Do I Count?

Hi folks! I know this post is nearly two months late, and I really appreciate the patience. This post was written way back in September, but given its subject matter, it feels important now to remind everyone to stay engaged with what’s happening to Palestinians, however that engagement looks and feels sustainable to you. Decolonization requires all of us. From the river to the sea.

There are remarkably limited opportunities to learn modern greek. The Greek Orthodox Church near where I live, for a variety of unconfirmed though explicable reasons, isn’t currently offering any classes, so all I’ve got is a weirdly murderous green owl app that has taught me the words for avocado and museum and naught else, and a book from the 70s that I absconded with from home. The book says it comes with cassette tapes for speaking and listening practice, but of course, the cassettes are gone, and a cursory internet search yielded jacksquat. Even if I had them I wouldn’t be able to play them as I don’t have a cassette player. 

My dad used to take greek lessons, and my papou (grandfather) used to speak greek fluently, but he was too sick with Parkinson’s by the time I was born for me to really build any kind of relationship with him. The first time I visited my pro-papou’s grave (great grandfather), I couldn’t even recognize the gravestone, because it read Apostolopoulos. Apparently my papou changed it to Apostle when my dad was born because, according to the latter, “it’s hard for kids to learn to spell that.” This answer never satisfied me, but I’ve never gotten a different one. It does seem notable to me that this change occurred in ‘69, with the far-right Greek junta in the middle of its regime which was rumored to be supported by the United States/CIA. But this is less an answer than a potential influence, a zeitgeist. If I had cared enough when I was twelve about this kind of stuff, I would have asked my papou what the deal was, but as it stands, I was too hurt by the fact that he couldn’t remember who I was, you know, because of the Parkinson’s. We were strangers to each other, and I didn’t like watching this stranger suffer in hospice. Maybe I’ll visit his grave one day to apologize for being too afraid to attend his funeral. 

So on the deeply personal side of things, my connections to this culture are fraught, and I feel like maybe my family just let it happen even if that may not be strictly true. But then to further complicate it, the Western world absolutely loses its mind over Greek antiquity in a way that just obliterates any nuanced or complex reality of people living their lives, ancient and modern. How many poli-sci scholars have pontificated about the United States’ inheritance of the great experiment of democracy with such bluster as if it were their own actual history? How many bogus laws let the British keep the Parthenon Marbles for the sake of global heritage because Greece allegedly can’t take care of them? (Note: Put a pin in that! We’ll talk all about them when I visit the Acropolis Museum). How many times did I hear in my required Latin class in middle school (middle school! What kind of fucked up place does that?) That the “Romans took what the Greeks did and made it better”? And all of this is to say nothing of the very real and very bold white supremacists who see blanched statues and take them at face value. 

Any kind of long term in depth interaction I’ve had with Greek culture has been through an imperialist western framework that has pilfered what it liked and denigrated what it couldn’t. The small things I’ve done with my family feel like they can’t compare, not really. I’ve played tsougrisma a couple of times, and still say Christos anesti for Orthodox Easter, but I’ve never been to a resurrection service. I eat baklava for Christmas and make galaktoboureko when I get the taste for it. I’m a stickler for pronouncing gyro correctly first, and saying it wrong second. I know my papou came from Corinth. All of this seems more an interesting patina then a real lived culture. 

But! But but BUT! To some extent this only upsets me because I chose to care. I don’t have to and my life could continue with no real deleterious effects. Maybe a hundred odd years ago white America wasn’t too keen on Greek immigrants, but that’s hardly a unique experience, and my family has assimilated into whiteness just fine. The little that I do know about my family’s heritage is still leagues greater than some will ever get to know. 

I have a stupid green bird app and a book sans cassettes. Why doesn’t it feel like enough? I’m not sure I have any comfortable conclusions yet. But the Greece trip is less than a day away and I need to figure out a good gift for my host family. 

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