My America
/As presented to the Sweden Talent Show
August 5, 2022
What an amazing country this is! People have come to this land to make a country which is governed by the people, and for themselves. We came from the four corners of the planet for liberty and justice under the law. IF YOU KNOW WORLD HISTORY YOU CAN IMAGINE HOW NOVEL THE CONCEPT OF EQUALITY, AND equal OPPORTUNITY to make something of ourselves and to thrive really is. It’s huge, it’s novel, it’s uniquely American.
Until Greece and after, until America there were only emperors, kings and despots. I remember reading with disgust how in Byzantium men would get to the emperor and gouge his eyes out and kill him, then that person became the new emperor! Now contrast that with our duty as citizens to independently study the position of each candidate and vote. How civilized!
America is kind of a miracle. For me coming from ancestral Greece, I think the Real miracle is how the great philosophers, Aristotle, but mostly Socrates who Plato wrote about around 330 BC managed to be adopted by the people of this relatively barren land! How did that happen?! How did the concept of a democratic republic survive the centuries, 20 centuries, cross continents and the vast Atlantic Ocean that this eclectic group of people would try again, where Greece failed, to achieve such a way of government? All I can say is that It’s a miracle!
FDR really didn’t want us to even consider ourselves hyphenated, Greek-America, Italian-American, but after only one generation it’s hard not to be, because the duality is so strong. Yet, after a few generations and mixed marriages, the heritage fades, as it should because we are only one thing, Americans. FDR rather wanted us to be a melting pot, but I think we are rather a mosaic. Our different looks and skin color are beautiful, we don’t want to be the same. Look at the variety in nature, how boring it would be if all trees melted into one kind, or there were only bunny rabbits. Each ethnicity brings its talents, its strengths, … but we have this in common. We want to live free, have equal opportunities and most of all equal justice. We want to live under fair laws, that our elected representatives make, where truth always prevails over lies.
I want to tell you about the Greeks, my people. I am 100% pure Greek ethnicity . In 1400’s Byzantium fell to the Ottoman Turks after decades of Turks and Persians assaults, they finally succeeded. At first the conquerors were respectful of the Christian religion, but that didn’t last. They moved west and conquered Greece too. For 400 years 1454-1821, the Greeks were enslaved by the Turks, and forced to renounce their faith and become Muslim often at the risk of being killed, which is what happened. Where there had been over five million Orthodox Christian in Constantinople which was renamed Istanbul (a Greek word meaning in the City) the numbered dwindled to under 50. Just the way it was.
The Greeks eventually fought back and in 1821 Greece won its independence. But the Turkish menace has never abated. They took over Cyprus (at least half of it, and to this day Turkey bullies Greece and violates agreements encroaching on Greek airspace on a daily basis.)
All that to tell you why many Greeks came to America.
Greeks came to America to be free of Turkish oppression and to live the Greek ideal of a democratic republic.
We came on boats and most of us landed on Ellis Island, where we were processed. The American government made sure that we were free of disease, healthy and able to work. We had to have a sponsor, money, and we had to learn English. Every person admitted was identified, often Americanizing their name and placed on the path to citizenship, which required schooling to learn about our history and the English language.
Imagine how hard it was to learn English with the different alphabet, especially for homemakers who were busy taking care of their families. My grandfather got his citizenship first, and then my grandmother.
The Greek Orthodox church was the gathering place for the Greeks. After American school, all the Greek children went to Greek school for several more hours where they would learn the written language and the history and culture, in Greek.
The American society was not very welcoming, but they put up with us, and the youth tried hard to become Americanized.
Every one has a story. This is mine.
The first to come to America was my grandfather, Demetrios Saclis, who changed his last name to Petrides (son of Peter). He came through Ellis island in the early 1900’s. He spoke 5 languages and he had gone to the university. He was an avid reader. I used to sit next to him and read the easiest of his books, poetry, while he was reading the classics. At first, He worked to bring his 9 brothers and sisters and his parents over too. When war broke out in Greece, he went back to fight for his old country, but came back and lived in Philadelphia. Around the age of 40, Taki (his nick name) decided it was time to marry. A neighbor told him to go back to her island of Lesvos (now called Mytilene) and pick one of her 4 sisters. So he did!
My grandmother begged him to pick her because she hated having to pick olives in cold rainy January. (about the olive trees in Mytilene). So he did, they married and had 4 children. For me, his claim to fame was that while working as a waiter at the Mayflower Hotel in DC, he waited on Shirley Temple when she was a little girl. What a thrill!
The other side. My grandparents were both born in a village at the highest point of the island of Naxos. Called Apiranthos. They married and moved to Athens.
Then they emigrated to Canada with her parents. In Montreal they birthed several girls, three lived, and two boys. One boy came down with diphtheria, common at the time. The doctor made a house call and injected the sick boy with medicine and with the dirty needle injected the well boy, …to be safe. Both boys died within ten days of each other. They were left with three girls. They needed a fresh start. So they left the oldest girl with the grandparents. She was treated like a princess, sent to private school and did no work.
Sophia who was pregnant with the 4th girl and Emmanuel moved the family to Washington, DC where there was a community of Naxians.
Their fourth girl was born. And after much prayer they gave birth to my father, and his brother. A boy again! This was a big deal.
Unfortunately, when my dad was ten, and his brother 9, on George Washington birthday eve, my grandmother insisted on going across the street to the bakery and buy cupcakes to celebrate Washington’s Birthday. She won the argument and went and was struck by a drunken driver, leaving Emanuel with the 5 children. They went back to Canada and brought the eldest daughter back to come and raise the children, cook, clean, and do laundry. They gave her time to have a nervous breakdown, going from princess to Cinderella. And then she raised them all and cared for her father until he passed in 1970.
I went to Greece for the first time with my grandmother when I was 17. It was her first time back. We went to the village where she grew up and she had only one sister left there. No one spoke English at the time, so my Greek improved a lot!
Everyone has a story! I am proud of the story of my immigrant grandparents who came to America for the promise of freedom. Laws rather than arbitrary dictums from on high.
I LOVE America, and I love Sweden where at every meeting we pledge allegiance to the flag. What a beautiful and noble pledge it is. The Americana songs are also so rich and full of love for this country, America the Beautiful, Battle Hymn of the Republic, behind all these lyrics is the sense of pride and of struggle.
As I grew up and learned about the dark side of America, how we treated the Indians and Negro, the Japanese and Catholics, about slavery and Tammany Hall, it saddened me to have my idealistic bubble burst, but we can’t escape man’s quest for power over others, we can only manage within ourselves to uphold the American virtues that started this nation, that are enshrined in our Constitution based on Greek philosophy, the Democratic Republic, be honest, have faith, and above all have respect for people of different color, size, age, and different opinions. In the end, truth and justice will always win the day.
