Listening to the Next Generation >> Amalia

There’s a monstrously large Greek flag above my bed. Pretty much all of my pictures in my room are from Greece. I like to have pictures of my friends in Greece and my family. I don’t see them all the time and I would like to remember them. It’s a good motivation for working as hard as I do to go over in the summer and take a break.

Got Greek? interviews Amalia T. from the University of Michigan

My dad was born in Domokos, Greece, which is close to Lamia in central Greece and my mom was born in Velvento, which is close to Kozani in the northern part. They both emigrated to the United States in their 20s not knowing each other. They were introduced through a Greek family, got married and ended up in Michigan because that is where the jobs were. My dad is now an engineer for Detroit Edison and my mom is a middle school teacher in Livonia. They originally wanted to move back to Greece but they never ended up doing so. I have a younger brother. We were both raised speaking Greek and English.

Q: What was that experience like for you growing up in a Greek household?

A: It was pretty cool. I embraced it right away. I really loved going to Greece over the summer ever since I was little. My brother was a little bit harder to convince and I think he still is. But it is a big part of my life. I think that is why I have kept up with both the language and the culture into my adolescence and college years.

Q: As a child and teenager, were you involved in the Greek church, Greek school or any other organizations?

A: My mom was actually a Greek school teacher when I was much younger. So she forced me to go to Greek school. When I was in high school, I was always an executive officer for my church’s GOYA [Greek Orthodox Youth Association]. Other than that, I didn’t really get a chance to do the Greek summer camps or anything of that nature because I was always in Greece over the summer.

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

A: For the longest time, I was dividing my time between my mom’s village and my dad’s village. But my cousins who are seven to ten years older than me live in Athens. So when I got to high school, I got to spend a lot more time in Athens. My dad also built a house on the Aegean coast, still on the mainland of Greece, in Pylio. We try to spend about two weeks there every time we go. Recently I have been going to islands with some of my friends and trying to travel a little more to see Thessaloniki, Meteora and all the big landmarks in Greece. It is the best feeling in the world being in Greece. I wouldn’t do anything else over the summer than go to see my family. I have made so many close friends there that it almost feels a shame to be away from them for so long throughout the winter. I love being there. I love having the opportunity to practice the language, meet new people. I always learn something when I’m there.

Q: Do you ever think about wanting to live there or work there?

A: I have definitely thought about it. I don’t know that my degrees will necessarily get me the job that I want and the job that I am going to get if I stay in the United States. But I’m looking at internships for next summer to explore my options and I haven’t ruled it out yet. It would be nice.

Q: Talk about your involvement here with the University of Michigan Hellenic Student Association?

A: From my first couple weeks as a freshman at the university, I immediately sought out the Hellenic student association because I didn’t really have a lot of Greek American friends growing up in Farmington Hills, Michigan. But I met a lot of people through the Hellenic student  association. I really love having the ability to share my culture with people on campus, and not just Greeks but people who are friends with Greeks and people who are dating Greeks, and people who just love the culture for some reason. It has been really cool, and seeing the membership of the Hellenic student association grow has been very rewarding.

Q: As you are one of the club’s leaders, what are some of the challenges in terms of running the club?

A: I think one of the hardest things about being in a club like this is to kind of balance how much being friends with somebody influences your decisions in running an organization because the problem with us is that we are all really good friends. That is a really great thing but it is hard to get things done efficiently all the time. We’re dealing with it pretty well I think and we have definitely gotten a lot better about putting more influence into things such as academics and cultural activities and traditional activities, and not just our social events that always get the most attendance and always will. I think that is definitely a challenge we are still trying to overcome.

Q: Are there any things in the Greek community where you would like to see improvements?

A: I have always thought that the Greeks kind of lack a collective motivation to work for the common good. I think that Greek people are very self-motivated and they want to do the best for themselves and their families. But when it comes to us and the community, I think we can do a lot more to help each other.

Q: You mentioned before that you didn’t have a lot of Greek American friends growing up.  What was that experience like?

A: It was hard. I grew up in a predominantly Jewish area, and I also had a lot of friends who had a better financial situation at home than my family did— despite the fact that my parents are  well-educated. Some of my friends couldn’t understand why I didn’t have the ability to always go shopping with them or go on trips with them all the time. That was kind of hard for me to understand, too, when I was younger. The hardest thing to get over was that they didn’t like that I would be gone for most of the summer. They thought that I was going on vacation and couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t go on vacation with them. But I would spend two months in Greece, which wasn’t really a vacation— it was to see my family. I had to go a little bit farther to do that than everybody who lived around me. I don’t know if we ever reached an understanding about it. But it is definitely something that they thought was cool in the long run. They thought it was cool that I was so connected to my culture.

Q: What do you value about your Greek heritage?

A: I definitely think that other cultures share it, but I think because I was raised in a Greek household with parents who are immigrants, I was instilled with those family values and that family always comes first: you do anything for your family and friends come second. That is okay, and I agree with that to an extent. I still really care about my friends. But I definitely think that from my parents, I learned that first and then to get an education, strive for your goals and never sell yourself short.

Q: Were there ever moments that you felt your Greek heritage got in the way with your friends?

A: Oh yeah. My parents still don’t let me go to parties on New Year’s Eve. I have to be home at midnight to spend New Year’s with my parents, which is “really cool.” But that is one thing. I know that because my parents want me to do very well in school, they get mad sometimes. When I say that I am going to parties or doing something that is not academically-related, they are always going to question me. I think I have turned out okay anyway.

Q: In terms of relationships, and thinking about possibly having a life partner, where does the Greek thing fall for you?

A: I have thought about it a lot and I have never actually had a long-term relationship. I still think that I am kind of young for it. But my parents don’t really pressure me one way or another. I have a cousin 12 years older than me, and she married a non-Greek who has been very well received in our family. So I don’t think they would mind very much as long as I am happy. I don’t restrict myself to just dating Greeks. I find that I have a lot more in common with Greeks though, so right now I am dating a Greek guy and that is great.

Q: My Big Fat Greek Wedding?

A: It is a really old movie now. I thought it was hilarious. I can probably accurately quote the whole thing without watching it. My family is not like that. But I think it is funny. There are certain things in the movie that I just really clicked with. My dad uses rubbing alcohol all the time, kind of like the way the dad in the movie uses Windex all the time. My mom’s sister’s family is very much like that family with everybody in everybody’s business. There is no such thing as personal space. I have to say that my oldest cousin, the one who married a non-Greek, got the brunt of “stay true to your culture” and “don’t run around with non-Greeks” and things like that. Overall I thought the movie was funny, but I couldn’t really relate to it too much.

Q: In your room here at school, do you have any objects you associate with your Greek heritage?

A: There’s a monstrously large Greek flag above my bed. Pretty much all of my pictures in my room are from Greece. I like to have pictures of my friends in Greece and my family. I don’t see them all the time and I would like to remember them. It’s a good motivation for working as hard as I do here to go over in the summer and take a break.

Q: Do you keep in touch with your friends in Greece via the Internet?

A: I do. Technology has helped a lot. I remember when I was in middle school, I would write letters to all of my friends in Greece. It was really dorky because every three weeks I would get really excited to check the mail and find a letter from people. My grandparents don’t have computers or cell phones or anything like that, so we still talk on the phone. But it is a little harder to keep in touch with them but I try to call them whenever I go home.

Q: Do you keep up with current events in Greece?

A: I really like reading Greek newspapers because it’s not just about being informed, but expanding my vocabulary. That is something that my professors here have told me to work on. I feel very comfortable using the language but my vocabulary is limited to what I have learned growing up. There are a lot of new words out influenced by other countries and the fact that Greece is part of the European Union. So I am always surprised to see how much I can still learn even though I consider myself pretty proficient.

Q: Have you then taken some Greek related classes here?

A: I try to take one a semester. It is kind of a nice break from my math, econ and stats classes, which all kind of blend together. I had passed out of the 200 level Greek class, so I started out in 300 and I really loved my professor. It was his first year teaching at the University of Michigan and I thought he did a great job helping everybody learn, not just people like me— who spoke it already— but people who started at the university not even able to get a sentence out. His 302 class, which was second semester, was about the Aegean Islands. So I ended up learning a lot about the history and culture of the Aegean Islands. I also took Modern Greek culture and history with Professor Artemis Leontis and was amazed that Modern Greece even had a history. It probably has a denser history than the United States in the past 100 years. Right now, I am taking a class called Travels to Greece, which is outsiders’ perspectives of coming to Greece: what it’s like, why they came, how they felt about it. It is a nice diverse course load.

Q: Going forward in your life, how do you see yourself staying connected to your Greek heritage?

A: It is something I am really afraid of losing. I didn’t go last summer to Greece, and I thought it would be really hard. It was hard, but I wasn’t devastated like I thought I would be. I feel like that is going to be more and more the case as I grow up. But I really want my family and my kids to speak Greek. I want my family to be involved in the Greek Orthodox church. I want to be able to go to Greece even after my extended family and my grandparents pass on. Definitely I think that the fact that my dad has a house there and I am his first daughter— that is going to keep me connected and I am probably going to get it from him. That is an incentive to go, I hope.

Q: Thank you for the interview.

A: Thank you.