Comparative study of Greek-Americans and African-Americans in the 1910s-1920s, a turning point for the US as Northern industrial cities welcomed a mass immigration both from within and outside national borders.
2. I) Background
African Americans
Greek immigrants
II) Ethnic institutions
The NAACP and the
AHEPA/GAPA
Ethnic newspapers
III) Occupation-related distribution
in Northern Cities
3. African Americans were more prey to racial
discrimination
Not same history in relation to the US
But
Greeks at the time were also considered as ‘swarthy’ or
‘Orientals’, if not black, and thus also knew some
discrimination
General anti-immigrant feeling from native whites and
‘old immigrants’ from Northwestern Europe
4. ‘Great Migration’ from 1910s to 1930s: 400.000 African
Americans moving to the North
De facto segregation ethnic enclaves: the ‘ghettos’
More possibility for action in the North, however this
did not extend necessarily to the whole of the black
population
5. Mass immigration to the US fromthe 1890s to the
1920s: 400.000 Greeks moving to the US
Bigotry in small towns regrouping in big cities
More opportunities than in Greece
Prevalence of Greek small businesses (like
restaurants): due to their experience of the market
economy back in Greece
6. National Association for the
Advancement of Colored
People, founded in 1909
In early 1910s, it opposed racial
segregation
It was also influential in
winning the right of African
Americans to serve as officers
in World War I
It opposed the lynching of
blacks throughout the United
States by educating the public
7. AHEPA: American Hellenic
Educational Progressive
Association.
Founded in 1922 by
assimilationist Greeks
It helped a lot in the
integration of Greeks into the
American society
8. GAPA: Greek American
Progressive Association
Founded in 1923 by traditionalist
Greeks, in response to the
AHEPA
Its aim: cultural retention, not to
lose the Greek cultural identity
9. Provide information about the new society
Keep contact with the home country
Provide information about the ethnic community and
the transitional phase between the two cultures
Interpret political, economic, social and cultural
developments according to a particular viewpoint
Articulate interests of the ethnic group vis-à-vis the
new and old societies
(-William Joyce)
10. The Chicago Defender:
Founded in 1905,
played a great role in
the Great Migration
by providing
advertising and
information on life in
Chicago and job
opportunities
11. The National Herald:
Founded in 1915, in response to The Atlantis royalist
political stance. It also provided advertising clearly
directed at Greek settlers.
12. African Americans helped whitening Greeks
Greek immigrants seemed to fare better than blacks in
the job market:
Their prejudices, even if existent, did not have the
same long-lasting or extensive consequences
They managed more successfuly to translate their
human capital into higher occupational status
Labor unions were more accepting of them than they
were of blacks
13. Enclave economy: relatively viable explanation – and it
is what saved Greeks more so than blacks
Blacks below ‘new’ Southeastern immigrants
below ‘old’ Northwestern immigrants below native
whites
Bernard Rosen’s study: 427 interviews among 6 ethnic
groups, of which Greeks and African Americans
Main obstacle for reaching the same social status still
seems to be race
14. Books
Joyce, William L. Editors and Ethnicity: A History of the Irish American
Press, 1848-1883 (Irish Americans), New York: Arno Press, 1976
Marks, Carole. Farewell – We're Good and Gone: The Great Black
Migration, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989
Rhodes, Leara D. The Ethnic Press: Shaping the American Dream, NY:
Peter Lang, 2010
Spear, Allan H. Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto 1890-1920,
Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1967
Xenides, J. P. The Greeks in America, New York: G.H. Doran Company,
1922
Documentary
The Journey: The Greek American Dream. Dir. Maria Iliou, 2007, 87 min
15. Articles
Gibney, Matthew J.; Hansen, Randall. Immigration and Asylum:
From 1900 to the Present, Volume 1/3, 2005
Kouvertaris, George A. “First and Second Generation Greeks in
Chicago: An Inquiry into their Stratification and Mobility
Pattern”, in International Review of Sociology, Vol. 1, No. 1 (March
1971)
Rosen, Bernard. “Race, Ethnicity, and the Achievement
Syndrome”, in American Sociological Review, 24 (February 1959)
Tolnay, Stewart E. “African Americans and Immigrants in
Northern Cities: The Effects of Relative Group Size on
Occupational Standing in 1920, in Social Forces, Vol. 80, No. 2
(Dec. 2001)
“The Ahepa and the Gapa (Editorial)", in Saloniki-Greek Press,
August 11, 1935
