Gerasimus Katsan
The Forgotten Half, or the Plight of the Twice Hyphenated

Last Spring I attended an event at the Consulate of Greece in Manhattan that celebrated the accomplishments of students learning the Greek language and participating actively in Greek culture. Afterwards, as I spoke with various attendees, an older gentleman shared his idea for the creation of a new, secular cultural center in Manhattan—one that was not run by the Archdiocese—that would be for the entire Greek American community, not just for Astorians or New Yorkers or church-goers, but a place that would attract interest and participation from Greek Americans across the country. Encouraged by my politely positive response to this idea, he continued by saying that it would be just for “real Greeks,” and that it would exclude all xenoi and people in “mixed marriages.” He noted the importance of keeping “our community” pure. At that point I felt obliged to inform him that I am in a mixed marriage, and, with probably more resentment in my voice than I intended, suggested that if we rely on old-fashioned ethnonationalist ideas such as “purity” to keep the Greek American community alive, it would soon disappear under the weight of its declining birth rate. Rather than pushing away people who wanted to possibly become part of a Greek American community, be it a religious parish or a secular community (paroikia), we should find ways to help them feel welcome and encourage them to learn about and take part in our culture. As I was saying this, the man turned his back on me and walked away shaking his head.

I am no stranger to this persistent attitude in Greek America. Because the Greek American community I grew up in during the 1970s and 80s was surrounded by a very different and dominant religious culture, it remained fairly tight-knit.¹ While on the one hand the community was a refuge to us, where we could enjoy, share and participate in our Greek heritage, often in what felt like active opposition to the dominant culture that felt so oppressive, on the other hand it could also feel quite suffocating and oppressive itself. There was a very real pressure to “stay in the community” when it came to matters of relationships. If you were a “good Greek boy” you had to find “a good Greek girl,” and vice versa. A relationship with a non-Greek was something your family might tolerate, but which could never be taken seriously—it had to be seen as a temporary “stage” or “sowing your wild oats”—eventually you would come to your senses. I am fully conscious that I write from my own male perspective, and I acknowledge—from my sister’s experience (and many other female relatives and friends)—that it was much different and much more difficult for young women, whose sexuality and relationships were much more heavily policed by parental control and social convention.

Our parents, and by extension the community at large, actively imposed the expectation that we would settle down and marry in the community and give them lots of grandkids, just as they had dutifully done in their own time. It was their hope for the future of the Greek community. This caused no end of angst for the young, because it placed them in an impossible situation. Where to meet and get to know Greeks of the opposite sex? The church and its various social functions were practically the only place where this could happen: at Sunday school, at GOYA events, in the dance group, at wedding receptions, at other community celebrations. All of this under the severe and heteronormative “Greek village” panopticon of the clergy, of our parents, relatives and the other adults around. If you should show the slightest interest in someone, there was instant trouble; the over-protective fathers and brothers might not like your unwelcome attention to their daughters and sisters; a mother might not like so-and-so’s daughter to “steal” her son. Gossip was rife, and one’s reputation as a “good” boy or girl could be sullied with the slighted impropriety. Harry Mark Petrakis (1987), that most astute observer of Greek America, illustrates these problems most poignantly in stories such as “Song of Rodanthe,” among many others. Looking back on it, I find it incredible that, given what seemed like such insurmountable odds, anyone got married within the community at all. Some of us did, but most of us didn’t.

The idea of intermarriage was always perceived as a threat to the community, one that might possibly take our youth away from us and destroy its ethnic character. If a young man was dating a non-Greek/non-Orthodox we would often hear admonitions such as “Don’t let her make you a Mormon!” (or a Catholic, or anything else she might have been.) According to estimates published by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, at the turn of the twenty-first century as many as two-thirds of marriages in the Church were “interfaith,” with the expectation that the trend would continue to increase (Joanides 2000).² These figures of necessity exclude marriages that take place outside of the Church, but the fact remains that more and more people of Greek heritage are choosing to make their lives, either within or outside of the Orthodox Church, with non-Greeks. Fr. Joanides highlights that one of the main issues is essentially that of Greek identity itself:

…when the Church–at any level–ignores the diverse social and religious milieu in which it is embedded, and instead espouses and promotes exclusivist, ethnocentric and nationalistic policies, this approach can potentially give intermarried couples the impression that the Church is irrelevant, insensitive, and out-of-step. Results also indicate that if Church leaders hope to effectively reach-out to intermarried couples and families, they must begin rethinking their position regarding ethnicity and culture.

Joanides offers solutions to help make those intermarried families feel accepted and part of the Orthodox community, some of his recommendations, such as reducing the use of Greek and increasing English in services. In fact, one could say that the Church has been largely successful in these efforts towards converts and members of intermarried families and has provided a space for acceptance of them within its parishes. Moreover, one might argue that it is one of the few institutions within Greek America to make its space open to intermarried people. From this perspective, it is perhaps easy to understand the gentleman who wanted to keep “our community” “pure.” The Church and the ethnic Greek community no longer seem indissoluble; once upon a time the Church had been the center of Greek America, now that it must make accommodations for non-Greeks and converts, where does the ethnically Greek portion find its expression? Naturally this continues within Church parishes centered around the Greek ethnic festivals, food, music programs etc. sponsored by Greek cultural societies. But where does this take place in the secular rather than the religious sphere?

One could point to the various topikoi syllogoi that create spaces outside the Church (although it is important to note that these are not antithetical to the Church in any way). A quick glance at the member organizations of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, for example, in fact exhibits a kind of “internal diversity” of Greek America based on local affiliations which are often geographically oriented (such as the Pan-Ikarian, the Cephalonian Association, or the Pontian Society), but also including organizations of professionals (the Hellenic Medical Society) and even local labor unions (the Greek Orthodox Council of Electrical Workers). While not excluding religious aspects, these secular spaces can be seen as offering an alternative to those presented by the Church. Often they cooperate within the larger community as, for example, through the annual Greek Independence Day parade on 5^th Avenue, which itself creates a temporary space for the celebration and expression of Greekness that can sometimes reify traditional notions of identity while also representing the community’s diversity.³ The associations also support other secular spaces, such as the Modern Greek Program and the Center for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at Queens College. As significant as these examples are, and while it is tempting to idealize how these secular spaces operate, what can be problematic about the topikoi syllogoi is that they typically act as exclusive clubs only for people who “qualify” for membership: limiting factors are based on not just ethnic identity, but local identity, which creates even more narrow definitions of Greekness. This is, of course, inevitable given the various segmented modalities of Greek identity that are operating here. That said, in my experience they are accepting of intermarried families when the Greek family member belongs to the particular regional identity. Ultimately these types of secular organizations offer only a partial solution to the question about where and how intermarried people can fit, particularly because they tend to insist on very specifically circumscribed ideas of who can be included.

If insist on “purity,” where does that leave the better than two-thirds of Greeks who have intermarried? What secular cultural institutions do we currently have that don’t alienate the children of intermarried families or create the othering of “half-Greeks” and the twice-hyphenated Greek-African-Americans, Greek-Latino-Americans, Greek-(white ethnic)-Americans, Greek-Asian-Americans? Naturally it is true that specific communities have addressed this problem in their own ways, some finding solutions to the question of inclusion and negotiating the boundaries of identity. There is a kind of arrogance in the insistence that to be a “real Greek” you must be only Greek and nothing else, and to gain acceptance you must put aside the other side of your identity. It also begs the question of who gets to decide who is a “real Greek” in the first place.⁴ Intermarried couples always have to negotiate this issue within their own families. Which culture will be dominant, which will be subordinate? Preferably a balance could be found between the two.

Often even the most well-meaning institutions insist that the other half of the ethnic equation be forgotten or suppressed. In the university program where I teach, I have always endeavored to present Greek language and culture in an inclusive way in order to attract and inspire students from all backgrounds, for we have never been able to rely solely on heritage learners to sustain enrollments, and, moreover, it fits the vision and the mission of a public institution that serves a very diverse population. University programs have a limited reach, of course; this problem plays out in the lives of the next generation long before they come to campus. How then can we encourage our children to accept and love their Greek heritage without forgetting or diminishing their other half? What is certain is that there is a Greek demographic that does not feel part of the existing structures of Greek America; it is a demographic that perhaps sees itself as cosmopolitan and multiethnic, and one that selectively chooses to engage in Greek culture along with its other dimensions of heterogeneity. As several Greek American educators suggest, we must endeavor to create spaces, either physical or virtual, that focus on teaching, experiencing and enhancing Greek culture in ways that can be meaningful to people of multiethnic backgrounds, can be inclusive, and which strive to cultivate the potential for interconnections and cross-cultural fertilization.

March 22, 2026

Gerasimus Katsan is Associate Professor of Modern Greek at Queens College, CUNY and Coordinator of the Modern Greek Program. He has formerly served as Chair of the Department of European Languages and Literatures and as the Director of the Center for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. He is the author of History and National Ideology in Greek Postmodernist Fiction, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (2013), and co-edited the volume Retelling the Past in Contemporary Greek Literature, Film and Popular Culture, Lexington (2019).

Works Cited

Anagnostou, Yiorgos. 2018. “The Greek Independence Day Parade: Ways of Seeing and Imagining.” Ergon: Greek/American & Diaspora Arts and Letters. May 1. https://ergon.scienzine.com/article/essays/ways-of-seeing-and-imagining.

–––––. 2022. “Greek America’s Diversity, After the Fact: What Comes Next?” Ergon: Greek/American & Diaspora Arts and Letters. August 29. https://ergon.scienzine.com/article/essays/greek-americas-diversity.

Joanides, Charles. [2000?]. “Key Challenges Intermarried Couples Encounter: A Brief Description.” Rev. Fr. Charles Joanides, Ph.D., LMFT. https://www.goarch.org/documents/32058/2576322/interfaithmarriage-keychallenges.pdf/f1267f0b-e688-4abe-b16b-fe724b6941d6?t=1447160951000 Accessed 12/30/2025.

Kehayes, Peter. 2012. “An Important Challenge for Greek Orthodox Christianity.” Orthodox Christian Laity – Greek Archdiocese of America. November 21. https://ocl.org/an-important-challenge-for-greek-orthodox-christianity/ Accessed 12/30/2025.

Malaspinas, Christos. 2025. “Μανώλης Βεληβασάκης: «Σκαρφαλώνοντας στις κορυφές του Κόσμου»” Pan Hellenic Post. December 8. https://www.panhellenicpost.com/2025/12/08/μανώλης-βεληβασάκης-σκαρφαλώνοντα/ Accessed 3/11/26.

Mellos, Dimitris. 2018. “New York City’s Greek Independence Day Parade: Seeing Beyond the Spectacle. Ergon: Greek/American & Diaspora Arts and Letters. April 29. https://ergon.scienzine.com/article/essays/seeing-beyond-the-spectacle Accessed 3/11/26.

Petrakis, Harry Mark. 1987. Collected Stories. Chicago: Lake View Press.

Notes

¹ Here I refer to Salt Lake City. It is important to point out that the conditions which have determined how the Greek American community seems to have operated there are due in large part to the historical predominance of the LDS Church and Mormon culture in Utah, and as such it can be seen as an exception within Greek America. My comments here reflect my own experience within that specific milieu and are not meant to posit Salt Lake as a model or template for Greek American communities at large. It is fair to say that in other Greek American contexts this perception of pressures from an outside culture may have been non-existent or had different effects altogether.

² By 2012 these figures were estimated to have risen to as much as 85% (see Kehayes 2012).

³ See Mellos (2018) and Anagnostou (2018).

⁴ Perhaps it is time to dispense with the antiquated romantic nationalist notions that continue to percolate in formulations of Greek American identity. In a recent interview, for example, author Manolis Velivasakis describes Greek America thus:

«…ο Ελληνισμός όχι μόνο θριαμβεύει στην Αμερική, αλλά μπορεί και στο μέλλον να θριαμβεύει περισσότερο. Είμαστε μια ξεχωριστή φυλή, τα πιο όμορφα πετραδάκια του ψηφιδωτού της Αμερικής, και πρέπει αυτό να το κρατήσουμε», είπε χαρακτηριστικά, προσθέτοντας πως οι νέοι «μπορούν με σκληρή δουλειά να κατακτήσουν τα όνειρά τους, χωρίς ποτέ να ξεχάσουν τις ρίζες τους».

“…Hellenism not only triumphs in America but can triumph even more in the future. We are a separate/remarkable race, the most beautiful pebbles in the mosaic of America, and we must keep it that way,” he said characteristically, adding that [Greek] youth “can capture their dreams with hard work, without ever forgetting their roots.” (Malaspinas, 2025, my translation.)

While I have no quibble with the notion of inspiring Greek youth to explore and remember their roots while they strive for success, I am troubled by the rhetoric of exceptionalism and racial superiority entrenched in such statements, particularly in relation to the twice-hyphenated children of intermarried people. There is nothing wrong, of course, with being proud of one’s Greek heritage. But the implied hierarchy created in statements such as the above is problematic if a young person of multiple heritages seeks to negotiate a balance between the two. When the one is perceived as “the best and the brightest” does that not tend to diminish the other?