Listening to the Next Generation >> Georgia

We’ve visited New York a few times, and I’ve gone to Houston many times. I’ve always wondered what it would be like if I had grown up in a community like that where you are surrounded by Greek people. I think I really would have enjoyed it and would have grown up a little differently. But I think my parents have done the best job they could have by having us learn Greek. They brought Greek experiences to us in so many ways that I don’t think we’ve missed out on anything.

Got Greek? interviews Georgia L. from Rice University

My parents both grew up in Greece. They went to the university in Thessaloniki, and both got their undergraduate degrees there. Then they came to America for their graduate degrees at Lehigh University. After that, my mom got her master’s degree in engineering, and my dad went for his postdoc at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. My sister was born there in Ithaca, New York. I was born in Albany, New York. When I was two, we moved to College Station, Texas because my dad got a job at Texas A&M University. I’ve been living in College Station ever since. Everyone else in my family is back in Greece.  So we usually visit every summer if we get a chance to.

Q: What was it like growing up in your house?

A: At home, we always spoke Greek. That was just part of our everyday thing.  My sister actually grew up learning just Greek. So when she went to kindergarten the first day, she didn’t know a word of English.  That was interesting.  It’s easy to transition when you’re young but not knowing English is hard. So with me, it was mixed English and Greek. At home, we always speak Greek. With friends, we spoke English. As we grew up through middle school and high school, we took Greek lessons. Our parents wanted us to learn to read and write. We used to get books in Greece and bring them here and work on grammar. When I was in high school, my dad asked one of his graduate students, who was Greek, if he would tutor us every week. So we did that. Then during my last three years of high school, I took the Greek language tests in Houston.

Q: Did you associate with the Greek community around your home?

A: It was difficult in College Station because it’s a small town. There’s not that big of a Greek community. The Greeks here I interacted with were mostly graduate students from Greece.  There was a decent number of students from Greece at A&M. So my parents got to know them pretty well. We would have gatherings at our house. That was a lot of fun. We would have Greek parties.  My dad really like to do that, along with Greek dancing. So that was one way I interacted with Greek people. Beyond that, in school, there were two students who were half Greek. Those are the only two I knew in middle school or high school. But they didn’t speak Greek like I did. There were never really students my age I could talk to in Greek. So around my friends who weren’t Greek, I had fun teaching them Greek words or making them food like baklava. I’ve always enjoyed sharing my Greek heritage with people around me.

Q: Did your friends growing up have a particular cultural background they identified with?

A: I wish there had been more students like me and grew up in a way that I did.  But where I lived, that really wasn’t the environment. I think most students I interacted with in my high school were from Texas. We had a large Hispanic population. I guess there weren’t that many Eastern Europeans, or students whose parents had come from somewhere else. That was one thing I kind of wish I had. In elementary and middle school, since there was not a Greek Orthodox church in College Station, we would go to the one in Houston. There are quite a few churches.  There’s one big one that we would go to every Sunday. Once my sister and I started high school, we didn’t have as much time to go to church. We started getting busy with sports and school activities…In our area, there was a Greek day school. I always thought it would be fun to go to a school where you can be around other Greek students, speak Greek and study the language. That was something I kind of wish I had the opportunity to do. When I was in high school, the friends I had appreciated world cultures in a sense. We all had fun sharing our backgrounds. But I was unable to meet that many people who had backgrounds like I did.

Q: Before we started the interview, you indicated you are a member of the Hellenic student association on your college campus. Is that something you sought out?

A: Yes. I definitely wanted to find other people who are Greek. I didn’t have an opportunity like that in high school. So that was something I went out and looked for. I enjoy the club. We have weekly lunches, which I always try a to make if I can. Being in college, I don’t go home every night or speak Greek with my parents as often as before. I don’t really get that much of a chance to practice speaking Greek. So those lunches are something I look forward to, speaking Greek with other people.  I want to add that choosing where to go to for university was a big decision for me because there were a lot of options. I was trying to see where I would fit in. Places like A&M and the University of Texas offered me really good scholarships because I had a good academic record. Whereas Rice is a private university and the tuition is much higher. But I ended up choosing to go to Rice for various reasons. One of them was because I wanted a new environment and a diverse cultural atmosphere, versus A&M where most of the people are from Texas. That’s one of the things I really enjoy about Rice is that I get to meet people from all over. My suite-mate is a foreign student from India. Two doors down, I have someone who grew up in Ecuador. Everyone I meet, at least 50% of people here, grew up outside of Texas. That’s one thing I really enjoy about Rice, being able to interact with all those students.

Q: Does your family return to Greece?

A: When we were young, we went every other summer.  We would go spend two weeks with my mom’s side, two weeks with my dad’s side. Then, the past few years, while we were still in high school, we started going every summer. I love going to Greece. It’s sad because this summer I’m not going to Greece, and I’m going somewhere else even though it’s a really cool place. It’s something I always look forward to. We always have really memorable experiences. My dad and his brother like to take us on adventures. We go to a lot of islands and beaches. But it’s a completely different culture. Going there, you kind of put yourself into a world that’s so different from America. I think part of that is that both my parents are from small towns, like farming towns. So when I visit my grandparents, it’s a whole new world. A very simple lifestyle. So that’s one thing I enjoy, being able to take time out and talk to people, have discussions over dinner and things like that. In general, I just have a lot of fun with Greek life and culture. Going to the city with friends and cousins. It’s just different and nice to have a change from the American lifestyle.

Q: What’s your relationship like with your grandparents in Greece?

A: It’s pretty good. It’s hard being so far away. For example, my dad’s mother lives with my uncle. They have a large apartment complex. She lives in one of the apartments. She cooks and helped raise my cousins. It’s something that I miss, and my parents probably miss more. My mom had to raise us alone. She didn’t have her mother next to her to come over whenever she needed to. We’ll usually call Greece on the weekends. So every Sunday was the day that we would call. We would pass around the phone. My parents would talk and then call me and my sister in to say a few words. At first, when we were younger, it was kind of something that we didn’t necessarily look forward to. Talking on the phone and being far away, you don’t really have much to say. So I think that was harder when we were younger. At least, I didn’t really appreciate it and I didn’t realize what it meant to my grandparents to talk to them on the phone and just do simple things like that. Now as I am older, when I’m at Rice, I’ll just call my grandmother on the weekend if I have some extra time. She really looks forward to it. She enjoys it. I’ve matured more, so I enjoy it too. I tell her about things I’m doing at school. She tells me about different things. She’ll joke that I talk to her more often than my cousins living near her. She tells me that she hears more from me than the others. Perhaps because they’re right there and don’t think about calling and visiting, whereas we have the distance. I want to keep that relationship going. It would’ve been nice to live in the same country or nearby. But I think visiting Greece will be something that my parents will always want to do, and I’ll always want to do. I hope when I have a family, we’ll be able to visit Greece and keep up with my family there.

Q: How do you feel when you are in Greece?

A: In a sense, I feel like it’s more that we’re just visiting. I don’t have a home in Greece or anything like that. So sometimes I feel like a visitor. But I love all my family in Greece. I’ve had such great times with my uncle and cousins. The first week we’re in Greece, my sister and I are rusty on the language. We kind of stick out as foreigners. But then after that, we get accustomed to the language. Since I’ve never had a home there, I can’t call it home like my parents can.

Q: Here in the United States, if somebody asks you about your cultural identity- do you use terms like Greek, Greek American, American with Greek roots, or nothing at all?

A: Definitely. That’s one of the things I’ll always look for on forms. When I was applying to universities, they always ask for ethnicity. Something I’ve always looked for, if I can check a box that says Greek. But it’s never there. I really enjoy sharing it with people because it’s something unique and not that many people in my area know people from Greece. It’s kind of a fun thing to share and a fun point of discussion and so forth. So if I introduce myself to a new group of people, or like when I had my roommate questionnaire form, they ask is there anything else you’d like to add. I put I’m Greek and I love it.

Q: In your room at college, do you have any objects you identify with your Greek heritage?

A: I have a few statues as decorations. My sister got me an owl, and I have a statue of Athena. One thing that I’m asking my parents to bring back from Greece this year is a map of Greece. I’d love to put one of those in my room.

Q: Do you listen to Greek music?

A: Yes. The last time I went to Greece, my cousin got me into this really cool band. It’s kind of a hip hop Greek band that I really like listening to. Of course, the classic songs. I can’t sing them verbatim like my parents can. But I know a few of the songs.

Q: Do you and your cousins keep up online at all with each other?

A: We do SKYPE occasionally. With the video conferencing, we do that with my uncle’s family and my father’s mother. That’s something she really enjoys. It’s obviously something new to her, video conferencing. We’ll do that. And with my cousins, we’ll get in touch with email and more recently, through Facebook. That’s been a lot of fun keeping up.

Q: My Big Fat Greek Wedding?

A: I thought it was hilarious. My whole family enjoyed watching it. It’s one of those movies we bought and we’ll go back to time and time again. For me, it was nice. I don’t think there had been a movie before that had been so popular and having Greek culture in it so strongly and that so many Americans saw. That was something I thought was wonderful. It was just unique to see the American population eat it up and love it so much. I thought the movie was a bit of an exaggeration. But it had some points that were true, and had some portrayal of Greek life that I could relate to. So I thought it was really neat that this movie could come out and that this is something I could talk about with my friends. A lot of times, this will come up in discussion if I say I’m Greek. People will ask me if I’ve seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I’ll laugh and say yes and that some of those things do happen. One thing I like to do is point out the one scene where the main male character says he’s vegetarian. I too am actually vegetarian. So in my family, we’ll always repeat the lines from the movie when he tells the Greek aunt he’s vegetarian and she says she’ll make lamb.

Q: Are there any characters in that movie that you personally can identify with? Or that you can relate to in your own family or in the community?

A: I think this idea about a Greek woman who finds someone to love, and then has this dilemma that he’s not Greek and can she marry him. That’s definitely something that I struggle with, and my sister, too. We’ve had family discussions and talked about dating. My sister had her first boyfriend in high school. My parents have never said that we have to marry a Greek or anything like that. But there’s been discussion about if he’s from America, how will he fit into our family? Because we are so strongly connected to our Greek culture. The ideal situation would be for me and my sister to find someone Greek. Then that would be easy and we wouldn’t have to worry about transition. But I guess in the movie, when you find someone that’s not Greek, you have to deal with it. As far as religion, Greek Orthodoxy has all these customs. And will the person you meet accept all these customs? In the movie, the main male character did go along and agree with it. But then maybe the person you meet doesn’t want to have a wedding in a Greek church. And so that’s something that definitely my sister and I are thinking about as we’re growing older and who we’re dating.

Q: Are there any ways when you haven’t felt connected to being Greek?

A: I think here in America, since I don’t really meet that many people around me who are Greek, I’ve always been the one to share what I know. So I’ve always been on that side of it. Even though I might have limited knowledge about certain things in Greek culture, I can still share those. One thing that I wish, and I assume other people might struggle with this, too, is the Sunday church liturgy. When the Gospel is read, it’s old Greek. That’s something I can never understand. It’s always frustrated me. How could it be so different from the Greek I know. It’s supposed to be similar. But I can’t understand any of it. Maybe that’s me. I care about languages and that intellectual aspect. That’s always frustrated me that I can’t understand what they’re saying in church…But in general, I can’t feel the same way about Greece like my cousin does, who lives there and has grown up there. Sometimes when we visit, I have that longing like I wish I could stay and spend the rest of my life there. Then, I always kind of think back to what is the life I lead in America, and the opportunities and so forth. You just have to find the balance. I guess the balance we have is visiting family in Greece over the summer and then coming back here.

Q: In terms of what you like about being there, what’s driving that?

A: I don’t think it’s just family. I think it’s culture. I would say lifestyle, more so. Greece is so beautiful and I love the climate because I’m an outdoors person. I love to go swimming, climbing and all these things. When we visit my uncle, everything is right there for you to enjoy and to take advantage of. I really enjoy the lifestyle. I might be saying something different if I lived in Greece for a few years. But from the experience I’ve had, I enjoy having the central platea [square] to go to and have coffee or dinner with your whole family. Everybody takes time to do that, and have a small walk. We can’t do that in College Station or Texas. That’s what I really enjoy about Greece. It’s the lifestyle and the different attitude people have there.

Q: For you, what does being Greek mean?

A:  I don’t know if there’s one way that I can define it. I guess I think of it as where my heritage is, and where my parents are from. I guess that’s where it all starts. That my parents grew up in Greece, had an upbringing there, and then they brought all that culture here. That’s how I’ve grown up. I’m Greek. I’ve grown up speaking the Greek language, eating Greek food, having Greek holidays and celebrating those traditions. So I think all those combined form the Greek culture and my image of what it is to be Greek. On a personal level, I see being Greek as being something different. Something that I can set myself apart from others in America. The interactions I’ve had, that’s been one of the things I’ve always been able to use to kind of show that I’m different. I guess one thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve also seen being Greek as the way I’ve been brought up. I have a different mindset than my peers. I see that a lot in the global perspectives I hold. But because I’m Greek and I’ve grown up here, I’m Greek American- I kind of share both worlds. I find myself to be more open-minded in that aspect than other people I’ve met. So that’s one thing I guess that’s been a positive, growing up with Greek culture and Greek lifestyle.

Q: Do you see yourself, after college, living elsewhere in the United States? And with respect to where there might be a larger Greek community?

A: I definitely see myself going somewhere outside of Texas. I want a new lifestyle and to meet new people. I’ve enjoyed growing up in College Station for most of my life. But I want to meet new people and see new things. I do want to move out. I think a lot of my plans are academically focused and career focused. I do want to pursue a career in engineering and get a PhD and probably work in academia. So be a professor somewhere. I think the decision that I make of where I will work will be based on that. But I think maybe my first job, I won’t consider the Greek community as much as maybe where I want to settle down with family. I would definitely want to be somewhere there is a Greek church nearby or there might be a Greek school, so my kids can have those experiences and have more than I had. I would want that for them.

Q: We have covered some different topics. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?

A: One story that comes to mind in terms realizing what my Greek heritage does for me and how I’m different because of it. I remember we would always speak Greek at home. My sister and I would speak Greek at home. Then at school with our friends, we would speak English. I remember at a certain point, maybe sixth grade, I kind of started being self-conscious about these things. Maybe this is when we also start to worry about the clothes we wear and how we dress and so forth. I remember that my mom one time said something to me in Greek in front of my friends, and I got really angry and upset. I told my mom not to do that. I hated her for speaking Greek in front of my friends. Then as I got older, she switched to English when she was talking to me. At that point, I got upset at her and told her to keep speaking Greek to me. So it bothered me when she changed. I think now I’ve kind of reached the point where I love everything about it. I want to share it as much as I can. Now I enjoy calling my grandmother on the phone and talking to her. Whereas before, that wasn’t something I enjoyed doing.

Q: Who’s to know, but if you had grown up in a large Greek community somewhere else in the United States, maybe you wouldn’t you have had those same experiences.

A: I think it really does make a difference. I’ve always thought about that. We’ve visited New York a few times, and I’ve gone to Houston many times. I’ve always wondered what it would be like if I had grown up in a community like that where you are surrounded by Greek people. I think I really would have enjoyed it and would have grown up a little differently. But I think my parents have done the best job they could have by having us learn Greek. They brought Greek experiences to us in so many ways that I don’t think we’ve missed out on anything.

Q: Thank you for your time.

A: I enjoyed it.