless, it is certainly worth delving deeper into such a subject both from an ethnographic and social perspective.

To sum up, one should be really careful when touching sensitive issues such as the assimilation of a whole ethnic group and complex constructs such as cultural identity. Since

I am not a Greek American I tried to touch upon those issues as carefully as possible, bearing in mind that I am not doing ethnographic research. When it comes to my primary sources, I believe that the conclusions of this thesis regarding the issue of assimilation in

Rain in the Valley and acculturation in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 1 & 2 are quite reasonable. I admire Helen Papanikolas and marvel at her work, both in fiction and ethnography. I understand that the pessimism her novel exudes was a reality to her. Indeed, as Zeese Papanikolas confessed to me “as far as the fading of Greek identity in the later generations that the book takes up – this is certainly true of our family.” Personally, it gives me great pleasure to also witness Vardalos’s take on Greek America as it makes me believe that there is hope for its future and that assimilation is not—and will not—be a reality for a great part of Greek Americans any time soon.

Pitou 74

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