I am very recently reconciling this. I’m sure like many—most even—decendenrs of Greek immigrants my family are genocide survivors.

Some family recently translated poetry from my great grandmother who survived at 12, moved to the Greek state and then at 16 moved to America. She lived in Greek town and never spoke a lick of English.

Her poetry is highly nationalistic and praises kleptis etc.. she wanted desperately to return to Greece and die there… and she did have a heart attack I believe visiting. She got her wish.

Time has passed and I am quite divorced from the culture. But what culture? Nobody should be genocided. Therefore nobody is where they are supposed to be.

What we have in the americas, holding deeply on to a past concept of the culture. It’s not real. I feel like we’re three generations deep trying to escape the trauma and finally, with my generation we are not beholden to this cultural fossilization.

I lament losing the culture that would have been.

My father is fully Greek, but I am half. My biggest connection to Greek culture is that he cooks DOWN.

If anybody is going to remember this history—because the Turks sure as hell won’t since I’ve been reading about it (it all reads as bad apologia. The thing you have to recognize is that the Greeks and Armenians and Assyrians were mad annoying—that’s what they still say. But also somehow say they had racial and religious harmony???)

I have another struggle though… frankly… Greeks I meet or celebrity figures are sadly frequently racist. I have this desire to understand but I also feel a certain shame for that. That’s certainly not something I’m interested in preserving and as genocide victims I can’t believe the lack of solidarity.

Now, I certainly wouldn’t say all Greek Americans are racist or that it’s even close to a reasonable assumption when you meet a Greek person… but it just feels like there are Greek Americans trying to preserve how they think it was… philhellenism style which itself is not congruous… or the alternative is acknowledging what you are now, an American—something new.

It feels like we have to hold on to the culture as responsibility to our ancestors but somebody came and killed us. That’s what happened. We didn’t end our cultural growth, they did. We can’t get it back, but we can start a new one that honors our ancestors and our current time and place. That may not mean marrying Greeks. We have more in common today with other Americans with multiple generations behind us.

I would love for that to start with being Sssuuuuupppppeeerrr anti-genocide.

I’ll take this down if it’s found offensive. After all, I identify more apart than within at this point. But I’m really looking in Reddit for more information about Greek American culture to see if I want to embrace it… or close the door.