Greek Diaspora
Understanding What Greek Americans Can Do for Greece
Written By: Alexandros
When I think of solving the problems that Greece has today, my solutions almost always include the capacity of the Greek Diaspora to help Greece return to its former economic, social, and cultural glory. Everyone knows the economic hardships affecting Greece right now. Chief among them is the Greek government’s allowance of foreign national corporations to buy up land, inflate the cost of living, and siphon profits back to their home countries.
Why Third Generation Greeks Have One Last Chance to Claim Their Heritage
Written By: Christophoros
If you’re a third generation Greek living in America, Canada, Australia or any other major hub of Hellenes worldwide, there’s a good chance you are still clinging onto your Greek heritage. That’s a good thing, but it must be said that those members of the Diaspora statistically have a very consequential decision to make: they can either repatriate themselves back to Greece, or let the forces of Western culture erase their children’s heritage, and the heritage of their children’s children.
What KTE’s Founders Learned Working at a Greek Restaurant in Greece
Written By: Christophoros
This summer my brother and I lived out the Greek American dream: we spent a season working for free at a Greek restaurant in Greece. Working in our homeland, a place our Pappou fled after WWII, was extremely eye-opening and one of the richest life experiences we have shared together. My brother Alexandros and I are open and honest about the fact that we are Greek Americans, not Greeks. However, like many Greek Americans, we crave a return to Greece and felt its call grow in the truest sense from everything we learned working at Medusa Milos, one of the best authentic restaurants in all of Greece.
Greece is my Medicine
Written By: Christophoros
Greece is my medicine. Many other Greeks living abroad know what I mean when I say this – I need to visit the homeland of my ancestors regularly to reconnect with the culture, language and spiritual traditions I have admired all my life. Diaspora Greeks are part of a uniquely split identity between the Greek heritage we treasure and the Western environment our relatives willingly sought out. Yes, my ancestors fled Greece after WWII in pursuit of greater economic promises, but now that those promises have been fully explored and American society has fundamentally changed for the worse, I crave a permanent return to Greece for myself and my future children.
How to (really) get your Greek Citizenship
Written By: Christophoros
Unlike the United States, where citizenship is assigned by birth in the country’s borders, Greek Citizenship is done by parentage. As far as the legal process goes, Greeks in the diaspora need to prove to the Greek government that they have an ancestor with Greek Citizenship. Greek Americans are now required to work their citizenship process through one of the eight General Consulates of the Hellenic Republic within the United States that they were born closest to.
Two Versions of Greece
Written By: Alexandros
There exists two distinct versions of Greece: the one imagined and lived by those in the diaspora, and the one imagined and lived by Greeks who remain, to this day, in the fatherland. The Greece that is imagined by the current population is one desperately trying to impersonate America and its neighbors. It is consumed by consumerism, it hastens to glorify American art, music, and its heroes, and it is becoming secular and modern in every way imaginable by the West.