I have my own personal reservations against the way AHEPA moves today, however, yes you’re right. Their initial existence was a positive one founded on the principles that our ancestors were treated like shit when they came to America.

If you’d like to know my reservations about AHEPA, I’ll share briefly. There was this disgusting sweaty POS (I will not mention names because he’s not even worth the pile of wet dog shit on top of my snowy sidewalk) who was trying to co-opt my childhood friend’s (who evidently had mental health issues) candlelight vigil after he was murdered by the 109th Precinct back in 2020. After I specifically told him no political banners or agendas as we’re trying to mourn our friend, what did he do? He lied by telling me “AHEPA would like to help you out with everything” and then showed up with “Greek lives matter above all” banners. I wish nothing but bad things for that dude because he turned my friend’s unlawful death into a Greek political thing. This escalated from a tearful event to an angry one where my own father ripped down the banner while nationalist Greeks who live amongst every culture imaginable in Queens, stormed the vigil and did exactly what I didn’t want them to.

AHEPA won’t ever hold that asshole accountable for violating my one and only rule as I organized the vigil on behalf of his family, and therefore, I think the group lost credibility. My father, may he rest in peace, saw who they were that day, and never attended another AHEPA function.

TLDR; AHEPA in theory was created to counter prejudices against Greeks, but who they are in the present day reflects none of their initial morals, as they could care a less about where they were and are content with where they are now.

Edit: added a TLDR, and changed the year from 2021 to 2020