American Folklife Center, Library of Congress Ethnic ...
Transcript of American Folklife Center, Library of Congress Ethnic ...
American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools Folklife Project (AFC 1993/001)
afc 1993001 13 006
Lebanese and Greek - Final Reports
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
AMERICAN FOLKLIFE CENTER
PROJECT ON ETHNIC HERITAGE AND LANGUAGE SCHOOLS IN AMERICA
Greek School
Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral
Birmingham, Alabama
Lebanese Arabic School
St. Elias Maronite Catholic Church
Birmingham, Alabama
FINAL REPORT
Nancy Faires Conklin/Brenda McCallum
The University of Alabama
23 July 1982
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Methodology
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3
Parish Histories
History of Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral. . •11
History of St. Elias Maronite Catholic Church 22
Language School Histories
History of Holy Trinity, Holy Cross, and Holy Trinity-Holy
Cross Greek Schools 28
History of St. Elias Arabic School 37
Ethnic Maintenance
Institutionalized Education
The Greeks 45
The Lebanese 57
Other Forms of Education 68
The Southern Experience 77
Recommendations 84
Appendices
Appendix A: Bibliographies
A-i: General Bibliography
A-2: Greek Bibliography
A-3: Lebanese Bibliography
A-4: Birmingham/Southeast Region Bibliography
Appendix B: Informants
B-i: Informant Lists
B-2: Key Contributor Forms
Appendix C: Interviews
C-i: Tape Inventory
C-2: Tape Logs
C-3: Fieldnotes
Appendix D: Photography
D-l: Photo/Slide Inventory
D-2: Logs of Contact Sheets D-3: Slides
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Appendix E: Materials Distributed by Fieldworkers
E-l: Description of the Project and Interviews, Letter to Priests
E-2: Interview Follow-up Letter
E-3: Questionnaire on Ethnic Maintenance
E-4: Project Description to Appear in the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross
75th Anniversary Yearbook
Appendix F: Supplementary Materials
F-l: Greek Materials
F-2: Lebanese Materials
Conk lin/McCallum--3
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METHODOLOGY
This report incorporates our findings about two ethnic communities in Bir-
mingham, Alabama. The Deep South region is generally thought of as primarily
rural and almost exclusively populated by Anglo-Americans and Afro-Americans.
In fact, there are a number of highly urbanized areas; Birmingham is the "Pitts-
burgh of the South", a center for mining, steelmaking, and metal refining. And,
throughout the small town as well as urban South, sizable and culturally-reten-
tive white ethnic communities can be found. In the cases of the two groups we
studied--Greeks and Lebanese--the Birmingham communities are the largest in the
state, but their relatives, potential marriage partners, and ethnic social net-
works are located in smaller towns and other cities across Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. This report will address the two communi-
ties primarily as autonomous social structures. We will, however, attempt to
characterize our observations about the similiarities in the ethnic experience
in the Deep South and the parallel responses that this social milieu has evoked
in terms of ethnic maintenance strategies.
The Greek community studied here is the congregation of Holy Trinity-Holy
Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral in downtown Birmingham. Although some Greeks
attend the local Eastern Rite Catholic churches and other Orthodox churches,
Holy Trinity-Holy Cross is the obvious cultural and reliqious center for the
area's Greeks and Greek Americans.
The fieldworkers selected St. Elias Maronite Catholic Church as the site
for the study of ethnic heritage and language education in the Lebanese com-
munity. St. Elias is one of two Eastern Rite Catholic churches in the city to
which Lebanese belong. The other is St. George Melkite Greek Catholic Chur Th.
Both were founded by immigrant Lebanese. The congrecation at St. George w
Conklin/ cCal1um--4
not included in this study due in part to time restrictions, but also to the
highly mixed ethnic composition of its membership--Lebanese, Greek, Palestin-
ian, and Syrian, led currently by an ethnically Greek priest. While Lebanese
from both churches are active in local Lebanese cultural life, efforts toward
institutionalization of ethnic education have been centered at predominantly-
_-
Initial contacts in the Lreek cominuna ty were securec from Fr. fmanuei
Vasilakis, priest at Holy Trinity-Holy Cross, and at St. Elias through t:
parish priest, Fr. Richard Saad. Each offered his own observations on t
ethnic education efforts in his parish, and further offered us free use
the church library and further contacts among parishioners who have been
directly involved in or are supportive of language and ethnic education.
Vasilakis arranged many of the interviews for us personally; Fr. Saad gave
a list of contacts and made known his approval of our work. (See Appendix B-
1 for lists of informants.)
The fieldworkers also met with Karen Roleri, interviewer for the Greek and
Lebanese communities on the NEH-funded "BirmingFind" local history project.
Although Ms. Rolen had not explored education in her study of the city's Greeks
and Lebanese, she did provide a supplementary list of older ethnic-community
activists and some insights into the composition of the communities. (The
"BirmingFind" reports are attached in Appendix F.)
All interviews more extensive than casual, drop-in conversation were tape-
recorded and have been indexed and their more important or pertinent sections
transcribed. (See Appendix C.) The fieldworkers also took auxiliary notes
during the interviews, especially when visual materials were presented by the
informants. Field notes from unrecorded interviews are attached in Appendix
41
Fr. Emanuel Vasilakis, Holy Trinity-Holy Cross, Dean and parish priest,
appointed two years ago. He is a native of Ambridge, Pennsylvania's Greek community and is a fluent Greek/English bilingual. He and his
family came to Birmingham from a parish in Ft. Pierce, Florida.
Although he attended Greek School as a child, he has permitted his son to drop out of language classes.
Sharon Worrell, a non-Greek convert from Roman Catholicism, attracted by
the ritualism of Orthodoxy. She has not attended Greek classe been encouraged to do so. sh
Married to a man 20 years her sen-ior, sllf,� Callie to Birmingham 3 years
ago with her husband and 14- and 12-year-old daughters. She and her children attend Greek School classes and she and her husband are mem-bers of the Parish Council.
5I f 1Uuw
Josie Graphos, a nor.-Greek who converted from Methodism to Greek Ortho-
doxy 11 years after her marriage to a member of a large local Greek
family. She is an advocate of splitting the parish into two church.-
es, one to serve "imports" and one for Americanized Greeks.
Georgia Kampaki4s, a second-generation Greek American raised in Charleston,
South Carolina, where she attended Greek School daily as a child.
She moved to Birmingham 24 years ago. She has two Greek-born adopted
children, and is presently Philoptochos president.
Janice Mastoras, a non-Greek married to a Birmingham second-generation
Greek American. She is converted to Orthodoxy, but apparently has
ties to St. George Melkite as well. Her two daughters attended
Greek School in the mid-60s/early-70s. She works on the Greek
Bazaar and other women's activities.
Maude Morgan, a second-generation Greek American from Fairfield, Alabama,
wife of an immigrant from Hydra who was a restauranteur and whole-
sale produce salesman. She attended Greek School at Holy Trinity
throughout her youth; her sons, now adults, also attended. Active
in Philoptochos, Sunday school teaching, choir, and women's activi-
Tasia Fifles, born in Birmingham to Chris and Christine Grammas (see
below). A second-generation American, she grew up in a Greek-speak-
ing home and attended Greek school in the 1940s. However she has
not sent her own children, much to their and her regret.
Themis Kanellopoulos, a young Greek engineer who migrated to the United
States in 1975. In 1979 he came to Birmingham and teaches Saturday
Greek School classes. He himself was raised trilingually in Greek,
English, and French; his classes stress conversation, Greek history,
and classical literature. Married to Sherre Kannellopoulos (see
Sheree Kannellopoulos, born in Jersey City and raised in Florida. She
is ethnically Greek, but was not in a Greek or Orthodox community
as a child. Her family retained Greek foodways and selected customs,
but no Greek language. She married Themis Kanellopoulos in 1980 and
moved to Birmingham as a marketing representative for data process-
ing products and attends the Saturday Greek School classes.
C. W. Jovaras, a second-generation Greek American from Richmond, Virginia,
whose mothers's family came from Tarpon Springs, Florida's..Greek com-
munity. Only Greek was spoken in his home; he had difficulties in
primary school because of his poor English skills. He attended Uni-
versity of Alabama/Birmingham to earn an engineering degree, but
minored in Classical Greek. Married to Nichi Jovaras (see below);
their two daughters have attended Greek School.
Jovaras, who immigrated to Hopewell, Virginia at age 11. She is a
computer technician and wife of C. W. Jovaras (see above). She
taught Greek classes in her home and has expanded this effort to
teach weekday evening classes at Holy Trinity-Holy Cross, where she
stresses the Greek alphabet, and practical reading, writing, and
speaking skills.
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Alexandra Bonduris, born in Jefferson County, Alabama, in 1913, has
lived in the Birmingham area all her life. She attended Holy Trin-
ity Greek School under various teachers. She is a retired sales clerk and wife of the founder of a famous Greek restaurant in Bes-
semer, Alabama, the Bright Star. She is active in women's church work, Philoptochos, and the Knit-Chat-Chew group, elder women who socialize over sewing, mostly in English, but some in Greek. A fluent Greek speaker. Sister of Christine Grarninas (see below); mem-ber of a founding Greek family, the Derzis.
Christine Grammas, sister of Alexandra Bonduris, the eldest of the Derzis daughters. Born in 1909, two years after her parents immigrated.
Her father operated a fruit stand opposite the rail station and helped found Holy Trinity. Attended Greek School 1916-22 under the
respected teacher Fr. Nicholas Lambrinides. Active in church activ-
ities with her sister. Wife of an immigrant Greek and mother of Tasia Fifles (see above).
Further information on the informants can be found in Appendix B.
Interviews with the Lebanese informants were arranged by us and took
place in their homes, with the exception of James Mezrano, who was interview
at his place of business, an interior decorating shop in Mountain Br(
bama. The following sketches briefly describe the informants; more
tion is given in Appendix B.
Fr. Richard Saad, pastor of St. Elias since 1972; this is his first par-
ish. He is Lebanese-American, son of an immigrant father and a sec-
ond-generation American mother. He grew up in the large Detroit Lebanese community, but does not speak Arabic fluently. He does, however, understand a considerable amount, and speaks well enough to communicate at--in his words--a "superficial" level with Arabic-speaking parishioners. He is the first American-born or American-
trained priest at St. Elias. He does not favor opening a parochial all-day school at St. Elias.
Josephine Wehby Sharbel, daughter of the founder and first teacher of the
St. Elias Arabic School. She is 78, the daughter of immigrants, and has spent most of her life in Birmingham. Her father was a peddlar;
her mother ran a fine lace and linens shop. Widow of a member of a leading Birmingham Lebanese family, her children all live in Bir-mingham and attend St. Elias. She is a fluent speaker of Arabic.
Elizabeth Boohaker, former secretary at St. Elias under Fr. Abi-Chedid and member of one of the founding families of the Birmingham com-
munity. She was born in Birmingham in 1913, but lived two years (1925-27) in Lebanon, when her father attempted to return permanently to farming in his native village. Her father died en route to
Lebanon in 1937 and she took her mother to his grave after World War
II. She has made several visits to Lebanon. She is unmarried and
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nities in the United States and Canada. We especially researched the history
of immigrant communities in the Southeast region. These materials are listed
in the bibliographies, Appendix A.
The "Key Contributor Forms" provided by the project were mailed as a fol-
low-up to the interview, accompanied by :a thank-you letter and a "Questionnaire
on Ethnic Maintenance" devised by the fieldworkers. The questionnaire was
designed to reflect the information we received in our early interviews and
survey the informants ' ability to isolate and report components of languag
and culture which their communities might choose to retain, and to ascerta.
the differing values they might place on these various factors in a series of
different cultural settings. A sample of the questionnaire is included in
Appendix C.
In the course of our work with these Greeks and Lebanese we observed that
they do not clearly differentiate formal from informal education. Rather, edu-
cation in the home is seen as requiring education in the church as a necessary
supplement, especially for the Americanized and non-Greek- or non-Arabic-speak-
ing, but highly ethnically conscious, parents. Parents, elders, the parish
priest, Sunday school teachers, and Greek/Arabic school teachers are all
jointly responsible for cultural education of the younger Greek and Lebanese
Americans. Further, they do not draw a distinction between language mainte-
nance, religious maintenance, and cultural maintenance. Most do not wish to
rank one above the others. Our interviewees' responses to questions about
education might be answered with the need for Greek or Arabic classes, for
catechism training (especially by the Maronites), or ethnic dance, food, or
song celebrations.
Thus this report encompasses not only formal but informal education, and
the teaching of not just language, but religious tradition and cultural hen -
Conklin/McCallum--10
tage. It attempts to characterize the continuum of cultural retention activi-
ties carried out in the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross and St. Elias schools, in the
Greek and Lebanese homes, and in the various activities of church and commu-
nity social organizations.
Our findings are organized under three main headings. "Historical Back-
ground" outlines, first, the histories of the parishes and, second, the his-
tories of the language schools, describing the format, content, and pedagogy
they have evolved since their founding. The four sections under "Ethnic
Maintenance" evaluate these communities' ethnic maintenance struggles and docu-
ment and analyze our informants' attitudes concerning language and heritage
education. This section is based directly on our interviews and cites exten-
sively from the tape transcripts and our fieldnotes. The final "Recommenda-
tions" essay critiques the project and our own work and poses further questions
for research on these and other ethnic educational institutions and ethnic com-
munities.
This research was carried out by both fieldworkers in complete collabora-
tion. Likewise this report is jointly authored. However, Conklin, a socio-
linguist, has been primarily responsible for the literature review and analysis
of the community reponses concerning language maintenance and McCallum, a folk-
lorist, for the literature and responses concerning cultural maintenance.
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History of Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral
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Local legend has it that three seafaring brothers were the first Greek
immigrants to Alabama: the first to Mobile in 1873, the second to Montgomery
in 1878, and the third--George Cassimus--to Birmingham in 1884. Cassimus is
described as a British merchant seaman who, with his two brothers, had hired
out on a Confederate gunrunner and came from the Gulf port of Mobile to Bir-
mingham, first working for the fire department, and later opening up a lunch
stand (Petrou 1979: 21. Despite the controversial legends surrounding the ori-
gins of Alabama's first Greek settlers, most immigrants who left the patrida
entered the U.S. through Castle Garden on Ellis Island (the Kastengardi that
is often the setting for immigration narratives), and settled in the U.S. under
less dramatic circumstances (Christu 1977: 1-2).
Greek migration to the U.S. has always followed political developments
in the Mediterranean area, particularly during 1880 tc 1920, the era of (Ireat-
est migration: the continued tensions between Greece and Turkov, the Dalkan
wars (1912-1913), and the flight of Greeks from army conscription or persecu-
tion in Asia Minor (Thernstrom 1980: 431; Sa.loutos 1964: 20). Turbulent inter-
nai politics and unstable leadership--political schisms developed between ro,-.,-
alists and republicans--also contributed to the exodus at this time. Most 0
the early Greek immigrants to America, however, left their homeland as a
result of the poverty resulting from the severe depression of its agricultural
economy, especially on the Peloponnesian peninsula from 1882-86 when the Euro-
pean market for raisins and currants, Greece's principal exports, collapsed
(Patterson 1976: 7). The majority of the earliest immigrants to the U.S.,
-and even up until after World War II, were unskilled single males, the first
wave often planning to return with their savings from America to their Pelo-
ponnesian villages to establish a farm or business,or tDsupport their kin, or
to dower their daughter or sister, both strong Greek traditions. Many of the
Greek immigrants to Birmingham, however, as well as those who settled else-
where in the U.S. after 1900, were already married, or later returned to Greece
to find a bride, intending from the outset to establish permanent residency in
America (Petrou 1979: 4; Patterson 1976: 8).
Most of the early Greek immigrants to Birmingham came from the Pelopon-
nesian area and the islands of Corfu, Samos, and Rhodes, although some second-
wave immigrants, like C. W. Jovaras, Georgia Kampakis, and others in this study,
came into the city from smaller Greek American enclaves elsewhere in the South
(Petrou 1979: 4). Reports on the number of early Greek residents in the city
are conflicting, and official U.S. government immigration and census statistics
are deceptive. Growing from the 100 enumerated in the 1900 census, Greeks
numbered 900 Birmingham and 1200 Ensley residents by 1913 (Petrou 1979: 19).
Census data from 1920, however, reports only 485 Greeks in the city (Birming-
Find). The Greek immiurants, settled in metropolitan Bi.LminQham, as well as in
numerous of the satellite colTmiunities--Ens ev, Bessemer, Wvlam, and Pral:�t City
in particular--oriented toward Jefferson County's coal mines and iron and ste..
mills. In this early phase of the county's industrial development, labor
in short supply, and southern blacks as well as southern and eastern Europ(
immigrants were sought for the heavy, dirty, manual work. By as early as 1909
there were 500 Greeks in Ensley, many living in the Sherman Heights area, where
"9 out of 100 stores were Greek owned," and the majority of the Greek residents
were TCI (Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company) employees (Petrou 1979:
14). Except for this major concentration of Greeks in Ensley, there appears
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to have been little "ghetto" living, although Greek families generally lived
within the same neighborhoods. Within Birmingham proper, Greeks settled in the
Southside, especially on Cullom Street, and in Norwood.
Even before World War I, but especially after 1920, Greeks in Birmingham,
as elsewhere, began leaving their jobs as common laborers to go into retail
businesses, and a Greek American middle class emerged very early in the city's
history (Moskos 1980: 17). The majority of the Greeks, in the so-called "entre-
prenurial tradition," soon found work in wholesaling and retailing (Christu
1977: 10), and a 1908 survey of Greek American enterprises in Birmingham
included 125 food-related enterprises: sidewalk fruit stands, confectionaries,
groceries, drink bottling companies, coffee importers, restaurants and cafes,
wholesale produce companies, bakeries, and meat markets (Petrou 1979: 11-13).
Many of these enterprises were begun on a very small scale, with a small capi-
tal investment, and almost no overhead--as sidewalk food, stands ; by the
early 1900s, Greeks had such a monopoly as street vendors that a 1902 petition
to the city council unsuccessfully tried to revoke their retail licenses
(Petrou 1979: 9) . As a profitable sideline to their numerous restaurants,
Greeks in Birmingham apparently also comprised the majority of the city's
bootleggers during the Prohibition era, importing "Pensacola rye" from Florida
and selling it openly to a large and heterogeneous city-wide clientele (Christu
1977: 32-33). Other early non-food-related Greek-owned businesses included
hotels, barber shops, shoeshine shops, laundries, cleaning shops, and billiard
parlors.
The final wave of Greek immigrants into Birmingham followed the 1965
Immigration and Nationality Act, precipitated also by the increasing conflicts
between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus, and resulting in the exodus of 142,000
Greeks to the U.S. during the late 1960s and early 70s. These later immigrants
Conk 11 n/McCalluin-- 14
included both men and women who often had received professional and technical
training, and tended to come from Athens or central Greece, with no intention
of returning to their home Land (Moskos 1980: 9) . The Birmingham community,
however, also includes a sizeable number of recent immigrants who have been
educated only through grammar school, and have been described by one informant,
Josie Graphos, as "Greeks from the steel center side of town, [the] blue-collar
side, which is very ethnic . . . what I call the 'imports.'" (This and all
other citations from Graphos from tape log ES82-Mc/C-C7). Christine Grammas
describes the traditionalist attitude of some of the post-World War II immi-
grants:
Those people come to this country because it's a country of oppor-tunity as everybody knows, and
over here. Well, you can't do going to live an American, you your traditions are different, be Greek. That's impossible.
yet, they think they can bring Greece it. You live in this country, you
leave your Greek ways over there. but you cannot transform everybody to
Now that's my beef with these new-corners that come over (tape log ES82-Mc/C-C14).
This intra-community split has been characteristic of the Greek experience in
Birmingham since at least the 1920s, developing, in part, along class and
residency lines between Ensley (working class, recent immigrants) and Birming-
ham proper (middle class, second- or third-generation immigrants). (See also
"History of Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral," Appendix F-i.)
The seventh Greek Orthodox congregation in the U.S., Holy Trinity (Agia
Triada) Church was founded in 1902 with the organization of a lay committee
(Kinotitos), the Lord Byron Society (named in honor of the British poet who
improvement" (The United Greek Orthodox Community "Holy Trinity-Holy Cross"
1956: n.p.; Petrou 1979: 7). Reverend Kallinikos Kanellas, an ethnic Greek
from Constantinople, Turkey, was its first priest, and the first mass was S
Conklin/McCallum--15
S celebrated in 1907. After a three-year fund-raising drive, during which
time the small parish met in rented halls, the Society purchased a former
Methodist-Episcopal Church building on 19th Street and Avenue C, South (now
Third Avenue, South), and in 1909 the parish, with 100 members, was officially
named--"The Greek Orthodox Community of Holy Trinity, Birmingham, Alabama"--
and received a state charter. Shortly after the organization of the church,
daily afternoon Greek School classes were begun in the "little run-down build-
ing" next door that was also used as a general meeting place (Christu 1977: 12).
An early Greek American mutual aid society, the Young Greeks Progressive Soci-
ety, was also organized in 1909 or 1910 in Birmingham, and by 1911 its member-
ship included 150 young businessmen. Its activities ranged from helping new
immigrants acquire citizenship, to athletic training and contests, to English
language education (Burgess 1913: 174-179) . When Kanellas left in 1912, he
was replaced by Father Germanos Smirnakis, described as "a most learned man,
a good linguist, and the author of several books . . - [who also] lectured
every Sunday evening to his people on various subjects--religious, historical,
hygenic, etc." (Burgess 1913: 171-174). A succession of presumably Greek-
born priests appointed to the Holy Trinity parish by the Archdiocese followed
Smirnakis and are enumerated in Appendix F-i.
At the eve of the Depression, the Greek American community in Birmingham
numbered over 1500, "yet with this expansion came inter-community [sic] ten-
sion," between what seem to have been factionalized parishioners with differ-
ing values relating to ethnic heritage, language, and education (Petrou 1979:
29-30) .
Dissent within the community began developing in 1926, over the selection
process and hiring of an additional teacher to serve what some community mem-
bers thought was an overload of students for only one Greek School teacher.
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At the base of the argument was a long-standing controversy within the Greek
AmerIcan community between ecclesiastical and lay community authority in church
affairs. Nicholas Christu, then secretary of the Holy Trinity Church board,
who was active in the dissenting group, commented:
Because we want to get these two schools together, united, the only
way we can unite them is to fire both teachers and bring a new
teacher or let the parents to vote which teacher they want. [It is]
up to them and not the sinvoulion [elected church board] (Christu
This argument continued through 1932, and after unsuccessful efforts at recon-
ciliation, the Birmingham Greek community finally split over the school issue
in 1933, when approximately one-third of the Holy Trinity parishioners, incluc
ing most of the members of the local AHEPA chapter, "withdrew their membershil
and formed another parish, that of Holy Cross, [whose] aims and purposes bein�
of course the same, but in a manner more to their liking" (The United Greek
Orthodox Community "Holy Trinity-Holy Cross" 1956: n.p.).
At first, not formally recognized by the Archdiocese, this group was led
bv a maie tria tria [group of three], including Christu (Petrou 1979: 22;
1977: 15-37). The group advertised in the New York Greek newspaper
:._lantis for a priest, and hired Father Dionysios Dimitsanos from Corfu in
33. Services had previously been held in the Fraternal Hall, but within
,ree months the dissident parish had 150 members and had begun extensive
Aid-raising efforts to build its own church. This was accomplished in 1934,
th the aid of AHEPA and other community members, and the first Holy Cross
[Agia Starvoul church was built at North 25th Street between Seventh and
Eighth Avenues in Birmingham. From the outset, Greek School classes, taught
by one of the two teachers originally in contention at Holy Trinity, Mr.
Anagnostou, were held in the church buildinQ.
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This competition between the two parishes extended throughout the Birming-
ham Greek community, and in 1931, Holy Trinity ("the original church") bought
the properties next door and erected a new educational building. In 1935 the
dissident parish, Holy Cross, was officially recognized by the Archdiocese and
a canonical priest, Fater Milelis, was sent to replace Dimitsanos, who had
resigned because of a salary dispute (Christgu 1977: 30) . In 1938 Holy Cross
built a new church next door to its old one, again with AHEPA's aid, and began
using the former church as an educational building. In 1949, after some dis-
agreement about relocation to an area nearer the homes of one community group,
Holy Trinity built a new church (the present one) on its old site (dedicated
and consecrated in 1956), and in the same year Holy Cross built a new Youth
Center (dedicated in 1951), for educational and recreational purposes.
Reconciliation efforts began seriously in the 1947. Most of the Greek
Americans in Birmingham interviewed about the split agreed that it was unfor-
tunate, but rationalized the community factionalism by drawing on Greek pro-
verbial lore. Nicholas Christu:
I know division is no good and all that, but, on the other side, it
bring you progress, too. You have to fight for existence, you k:. (Christu 1977: - Yi'v t n -
• . Everybody wanted to be chiefs. Nobody wanted to be an Indian. That's the trouble. That's the trouble with Greeks (Tape log ES82-Mc/C-Cl4).
It was the social activities of the youth groups of both parishes that finally
reunited the Greek American community in Birmingham. The factionalism between
the two churches had divided the entire community for thirty years, during
which time the community's mutual aid and church-affiliated organizations,
including the church youth groups, had also split off into separate chapters.
In the 1950s, the t-,ATo church youth groups--Holy Trinity's Elliniki Ortho-
doxy Neolea (EON) and Holy Cross' Orthodoxy Elliniki Neolea (OEN)--began
opening their social and recreational functions to one another (Petrou 1979:
35). In 1950 the Greek Orthodox Youth of America (GOYA), a national orga-
nization aimed at the unification of independent GreekAmerican youth groups
across the country, was founded. The two local youth organizations, EON
and OEN, became separate chapters. When Birmingham was chosen, however,
in 1953 to host the third annual GOYA convention, members of both EON and
OEN joined in its planning, and the occasion resulted in the reunification
of Birmingham's two Greek Orthodox parishes. The chairman of the event
Nobody that came could forget the enthusiasm. I think one night
they raised forty-five thousand dollars, just off the floor from
the kids. There were old gold coins. People were crying. We realized all the great things that needed to be done for the com-
munity could not be done without the communities pulling togethe r"
(Petrou 1979: 36, from oral history interview with Jerry 0. Lorant).
Center--
and on the second vote both committees were unanimously in favor of union
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the reconciled 1500 member-parish "The United Greek Orthodox Community of
Holy Trinity-Holy Cross of Birmingham, Alabama," specified that a new priest
would be brought in to serve the community, and the usages of both parishes'
new buildings were clearly outlined. The Holy Trinity Educational Building
was to be used for joint Sunday School and Greek School classes; the Holy
Cross Youth Center was to be used for all parish social functions. This
mutual use of each parish's former property appears to have continued until
the 1970s, when the unified parish sold the property of the old Holy Cross
Church, after it had been damaged in a fire. To "satisfy the newer genera-
tion," Holy Trinity-Holy Cross replaced the old Educational Building with a
modern one, named "The Hellenic Orthodox Christian Center," which was dedi-
cated in 1973 (Petrou 1979: 43). (See Appendix F-1, "Holy Trinity-Holy Cross
Greek Orthodox Church Education Building Fund.") The fine, large building,
used today, contains Sunday school classrooms, the Greek language school
classrooms, a parish library, social halls, a gymnasium/auditorium, meeting
rooms, and offices.
Today Holy Trinity-Holy Cross is the third largest Greek Orthodox parish
in the South, ranking behind Atlanta and Houston, and is the largest congre-
gation and the only cathedral in the state of Alabama. Other smaller Greek
Orthodox parishes exist in Montgomery, Huntsville, and Mobile, and the
a "mission parish" as well, in Daphne, Alabama (Appendix C-3, Field Nc
Interview with Fr. Emanuel Z. Vasila.kis, 14 April 1982). Since the 19
reunification, the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross parish has had five priests,
including Fr. Vasilakis. (See also list of "United Communities" in Apper.
F-b .) A variety of church-affiliated groups continue to fill an important
aspect of the parish's religious, educational, and social missions--youth
groups like GOYA (Greek Orthodox Youth Association), a nationally-based
organization for ages 14 through high school, and the YAL (Young Adult
League), founded local̀ly in the 1970s for ages 18 to 35; women's social
and philanthropic organizations like the Knit-Chat-Chew club and the Philop-
tochos Society chapter; and Political lobbying groups like the nationally-
organized UHAC (United Hellenic American Congress). (See also "Community
organizations and Activities," below.)
At the present time, the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross roster lists 650 mem-
bers (approximately 575 families), the majority of whorn.--approximately 75%
according to Vasilakis--are "ethnic Greek," although the parish includes a
mix of Lebanese, Palestinian, Russian, Ukrainian,"American,"and other non-
Greek nationalities. While the problem of marriage outside the Greek Ortho-
dox faith or to a member of a non-Greek ethnic group is still an active
issue in the community, it is not as volatile as in times past. The issue
of the liturgical language, on the other hand, is a controversial one among
parishioners, with the community split between those wanting to further
increase the percentage of the liturgy that is in English (which has increased
from 50% Greek/50% English to 35% Greek/65% English since Vasilakis , arrival
eighteen months ago) and those wanting a return to services that are entirely
in Byzantine Greek. (For further discussion, see below, "Institutionalized
During our conversat -Lon Father Vasilakis analyzed the degrees of
-turation of his adult parishioners, which also correlate, on some levels,
Nationalistic,1.
desiring formalized Greek School classes for their children who are learning _ lish in the public sch o ols.
Conklin/McCallum--21
2. Native-born "whi eheads" (both traditionalists and assimila-
tionist second- and third-generation Greek Americans) with a "fantasy notion about the language and about Greece."
3. Assimilated, professional, upper-middle class third-generation
Greek-Americans, proud of their Hellenic descent, but support-
ting for the most part, the maintenance of only external cii1-tural traditions.
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Holy Trinity-Holy Cross parishioner C. W. Jovaras characterized what he
also perceives as three factions within the Birmingham Greek American com-
munity in this way:
You [have], you know, people living in different communities--
Ensley, Fairfield, Bessemer, Homewood, Vestavia, Hoover, Mountain
Brook--over the mountain, under the mountain [laughter], outside of Birmingham, and I think that makes a big difference also I can seriously say [we] have "die-hards," "middle-of-the-roaders,"
and "I don't care." You have a good fifty-fifty mix of "die-hards"
and "middle-of--the-roaders" in Birmingham (Tape log ES82-Mc/C-C12).
The attitudes of each of these three groups--members of whom are repre
in our group of informants--toward ethnic heritage, language maintenan
and cultural heritage will be discussed in following sections of this rei
The residence of the parishioners are dispersed. Groups two and three,
the most part, have moved, in Fr. Vasilakis' words, "over the mountain," out
of the earlier Greek neighborhoods in the city to the more affluent suburbs
that lie south of downtown Birmingham and east of the heavy-manufacturing
satellite towns like Ensley. These settlement patterns, and their change
over time, are a critical component in our study of the various Greek Schools
at the Holy Trinity, Holy Cross, and reunited Holy Trinity-Holy Cross par-
ishes in Birmingham.
History of St. Elias Maronite Catholic Church
Conklin/McCall -_23
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to assimilate into the "universal" Latin Rite. The Latin bishops directly
thwarted Maronite efforts to create autonomous churches and schools and to
practice their rituals in the Antiochean style and the Aramaic/Syriac and
Arabic languages. It was not until the second Vatican Council in 1965 that
the integrity of the Eastern Rites became a policy of the Roman church.
Catholics are now instructed to follow the rite of their fathers where a
parish of that rite exists.
Thus the Lebanese Maronites found themselves in something of a double
bind. On the one hand they needed to respond affirmatively with a clear,
nationally-based sense of ethnicity, if they were to withstand assimilation
into the American mainstream. And on the other they had to convince the
American Catholic Church that their demands for separate institutions were
based not on national, but on doctrinal differences. In St. Elias today
the debate continues. The priest identifies himself not as a Lebanese, but
as a Maronite Catholic. However his parishioners see the Maronite Church
as the inst±ttiona1 core of their
important determinants of the pra
education in the parish.
The Lebanese community in Birmingham was established in the years fol-
lowing 1890, up until the immigration restrictions in 1924. Most migrated
first to the Northeast or Great Lakes area cities, and thence to Alabama.
The founding Lebanese families in Birmingham originated in the farming vii
lages in the area around Zahie, in central Lebanon. They came to Alabama
attracted by opportunities to enter into itinerant trade among rural resi-
dents and in the growing mining, steel, and iron workers' settlemcr .
They did not often choose farming, or even industrial wage labor,
ethnic community. These distinctions are
ctice of ethnic heritage and Arabic language
Cnk lin 5 din-.- .
they intended to return to the old country and because the tenant faflner
and sharecropping agricultural system prevalent in this region was anti-
thetical to their experience and ambitions as independent small farmers.
Rather, most became peddlars, travelling the back roads carrying notiQns,
dry goods, and hand-crafted items on their backs. The profit was high, the
investment low, only minimal English was necessary, and a route and a stock
could be obtained from more established Lebanese who owned shops and orga-
nized routes for newcomers. As they became permanent settlers, they often
moved from peddling into shopkeeping and wholesale grocery and produce
businesses.
Hi 1915 5 Lebanese families were settled in Birmingham (BirmingFind)
.r,c t:.en' iid stab llshed a Maronite Catholic Church with an Arabic after-
. :)UbliC school
lafter the
hurch in Wadi-el-Arayeche, the home village of many Birmingham families.
: into the 1960s St. Elias was one of only two Maronite churches in the
Southeast. The other, in Atlanta, was much smaller. According to Fr. Saad,
"Birmingham was the main community" in the region. In 1905 the Lebanese
also founded the Phoenician Club, a men's social and service organization.
It has evolved into today's Cedars Club, a recreational, social, and meeting
facility funded by memberships and open to any area residents of Lebanese
ancestry and their families.
St. Elias was established under the authority of the Antiochean Patri-
arch and he supplied the parish with a series of priests from Lebanon. How-
ever, once established, it became a responsibility of the Latin Rite Dio-
cese in all other matters and held financial obligations to the bishop and
Cnk in call
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to the Latin parochial schools. St. Elias experienced considerable attri-
tion in its membership over the first 30 years, although it does not appear
to have been as high as the estimated 50% reported for Maronite congrega-
tions nationally (Kayal 1974: 125). They remained in their original, tem-
porary, and inadequate quarters as the community settled away from the
church area into the southwest-side Glen Iris and Idlewild neighborhoods.
Finally, in 1939, the church was closed for lack of a priest; appeals to the
Patriarchate went unanswered for over six months. Then the community
directly contacted a priest who happened to be visiting his brother in
Detroit and obtained permission for Fr. Joseph Ferris Abi-Chedid to cc
to Birmingham, rather than returning to his monastery in Lebanon.
When Abi-Chedid arrived only 61 members reassembled as the St. Elias
parishioners. The only remaining functioning organization was the Ladies'
Altar Society, which raised $311 to add to the church treasury of $7.87, so
that Abi-Chedid could reopen the building and begin calling the Maronites
together again. Abi-Chedid quickly learned sufficient English to read the
Gospel and to communicate with the Birmingham business and professional com-
munity. He set about to obtain property in the Lebanese neighborhood and
managed to have almost a full city block of land donated to the parish. In
1949 the construction was begun on the present church building at 836 Eighth
Avenue South. At the time of his retirement and return to Lebanon in 1970,
the complex consisted of the church, a parish house, an auditorium/cafeteria,
and a four-classroom educational building. There were plans for an additional
four classrooms and a small convent. Each of the buildings was paid for in
cash money raised primarily through the Ladies' Altar Society weekly Lebanese
dinners, which became a veritable institution for many Birmingham customers.
After Abi-Chedid, the church had a series of short-term resident priests
and in 1972 the present priest, Fr. Richard Saad, was appointed to St. Elias.
re �q.
Saad is the first American-born priest at St. Elias, a member of one of the
first classes to graduate at the American Maronite Seminary in Washington,
D.C. Although of Lebanese descent, he is also the first priest not to speak
Arabic fluently. Saad has concentrated his efforts on consolidating the
membership, reaching out to Maronites who have turned to the Latin Rite, and
restoring the teaching and celebration of the Maronite Rite. With the help
of the Ladies' Altar Society, he has begun converting one classroom into a
library--one of only two or three such Maronite libraries in the United
States.
St. Elias now has 260 active families, totaling 800-1000 people, most
of whom are Lebanese and of Lebanese descent (Fr. Saad: "a few non-Lebanese,
mostly through marriage;" James Mezrano: "seven-eigths Lebanese" with other
Catholics who prefer the high-church, older ritual of the Maronite mass).
These numbers reflect post-1965 immigration, especially of educated, profes-
sional people displaced by recent conflicts in the Middle East. St. Elias
is now one of three Maronite churches in the Southeast (a third, after Bir-
mingham and Atlanta, has been established in Miami) and one of 50 churches
and five missions in the United States. In 1962 the Pope authorized an
Apostolic Exarch to the United States, with a mission to unify the American
Maronites. The Exarch at Detroit became Bishop of the Eparchy (Diocese) of
St. Maron of the USA in 1971 and the Maronites were removed from the author-
ity of the Latin hierarchy. The Eparchy is now administered from its seat
at Brooklyn, New York, and oversees not only the churches and missions but
the seminary in Washington and a convent in Youngstown, Ohio. Nationally,
Maronites number over 36,000 (1979 official Catholic Dixectory).
Fr. Saad has applied for an assistant priest at St. Elias in order to
1�1
1�1
1�1
Conk lin/McCa fl um- -27
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extend his outreach to Maronites in the Nashville, Tennessee, and Mobile,
Alabama, areas who now worship in Latin Rite churches. St. Elias maintains
friendly relations with St. George Melkite church, only three blocks away,
and their parishioners sponsor some joint activities. St. Elias is the
meeting place for the American-Lebanese Alliance, though it occasionally
meets at St. George in order to demonstrate its ethnic, non-denominational
basis. The two major religious festivals celebrated at St. Elias, as well
as other Maronite churches, are the Feast of St. Maron, February 9 (Latin
calendar February 14), and the Feast of St. Elias, July 20 (Latin calendar
July 25). The former is marked with a special mass and Arabic dance, music,
food, anri ntertainment; the latter with a relioious observance and a rhurnh
Conklin/McCallum--2 8
LANGUAGE SCHOOL HISTORIES
History of Holy Trinity, Holy Cross, and Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Greek Schools
The first language classes in Birmingham's Greek Orthodox community were
offered shortly after the founding of Holy Trinity Church, and as early as c.
1907 daily afternoon Greek School classes, taught by Mrs. Stamatina, were
held in a "shack" behind the church. She was followed by Andrea Kopoulos [or
Mr. Andriakopoulos], who lived above the Greek School. He was also a cantor
at Holy Trinity, and early parish records indicate that his salary was higher
than that of the priest (Petrou 1979: 25). Its Hellenistic focus was clear
in the stated purpose of the first school: so "Americanized children [would
be] secure in Greek thought, legend, and tradition." (See photos E582-BMc-
197780-1, frames 4 to 6, for copystanded pages from Holy Trinity-Holy Cross,
Hellenic Orthodox Christian Center, Dedication Book, Birmingham, Alabama,
1972-73.) The value of both Greek language maintenance and English language
acquisition were recognized as well by the fledgling Greek Orthodox parish
in Birmingham and its initial mutual aid organizations were instrumental
in organizing and fundraising for language education. In 1910 the Young
Greeks Progressive Society was conductinq English jan0ua0e olasses fror the
150 young businessmen who consti.tu-sod its memoersis - . A orou of reek women
attended weekly sessions at a school on Highland Avenue (Petrou 1979: 23).
In 1911 a local chapter of the Pan Hellenic Union was organized in Birmingha
with its objective being "to plan and fund the Greek school" (Petrou 1979:
27)
The earliest Greek School classes were held for three hours daily,
Monday through Saturday, from June to September, in one room which accomodated S
Conklin/McCallum--29
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all elementary grades, with the teacher's time being divided among various
grade levels. As many as 90 students at one time--desks arranged according
to age and ability--studied Greek grammar, history, geography, literature,
mythology, folk songs, drama, and dialogue. Exercise drills occurred on
Saturdays, when religion was also taught and athletics practiced. The only
available curricular materials were those imported from Greece by the teacher;
the teacher often had the only official books and students were required to
copy lessons from the blackboard into their tetradia [notebooks] (oral history
interview with Eula Triantos, in Petrou 1979: 24). Rote learning, memoriza-
tion, and recitation were the standard learning methods. Strict disciplinary
measures were the rule. Christine Graminas, who attended Greek School classes
from 1917 to 1922, describes the curricular materials and pedagogical methods
used by Father Nicholas Lambrinides, the revered multilingual teacher who had
been trained in Constantinople before coming to America and who is widely
remembered, even though he only spent six years in Birmingham:
We had only one book: the reader. All the rest of the subjects he
would write on the board. Like for history, for instance, and we would copy it, start on scrap paper. He demanded that we would put
it in a composition book in calligraphy--and I mean without smudges, without misspellings . . . and that way we had the pretty handwrit-ing and that way we would memorize what we wrote and we'd remember
our history and religion topics and geography. He stressed geogra-phy. Oh yeah He would have the islands made in poetic form and we would point them out as we recited them. We would point them out and if we made one little mistake we'd get a whack on the hand.
He was very strict but we learned. He made us learn. I knew the
Greek geography as if I did, better than I knew the U.S. map. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the Greek School . . . (tape log E582-Mc/C-
C9). (See photo ES82-BMc-197780-1, frame 9.)
Maude Morgan, another second-generation Birmingham Greek, recalls her early
experiences in the "Hellenic" classes from c.1922 to 1928:
It was just a little, a house actually, to start with, that they had bought and converted into the Greek School. And my mother hap-pened to be on the Board of Education for the Greek School, so I
Conk lin/McCallum--30
had to be, get to be at school on time . . . Actually the curricu-lum was reading, grammar, writing, of course, and not penmanship writing, but what they used to call orthographia, which was the cor-
rect spelling . . . And correct grammar. It started from the six-year old and went on up to 17 at least. . . You know I don't know
how long I went to Greek School. It seemed like it was forever. And our written examination we had, would write for weeks ahead of
time and then all our papei would be hung like on a line, you know, so that our parents could view them . . . We had a lot of reading, we read from our lesson, we were assigned lessons . . . that had to
be written and then, too, like I said before, orthographia, which we were assigned a verse or whatever, then we had to write this in
class the following day and it had to be correct or else we were punished . . . If you were very unruly, or did something very bad we were sent out to cut the switches off the tree and we were switched on our hands, for doing something really bad, you know. It all depended on the teacher, what he thought was so terrible (tape
log ES82-Mc/C-C8). (See photo ES82-BMc-197780-1, frame 13.)
Both Grammas and Morgan also recall that under Fr. Lambrinides and
subsequent teachers, dramatic technique and the production of Greek patriotic
plays, accompanied by Greek songs, was an important focus of the school year,
and were often highlighted at the annual graduation exercises, held at the
Fraternal Hall, or at Birmingham's old Bijou Theatre. Christine Grammas:
And of course near the end of the semester he would assign us with a poem or dialogue and we'd perform on stage like actresses. Really. If we wouldn't act . . . he wanted us to learn expression. And he
said, "You get out there and you're supposed to cry when you say these words." I couldn't cry. He whacked me on my legs with a ruler and I cried and he said, "Now say it." I said it. We loved him, we really loved him, but we were scared to death of him, too (tape log ES82-Mc/C-C9).
After Fr. Lambrinides left Birmingham, he was followed by a succession
of Greek-born school teachers, including Skarandavos, Valangous, Nenga,
Georgopoulos, Anastasiou, and Fr. Lolokas. Many teachers during this period
also travelled on certain weeknights to the steel mill towns of Ensley and
Fairfield to hold Greek School classes for the parishioners in those communi-
ties (Petrou 1979: 25).
In 1926 controversy began to develop in the Birmingham Greek Orthodox
community over the hiring of teachers for the Creek School, its site, and
Conk lin/Mc Callum- -3 1
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policy-making decisions. The argument culminated in the 1933 split of the
community, and the formation of the separate Holy Cross parish. This resulted
in the establishment of a second Greek School in Birmingham, supported by the
fund-raising efforts of the AHEPA chapter number three, and by a Holy Cross
ladies' group, Pistis-Elpis-Agapis [Faith-Hope-Love]. Holy Cross offered its
own "parochial afternoon school of Greek," taught first by Mr. Anagnostu, and
then beginning c.1942 by the church's rector, Rev. D. N. Sakellarides, and
after 1949 by Christine Sepsas (born c.1913), first cousin to our informants
Christine Grainmas and Alexandra Bonduris (Holy Cross Hellenic Orthodox Com-
munity, Dedication Program, Youth Center Building, Birmingham, Alabama, 1951:
n.p.). Mrs. Sepsas' mother had also been a Greek School teacher, and it
seems that she first took pupils into her home, before affiliating with the
new Holy Cross parish. Alexandra Bonduris describes Christine Sepsas as a
"self-taught natural-born teacher," who was prevented from attending college
because Greek custom and family finances would only allow her brother to
receive a higher education. No longer a Greek School teacher, Mrs. Sepsas
apparently has returned to offering classes in her home, teaching English to
new immigrants to Birmingham. (See tape log ES82-Mc/C-C14.)
One teacher, from the Holy Trinity parish, is also widely remembered
today in the Birmingham Greek community. Irene Kampakis, mother-in-law of
our informant Georgia Kampakis, was graduated from a teachers' school in
Athens, and is described by her former students as being "very learned." With
Mrs. Lorant, she was one of the two teachers of Tasia Fifles (born 1932),
third-generation Greek American and daughter of Christine Grainmas, who
attended Greek School at Holy Trinity in the late 1930s and early 40s:
The class was divided; each row was a different grade. And, you know, that's surprising, because every Greek child was going to
Conk lin,'Mc Cal l um- -32
Greek School. It wasn't just a handful. Every Greek child in my generation, every Greek child was going to Greek School, every day,
right after school. We'd get on the bus, get the tickets from the
Birmingham Electric Company, because that's what used to be the streetcar . . . we had to run and get the bus at six 'cause they wouldn't take your ticket after six o'clock on. It was packed. The street cars were packed. We had to stand up and everything, you
know. . . I wouldn't take a thing for those years. In fact, we sit around the table and talk about Greek Sdhool. . . My kids have heard these stories 150 times. (See tape log ES82-Mc/C-C9.)
It seems that there were no formal Greek School classes in Birmingham
during the war years, and by 1953 the two Birmingham Greek Orthodox parishes
had reunited. By the late 50s and into the early 60s, third-generation Greek
American parents like Tasia Fifles were reluctant to make the same kind of com-
mitment to Greek language education for their children that their parents had
"laude Morgan (born 1917) and Tasia Fifles
ew session at the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross
ithedral illustrates the prevailing post-war attitudes and generational dif-
ferences and similarities toward their children's ethnic language education
(although they speak in the present tense, they are referring to the post-
World War II years):
Morgan: Well, why do you, not send your children to Greek School?
Or have they ever gone?
Fifles: They didn't want to go.
Morgan: Have your children ever gone to Greek School?
Fifles: Never gone to Greek School. I'll tell you why not. I would
have to do all the transporting. They had so many other things to and I would have to take them. And I guess it was just, their interest wasn't that big for me to sacri-fice that time at that time. Now, oh yeah, now they want it . . . Now they're learning it. Now they want to know Greek. But I couldn't tell them that, you know, ten years
ago
Morgan: They blame the parents for not making them.
Fifles: And then they would have blamed you for making them
I used to blame by mother -
go.
When h e t o colle ge , never when he came home, on his first trip back home . . . he
turns around to me and he says, "I'll never forgive you for
not making me go to Greek School
Fifles: I feel I've failed my kids. 'Cause when they were little,
if I had spoke Greek, spoken Greek to them, as they grew up,
they would know something. And I didn't. And I thought,
just bringing them down here (from the suburbs) for one hour
a day, for once a week, what are they going to learn in that
short little time? . . . But, I thought, well gosh. They
don't even know how to count to ten. They're going to have
to learn all that and one hour a week is nothing (tape log
By the mid-60s and through the early 1970s, Greek School classes at the
united Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Church had decreased to once-a-week evening
classes, with a very high attrition rate by the end of the school year. Two
of our informants (Georgia Kampakis and Janice Mastoras) had school-aged chil-
dren during this period, but in each case their children only attended Greek
School for a few months, and the experience was "not very beneficial" for
them. The decline of the Greek School during this period is attributed 1),,,,
the mothers variously to the church's downtown location and the parishioners'
dispersement out into the suburbs, to competition over their children's free
time between parish-related schools and clubs and parochial/public school
extra-curricular activities, to their children's increasing interaction an(2
identification with their peers in "American" school, and, perhaps most irr,
tantly, to decreasing parental authority and increasing maternal leniency, for
which these mothers assume a great deal of responsibility, even guilt.
IIAlthough it was not directly discussed
Nichi Jovaras called her a "strict, discipline [sic], classic Greek School
teacher," in the old country fashion. She was followed in the early to mid
1970s by Dr. Michaels, an immigrant from Cyprus and speaker of the Cypriot
dialect, unpopular here. Nichi Jovaras, who immigrated to the U.S. in the
1950s, describes his pedagogical methods and how she herself took over some
of his students, c.1978 or 1979, and became a Greek School teacher at Holy
Trinity-Holy Cross:
- r'eally Sto ugh •chil d r e n .childn the ren,' you : :thought •He ii .
would r T_ik in Greec e in ' and ..:. u!chool in ' ' wanted . . : . Gr e ek s cho ol. children. then o n e .. t h e y a ske d m e if I w a nte d t o be cause I had child I .1 I ll tell you II
II 1 IL I . L 11 st a rted,
littl ewas these three - . they were I I II
• S to Gr e ek S . Micha els. We ll,
day, he I I _ _ _ IIn Greek [he said], Look at all these II
-' : : . ' : S wa nt S • S ba ck. j S D o n na .? . - yo un gest . _
r] says, "If they're not to o, then I'm
- said ,: y o u'r e g oing . going ' • i_I ::going : :. ch - little girls "Well, can we '! ' come •._____And
- - _ _ - - g o o d, b e c a us e - wa s one time Donna
rea ed : _::.i and • 'ur of them t h i ngs , together,i: I I • : b! eautiful - - . ch i ldren' s i• :: outsid e
' : , -
For the past four years, Nichi jovaras has taught Greek language classes
at Holy Trinity-Holy Cross on one or two weekday evenings; this past semester
she taught a two-hour Tuesday evening class to a mixed group of students, but
tneir attendance was irregular and attrition rates were high. During this
time, and apparently up through this year Theodor (Ted) Lafakis, also a native
Greek speaker, taught some afternoon and evening Greek School classes, with
many of the same problems (Papazoglou 1982: 29). In Jovaras' past semester's
class of older students, where everyone knew t.lie --reek alphai)et, slie used a
text tnat her father used when he tauqht her h�.rotlacr ,.-reek. Entitled Methods
Conklin/McCallum--35
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of English, by Kartina, published in New York in 1952, it is printed in
Greek, English "phonetics," and English translation, focusing on exercises
for social and business conversation and story and letter writing. Her stu-
dents included fourth-generation Greek American children, as well as spouses
converted to Greek Orthodoxy through intermarriage, and she described their
mixed attitudes toward language acquisition:
Now I do have students in that class that would rather not use the English phonetics, but read it in Greek, and they do, but I did
find out one thing--the non-Greeks that within a marriage, that that within the Greek faith [through intermarriage] they're more
receptive to learn than the ones that actually are Greek because they apply themselves because that's what they're there for. They have an aim within themselves to do something so they are the ones
that are really my best students. They are learning, because that's what they are applying themselves to do . . . No, we don't have his-
tory, all we're doing is strictly conversation, but, like I said,
they do know the alphabet. They do know how to read in Greek, if they do want to read it in Greek, but most of them will read in English . . . (tape log ES82-Mc/C-C9)
Themis Kannellopoulos, born in 1949 into a trilingual (Greek, French,
English) home and educated as an engineer, came to Birmingham in 1979, and
during his first year in the Greek Orthodox parish, team-taught Greek School
with Mrs. Jovaras on weekday evenings. In 1979 or 1980 they split the classes
in half, and Themis now teaches a Saturday morning Greek School class at Holy
Trinity-Holy Cross for adults only. This past semester he had six students
in this class: his wife Sheree, a third-generation Greek American who came
to Birmingham from Florida in 1980 when they were married; a student who has
not been attending regularly because she has a new baby; an "American" won
who married a first-generation Greek; and Terri Grainmas, an ethnic Irish
recent convert from Roman Catholicism married to a second-generation Birming-
ham Greek American 20 years her senior. Their two daughters have also been
attending Saturday Greek language classes with her. Terri Grarnmas describes
her daughters' ethnic identification, and their attitudes toward Greek School:
. . [They] are very close to their background, The Greek is def-
inateiy prevalent. My children are so Greek-oriented that when
they filled out applications for school [a special public school gifted child program]--they're 12 and 14--and they asked for nation-
ality, they put down Greek . . . And I was in a state of shock. It
didn't occur to me that they would ever consider anything but Ameri-can, but, you know, the Greek is really ingrained in them . . .
[But] one of them is rebelling against it (Greek School class]
the younger one. Where the older one comes and enjoys it--she has
more of a knack for languages than the otner one (tape log ES82-
Kaliellopoulos describes the books he uses in the Saturday class:
. . . I went through a lot of books from there (Greece] and found ones that in my opinion are good books so I . . . take the history of the 1821 Iliad and 'iw ! lip 1 know,_ 1
. - - . - us - I know what , - - .. is I read
• chapter and rewriteI . un derstood by the pec-
ple writing ' - g u e ss,Eng li s h , Ii_i 1and I - would have to • - - it .T_ other
language.__And II I i syntax is very I Il
important. It's very simple. There were very few rules . - . What 91 I I
numb e r : - . :. was : .. try : _ T. teach _ : , •
and I 111 '1 wor I f: after:T : _ : .. .. . :: . : eno ug h p re sumably. _ little essays
Kanellopoulos' classes are scheduled to resume, aftcr a hiatus for his
students' and his own vacations, and are expected to continue in the fall,
with many of the same students, some beginning their third and fourth years
of attendance in his class. Jovaras also plans to teach again in the fall.
According to the commitment of the teachers and the attitude of the prie .
toward Greek School classes at Holy Trinity-Holy Cross, there seems no rea.
to believe that the level of language education activity will diminish in the
foreseeable future.
Conklin/McCallum--37
S History of St. Elias Arabic School
S
The first Arabic language classes were organized at St. Elias in 1915,
just five years after the founding of the parish. During the early years
they were conducted by Khattar Wehby, one of the few well-educated immigrants.
(See photo of 1915-16 class E582-BMc-196408-2, frame 2, and ES82-BMc-195995-
3, frame 1; portrait of Khattar and Sultana Mickwee Wehby, frame 00; and a
late 1910s class ES82-BMc-195995-3, frames 4 and 5.) These classes at first
took place in a section of the old church and later at a location he obtained
for the purpose. Wehby taught as a volunteer, on top of his business activi-
ties. He gave daily after-school classes, lasting several hours. Both stu-
dents and the teacher were bilingual in Arabic and English and classes were
conducted in both languages. Their purpose was to make the children literate
in Arabic and familiar with Arabic/Lebanese literature and to supplement the
cultural education they were receiving in the local Latin parochial schools.
These classes were not successful for very long. Josephine Wehby Sharbel
describes her father's efforts (this and all other citations from Sharbel from
tape log ES82-Mc/C-C3):
He didn't receive cooperation. And you know he didn't want any-
thing from them. He'd say, "Give me your children. I don't want anything. Just let me teach them" . . . Well, it just wasn't sup-
ported. I mean, in that they didn't cooperate with Papa. Maybe the parents, you know, kind of just drifted away. And then my
father just got disgusted and he just quit.
Wehby pursued his work, starting classes each fall through the 1910s and
into the 1920s, but the consistent attrition discouraged him.
Textbooks in the Wehby schoolroom were grammars, dictionaries, histories,
and poetry and essay volumes that he had brought with him from Lebanon.
Conklin/McCajlum- -38
Although he himself was trained in Classical Arabic, it was the vernacular
which was taught and spoken. "We learned the alphabet, we learned to read,
to spell. We learned poetry and songs" [Sharbel]. Except for the songs, the
efforts were directed toward refining the children's language skills. Jose-
phine Sharbel recalls that the instruction was:
More or less, I would say. conversational.. And the spelling, and things like that. But barely writing. Cause I don't think we ever got to the point where we were doing too much writing. Spe-cially not the print. I think we were printing more or less.
Elizabeth Boohaker and her brothers also attended the Wehby classes for
Arabic-speaking children. She reports similar results (this and all other
citations from Elizabeth Boohaker from tape log ES82-Mc/C-C4):
And the reason and we sang in ing, you know, Now, script, I
we learned, we took part in the choir at the church Arabic. And we took the books and would start read-out of the books, the Arabic language. Ah, print. can't read, but I can read print.
The next serious efforts at language education did not take place until
Fr. Joseph Abi-Chedid became priest of St. Elias in 1940. (See photos ES82-
BMc-196408-1, frame 5, and slide ES82-BMc-3, number 17.) He came to Birming-
ham intending to open a full-day Maronite parochial school. Elizabeth
Boohaker recalls his arrival:
The people were hungry for a new church. In fact he didn't want
to build a new church first; he wanted to open a school first.
He says--which is true--"without the school you have no parish " The children are going to disperse, they're going to go to other
places, they're going to learn other cultures, and you -lust won't have, won't have your parish.
But the school building was not immediately forthcomino, so Abi-Chedid
introduced Arabic classes for the young people during after-school hours n'
on Saturdays. James Mezrano was one of his pupils (citations from Mezran
from tape log E382-Mc/C'-(:j6) :
0
1�1
1�1
He tried to teach us Arabic, but his bedside manners were very
rough and the children were very scared of him. We'd just shake.
He was just very stern and strict and, I don't know, we just couldn't learn from him.
These now were not Arabic-speaking children or Arabic/English bilinguals, but
second- and third-generation Birmingham Lebanese, who had, at best, passive
knowledge of the language. Mezrano characterizes his own skills as typical:
he can understand a considerable amount, but he cannot respond; nor can he
read or write Arabic.
Even though they [his generation's parents] knew Arabic, and we
were spoken by them in Arabic, and I understood it, we were never taught to speak it fluently.
Abi-Chedid emphasized conversation, pronunciation drill (physically trying
to force laryngeals out of his pupils), the alphabet. The classes would
begin again and again and fail because the children dropped out after a month
or so. "I guess that's why I know the alphabet so well;" says Mezrano, "we
went through it so many times." Although these experiences were not promis-
ing, Abi-Chedid did not waver from his determination to have a school at St.
Elias that would replace the Latin parochial educations lie was attempting to
supplement.
At his membership's wish, Abi-Chedid built -first the new church and then
the rectory, and finally in 1958 the prospective school's auditorium/cafeteria
and in 1960 the first four of the planned eight classrooms. The completed
complex would be in the shape of a cross. The school was to have eight gr_,(�,
and teach all subjects required by the state. And, in addition, the Lebane.
heritage and the Maronite Rite. working with the Ladies' Altar Society and
the Knightsof St. Maron, a special parish organization established for the
purpose, Abi-Chedid raised the monies necessary for the first half of the
school building which now stands and further established a trust fund desig-
Conklin/McCallum---40
nated specifically for the school. The school fund totalled $250,000 when
he retired from the parish in 1969. The school fund was kept separate from
all other church accounts, so that it could be hidden from the Latin bishop,
who regarded a school at St. Elias as unnecessary competition with the exist-
ing parochial schools and who generally resented the Maronites "outshining"
[Mezrano' s term] him. Abi-Chedid had tied up the money in such a fashion
that he felt it was safe from the Latin bishop, then their overseer, but one
of his successor priests brought the existence of the fund to the attention
of the newly-appointed Maronite bishop. A struggle ensued which made the
question of Maronite education the most divisive issue in St. Elias' history.
Elizabeth Boohaker was church secretary under Abi-Chedid:
This money in the trust fund was placed by an organization in the church that was working toward building a school. It was a St. Maron organization. And they put the money in the trust fund so
the [Latin] bishop wouldn't get his hands on it and draw every-thing out of it . . . When the school came up [i.e., was built and ready to occupy], you see, we got a new pastor after he [Abi-Chedid]
left. The new pastor got wind of this . . . and let the bishop know it. Well, by that time we had our own [Maronite] bishop. And he says, "that's church money, and it should not be a trust"
The bishop sued the parishioners for it. And they went to
court and the court decreed--I don't know how they got up with this kind of decree--that the parish would get $5000 a year out
of each trust--there were two trusts--to operate the parish And the bishop got--you know how much he taxes us a year? $12,000
a year.
In effect, the school money was split between the bishop and the local parish,
but the parish's portion was to be drawn into the general fund and away from
the school project. The fund is now virtually depleted. And, as our infn
mants
treasu
Thus the parish owns a
And the land adjacent designated for the compietion of the school stands
Nlff Wi 1Iuw
vacant. In such a situation, it is unlikely that the school issue would
easily disappear from memory. And indeed, the parishioners today and the
current priest both report that over ten years later it is the key to the
factionalization within the congregation. The complex relationship between
advocacy of the school and the old country/American split is explored in the
section on "Institutionalized Education" below.
Advocates of the school foresee a full curriculum of public/parochial
school subjects and supplementary subjects, including Lebanese history and
culture, the Maronite Rite, and the Arabic language. Mezrano believes that
Arabic should be begun "at an early age--two or three; I think it would be
great for the younger, because it's easier for them to speak at that time."
Elizabeth Boohaker describes it this way:
Well, they would teach them who they are, you know. And where they
came from. Teach them the history of Lebanon, from the time of the
Phoenicians to the time of our present day. Situation'. Teach them
their religion, which is the oldest rite in the church. Teach them
- ij' t is necessary :c:olle ge, ' ., they . 'et this basic edu-cation :-
gonnaI have nuns who would te ach I_m in English. Exce pt - Arabic I I I .j I; I I Ii language
- i_ - i r ii - ! i!l! - pr a yers, _ a n d
everythinTJ - in their 1learn ' ii would course." have ..iincluded would:: . - cla sses. . itiiiIr':
Pupils would be drawn from the 250 or 300 (informants' estimates var
children in the parish. Others might come from Latin Catholic familie�
feel their children "miss all that tradition and heritage" in the Latii
church [Mezranol. Financial arguments are made to supplement the cultL-..
and religious imperatives: between 50 and 75% of St. Elias children atte
Latin parochial schools, where they pay out-of-parish tuition. Supplemen
provided by St. Elias to families who cannot meet the cost reach at least
$15,000 per year.
Conklin/McCallum--42
could, combined with the surplus in the treasury (which
is school money, despite the court decision), could go a long
iy toward staffing a school if it is run by nuns. Even possible school
aching staff is an active issue. bi-Chedid had first planned to bring
Lght nuns directly from Lebanon. Later the parish contacted nuns at the
ional Shrine in Youngstown:
had Maronite nuns . . . waiting to teach and the bishop did not encourage them. We have a bishop who is not very aggressive. He
did not encourage them. They finally got disgusted and went back to Lebanon [Boohaker].
e and her family and friends have now discussed the question with four
Latin nuns of St. Rose of Lima in Birmingham who attend St. Elias and who
report themselves willing to learn the Rite and take on the jobs. Mezrano
prefers to look to Lebanese nuns. They are European-educated, he says, and
multi-lingual. His group's plan would be to send them to Sacred Heart Col-
lege at Cullman, Alabama, until they pass the state teacher certification
examination. If established, the St. Elias school would be the only Maronite
school in the United States.
Alongside the controversy about a Maronite parochial school, Arabic
language classes have continued to take place at irregular intervals. In
the 1970s an ethically Lebanese priest from St. George Melkite offered classes
at St. Elias. Josephine Sharbel attended and enjoyed the classes, but the
parish children could not keep up:
We had one priest of the Melkite church. He was very learned. He
taught, taught a higher grade, where the young ones could not--you have to start from the beginning. . . I went when the priest was
teaching. Because I knew a little bit higher Arabic and I could, you know, appreciate it and learn it.
In recent years there have been classes given by seminarians from
Lebanon nterniiiq under Fr. Saad. One man, who was at St. Elias for three
summers, 1978-80, offered Arabic classes twice as part of the "Summer Enrich-
ment Program." This program for families includes Lebanese cooking, movies,
crafts, and other "enriching activities" [Saad]. James Mezrano attended with
his wife and older children. He says that:
the ms were filled . . . We went there very energetic.
textbook
to write it d o w n S.. W.u I write.___You : You bring your own pencil and paper and
Mt, And jhardv.,.Ig, .IU!LL While the Summer Enrichment Program itself lasted only four weeks, the weekly
Arabic classes continued throughout the summer. Saad observes that attrition
was high: perhaps 80 started the class in 1980 and 10 remained at the end
(fieldnotes of interview at University of Alabama, April 27).
This summer-Saad has an intern, Mr- Joseph Koury, who is not a Lebanese,
but rather a Lebanese _�merican who does not meet even the minimum Arabic
skills guidelines established by the bishop. In order to expose Koury to
the language and to renew the Arabic teaching at the school, Saad arranged
with an immigrant elementary teacher, Jackie Akl, to offer a children's class.
Unlike most of the post-1965 immigrants, the Akl family is highly language-
retentive, behavior which Saad attributes to their plans to return to
Lebanon. Mrs. Akl teaches her own daughter at home; she agreed to take on
other children in the 6 to 10 age group. An announcement in the Sunday bul-
letin drew not only children but a number of adults. An additional immigrant
teacher, Michael Wehby, - - - - - - - -
Both classes meet
between early and late mass. This time is usually devoted to religious
instruction, which will be resumed in the fall. If the classes continue, they
will have to be arranged for another time. The adults had hoped for a weekday
evening, longer session, but their teacher was not available any other time.
Conklin/McCallum--44
As Koury and Saad describe the children's class, it now has just over 10
children. Mrs. Aki is introducing the alphabet, reading and writing, counting,
rhymes for word memorization, and other such material, using photocopies of
elementary school books she used in Lebanon. She assigns homework tasks of
rewriting, copying, and translating--which the pupils have completed dili-
gently. The seven or eight adults have requested conversational Arabic and
tneir time is devoted to speaking, not reading and writing, with the exception
of learning the characters associated with the sounds which have no parallel
in English. Practical conversational phrases seem to be the main emphasis.
This appears to be the first course at St. Elias genuinely following the oral
conversation approach. So far the attendance has been good and enthusiasm
high. Most of the adult students have minor passive knowledge of Arabic,
but cannot speak it. Saad expects the classes to go on into the fall, if
interest continues as at present.
0
Conk 1n/McC 1iu --43
ETHNIC MAINTENANCE
Institutionalized Education: The Greeks
S
The factionalism over the Greek School in the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross
parish that split the community for 30 years no longer dominates this commu-
nity. It is thought of as a remote event. However, vestigial factors under-
lying the controversy are manifested in parishioners' attitudes toward ccrnruni-
nity identity and the value of, rationale for, and problems in sustaininq
effective ethnic heritage and language education programs. Community op--
about the Greek School--its past history, present status, and prospects
the future--do often correlate with factors such as time of immigration, gei
ation/age group, occupation, class status, education, city or suburban resi-
dence, native and home language, and ethnic and religious traditionalism or
assimilationism, all of which were important elements in the controversy.
Terri Grammas, a relative newcomer through intermarriage to the Birmingham
Greek Orthodox community, characterizes its composition, as do other infor-
mants, with reference to various of these factors:
In the Greek community, to me, there's two factions. The Greeks from the old country ["Greek Greeks," T. G.] that, I don't even know if they've ever become American citizens . . . Most of the Greeks here
still have family in Greece or in Cyprus. And I think that has a lot to do with it. They do really keep up with the news there; it's
surprising. We [her husband's family] don't. You know, because we don't have family there . . . I don't really know how the split has come . . . There will always be a lot of conflict. They won't change. They won't change their attitudes, ever. There is still a group here
that is fighting, every inch of the way . . . I would say [the other group: "American Greeks," T. G.] has very educated people--lawyers, doctors, teachers. The others [first group] are restaurant owners, people that have maybe a high school education, not necessarily in
this country, but, you know, some of them do. But who have been raised very, strictly Greek. You know, spoke Greek in the home (tape log E582-Mc/C-07).
In addition to Teri:iGrammas' polarized "Greek Greeks" and "American Greeks,"
a third, mediating position rounds out the Greek parishioners' own picture of
Holy Trinity-Holy Cross ethnic identity. Christine Grammas speaks:
. . . See, it's what you learn at home. You've got to go [with]
what you learn at home. You see, when my daddy used to see, when we
used to see the Greek flag, well, we mar ched and we see that Greek
flag waving and the American flag right next to it, why, you know,
you'd just have all that patriotism in you for both countries.
Because they're right there, side by side (tape log ES82-Mc/C-C14).
Her sister, Alexandra Bonduris, agrees and defines the ethnic identity trans-
mitted by their father:
Papa always said, "You're an American. Don't ever forget you're an
American, but never forget your Greek heritage." He instilled that
in us (tape log ES82-Mc/C-C9).
Clearly, in the Birmingham Greek community, the strong Greek immigrant
imperatives for educational and occupational advancement into the American mi
dle class are critical in the study of language and ethnic heritage education
and are viewed as paradoxical by members of the community themselves. Maude
Morgan comments on the Greek "entreprenurial tradition" that coalesces with
its American counterpart, the work ethic: I
doing
Conklin/McCallum--47
is
S
S
C. W. Jovaras characterizes the community's sense of cultural necessity for
the preservation and perpetuation of the Greek heritage:
To me, without traditions it's nothing, that's the way I feel. And I hope I can instill this to my children. Without traditions we are
nothing. You are blank. Well, really. That's the key. And tradi-tions have got to be maintained, not only within the church, but at
least within the home, the family, and okay. So we change and we, uh, you know, look the other way, you know, when we start raping our various other traditions, in the name of liberalism, and modifica-
tion, and understanding. But certain traditions, if we eliminate that, why we're back to nothing. We're nobody (tape log ES82-Mc/C-
dO).
The current status and future direction of the Greek language school in
Birmingham must be examined in relationship to its effectiveness in maintain-
ing this cultural imperative and in reinforcing shared community values. But
there is a considerable range of opinion among the parishioners we interviewed
about their own ethnic identification and how it has changed over time, as well
as about the importance and functions of the language and cultural components
in this maintenance effort. For the Greek Orthodox community in Birminghan'
we have a relatively large sample of informants--representing a variety of
ions about the history and degrees of commitment to the continuation of Gre
School classes. It is therefore possible to abstract a small generational sam-
ple, both by age and by length of U.S. residency, in order to isolate and
analyze the critical sociocultural factors that interact in shaping the evolu-
tion of the community's attitudes toward mother tongue education.
Since the first generation of Greek immigrants in Birmingham are now
deceased, the city's second generation of "whitehairs" [Fr. Vasilakis] , repre-
sented in this study by Christine Grainmas, Maude Morgan, and Alexandra Bonduris,
are the baseline from which to examine generational changes in attitudes toward
ethnic and language education. This group of informants is perhaps the most
ethnically retentive, although those cultural elements they chcs to reserve
Conklin/Mc Callum-- 48
are often archaic relics and survivals from Greece at it was at the time of
their parents' immigration to this country. Fr .Vasilakis sees them as hav-
ing "a fantasy notion" about their Hellenistic roots. These women received a
grammar school, or, at best, high school, education. Since they grew up dur-
ing the post-World War I period, rampant with nativism (particularly in the
Deep South), their memories of experiences outside the Greek Orthodox commu-
nity and of "American [public] School" are often unpleasant. However, their
memories of attending the ten years or so of mandatory daily Greek School
classes are, on the whole, most pleasant and these experiences were clearly
ive. Greek School attendance reinforced cultural values and
in the home, as well as enabling them to learn standard Greek
pronunciation and grammar, and teaching them to read and write the Greek col-
ioquial language spoken within the rapidly-growing Greek Orthodox community
i.n Birmingham--the regionally-accented or non-standard Greek dialects that
.,(ere spoken by their parents and used within the larger ethnic community.
I:hristine Grainmas and Alexandra Bonduris stress that learning to read and
,,rite standardized Greek was emphasized in the Greek Schooic, because:
We already had [Greek] conversation at home . . . All the chil-dren at that time did, because the parents couldn't speak English at all. And if they did, they wouldn't speak to us because they wanted us to learn the Greek (tape log ES82-Mc/C-C13).
It is, in fact, the period prior to 1924, when the flow of new immigrants from
the homeland ceased, that these women recall most willingly. They speak with
a great deal of regret about the later transformation of this homogeneous and
self-sustaining Greek Orthodox community, with its large extended family net-
works, comprehensive parental authority and strict discipline, and focus on
familial and home life. Alexandra Bonduris discusses the far-reaching kinship
networks that extended from the patrida into the U.S. , and her parents' roles
S
Conklin/ McCallum--49
S
S
in easing the transition for new arrivals--kin or not--into the Birmingham
Greek Orthodox community:
Everybody came to our house. It wasn't then that you'd go out to eat. Mama stood over the pot all day long cooking and Papa had a fruit store right opposite to Terminal Station and anybody that came over from Europe would stop at the fruit store. And it was always he was telling me, "Call Mama and tell her your uncle is here and I am bringing him home for lunch." It didn't matter if it was her cousin, her brother, or what, but if he was Greek he was her
uncle (tape log ES82-Mc/C-C9).
On the whole, this group of second-generation Greek Americans were upwardly
mobile. These women's husbands, who began working in Birmingham as street ven-
dors, became wholesalers, retailers, and restaurant owners, and their children
achieved a better public school education than they had. They are proud of
and secure in their cultural preservation and transmission activities, mani-
fested in their unself-conscious continuation of home and external ethnic cus-
toms; their children's attendance of Greek School; their own activities as mem-
bers and officers of the Greek School Board and its "P.T.A."; their firm alle-
giance to Holy Trinity (Christine Grammas: "the original church") during the
period of divisiveness; and their activity throughout the years in Greek commu-
nity social organizations like the Philoptochos Society and the neighborhood
Knit-Chat-Chew group; and their parish work as Sunday School teachers, choir
teachers, and library volunteers.
They describe their own sense of ethnic identity as "Americans born of
Greek descent" [Grammas and Bonduris], and their faith in orthodoxy is so
strong and their knowledge of its ritual so long-standing, that they tend to be
rather liberal on the issue of the choice of language for the liturgy. Chris-
tine Grarnxnas doesn't seem to care which language is used; her sister, Alexandra
Bonduris, prefers that it be exclusively in the original Greek. Maude Morgan
states her analysis of the historical relationship between the liturgical lan-
. . . Now to my parents [first generation] it was important that I
the Greek language. And then Iknow ii iii I iIti.there came a period I 1 the where mo r e parents i i gen epart of the ra tion] co mmunity childr e n
I think because - p a r e nts worked S h a rd and se e k e d - b ett e r e duc a tion f ochildren that it was uppermost in r
the ir tha t their schooling in
o r the American r that they go to college, the i: : _ . _ . Scho ol: : or
I _ _ Ii g to Greek School. And I think this is why this change [in commun i ty I a ttitudes toward
schoolS] chcame ool, ' onGreek ur religion is in the Greek to the hold on to the :::Ip. ',:.:.! :
Their children, represented here by Tasia Fifles (daughter of Christine
Grammas), were raised in Birmingham during the 1930s and 40s and came of age
in the early 1950s. They were better educated, as a group, than their parents,
and are upwardly mobile and upper-middle class. During the post-war years there
was little or no new in-migration from Greece into the Orthodox community in
Birmingham, although out-migration was beginning to occur, and Greek Orthodox
spouses came into the Birmingham community from elsewhere in the country (repre-
sented here by Georgia Kampakis, from Charleston, South Carolina). Non-ethnic
Greek wives (i.e., Janice Mastoras) also converted to the Greek Orthodox faith
during this time, and joined in local community activities. Greek American com-
munities all across the country were also undergoing this period of homogeniza-
r--.-on and assimilation into the American mainstream. These third-generation
immigrants, and their peers by extra-community and inte =faith marriage, appear
to be the least ethnically retentive and most ethnically ambivalent of the Greeks
studied. They have been highly selective about those elements of their ethnic
heritage they choose to preserve, feel the most guilt about their passivity in
transmitting it to their children, and have rejected many of those traditions
their parents saw as essential components of their own ethnic education, both
Conk lin/McCallum-- 5]-
S
S
at home and in more institutionalized and public settings. Not surprisingl',
however, it is this group that has been most active in public display event
(such as the annual Greek Bazaar) exhibiting external ethnic customs, such
foodways, dance, music, and drama,to the public at lar,
Their identification is clearly as Americans, albeit tiie Greek Urt odox
faith. Georgia Kampakis answers the interviewers' question about having strong
personal and familial ties to Greece:
I really don't [have them]. The ties that I have are because my children [adopted as infants] were born there, and of course my mother and father [in South Carolina]. I think I'm just a real Ameri-
can. I, I love my heritage. I'm very, very proud of it. But I real-
really don't have La Greek identity], and I don't think my children have either (tape log ES82-Mc/C-C8).
This group of women did not push their children either to learn the language
or to go to Greek School, and their lack of assertion with regard to ethnic
heritage and language maintenance is a sore spot with them, even today. The
problems of their move to the suburbs, increasing interaction with and influ-
ence of their children's American public/parochial school peers and conflicts
with extra-curricular activities are most often used as a rationale for their
leniency as mothers. They too, however, like their mothers before them, draw
a strong correlation between native home language and the effectiveness of
Greek School classes. Tasia Fifles discusses the decreasing incidence of con-
versational Greek at home:
The only difference in the kids that go to school today and us--I mean I learned Greek because my grandmother, my grandfather were liv-ing. They were from Greece. My father was from Greece, but he spoke English. I mean not well, but he spoke English and we could communi-
cate. Course I had to learn Greek because of my grandparents. We spoke in Greek. When we went to Greek School we knew what the teacher
was telling us. I mean, you know, if she told us to shut the door, we could go close the door. These kids going to Greek School today
don't even know how to count to ten, most of 'em. It's cold, they're cold. It'd be like you walking into the Greek School class and learn-
ing Greek . . . And I think that's the greatest thing about having a
Conklin/McCallum-_ 52
grandmother and grandfather that were born in Greece . . . It's gotten worse. I mean, I can't speak Greek like I spoke before. it's got an accent, an American accent to it.
Our group interview session at Holy Trinity-Holy Cross cathedral also stressed
the interrelationships between language education at home and its institution-
alized component in the parish language classes. They agreed that the mother s
role in language acquisition was as central as that of the extended family
elders, and lamented their capitulation to their children's resistance to
attending the Greek School:
Kanpakis: They've lost a lot by not doing that. Like Janice [Mastoras] and I were saying, when our children say, "I don't want to
do that," we tend to say, "Well, that's ok." Whenever may-
be we should say, "That's not ok. You got to do it.
Morgan: Now, as a mother--my children are grown--my tendency and Daddy's [her husband, James] is to go where we want to be, you know, with our friends, whereas then it was more of a
togetherness, the mothers were in charge, the mothers came
with us, and--not all the mothers, but mothers were appointed almost like what became the P.T.A. in grammar school.
Kampakis: I think that the mother's role in the Greek home is very, very important.
The Birmingham Greek Orthodox community's fourth generation, who grew up
in the late 1960s and 70s, during the era of increased ethnic awareness and
ethnic revivalism, clearly define themselves as Greek American. While they
perceive their ethnic identity as dualistic, they recognize that this is not
necessarily negative, and they are in no sense ambivalent about or unwilling
to utilize vital elements of both cultures and transform them into a synthe-
sized whole that can revivify the community's collective sense of self-
identity. This fourth-generation group is represented here by Terri Gramma5,
a recent convert through interfaith marriage, and Sheree Kannepoulos, a native
Greek Orthodox who grew up in Florida outside any Greek Orthodox community and
came to Birmingham with her Greek-born husband, Themis. These women are S
Conklin/McCallum--_53
S ethnically very self-conscious and aware, and care very much about the revival,
renewal, and transmission of Greek ethnic herit
S
S
They are learning about the community's external ii
ways, music, and dance--from older women by participating in parish social or.
nizations, and seem to be making every effort to reinterpret them, in a mean-
ingful way, within their own home cultures. This self-conscious effort at
ethnic education in the private domain also carries over into the community
arena: Graxnmas' children are active members of JOY (Junior Orthodox Youth) and
participants in the parish's semi-institutionalized dance classes. It has fur-
ther correspondences with their activity regarding institutionalized language
education. Terri Graxumas attends the Saturday classes with her two daughters
and her native Birmingham husband, Nick, who is on the Holy Trinity-Holy
Cross Parish Council. They are strong advocates of the Greek School:
It was not even publicized at that time [c.1977 when they moved to Birmingham] that there was a Greek School. We felt it was necessary
for the kids to learn Greek. We still do. It's helped them a great
deal at school. And they'll continue taking it as long as it's offered. No matter how proficient they get, you know. My husband speaks two other languages and English and, you know, we feel it's very important to speak different languages (ES82-Mc/C-C7).
Christine Grainmas, a second-generation Greek American and a great-grand-
mother, summarizes these generational changes as they relate to institutional-
ized ethnic education, and to the objectives of the Greek School at Holy Trinity-
Holy Cross:
I think it was very rewarding to us to live that way because we can
pass it on to our children. Of course they're not, we're not as strict with our children as our parents were, and my daughter's not as strict to her children as I, you know, was strict to her . .
But every generation changes--they're getting a little bit more Ameri-canized in a way--but still, deep down that Greek is in them. You just can't get it out. It's just there. They love it. The only
thing is that they just can't speak the language (tape log ES82-Mc/C-Cl3)
Her sister, Alexandra Bonduris, agress, and states:
1 doubt seriously if [the Greek School] will conti-nue unless they
make a change. Unless there's a resurgence, I don't know . . . and
I hope that it doesn't lose out (tape log ES82-Mc/C-C14).
Crucial to the success or failure of the Greek School at Holy Trinity-Holy
Cross are intra-community differences of opinion over definition of the prob-
lems of institutionalized language education in the parish today, and the best
means to resolve them. Its future prospects must be assessed both in light of
the perceptions of the parishioners, and of the parish priest, as well as in
view of recent (1980) centralization efforts by the Department of Education of
the Greek Orthodox Diocese of North and South America. It is, among other
things, principally over the issue of the two current Greek School teachers,
whom Fr. Vasilakis says he "inherited," that there appears to be some ecclesi-
astical/lay disagreement, reflecting, as well, the ongoing intra-community ten-
sions between length of U.S. residence, class, educational background, and peda-
gogical approach. The two current Greek School teachers interviewed during
the course of this project, and discussed most frequently by our informants--
both the parishioners and the priest himself--are Nichi Jovaras and Themis
Kannepoulos, both post-World War II first-generation immigrants. Jovaras,
who came to the U.S. in the 1950s and to Birmingham in 1980, is a working-class
woman, educated only through high school., but a "Tiaturai-curn" teacher. Her
informal, pragmatic, conversational approach i-,,ay be we -1-1--3ti.ited for eiurrientary-
aged children, but seems riot to be popular with all of her students or their
parents. In addition, she has "personal and political differences"[Fr. -Vasi--
lakis] with the priest. Kannepoulos, on the other hand, is highly praised I
Vasilakis, principally for his advanced education (as an engineer), "both 11,
the U.S. and in Greece," for his "detached political and intellectual approach,"
as well as for his emphas-is on the classics.
1�1
1�1
Conklin/McCallum--55
S
S
S
While the parish priest highlights the crux of the Greek School matter as
personality differences and dislike of particular individuals in recent years,
his analysis of some of its problems also concurs with those of his parishion-
ers,discussed earlier in this report. The geographic spread j"dispersement,"
Fr. Vasilakis] of the parish members, and their difficulties in transporting
their children to the school, which is in downtown Birmingham, have already
been noted. In a recent Parish Council meeting over this problem, Fr. Vasi-
lakis told us that "satellites"--smaller language schools out in the suburban
communities--had been considered. The problem of the parish's school-aged
children's competition and conflicts between their Greek Orthodox friends and
those at the American public/parochial has likewise been mention by several
parents. Father Vasilakis also told us, "in [my] layman's opinion," that some
of the textbooks are outdated and that the curriculum is seriously lacking, a
statement with which we agree. The Archdiocese, however, announced in 1980 a
long-range plan to centralize and standardize the operation of Greek Schools
throughout the U.S., with an eight-year afternoon program of Greek language and
cultural study, and a publication schedule for complete Greek language texts to
supplement those currently available from the Archdiocese (Papazoglou 1982: 28-
29; Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America Yearbook 1982: 93-94).
Problems over teacher training and financing for teachers' salaries, curricular
materials, and student tuition, however, must also be resolved if this national
program of institutionalized language education is to be successfully imple-
mented. Additionally, the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross parish, as well as the Arch-
diocese at large, must also address the special needs of converts (non-Greeks)
to orthodoxy as well as those of new immigrants to the United States in develop-
ing Greek School curricula that will serve the varying constituences that now
Conklin/McCallum--56
comprise most Greek Orthodox parishes in this country. Finally, as discussed
earlier in this report, the problems of parental commitment and student moti-
vation and attendance must also be overcome. Parents of fourth- and fifth-
generation Birmingham Greek Americans must become committed to the idea of
Greek School classes for their children, as are the parish's converts and more
recent immigrants.
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Institutionalized Education: The Lebanese
1�1
While it did not split their community into two separate parishes, as
at Holy Trinity, the issues surrounding parish education were no less criti-
cal for the Birmingham Lebanese than they were for the city's Greeks. While
the Greeks argued about control of and most appropriate staffing for their
school, the problem at St. Elias has been not how, but whether to conduct
ethnic education. And the conflict originated not among the parishioners,
but between a unified parish and the church hierarchy. It seems clear that,
had the Maronites been as independent in administrative, financial, and
policy-making matters as are Orthodox congregations, there would now be a
Maronite, Lebanese school at St. Elias. The money, the will, and even
detailed plans for staffing and curriculum were at hand. But the parish was
not a quasi-independent congregation like the Orthodox churches. It was and
is under the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, in which individual
parishes are not permitted to make major policy or financial decisions with-
out diocesean permission. And, to make matters worse, up until the 1970s
Under Fr. Abi-Chedid the parish worked as one for the building funds,
first for the church and rectory and then for the school. Now, with no plans
for further expansion, there are far fewer activities at the church because
money-making projects are not necessary. Fr. Saad, current priest at St.
Elias and priest for the foreseeable future, is not an advocate of the school.
The struggle around ethnic education has thus shifted from parish versus
Conklin/McCallum--59
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never be against them. I think they have to be a part of, they
are a part of us. You can't deny that, but to just exist on that--the dance and the food and the language--then that is, I think, that's surface.
Examined closely over several interviews, his ambivalence appears to be
more that the balance will tip away from the internal Maronite faith to exter-
nal cultural manifestations of a non-religious nature, rather than that the
association of Maronite with Lebanese is incorrect. As a priest, his primary
concern is with spiritual affairs and the maintenance of the faith. He does
not wish to see himself in a dual role as the leader of the ethnic community.
No doubt this, too, is partly the response of an urban American as contrasted
with an old country village priest. Perhaps an additional factor is that this
Deep South Lebanese Maronite parish has long been isolated and self-dependent
and has different expectations of the roles its priest should assume than
might a parish in a more densely Maronite area such as the Northeast. In
part it is an artifact of American Catholicism's mistaking the Maronite Rite
for an ethnic-separatist, even schismatic, sect.
Saad's parishioners do not attempt to make the delicate distinctions
between faith and nationality upon which their priest insists. As Elizabeth
Boohaker puts it: "Well, that sort of goes together, being Maronite and being
Lebanese. If you're Lebanese you're Maronite. Because the Maronite is the
majority in Lebanon." For her, "Well, the church, really, is the real founda-
tion of the [Lebanese] community. Everyone gathers there. If you don't see
them at all, you see them at church." James Mezrano, too, directly connects
his religious and cultural life:
I love it, I love the music, the food, the dancing it's all--the
religion. To me it's a great culture. . . We [i.e., American Le-banese generally] keep the food and lose all the others [elements of culture] and we're so fortunate that we have the church and our whole life . . . Right now the church is the center of every-
body's life. That's what's holding us all together. If we didn't
Conk ijn/McCall um- - 60
have the church we'd be like all the other Lebanese communities. I think we're very fortunate in this area, to have two churches
[i.e., two Lebanese churches, St. Elias and St. George Meikite].
For these parishioners, furthering the Maronite cause and Maronite education
are identical to furthering Lebanese ethnic awareness and cultural mainten-
ance. They are simply not separable.
The struggle surrounding the St. Elias school must be understood in
this light. Saad and his parishioners share deep concerns about the educa-
tion Maronite children receive in the Latin schools and the negative impact
Latin school attendance tends to have on the level of participation of fami-
lies in St. Elias. They are drawn into work for the school's parish instead
and the children make friends among their Latin Rite schoolmates. Part of
the Latin school curriculum is Catholic liturgy, catechism, and custom.
Maronite children learn that this "is" Catholicism.
Until Fr. Abi-Chedid started to grant first communion to St. Silas
youngsters early--at six instead of seven years of age--the Maronite chil-
dren were even studying for and taking their first communion at schooL :ii th
Latin Rite with their Latin classmates. Because the majority o
attend parochial school and thus receive extensive religious instruction in
school, the Sunday school hour at St. Elias has been devoted largely to
"remedial" education in the principles of Catholicism for those who go to the
ubiic school. The majority of the children in parochial school do no
attend. Saad has introduced a quarter-hour specifically on Naronitism
the last year or so, based on materials developed in the parish by himself
and the teachers. This fall, for the first time, there will be Maronite
curricular materials from the diocesean education department available for
children's religious instruction. Starting with these as a supplement to
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Conk lin/Mc Cal lum-- 62
If this approach, centering more on Maronite Catholicism and making
clear the specific ritual, dogma, and history of the church, supplemented
with certain cultural activities, is sufficient to Fr. Saad, it certainly is
not to the St. Elias school advocates. It appears that these latter argue
for the school from somewhat differing perspectives.
Elizabeth Boohaker, daughter of early immigrants to Birmingham, repre-
ents the old country-oriented faction. She and her family are extremely
onservative, socially and religiously, as well as ethnically. Much of her
oncern with the Latin schools is that they are no longer strict enough with
he children. She feels that the liberalization of liturgy, lifestyles of
:r1 sts and nuns, and approach to social issues in the Latin church have been
very cad mistakes. Of the Latin nuns she would hope to retain as teachers
in a St. Elias school, for example, she says:
But these nuns are still real nuns. They are full habits. And And that's what we want. We don't want these nuns who look like me and you and they call themselves nun. They're no more nun than I am.
She criticizes Saad for having married people at St. Elias who have been
divorced and general lack of strictness (e.g., permitting women to attend
mass with bare heads and arms), although among the American Maronite priests
he is "one of the better ones." In her own extended family any niece or
nephew who marries "outside the faith," i. e., any non-Lebanese and non-
Maronite or -Melkite, is excluded from all family functions. Bringing a
non-Lebanese Catholic spouse into St. Elias does not make restitution. The
Boohakers draw a parallel between excommunication from the family and excom-
munication from the church:
They knew at the time they did that that they would lose their
privileges of unity to the family . . . What bothers me is thEy knew they were doing wrong. It's not wrong to marry somebody like that. But we're trying to keep our heritage together.
Conklin/McCallum-- 63
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S
The Boohakers are so adamant and conservative that they have chosen to with-
draw their active support from almost all parish activities, because of what
they see as religious liberalizations and because of the school. They
think the church is now "mainly social," not religious. This family has
been central to all fundraising activities in the past, but "I told them,
'You want our family back here, you going to have to start that school going,
because the church doesn't need anything else "
While James Mezrano very strongly shares Boohaker's concern over the
integrity of the family and abhors out-marriage, he comes to his support of
the school in a somewhat different fashion. A mid-thirties third-generation
American, he has no strong ties to the old country. Whereas Boohaker has
two nephews who will return to Lebanon to marry village girls this summer,
Mezrano, his family, even his parents have never visited there. He is not
trying to maintain traditional Lebanese ways in the United States, but to
create a sense of place and self for his Lebanese American family. He
inherited not an intact culture, but a fragmentary one. While others in his
age group opted for assimilation as an escape from "foreignness," he has
overcome the ethnic, minority child experience by integrating and promoting
his Lebanese heritage. He speaks of the privileges he had in Birmingham in
comparison to his wife, who grew up Lebanese in a Mississippi town with no
ethnic or ethno-religious institutions. For Mezrano, the St. Elias school
is a means of passing on to his children a fuller cultural experience and
sense of place. He wants them to have what he did not. He describes him-
self:
I'm not that old country and I'm not that modern. But I think we should know who we are, and about our background, and to be proud
of it . . . A lot of people my age wish we could speak it [Arabic], and that's how come we want the school. You know, there are a lot
Conklin/McCallum 64
of young married couples, with children . 1. . We'd just have a fit to have a school down there . . . I would just love for my kids to go to their own church, to their own school, and to par-ticipate and be around their heritage more and be around their own people more.
It is not so much reaction or resistance to external social change that moti-
vates Mezrano, but a positive affirmation of an immigrant experience and cul-
tural heritage.
Interestingly, it is Mezrano who is most emphatic about Arabic language
retention (or renewal). Boohaker was raised in an Arabic-speaking home and
some of her nieces and nephews do speak it. However, her brothers' homes are
basically English-speaking; the new Boohaker Lebanese brides are multilingual,
not their Lebanese American grooms. Mezrano, essentially a monolingual, tries
to use in daily conversation at home all the Arabic words and phrases he still
remembers. Boohaker mentioned many innovations at St. Elias which distressed
her but the increasing use of English in the liturgy was not one. Mezrano,
on the other hand, wants to see the entire mass returned to Arabic. Because
he completely identifies Maronitism with Lebanese heritage, he would eradicate
all Westernisms, not just Americanisms.
At St. Elias today 95% of the mass is said in English. The Holy Conse-
cration is recited in Aramaic and the choir sings "a couple of hymns" [Saad]
in Arabic. This is a radical shift from 1940, when Abi-Chedid was coached by
Josephine Sharbel so that he could recite his first reading of the gospel in
English--he memorized the sounds, not understanding a single word. Sharbel
is a professional musician and has transcribed numerous Arabic hymns into
phonetics for the use of monolingual choir members. Prayer bo
gual texts and a phonetic rendering of the Arabic, so that par:
read along. Saad thinks the switch to Enqf sh is a good move: S
Conklin/McCallum-- 65
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I'm satisfied with just keeping the flavor of it . . . Aramaic is
more important [than Arabic] because it was the liturgical language. Like Latin, it was preserved just for the liturgy and Aramaic was closer to our people because they spoke it at one time. And also
Christ spoke Aramaic. So I think there will always be a closeness to that, to that language, because of those associations You know, I have a flavor, a flavor for it too and I can read Syriac, cause that's how we're trained . . . my idea was that if the rite was going to thrive, people had to know what they're doing, espe-
cially the young. I think these things are, can be transmitted with a flavor, but in English. What they never knew what it was before. And the thing about these churches--the Maronite and the
Melkite churches--this old way of thinking was that they were old country churches, you know, for the old people or those who didn't speak English. I think we've had to change that if there was going
to be any hope for the young people to come. To understand what they were doing . . . And it's successful; it can't help but be
successful if you approach it like that. We have more young com-ing to our church now than ever before.
Saad articulates quite eloquently the linguistic-assimilationist position.
Yet he speaks often of this notion of "flavor." It arises in his description
of the Arabic language classes. Although he maintains that the language-
learning efforts are largely fruitless in terms of actual linguistic skills,
he thinks it is good for parishioners to have the experience of studying the
alphabet, and learning a bit about the language. He especially approves of
their learning vocabulary sets such as greetings, things around the house,
foods--"you know, table-talk kind of stuff"--since it puts them in touch with
the culture they make in their homes.
I don't think it is really going to mean a lot. Except to give you a flavor of the identity, which is all right . . . Now there's
more than an awareness and a real desire for identity . . . [It
would not be good if] you didn't know what to call the foods your grandfathers ate, you know, and that you eat every Sunday. And
you know, they're pretty good, you know, there's nothing else
like them.
Saad, and later Saad and Joseph Koury both, mention the Arabic kinship
terms as a specific example of how exposure to the old country language
helps the people conceive of their own culture. As a child Saad marvelled
Conklin/McCallum-- 66
at the wealth of kin terms that enabled his parents to denote all members
of the family in a single word expression of relationship; "I don't know
them all myself, but it's fantastic." "There's no way" that this concept
of the extended family can be expressed adequately in English.
Mezrano is confident that the young people in the -
effective bilinguals and this is one of the outcomes he
the school. He notes that his five-year old son can recite the non-English
sections of the mass already.
Left to me, the whole mass could be in Arabic, I feel like we have
a prayer book, we can read it, and then we can learn the words in Arabic also. You repeat it so m a n y times and you hear it and can
pick it up.
He would send preschoolers to Arabic classes, before they ever started to
the regular day school.
Although Fr. Saad says that:
I don't think we would ever, I would ever build a school. I would never want to run a school, cause the Catholic church has gotten
out of that I think, and in the place tried to develop good educa-
tional program, good catechistics in the parish . . . No, I think t±aà k it's fairly resolved now. I mean, I say there is still talk about it, yeah, but. I think everyone knows where I stand.
he admits that "Now, there's, we have a lot of children now, coming up, and
there's more talk, ah, from some." And there certainly is lots of talk.
There is as yet no official committee to organize for the school, but James
Mezranc was recently elected to a seat on the Church Council and Elizabeth
Boohaker--much to her suprise ("Somehow, I don't know how, cause I'm on the
outs")--as an alternate. She says:
I think that they're, our church has become sort of a faction thing.
Some want it, some don't want it, you know. And there aren't enough. in there in support of it. Of course now that they have to make all these big payments for education [out-of-parish tuitions to Latin schools] that they make, they've started thinking over again what it could be . . . We talk about it everywhere we go. We propagate
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nklin/McCallum-- o7
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0
a school. Cause that's the only way you're going to preserve
your parish.
Mezrano concludes:
I would give anything if they would open it up. If Fr. Richard
would think the way some of us thinks. But he doesn't . . . I
don't know. I hope we get a school. I really feel that if we don't that we'll lose it all.
1WA 1I w sI:
schoolsThe Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Greek School and the St. Elias Arabic School
are the most public and formalized expressions of cultural transmission under-
taken by their communities. Although they are community-based and quasi-insti-
tutionalized, they rest upon educational traditions which are integrated into
the ordinary lives of the Birmingham Greek and Lebanese communities. It is
the everyday, home and community casual and informal learning which the
are to supplement. Parish and community organizations represent a middle
ground between institutionalized education and unself-conscious enculturation
of children by family and community. Planned and casual community social
events are one and two steps further removed from explicit teaching/learning
situations in the language school setting. Even in family life, the element
of self-conscious teaching of cultural heritage is often very strong. Many
of the activities, and sometimes the actual physical environments of Birming-
ham Greek and Lebanese homes are calculated demonstrations of ethnic culture.
Using this situational model, we attempt to characterize ethnic heritage
and language education that takes ffiplace in homes, social events, and community
Conklin/McCallum-- 69
dialogue between two Greek informants, Georgia Kampakis and Maude Morgan,
illustrates their view of community education. The Greeks, they say, are:
Morgan: . . . very traditional people, who, ah, church, religion,
and family traditions carried out in the different ages--I mean in coming to America--and how we've continued what we've inherited here. I think that's one of the main rea-sons [for cultural retention] , because our family tradi-
tions are so intertwined with our religious traditions--even though within our church we have holy traditions, which is altogether different from family traditions--
and sometimes people mistake our family traditions for holy traditions.
Kampakis: I think it begins with the family, really. And then from there it sort of branches out to the Greek School and
then the church, and organizations and things like this. But it all begins with the parents, with the mother and the father. It did with us.
S
Morgan: I think now it kind of works more through organizations a little more than it did in our first years [as a com-munity]. And when I was a little girl, of course, the Greek School was very important.
Both women express an inseparable relation between the various settings in
which community life and learning take place. For Morgan, the religious and
secular cultures are "intertwined." Kampakis sees the activities of home,
Greek school, and parish organizations as "branches" of the same effort.
Interestingly, Morgan notes that, while the components remain the same as
in her girlhood, the emphasis has shift :.
burden now; the Greek School less. The
the aspects of culture that are most imperative are somewhat different as t
community becomes not immigrant Greeks, but a culture of Americans of Greek
descent. The following examples of community cultural activities and family-
based learning illustrate continuity and change in cultural transmission.
They suggest direct effects on the importance, structure, and content of the
ethnic schools as the communities evolve.
Community cultural activities. The high points of the Creek and Lebanese year
are ethno-religious holidays that occasion the most intensive experience of all
Conklin/McCallum--70
aspects of ethnic culture. It is during the high holidays such as Easter and
saints' days, that the mother tongue is employed most extensively in the
liturgy; mother tongue hymns, prayers, and secular songs are revived; a host
of expressions relating to the festivals are used by members otherwise mono-
lingual. The holidays bring forth feasts of ethnic food, native costumes,
banks of flowers, home decorations and ritual objects (e.g., the Greek Easter
eggs; the Catholic and Orthodox Lenten palms; the Epiphany holy water for the
Greek home altars). Special rituals are performed, both in the church and
within extended families and social networks.
These holidays are celebrations and simultaneously intragroup exhibitions
of ethnic culture. Our informants report the intense level of activity pre-
ceding the important holidays. Women cook and prepare the family home and
decorate the church. Greek men set up the lamb pits; Lebanese men prepare
their backyard grilling areas. The choir rehearses. Children finalize their
dance routines and pageant lines and dress. Non-Greek informants who have
married into the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross community comment that it is in par-
ticipating in these preparations that they became familiar with the Greek
Orthodox customs.
Both the Maronite and Greek Orthodox communities also put on more public
ethno-cultural events. The annual Greek Bazaar attracts participants from the
entire Birmingham area. Last year 7,000 meals were served and uncountable
pastries sold. Young people are trained to lead tours of the cathedral, for
which they must memorize the Greek terms for all the parts of the building and
furnishings. While this event is calculated to raise money for th
and to introduce the Greek community to greater Birmingham, it is
tant expression of the Greek community's external ethnic customs, as well as
Conk lin/McCalluni--- 71
the women's organization that works three days a weeks for six months to pre-
pare all the food for the Bazaar:
I think that is one way we keep the Greek customs alive, through that, even though we don't like to admit that people kind of know
us for our food . . . Why fight it anymore? It's really something
to be proud of. And our customs, our dances, too, because our chil-dren always do dances . . . They [non-Greeks] tell us that they like to come because it's a family-oriented festival. And it really is,
the kids are all working, the grandmothers, the mothers, some grand-fathers that are there, fathers, everybody. It's a community project really, but it's sponsored by the ladies' group (tape log ES82-Mc/C-C8).
S
The centrality of intact family and community life is made visible to outsiders,
which in turn reaffirms the community's sense of ethnic integrity.
For the Lebanese, the weekly public dinners of the 1930s-70s served a
similar purpose. They put money the building-fund coffers, created an ethno-
cultural activity in which parish members could become highly involved, pre-
sented a wholesome view of Lebanese life to the external world, and reinforced
the value of their culture to the community itself. Birmingham's Lebanese
also maintain a private social club, the Cedars Club, where organizations hold
meetings, Lebanese young people and adults swim and play tennis, and a vari
of activities, more or less ethnically-related, take place. We visited th
Cedars Club during their weekly bingo luncheon. It is open to the public
at least 300 people of all ages--mostly women, some Lebanese, and many non-
Lebanese--played bingo and consumed a lunch of Lebanese meat pies, tabouli
salad, Lebanese spice cookies, and coffee and iced tea. The Women's Auxiliary
of the Cedars Club prepared the lunch and hosted the affair.
Greek and Lebanese community members also participate in a variety of
casual and social activities that are culturally-related. There are dance
clubs at Holy Trinity-Holy Cross and both Greeks and Lebanese regularly enjoy
ethnic music and dance at weddings, festivals, and private parties. Until
recently there was a Greek music balid of young Holy Trinity-Holy Cross boys
,jjilo played for all sorts of events. The St. Elias parishioners hire Arabic
musicians from New York or elsewhere for major parish events, sometimes even
for weddings. One of the Greek Orthodox men's organizations sponsored a tour
to New Orleans this summer to see the travelling art exhibit "In Search of
Alexander." Last year a women's group visited the first Greek School in the
United States in St. Augustine, Florida. The parish is participating in a
national fund-raising drive to restore the school building to its original
state and to erect a memorial chapel. (See photos of activities, Appendix D.)
All these sorts of quasi-organized activities reinforce the cultural heri-
tage that these ethnic communities wish to maintain and transmit. They form
the background to the interest in Greek and Arabic school courses and indicate
a continuing curiousity about and awareness of their ethnic heritage.
Conk lin/Mc Callum- - 73
daughter which contains her own dolls, her mother's dolls, and new dolls she
has brought back from Greece. She also shows us the mounted display case con-
tam ing artifacts from her wedding and explains why it hangs over the marriage
bed. Several informants utilize mother tongue proverbs, relate stories from
the old country, from the early days in the United States, from Greek/Arabic
School which they often find themselves retelling at their children's requests.
C. W. Jovaras says he has repeated the stories his grandmother told him to his
daughters--stories he was pleased to discover were the great Greek classics
when he studied Ancient Greek at college.
To visit their homes is to enter an environment designed to express eth-
nic identity. Sharbel's living room is decorated with paintings and photos of
family members, small knick-knacks distinctly Arabic in design, and oriental
rugs. She and Boohaker wear heavy gold jewelry, especially hoop bracelets.
Boohaker's home contains oriental rugs, Lebanese lace tablecloths, photos of
Lebanon and family in Birmingham and in Zahie. In her basement is a special
cooker for Lebanese bread; in the backyard a permanently installed triple
gas-fueled grill. Every surface and every wall in the Jovaras home displays
Greek artifacts. They range from replicas of ancient vases to postcards of
costumed Greek dancers, to Aegean seascapes rendered in oil, to homeland
ary. The walls are blue and even the furniture is upholstered in the Gree
national colors. The apartments of Christine Grammas and Alexandra Bondur
are similarly repositories for family and Greek memorabilia. Every home we
visited had a large photo album of trips to the old country conveniently at
hand, and quickly brought forth for our examination. (See photos of homes and
artifacts, Appendix D.)
All of these practices reflect conscious statements of ethnic identity,
and strategies for its maintenance. In the more middle-class homes the objects
Conk iin/McCaJ lurn-- 74
are carefully chosen, artistic artifacts of old country high culture, based
on that class aesthetic. In the more working-class homes, fine art and crafts
are intermixed with mass-produced replicas designed for tourist consumutiori.
Lookin9 beyond them to less external fo ns of ethnic expression, it is criti-
cal to analyze ways of "being" Greek of Lebanese, not just exhibiting Greek--
ness or Lebaneseness.
One facet of deeper cultural identity is home language use. First, what
language is used in the home? In all the homes we visited--save Fr. Saad's
rectory a semi-public space--Greek or Arabic was in regular use, at least an
ters. Boohaker and Sharbel both use Arabic with family and friends of the.
generation, but increasingly make use of English with the younger generation,
practically to the exclusion of the ethnic mother tongue.
Beyond simple language choice, we were aware of conversational strategies
that were derived from the mother tongue culture. The Jovaras', like other
Greeks we interviewed at the cathedral, tended to speak rapidly, respond
quickly to queries, and to interrupt and overlap each other and--to a lesser
extent--the fieldworkers. There are scattered remarks about the contentious
"nature" of the Greeks, e.g., "Everybody wanted to be chiefs . . . That's the
trouble with the Greeks" [Christine Gramluas]; "there will always be a lot of
conflict [Terri Grammas]; "if the Greeks don't have an enemy outside to fight,
they just fight with each other" [C. W. Jovaras]. The somewhat loud, quick,
and assertive style of discourse we encountered indicates that Greek-language
conversational norms unconsciously pervade the community's English as well.
By contrast, our talks with Lebanese Americans were far slower in pace.
There were long pauses between our questions and their responses. Answers
ConJdin/McCallum-- 75
S
S
S
seemed to be careful and deliberate, often clarified with illustrative example
stories. There were few interruptions, either of us or--in the single dialogue
we recorded, of Fr. Saad and Joseph Koury-- of each other. While we are not
familiar with the discourse styles typical of Lebanese Arabic conversations,
the differences from our cn Anglo-English were pronounced enough to elicit
immediate comparisons between ourselves of the Lebanese's sense of timing and
deliberation.
Perhaps the clearest indicator of family life as an expression of cul-
turally-appropriate behavior and of cultural values is the extreme hospital; ,-.-
with which we were met in these two communities. Fr. Vasilakis took it upo
himself to carefully question us about the nature and goals of the researci
project (it was he who requested a written description of the project) and he
selected the interviewees based on our initial interview. Much to our sur-
prise his secretary called one day and informed us that a series of interviews
had been arranged and we were to come to Holy Trinity-Holy Cross, where the
parish members would report to meet with us. Thus our Greek interviews were
clearly conducted under the auspices of the parish priest; the interviewees
were prompt, interested, and open. Subsequently the Jovaras' took it upon
themselves to introduce us to "real" Greek life by inviting us to their home
for an evening of food, music, and conversation. The sisters Grammas/Bonduris
asked us to their homes for lunch and conversation, so that they could share
their photo albums, Greek artifacts, and hospitality.
In the Lebanese homes we were plied with ethnic specialties--even in the
rectory, where we talked around Fr. Saad's kitchen table, passing by the for-
mal reception areas. Our most serious interview problem was bringing the meet-
ings to an end. Fr. Saad, the most apparently de-ethnicized of our Lebanese
Conklin/McCallum--76
informants, concluded our interview by remarking that while "I don't like [St.
Elias] to be called an ethnic community," and while he does not favor a parish
school, he does see certain aspects of Lebanese life as part of Maritonism and
intrinsic to parish life:
Well, the way of life, and the feeling that we have for each other, and the hospitality. There's always been Lebanese hospitality. Always been. Always proud of that. And family life.
ID
0
Con d ri/McCali m-- 78
grants who are war refugees. Greeks fled the destruction of the Nazi occu a-
tion and the Cyprus War. Lebanese fled the devastation of World War II a:
the subsequent armed struggles between Christians and Muslims and between
I s r a e l and the Pale i n I -I 'f - - +- 4.-
professional people
Attitudes towa
sense of pride in their long literary traditions, and both value "the learn
man," as teacher and leader. Nicholas Lambrinides, the most admired Greek
teacher, and Fr. Abi-chedid of St. Elias are characterized by this term. The
Lebanese describe themselves as direct descendants of the Phoenicians and the
great Arabic cultures preceding Turkish domination. The Greeks look back to
the classical Hellenistic tradition.
These traditions have implications for language and ethnic school curric-
ula and pedagogy, and also for the imperative many in the communities feel
toward cultural preservation and transmission. Elizabeth Boohaker explains why
the St. Elias parish was united behind Fr. Abi-Chedid's plan for a Maronite
parochial school:
They were very interested in helping the pastor get the school started because that's the only way you're going to preserve any-thing. You'll preserve your heritage and teach your children who
they are. And of course, we have the proudest heritage there is. We started civilization. We started Learning. We started navigation. We started accounting. Just name it and it was started by the Phoenicians.
While our Lebanese informants all felt the need to allude to their ethnicity's
contributions to world culture with at least some brief remark, the Greeks were
more self-assured that their Hellenic culture is well-known and respected, at
Least by educated Americans such as the fieldworkers. The Greeks' remarks
were intended to show how the classical culture taught as a scholarly subject
matter in America is part of everyday life for Greeks (e.g., as a child, C. w.
,Jovaras' bedtime stories were the Greek myths).
However, the Greeks, too, have been grossly misunderstood by their fellow
Southerners. Fr. Vasilakis reported that he recently attended an ecumenical
Christian ministers' conference, where he was dressed in his black clerical
suit with white clerical collar. On the third day of the meeting another con-
feree responded to one of Vasilakis' observations by asking, "You mean you're
The Birmingham Greeks and Lebanese have had to long struggle not only
against ignorance, but against overt racism. In the segregated South Greeks
and Lebanese were considered non-white. Our interviews contain frequent refer-
ences to discrimination in employment, housing, and the schools. Here are some
representative remarks on the early years:
In the South, there weren't too many ethnic groups. The oniy--Italians,
Greeks, very few Greeks, very few Italians, and the Jewish people. And we were looked down, in fact they called us "dagos" in those days [group laughter]. They did! They called the Italians and the Greeks
"dagos." And everybody would murmur if they wanted to speak to some-body in their native tongue, they would go secretly to speak so they won't be ridiculed (Christine Grammas).
[Greeks were] looked down on [as] foreigners . . . We had the monied
people who settled Birmingham, then we had the foreign people. And they looked on them more or less in the same classification as blacks
[For the first Lebanese] it was a very hazardous life because they
went out into country and sold to these people who, back in those days aliens were nil, you know. ere persecuted. And they didn't know - languag! e and ! - wr o ng •I• - St. Elias community re m ain e d
- - . I committe d to e ach o ther b eca us e ] - - - We ll,
think in - No rthern i-See, people here I III there I j• discrimination II I i
time. Down South. J ne I•E :n afraid to B a ptist I .atholic at ; —
you were Catholic, why . . . - -.
time. one ___ We ha d cow in - yard and some how I . - d o n't
I 11 11 I I boitt. heWreedll he--see suit out of :ii. : , st made
apel (pointing p ortr a it] - - th e lawye r to l d • to put that cross11: away • - - th e y,
th e y' r e - - g oing S might m a k e him lo s e - cas e . He sa id , . "We ll
I I I he case, • r a in't :is is going to help : going :
I I II
- •I - • - - - e n o ug h h e w o n t he c as e (Eliz a b e th .S SI .. -
Conk lin/ 1cCal±um--8O
Alexandra Bonduris exolains that the discrimination eased after World War II:
It made a lot of our American boys aware, especially here in the South, because we have a lot of what you would call "redneck" people that didn't know anything beyond their own little area . . . and
when they were exposed to the farmlands of Italy, England, Italy,
Belgium, and so forth and so on, they realized, "Hey, this is what I
do. These are people, too." I think it exposed them to a lot
But Maude Morgan, although she prefers to think things are far better now, still
sees vestiges of the effects in her son:
[The Greek community at first tried to maintain its own, separate culture and education because] I think at first it was because of
this anti-immigrant. I felt this way when I was in grammar school. And I think the War (World War II] changed everything . . . Now let
me say this. You know C. J., my younger son, because of the preju-dices and because--it seemed at a certain time, even after the war,
that high school children of different nationalities were not heli into getting into, ah, not better positions, and to hold office ir
some of the clubs, and these areas in the high school life. And, they were discriminated against. Not the Greek people only. But,
like I said before, the different groups. And he would always say when they'd ask him, or he'd say to me, "I'm an American." Or if
anybody asked him he'd say, "Well, I'm an American. My mother was born in America." You know, he was kind of defensive.
James Mezrano attributes his aggressive stance toward ethnic heritage and lan-
guage education to discrimination he and his wife suffered as children and which
he does not want to have his children damaged by:
And I'm sure they [his wife's family] had a rough time in Mississippi growing up [apart from an organized Lebanese community] . . . I know my mother and father did, in this area . . . I think they got so
tired of defending having people not understand [that they give up their language/culture]--me I consider it ignorance if they do not
understand. I just feel like they should look at their own back-ground. You know, who are they to judge me? . . . And that's what I tell my children. And I tell them if anyone calls you anything bad--and I tell them what the words are that I think are bad--you have my
permission to pick up a brick and hit them. I don't like violence, but they do [have permission]. And we're in 1982 now and those days are gone, you know, where you have to defend your religion and your
heritage and your background.
Petrou reports on the harassment of the Birmingham Creeks, including being
asked to sit in the black sections of segregated restaurants, being unable to
S
In 1911 Dr. Elkourie testified before the United States Congress on
behalf of immigrants from Greece and Lebanon. These two nations had given Western Civilization the beginnings of its culture, he said,
and it would be a terrible irony for America, the West's most civi-
lized nation, to refuse Greeks and Lebanese a home because they could
not read Enqlish. "You owe it to them for no other reason but that
of paying a debt."
The Birmingham experience strongly contrasts with Naff's (1965: 132)
description of Lehanese Christian immigrant's experience nationally:
Conklin/McCallum--82
• . the Syrians had relatively smooth relations with other Ameri-cans. Hostility toward them was neither specific nor sustained and Syrians were only dimly aware of it.
While Naff no doubt overstates the case--immigrants from the Mediterranean area
to all parts of the United States can recall instances of discrimination and
anti-foreign sentiment--it seems clear that the Birmingham situation was extreme.
Up until the 1960s when the Civil Rights Movement brought a de jure end to
segregation, dark complexioned Greeks and Lebanese might have been challenged
when using "white only" services or facilities. Ku Klux Klan and other racist
activists continue to use the narrow definitions of "white" Americans that
include these peoples among their targets. And the stereotype of a monolithic
black/white South has yet to be overcome, both within the region and nationally.
There is little public consciousness of the variety of peoples who make up the
American South outside of the particular locales where European ethnics, Asians,
or native Americans are settled.
According to our findings, the Birmingham Greek and Lebanese communities
have been remarkably culturally retentive and continue to express strong ethnic
identity. Ethnic in-migrants to the Birmingham communities have observed this
as well and, like us, believe that this may be due in part to the unusual social
and cultural context in which they make their homes:
I think [an important reason] was this community being isolated, from the other Greek communities. Because when you go into the Carolinas, Virginia, start moving up north, you can go five miles and meet another
Greek community, ten or fifteen miles, you're in another Greek commu-nity. So you're not an isolated portion. You're really not isolated
in those areas. Here in Birmingham it's very isolated. And I can see that within the people, becoming more clannish, I guess, and it's because of the isolation. And because of your different groups. I
think that in other communities that were not isolated, I think it
became a lot more cosmopolitan, and also more social, and not so much clannish (C. W. Jovaras, tape log ES82-Mc/C-C12).
I think the Birmingham community has always been very aware of itself. I really believe that. And I've heard compliments about them, nation-ally, you know, throughout my time as a priest . . . They've always
Conk liri/McCallum--83
stayed close to their traditions and their identity and their church.
Haven't gone too far away and had to pull them back, I mean, they
know, they have had that awareness. And I think that's due to the
churches which promote that and to the [Cedars] Club (Fr. Saad, tape log ES82-Mc/C-Cl).
These Birmingham cases raise intriguing and important questions about the pro-
cess of assimilation/acculturation and the struggle to maintain ethnic identity
under conditions of isolation in an inhospitable, sometimes hostile environ-
ment. Further study of ethnic heritage and language education, and studies of
ethnic maintenance and cultural tranmission in general, should be broadened
and deepened by examination of the Southern experience, rural as well as urban.
S
0
Conklin/Mc Callum--84
RECOMMENDATIONS
Our fieldwork among the Greeks and Lebanese has been very exciting and
informative, yet leaves us feeling that we have just begun to scratch the sur-
face of two extremely interesting histories and experiences. The mother tongue
schools at Holy Trinity-Holy Cross and St. Elias have led rather marginal exis-
tences for the past few years; there seems to be no reason to believe that they
will not continue at least their present level of activity for some time to
come. Their present status, when viewed in light of their more than 70 year
histories, may make them not less, but more interesting for the stated pur-
poses of this research project.
While they are not ideal sites for comparative analysis of contemporary
teaching methods or curricular materials--the staffs are largely untrained
and volunteer; the materials are mostly ad hoc--the very issues and struggles
which have surrounded them can tell us a great deal about cultural values
and educational attitudes in their respective communities. The issues are
alive and actively discussed. Both proponents and opponents are informed,
analytic, and articulate.
Further work in these communities would benefit from expansion and refine-
ment in several directions:
1. Broader-cased research objectives, which would place classroom
education in the context of related cultural training and main-tenance activities.
2. An approach more informed by related research in other disci-
plines, particularly with regard to research methodologies a perspectives which can account for evolution in both the scP
and attitudes toward education as the communities change ov, time.
3. A longer, more flexible timeline, in order to accomodate the schedules of ethnic community classes and cultural events and
to permit thoughtful analysis of the data before report writing.
Conklin/McCallum--s5
We would like to evaluate our experience in Birmingham in the light of these
three recommendations and suggest directions for future research in the com-
munities we have studied.
Objectives. In the section "Other Forms of Education," above, we have sug-
gested some of the ways in which our informants described their own concept
of ethnic education. In these communities, where the ethnic mother tongue is
no longer learned by the children as a native language, language study is,
for most, not separable from the other efforts to continue ethnic culture.
Rather it is--barring outxnarriage--the single most difficult component in
maintenance of cultural integrity, because of the enormous effort required
for second language learning. These informants seemed to focus their atten-
tion on language teaching for just that reason: it serves as an index of
individual and collective will to keep their heritage alive.
Even self-consciously ethnic community members rang along a continuum
with respect to the intensity with which they feel the need to practice cul-
tural transmission. For some religious practice is most critical. For oth-
ers active participation in ethnic foodways, dance, and music are an additional
required component. For still others, identity is not whole without at least
some familiarity with, and perhaps use of, the ethnic mother tongue.
Some of these components of ethnic identity lend themselves to teaching
on an institutionalized basis. This is especially true of language. Others
can be learned and reinforced in less formal ways--in the home (e.g., cook-
ing), or in casual or directed community activities (e.g., spontaneous danc-
ing at social events or in semi-organized dance clubs). Thus formal and
informal education cannot be ranked as more and less serious or important.
Their intents--even their intensities--may be the same with the method deter-
Conklin/'McCallum 86
mined by the nature of the content. Third-generation Greek and Lebanese
:im irn onen an teach their children to cook ethnic foods, so they do so.
JnJIC tonon them the Greek or Arabic language, so they look to the par-
oh for this service.
In order to study the scope and effectiveness of institutionalized eth-
ic education, we must first know what institutionalized education is intended
Lenent. This will enable us to understand the choice of content and
otrictjro of ethnic schools and communities' attitudes toward education, as
to the care-
and thoughtful analysis with which other forms of cultural expression have
..en approached. Whereas folklorists are very much alive to all the forms and
vels of cultural transmission, most linguistic analysis has been unidimen-
onal: a community practices language maintenance if its young people grow
up bilingual and it does not if they become monolingual in the mainstream
tongue. Language, however, should be seen as are other components of culture--
an elusive, complex, and sometimes partial phenomenon, expressed in both direct
and indirect ways.
In conventional sociolinguistic terms, the Birmingham Greeks and Lebanese
have "failed" to retain their mother tongues, since few of the young are
actively bilingual. Likewise the L-Ioiy Trinity-Holy Cross and St. Elias lan-
guage schools are "failures," because their students clearly do not become
fluent or even passibly competent with so limited an exposure. Yet the
courses do provide the "flavor" (to quote Fr. Saad) of the ethnic mother
tongue. This seems highly desirable to many and sufficient to some community
members. Even limited exposure appears to offer a sense of identity with the S
Conklin/McCallum-- 37
mother tongue and its culture, and stands--for the communities--as an expres-
ion of their seriousness with regard to cultural integrity.
because language maintenance is easily computed in simple arithmetical
rms of numbers of speakers, it too often serves as an index of cultural
tention, when in fact a far more complicated analysis is required. Lan-
age is just one, not the central form of ethnic cultural expression, but
has been used as the primary indicator by linguists, anthropologists, and
community members alike. Language retention is a complex phenomenon and must
be analyzed in the context of a variety of social and cultural factors,
such as those suggested in the table below.
Nor should the issue of language maintenance be posed as a yes-no ques-
tion. Rather, it too is a complex of factors and must be answered through
the analysis of what, why, and how, with which other forms of cultural expres-
sion are evaluated. What elements of their language does a community choose
to preserve or to study in the classroom? In the home? Why do these elements
satisfy the need for linguistic identity and understanding of the mother
tongue culture? And then--finally--how are they taught?
Interdisciplinary study. Although we could only do a rather quick review of
the vast literature on ethnicity in the United States, it became clear that
the research required a more complex definition of ethnic maintenance and
identity than suggested in the brief project guidelines, if we were to under-
stand the history and current attitudes of the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross and
St. Elias communities. In particular, a situational approach based on viable,
current definitions of "assimilation," "acculturation," and integration" would
strengthen the conceptualization of the project. The notions of varying rates
of assimilation in different aspects of culture, as developed by anthropolo-
lanrgeei ghnubmobrheor oodsf , spreuarkael rs JjIw J11 !tis1 1 7I i it. Visl
geographical proximity to the homeland; ease of tfavel to the homeland
high rate of return to the homeland; intention to return to the homeland
vocational concentration, i.e. employment where coworkers share language background; employment within the language community (stores serving the community, traditional crafts, homemaking, etc.)
low social and economic mobility in main-stream occupations
low level of education, leading to low social and economic mobility; but educated and arti-culate community leaders, familiar with the English-speaking society and loyal to their own language community
speakersL,anguage Loss 10 1:3, 4.1 Go rt
small number of E WI I rr. ! ir. rn speakers rT
of other languages M
10
long, stable residence in the U.S.
homeland TT remote inaccessible
low rate or impossibility of return to homeland (refugees, Indians displaced from their tribal
vocations in which some interaction with English or other languages is required
high social and economic mobility in mainstream occupations
advanced level of education, leading to social and economic mobility; education that alienates and Anglifies potential community leaders
a.
I
nation at large
('rable continues next 41
11
nativism, racism, and ethnic discrimination as nativism, racisim, and ethnic discrimination as they they serve to isolate a community and encourage force individuals to deny their ethnic identity in identity only with the ethnic group rather than order to make their way in society
.-t_1noI •v
uioi; pdizx
88 --mflhlt?D3N/uTPTuoD
0 (Continuation of tab s S CULTURAL FACTORS:
mother tongue institutions, including schools, churches, clubs, theatres, presses, broadcasts
religious and/or cultural ceremonies requiring command of the mother tongue
ethnic identity strongly tied to language; nationalistic aspirations as a language group
emotional attachment to mother tongue as a de-fining characteristic of ethnicity, of self
emphasis on family ties and position in kin-ship or community network
emphasis on education, if in mother tongue or community-controled schools, or used to en-hance awareness of ethnic heritage; low em-phasis on education otherwise
culture unlike Anglo society
LINGUISTIC FACTORS:
standard, written variety as mother tongue
use of Latin alphabet in mother tongue, mak-ing reproduction inexpensive and second language literacy relatively easy
mother tongue with international status
literacy in mother tongue, used for exchange within the community and with homeland
some tolerance for loan words, if they lead to flexibility of the language in its new setting
lack of mother tongue institutions, from disinterest or lack of resources
ceremonial life institutionalized in another tongue or not requiring active use of mother tongue
ethnic identity defined by factors other than language, as for those from multilingual countries or language groups spanning several nations; low level of nationalism
ethnic identity, sense of self derived from factors such as religion, custom, race rather than speech
low emphasis on family or community ties, high emphasis
on individual achievement
emphasis on education and acceptance of public education
in English
culture and religion congruent with Anglo society
minor, nonstandard, and/or unwritten variety as mother tongue
use of non-European writing system in mother tongue, es-pecially if it is unusual, expensive to reproduce s or difficult for bilinguals to learn
mother tongue of little international importance
no literacy in mother tongue
no tolerance for loan words, if no capturing new experience evolve; ance of loans, leading to mixing
loss
alternate ways of too much toler-and eventual language
68
'L
U
/UTTYjUO')
Conk lin/McCalluim--' 90
gists in Africa and as articulated with respect to U.S. immigration by
Sengstock (1974), and of the evolution of ethnicity, ethnic identity, and
practice, as proposed in Faires (1981), would contribute significantly to
our analysis of cultural maintenance and language retention, and especially
to changing community attitudes toward them.
In addition to interviews with informants and observation of classrooms
with study of curricular materials, the project could be deepened by use of
archival and social historical research methodologies. If we are able to
continue our work, we would like to look at the churches' records (e.g., the
legal documents relating to the split between Holy Trinity and Holy Cross and
the lawsuit against St. Elias; the minutes of critical parish meetings where
educational policy was decided) , reports in local newspapers and other regional
and national ethnic papers available in area archives (e.g., the University of
Alabama, Birmingham Public Library), and follow up on the connections between
these and other parishes of their denominations, especially in the Southeast.
region. We also lack detailed information on settlement: ports of entry,
routes to Alabama, census and immigration and naturalization data, early travel
to and from the old country, marit
and marriage trends in the commun -
E'rom our work so far, we can see ti p
ing individuals' attitudes toward parish heritage and language educatior
time of immigration, generation in the United States, class identity, occup,
tion, level and forms of education (public/parochial), home language retention,
religious conservatism/liberalism, political activism with regard to the old
country, personal and family ties to the old country, to national ethnic net-
works, to the local community. To evaluate these and related issues adequately
Conklin/McCallu m--g1
would require more background information on community development and more
extensive interviews with a broader, more representative sample.
The possibilities for linguistic analysis of these communities has only
been hinted at in the comments on our data. There are interesting questions
of dialects spoken by the immigrant families and the standard of speech taught
in the schools, narrative and conversational styles which may be related to
ethnic mother tongue structures , and widely varying usage of American English
within and among the speakers. Study along the lines suggested by Tannen
(1982) might well prove very fruitful in the analysis of cultural retention
in less obvious language behavior patterns.
Project structure. The short duration of the project was a severe problem for
US. Most obviously--because of the parishes' language school calendars and
the late start-up date of the project--it prohibited our visiting actual
language class sessions. We were not able to follow up with interviews with
a number of informants whom we had contacted and who would have provided a
fuller picture of the evolution of the schools. In particular, there are
large gaps in our ±iformation about the Greek schools. Prospective informants
include young people who attended the classes held in the 1970s, younger
adults who were enrolled in the 1960s, and several middle-aged people who
attend d HcL': TrinitY.' anci I[o1: rc s c1
Holy Trinity-Holy Cross and St. Elias, because the principle holidays fall
outside the research period. Even during our brief period of interviewing
we developed sufficient rapport with our informants that we were invited to
public and private gatherings. The fieldwork phase was so short, however,
that we could not participate in many of them.
colLkliri/McCajIum-- 92
The time between the final fieldwork and submission of the report was
filled, not with thoughtful reflection on our findings, hut the scramble to
copy and log tapes, photos, slides, and organize our documentation. We would
have preferred to have had the leisure to put more careful thinking into this
report and to have conducted a more thorough study of the secondary literature
and related local documents before trying to evaluate our data. The period of
just one month between the submission of this report and the seminar seems
brief. We still have a lot of thinking to do.
In general, our findings substatiate the hypotheses set out in the project
guidelines. Our suggestions here serve as refinements of those guidelines,
based on this initial research. We wish to strongly urge the continuation of
the project, on a longer-term and more broadly conceived basis. By understand-
ing the "fit" between school structures, content, and pedagogies, and the cul-
tures which create them, and by studying schools in relation to other culturally
retentive community and family activities, we will come to understand the
woridview which communities share and are attempting to transmit. This project
has the potential to go far beyond a simple survey of the success and failure
of ethnic heritage and language education efforts, to perceive the complex
and dynamic cultural values articulated through the ethnic educational rocess.
4
0
LEBANESE ARABIC SCHOOL AT ST. ELIAS MARONI] CATHOLIC CHU RCH
and
CREEK SCHOOL AT HOLY TRINITY-HOLY CROSS GREEK ORTHODOX CATHEDRAL — Birmingham. Alabama
Nancy Faires Conklin, Northwest Regional Educatio ci Laboratory Portland, Oregon
and
Brenda McCallum, Popular Culture Library, B. ing Green State University Bowling Green. io
Washing .n. D.C.: Library of Congress
merican FolI.::li-fe Center 1986
S_ K\. CL C" C Ccr\ \\
Like most Greek and Lebanese communities ir the United States, thc:e
in Birmingham were established in the years fcllowinQ 189O up until the I-'
immigration restrictions in the 192 s.1 T e-e who came to Birmingham
entered one of the fastest growing, most rapidly industrializing cities in
the nation. Within this expanding economy, most Greeks and Lebanese
established themselves in commercial enterprises, servicing the needs of
the new, urbanized working population drawn from the rural areas of the
region, as well as from Europe and the Mediterranean. Migrants from the
surrounding countryside, both black and white, and immigrants from
northern and eastern Europe primarily sought industrial jobs. The
developing Greek, Lebanese, Russian Jewish, and Italian communities,
however, sought out economic opportunities in businesses providing food,
dr oods, and other necessities to the wage workers.
Within Birmingham's commercial economy the immigrant businessmen and
women carved out highly specialized niches into which they could readil>
introduce newcomers to their communities. They were attracted to
enterprises requiring little capital and limited knowledge of English
and local custom. ews became leading retailers of clothing
and, eventually, owners of department stores. Italians opened small
grocery stores in laborers' neighborhoods, selling staples and meats. The
Greeks became the primary purveyors of fruits and vegetables, starting
with small carts and street stands and developing into produce store
owners aanndd food distributors, & owner-operators of
restaurants, bakeries, and bottling companies. A 1908 city survey listed
125 food-related businesses owned by Greeks.2 Most Lebanese worked
as peddl 'rs, venturing out into the rural areas of Alabama as well
C:rik I I n NicI::a I 1 urn,
I nc4 the c I t, wi t ar:/ ood; and not i oris . 8::" the 192E1; most of these
itinerant salespeople were able to establish stores, who] esalinc and
re tai linQ dr ods, fine linens and laces from LebanonAand, in some case;, 11-1
Groceries and produce. The Southside neighborhood, center of the Lebanese
community, had( 2 ' Lebanese -owned stores.3 -
Linlike many native born American businesE. owner;, who restricted
their clienteles by race, the immigrant entrepreneurs sought out customer;
without reciard to ethnic considerations. T-rt economic advantage was
tempered by ani mosity created among the area's powerful segregationists
and rat st; who were resentful cf the immi cirants' presence and success.
Greek and Lebanese economi c ad'..ancemen t took place wi th ri a soc si con te::< t
that was aggressively racially bifurcated and overwhelmingly Protestant.
Along with their fellow immigrant Jews and Italians, the Greeks and
Lebanese were sometimes regarded as "colored," their very presence a
challenge to the myth of a biracial, socially segregable South. -n ,_ -----
Orthodox and Maroni te alike, the Mediterranean peoples faced anti-Catholic
nelicious hatred. It is within this context of economic opportunity and
;cc -al stricture that the development of the Birmingham Greek and Lebanese
communities' autono u Lnstitutions must be understood.
STORY .IDF 87. EkIAS MARONITE CATHOLIC CHURCH
St. Elias M n-i-te---G-at ol ic Church is the primary center of Lebanese
ommunity life in Birmingham. Together with a Melkite church and a
ecular ethnic club, it is one of three major institutions founded by
mmigrant Lebanese, all still active today and located near the center of
the traditional Lebanese Southside neighborhood.4 The pioneering
Conklin S.; McC:al 1 urn, p. L3
immigrants established a social club, originally called the Phoenician
Club and continuing today as the Cedars Club, the locus for part ie s,
meetings, recreation, and a variety of secular a: t t CE-. They -founced
two churches to continue the major Christian traditions of Lebanon in
their new homeland. A minority of the ethnically Lebanese population of
Birmingham are parishioners at St. George Melkite Greek Catholic Church,
which al o enrolls Catholics from other nations, including Palestine,
Greece 1 and Russia. M on te- C 4t l-4-cism is the majority Christian
religion in Lebanon --ts---81-rmi-ngharn par i sh, St... Eij.. is sirni lar--y,
the--re-li--gious hom for the majorit c'f the ci.ty's Lebane e..-. This s t u
+c'duaes or ethnic education in the St. Elias :ar Han, since it is t
lam est institut ion and, unlike St . Geor ge NielKite, E.peci+ic H1 a
Lebanese parish.
To understand the hi story of ethnic maintenance efforts at St. El i as,
it is necessary first to consider the relationship between the Maronite
faith and Lebanese national i ty. While the inst I tut ion of Maccr i t I . and
concept of Lebanese nationality became closely tied during the period of
struggle toward independence in the 192@s through 1940 . .. t the time of
large—scale immigration to Birmingham the identification of Maroniticrn
with Lebanese nationality was tenuous. The development of Lebanese
national identity among the St. Elias parishioners played an imp
role in their efforts to establish an ethnic school at the chur:
At the turn of the century ámong the Maronites, and Melkites as well,
the notion of ethnic identityV 11-1 tied to their local region or village
and to their fal th ather than to a p01 i t i cal en t I ty. 5
which most American Maronites cluding those
The regions from
to Birmingham )
emigrated was not actually in the province of Lebanon, but rather in
Conklin & McCallum, p. L1
Syri a ; contemporary Lebanon was not created until a f t e r World War II. Yet
the Marcri tea di d n o t dent I + wi th Syria, for m o s t Syrians were Musl im
and m ost S y r ia n Christians were Orthodox. When pressed for their
n a t orality, early immigrants would report Syrian because they carrie
Syr ian paper s, but among themselves they spoke of a Marcri t e communi ty or
of their native village. They developed the notion of Lebanese
national i ty in response to the American nationality-based dc-f in i t Ofl of
ethnicity and to distinguish themselves from other Syrians. Several of
our Birmingham respondents have commented that the early settlers "had to
be taugh t" that they were Lebanese by the pr iest who came to them from the
old c o u n t r>' in 1?30.
To make matters more di fficul t, the American Catholic Church re garded
the Maronites ether "Syrian" or "Lebanes - as just another ethni c
/ group to assimilate into the "universal" Latin' Rite. The Latin bishops,
not understanding the Lebanese adherents' liturgical distinction from
Latin Rite Catholicism, thwarted Maronite efforts to create autonomous
churches and competing schools. They also discouraged them from
practicing their rituals in the Antiochene style and the Aramaic, Syriac,
and Arabic languages. It was not until the second Vatican Council in 19 5
that acknowledging the integrity o f the Eastern Rites became a policy of
the Roman church. Catholics are now instructed to ': 1 : ' r-
their -Fathers when a parish o f that rite exis
Thus the Lebanese Maronites -Found themsel ves n s o rn e t r r c c t a wouL
bind. On the one hand, they needed to respond affirmatively with a cle D.
nationality-based sense o f ethnicity, if they were to withstand
assimilation into the American cultural mainstream. On the other, they
had to convince the American Catholic Church that their demands for
C:onk I in & NicCal I um p L5
separate I nat i tu t i ona were based not or nat i oral but on dc ,-- tr i nal
differences.
In St. Elias today the debate continues. The priest identifies
himself first
a Lebanese.
a Maronite Catholic I"and second, and only privately, as
His parishioners see the Maronite Church as the spiritual and
cultural center of their ethnic community, however. These distinctions --
between ecclesiasticism and nationalism, between sacred and secular church
functi ons - - and the rol e of the lay community in controlling and
sustaining the parish school are important determinants of the practice of
ethnic heritage and Arabic language education in the parish.
( The Lebanese community in Birmingham was established in the years A'
Z-Fot'lowing 1890. Settlement continued until the immi gration restrictions
Most Lebanese migrated first to cities in the Northeast or Great
LaVes and thence to Alabama. The founding Lebanese families in Biminqham -
—originated in the farming villages in the area around Zahie in central
rLebanon. They were attracted to Alabama by opportunities to enter into
/ itinerant trade among rural residents or in urban areas amidst the growing
numbers of mining, steel, and iron workers. They did not often choose
-farming or even industrial wage labor because they intended to return to
the old country. Also the tenant farmer and sharecropping agricultural
system prevalent in this region was antithetical to their experience and
ambitions as independent small farmers. 'k1ost Lebanese immigrants became a
peddl /rs, traveling the back roads carrying notions, dr oods, and
hand—crafted items on their backs. The profit was high, the investment
low, and only minimal English was necessary. A route and stock could be
obtained from more established Lebanese who owned shops and organized
routes for newcomers. As they became permanent settlers they often moved
afternoons." St. El ias was founded in 1910 in a converted publ ic schooll
building at 20th Street and Sixth Avenue South. It was named after the
- - - - -
the Latin Rite
Diocese in al 1 other matters, and had + i nanc i al obl i gat i ons to the bi shop
- e xp erienc e d c o n s id e r a b le a ttriti o n -
- th o u gh d o e s n o t .. . . .. to ha ve a -
as the estimated fifty - re p o r te d fo r - a - co n g r e g a ti o ns
nati o n a lly . 6 r e m a ine d in it s o r ig in a l., temp o r a ry, a nd in a deq u a te
quart e rs a s - co m m u n ity - - . a w ay fr o m - church a re a a the
nei g hb o rho o d s o f Gl e n Iris a nd a - U o n - so u th w e st a - o f
Birmin g ha m . Fin a lly, - church close d 19 3 9 fo r la ck o f - p riest;
a p pea ls p atr ia rch a te we nt unansw e re d fo r o v e r mo n th s . -
community - d ir e ctly co n ta ct e d - p r ie st a ha p p e n e d be visiting his
U a nd - ter a . - - p e r m i s s io n a p a tr i a r c h a
I.,Jhen Father a - a a r r iv e d a
F1 1 F1 & Nlci:.al 1 'jrn,
reas embled at St. El i a. The ori1. remaininn +unct cnin church
organization was the Ladies' Altar Society, which raised $311 to add to
the church treasury o $7.87 so that Father Abi -Chedi d could reopen the
bu ii ding and begin cal Ii ng the Maron i tes together again. He quick]
learned sufficient English to read the Gospel and to communicate with the
Birmingham business and professional community. He then set about
obtaining property in the Lebanese neighborhood arid managed to have almost
a -full city block of land donated to the parish.
In 1949 construction began on the present church building at 8:3
Eighth Avenue South. At the time of Father Abi-Chedid's retirement and
return to Lebanon in 1970 the complex consisted of the church, a parish
house, an auditorium/ca-feteria, and a -four-classroom educational building.
There were also plans for an additional our classrooms and a small
- - - - - - - -k' convent. Zach 'of the buil dings in cash raised primarily
through the Ladies' Altar Society weekly Lebanese dinners, which became a
veritable institution for many Birmingham residents.
The church had a series of short-term resident priests after Father
Abi-Chedid. In 1972 the present priest was appointed to St. Elias. He
was a member of one of the -first classes to graduate from the American
Maronite Seminary in Washington, D.C., and is the -first American-born
priest at St. Elias. Although of Lebanese descent, he is also the -first
priest not to speak Arabic -fluently. Since his arrival he has
concentrated his efforts on consolidating the pari sh membership, reaching
out to Maronites who had turned to the Latin Rite, and restoring the
teaching and celebration of the Maronite Rite. With the help of the
Ladies' Altar Society, he has also begun converting one classroom iritc' a
i brary - - one of only two or three such Maron i te 1 i brar i es in the Lin i ted
Ocinki in & McCal lum, p. LB
States.
In 1982 St. Elias' congregation numbers 260 active families totaling
800-1,000 people, most of whom are of Lebanese descent. These numbers
reflect the post-1965 immigration, which has brought primarily educated,
professional people, displaced by recent conflicts in the Middle East.
St. Elias is now one of three Maronite churches in the Southeast,
including chuches in Atlanta and Miami, and one of -Fifty churches and +i.e
missions in the entire country. In 1962 the pope authc'rized =-k r, apostolic
exarch to the United States with a mission to unify the American
Maronites. The exarch at Detroit became bishop of the Eparchy (DioccEe)
of St. Maron of the USA in 1971, and the Maronites were removed from the
authority of the Latin hierarchy. The eparchy is now administered from
its seat in Brooklyn, New York. It oversees the churches and missions,
the seminary in Washington, and a convent in Youngstown, Ohio. /
I Nationally, Maronites number over 36,000.7 The p+e- -emt priest has applied
for an assistant at St. Elias so that he can extend his outreach to
Maronites in the Nashville, Tennessee and Mobile, Alabama areas who now
worship in Latin Rite churches.
St. Elias maintains friendly relations with St. George Melkite Greek
Catholic Church -only three blocks away, and the ethnically Lebanese
parishioners sponsor some joint activities. St. Elias is the meeting
place for the American-Lebanese Alliance, though it occasionally meets at
St. George to demonstrate its ethnic, non-dl basis. The two
major religious festivals celebrated at St. Elias and other Maroni te
churches are the Feast of St. Maron on February 9 (Gregorian calendar
February 14), and the Feast of St. Elias on July 20 (Gregorian calendar
Tj - 7i- 4 rrr . n mrV - d 1, 1i *1 cn r i l ci n. r 1 y r- i
Conklin & McCallum, P.
food, music, dances, and other entertainment and the latter is ccl cbr ted
with a religious observance and a c h u r c h pi c ni c.
HISTORY OF ST. ELIAS ARABIC SCHOOL
The parish organized the first Arabic language classes in 191 , just
five years after founding. During the early years Kh& tar t4ehby, one
C • - , • _ ; of the few wel 1-educated immigrants, conducted th-em. At' -st the s?s_
I took place in a section of the old church and later at another location.
Wehbv taught as a volunteer, giving classes after school for several hour's,
each day. Both the students and the teacher were bi 1 i nqua] in Arabic and
English and used the two languages in class. The classes were to make the
children literate in Arabic, familiarize them with Arabic/Lebane;e
literature, and supplement the cultural education they were receiving in
Latin parochial schools.
The classes were not successful for very long. 4ehhy perse/cer'cd,
starting classes each fall until the 1920s, but the consistent attrition
discouraged him. 4ehby's daughter, an active St. Elias parishioner
describes her
- - - S
He
C •1 1
(-S I don ' t want anything, j ust let me teach them.
didn't receive cooperation. And, you know, he didn't
'ant anything from them. He'd say, "Give me your children
Well , it just wasn't supported, I mean, in that they didn't
cooperate with Papa. Maybe the parents kind of just
drifted away. And then my father just got disgusted Yrn
just quit.8
-
As textbooks t4ehby used grammars, d
,
flnrl':l in NlcC:alium, :. L1
and e s s-a y uolume -a that he had t'r':'uqht k&i i t hi m fr om Lebanon. Al thou'h
trained in clas Hc.al Ar.abicq he taught the vernacular language. U We
learned the alphabet. We learned to read to spell. We learned poetr/
and songs," says his daughter. Except for the songs, the efforts were
directed toward re-fining the children's language skills. She also recalls
that the instruction was -
More or less, I wo Td say, ccn' erEati orial A nd
the spelling and things I i k:e that, but bare) '..'r it i rig.
'Cause I don't think we ever got to the point where i.i IAI e r e
doing too much writing, especially not the print. I think
we were printing
Another parishioner who attended the Wehby classes for Ar.abii:-speaktng
children reports a si,i-l- exp r -f&Q e.
And the reason we learned - - we took part in the choir at
the church and we sang in Arabic. And we took the books
and would start reading out of the books, the Arabic
language print. Now, sct-st
but I can read pJ t- --
ting] , I c a n t read,
The next ser Lous efforts at-'Tanquaqe education did not take place
:jti1 Father Abi-Chedid became priest of St. Elias in 1940. He came to
Birmingham intending to open a full-day Maronite parochial school, but his
:.arishioners had a different priority.
didn't want to build a new church first; he wanted to open
going to learn other cultures,,,-and -:,,ou Just t,-.1on't have -Vour
The school building was not immediately forthcoming, so Father ""bi-Chedid
introduced Arabic classes for the young people after school and on
4II da ys_
He tried to teach us Arabic, but his bedside manners were
M33MMJ Mh and the children were very scared of him. We�d
just shake. He was just very stern and strict, and, I
don ' t know, we i ust cou I dn ' t I earn from h i m. L2--,
Fa th e r Ab i- Ch e d id 's s tu de n ts w e re U lo n g e r o r b ili n gu a l
in Ara b ic a nd En g li s h; w e re se co n d - a nd thi r d - ge ne ra tion
Le b a n e se , a t b e st, p a s s iv e kn o w le d g e o f la ng u a ge.
s- U • - - U Le b a n e se -Am e ric a n Birmingh a m d e s c r ib es hi=-. own skillE.
/111 s typic a he - un d e r s ta nd - co n s id e r a b le a m o u n t, U he ca nn o t
nox/C a n he . 0 o r U "E v e n th o u gh th e y [his U - U
par e nts] - Ar a b ic , a nd we we re sp oke n U b y Ar a b ic , a nd
understood it, we were never taught to speak it fluently," he explains.1-8'
Father Abi-Chedid emphasized conversation ., pronunciation-drill (in
C.onkl n & NicOallum, p. L12
Eome caaes, ph:'slc.11•/ tr:in; to s:or ce l.arync l s out of his pupil's), and
the alphabet. The classes would start up again and again and stop because
ropped out after a month or so. "I guess that's why I kno
the alphabet so well , " says one student. "we went through it so mar."
t i me s Althouc1h these experiences were not promising, Father
Abi-Ch did did not waver from his determination to have a school at St.
El ias to replace the Latin parochial education of the parish children.
At his parish's wish Father Abi-Chedid built first the new church ar
then the rectory. Working with the Ladies' Altar Society and the Knight'--
of St. Maron q a special parish lay organization established for the
purpose, Father Abi-Chedid raised the money necessary for the -Fir-=.t hai
of the school building. Finally, in 1958 the prospective school -
'-auditorium/cafeteria was completed and in 196e the first four of the
planned eight classrooms. The completed complex would be in the sh e o-f
a cross. The school was to have eight grades and teach all subject;
required by the state. In addition, the school would offer i n s t r u c t i o n 1r
Lebanese heritage and the Maronite Rite.
To ensure the realization of his dream of a school, Father Abi-Chedid
established a designated Maronite education trust fund. The proceeds from
the Lebanese lunches and dinners that became so popular in Birmingham in
the 1950s and 1960s contributed substantially to the fund. After Father
Abi-Chedid's retirement, however, his "school money" was restored to the
dioce i n and parish general funds, to be used for support of exist ing
programs. The final
No teachers were hire:.
The disposition 0± I "
St. Elias to this day. School advocates in the congregation see their
Conklin & N1CC..Eillurn, p. L13
opportunity to establi sh a full day school that i.jtj1d be responsive to
their ethnic and cultural needs to have been lost to other priorities
some argue, failure to recognize the imperative to have a Maroni te
Rite-based curr iculum for Lebanese-Amer ican ch I 1 dreri.
The parish today owns a substantial school complex of which it makes
very little u s e . The land adjacent, designated for the remainder of the
school , stands vacant. In such a si tuat ion it in u n I i ke 1 that the school
issue would easily disappear from memory. Indeed, today "s parishi oners
and priest report that, over ten years later, it remains a subject of
debate within the congregation.
Advocates of the school foresee a full curriculum of public and
parochial school subjects, as well as supplementary classes, including
Lebanese history and culture, the Maronite Rite, and the Arabic language.
One believes that Arabic should be begun "at an early age - - two or three.
I think it would be great for the younger, because it's easier -for them to
speak at that time."4-5, Another c describes the school she envisions thi s
came from. Teach them the history of Lebanon from the time
of the Phoenicians to the time of our present-day
situation. Teach them their religion, which is the oldest
rite in the church. Tear: 'He family life.
And besides, they would get this basic education that is
necessary for college or high school We were
going to have nuns who would teach them in English, except
the Arabic language, and the rite, and the church - - the
c h u r c h Probably they would have included in
the i r c-I a.=_-ses the Arabi c 1 anguage , as a course That would
be in A-ddi tion to their re ,:�ular studies.
Pu p s w o u b e d rawn
childr e n - p a r is h. Other s mi ght come fr o m La tin Ca th o lic
U - - 1 their childr e n a ll - tra d iti o n
the Latin church, su g g e sts a c hu r ch c o u n c il m e mbe r. Financi a l
are - de in additi o n U - cultur a l a nd r e li g io us
scho U b e tw e en a nd - - - pe rcent o f c hil d ren
atten d La tin R it z P aro chi a l sch o ols , w he re - • _ o u t- o f- p arish
Sch U . a dvo c a te s • U - - wo u ld r e d ir e ct - su p p le m ents provi d e d U
famili e s y St. Elias to_ U c a nn o t - - - co st
o f La tin sch o o ls , a n - S
least - 15,000 p e r ye ar U-
I
- mo st o u ts p oke n a d v o c a te s o f a rgue
capital U -fr o m - - - g e n e ra te d - - a nd -
earm a rk e d fo r - b u ildi n g fu n d e st a bli s he d _ U - . S Fa th e r - - . U U
a ls o b e d ed ic a te d U - p r o p o s e d e d u c a tion
would go a long -way toward supporting the school , v4re i t staffed by nuns.
Even the teaching staff of the projected school is a much discussed
issue. Father Abi-Chedid had first planned to bring eight nuns directly
from Lebanon. Later the parish contacted nuns at the Maronite National
Shrine in Youngstown, Ohio. We had Maronite nuns. waiting to
teach, and the bishop did not encourage them," recalls a parishioner very
active at the time. "We have a bishop who is not very aggressive. He did
I n P Mc f:a I urn p Li
not encourage them. They f i nal 1 y got di s g u s t e d and went back ti:
Lebanon I- A pro-school gr4up w thin the con rec.t i on has recentl
discussed the question with four Latin Rite nuns o-f St. Rose of Lirna in
Birmingham who attend St. Elias and who had declared themselves willin to
learn the Maronit rite 'and take on the jobs. Another pro-school
spokesman prefers to look to Lebanese nuns; they are European-educated, he
says, and multilingual. His group's plan would be to send them to Eacrei
Heart College in Cullman, Alabama until they pass the state teacher
certification examination. If established, the St. Elias school iiou1c be
the only Maronite school in the United States.
Along with the controversy about a Maronite parochial school, rabic
language classes have continued to take place at irregular intervals. In
the 197@s a Lebanese priest from St. George Melkite offered classes at St.
Elias. One adult versed in Arabic attended and enjoyed the classes, but
says the parish children could not keep up.
We had one priest of the Mel ki te church. He ..i. '.er
learned. He taught a higher grade, where the your: Ir e
could not [keep up] - - you have to start from ft
beginning.- . . I went when the priest was teacn,ir
because I knew a little bit higher Arabic and I
appreciate it and learn it. I*s �_ 4:_ —
could
In recent years there have been classes given by seminarians from
Lebanon interning at the parish. One man, who was at St. Elias for three
summers between 1978 and 1980, offered Arabic classes twice as part of the
Summer Enrichment Program. This program for families includes Lebanese
cooking , m o v i e s craft s, and other erir criing act ivities," notes the
parish priest. A respondent who attended with his wife and older children
recalls that the classrooms were filled. 914e went there very energet ic.
There's no tex tbookv you bring your own penc I 1 and paper, and you get -
there and you 1,-J r I te . You try to wr ite it down and pronounce i t , and t
YCP:/ hard to pronounce.' 14h11e the Summer Enrichment Program itself
lasted only -four weeks, the weekly Arabic classes continued throughout the
summer. The parish priest observes that attrition was high: perhaps
eighty started the class in 1980 and ten remained at the end.
In the summer of 1982 the interning seminarian is a Lebanese-Omer
who does not meet the minimum Arabic speaking and reading skills
guidelines established by the bishop. To expose his intern to the
language and renew Arabic teaching at the school, the parish priest
arranged that an immigrant Lebanese who is a professional elementary
teacher offer a children's class. Unlike most of the post-1965
immigrants, her family is highly language retentive, -a fact that the
priest attributes to their plans to return to Lebanon. This woman, who
teaches her own daughter Arabic at home, agreed to take on other children
in the six to ten age group. An announcement in the Sunday bulletin drew
children and also a number of adults. An additional teacher was then
found from among the recent immigrants, and a n adult class has also be gun .
Both classes meet for just one hour each week duri ng the Sunday
i\ j2 ' chool period between early and late mass. This time is usually devoted
to religious instruction. The children's class now has just over ten
children. The teacher is introducing the alphabet, reading and writing,
counting, and rhymes for word memorization using photocopies of
Conklin & NlcOali'jrn, p. L1T
elementary school books she used in Lebanon . She assigns homework task
Of rewritin g, copying, and translating, which the pupils have completed
dili gently. The seve iht adults in the other class requested
conversational Arabic. Their time is...de- 4ed to speaking, not reading and
writing 1 with the exception of learning the characters associated with the
sounds which have no parallel in Engi i sh. Pract ical conversational
phrases seem to be the main emphasis. This appears to he the iirst cour se
at St. El i as following a conversation approach. Sc far the at tendance has
been good and enthusiasm high. Most of the adult students have minor
passive knowledge of Arabic, but cannot speak it. The parish priest
expects the classes to go on into the fall, if interest continues at the
present' level. The adults had hoped for a longer session or a weekday
evening class, but their teacher was not available except on Sunda -.,--
mornings. If the adult classes continue, they may have to be scheduled
for another time.
- FUIURE 9W THE ST. ELIAS ARABIC SCHOOL / t c
Under Father Abi-Chedid the parishion r?ivVrKW1 gether to raise t
building funds, first for the church and rectory and then for the school
Now, with no plans for further expansion of the school, the church, or th
rectory, there are far fewer activities at the church, because
money-making projects are not as necessary.
The parish priest argues � that the idea of a school at
St. Elias runs counter to the American Catholic Church's general movement
away from parochial education, brought about, in part, by the loss of nuns
and the high cost of lay teachers. More importantly, however, he sees
Maronitism as a rite, a special tradition of Catholicism, and resists the
- thnic co m m u n iti e s wa nt e d th e ir p a r is he s . S
that is a misn o m e r, b e c a us e a rite is - distinct entity in
the Ca th ol i c des us. We're a
M-ar o n it e c hu r ch a nd Ge o r g e - - - Greek
Cath o li c B th o s e will stand, yo u a
e thnic thin g , w e d e p e n d ed o nl y e thnicity,
woul d die out .1-94
The co n fu s io n o f a nd e thnic identific a ti o n pe culi a r - U
Am e rican - - a nd o t h e r Ma ro ni t e s livin g o v e rs e as, sinc e th e re is no
co m p e titi o n - La tin R it e / O r, - - a a o f - div e rsity
within the Ca th o li c -fa ith Le b ano n • _ S - lf. As a n Am e rican,
p ri e st mo r e se nsitiv e to th e issu e - p r ie sts fr o m Le ba no n m a b e ,
o r, in d e ed , - a - o t h e r p r ie sts a t Eli a s ha ve b e e n. - he is
ca u ti o u s a b ou t t o o clo s e a n id e n tity b e t w e en Mar o ni ti s m a nd Le b a n e se
he d o e s n o t U e n ti r e ly d is a ss o c ia te - two. E x a min e d
cl o s e ly o v e r se ve ra l - - int e rvi e ws, - ca uti o n a p p ea r s U - fr o m -
co n c e rn - - e m p ha sis U - I a way fr o m - int e rn a l Ma ro n it e fa ith
U e xt e rn a l cultur a l ma nif e stati o n s o f - no n - r e li g io u s - - ra th e r
- - a ss o c ia ti o n U U o f M a ro ni t e wi t h L e b a n e se is incorr e ct. - p r ie st,
his p rim a ry - co n c e rn b e w i t h s pi ri t u a l a ff a irs - a nd - ma int e na nc e of
- fa ith. d oe s n o t w is h U - - hims e lf - d u a l ro le a s
Cu:nklin & Mcr::aliurn, p. L1'
of the ethnic community. No doubt this too, is partly the response of an
urban American socially -far removed from the viJlage leader role of
priests in traditional, rural Lebanon. Yet /St. El ias is a Lebanese
Maronite parish in the Deep South, long isolated and self dependent; its
congregation may have broader expectations of the roles its priest should
assume than might a parish in a more densely Maroni te and Lebanese area
such as the Northeast.
The parishioners do not attempt to make the delicate distinctions
between -faith and national i ty upon which their priest insists. As one put
it, "Well, that sort of goes together, being Maronite and being Lebanese.
If you're Lebanese you're Maronite. Because the Maronite is the majority
15 1 in Lebanon." And, -further, "Well , the church, really, is the real
-foundation of the [Lebanese] community. Everyone gathers here. Ni-F ;;--
don't see them at all, you see them at church." Other &!�,, L_�, C �k S
connect religious and cultural life:
I love it. I love the music, the -Food, the dancing -- it's
all the religion. To me it's a great culture. . . .
[i.e., American—Lebanese generally] keep the -food and lose
all the other [elements of culture], and we're so fortur
that we [in Birmingham] have the church and our whole 1
Ri gi b' t r :- :n
1 i -fe; that
have the church, we'd be like all the other Lebanese
communities. I think we're very -fortunate in this ar a :
have two churche E . e i j — ' ' Crri:'M 1L5
- V---
directly
Ouriki i ri & Mcf:al lum, p. L2c1
For these parishioners, maintaining the Maronite faith and Maronite
religious education are identical with maintaining Lebanese ethnic and
cultural awareness f?it they are simply separable.
The struggle surrounding the St. El as school must be uriderstcc'd in
light of the above sentiments. The priest and his parishicrierE. share deep
concerns about the education Maronite children receive in the Latin
schools and the effects that Latin school attendance appears to have cr
the level of participation at St. El ia families are drawn to do
volunteer work for the school's parish instead of their own, and the
children make friends among their Latin Rite schoolmates. In addition,
part of the Latin school curriculum is Catholic liturgy, catechism, and
custom, and Maronite children learn that this is the universal
Catholicism. Until Father Abi—Chedid started to grant first communion to
St. Elias youngsters early - - at six instead of seven years of age - - the \__d - ,
Maronite children were even studying for and taking their communion at
school in the Latin Rite with their Latin classmates.
Because the majority of the children attend parochial school and thus
receive extensive religious instruction during the week, the Sunday chool
hour at St. El iás has been devoted largely to "remedial" education in the
principles of Catholicism for the minority who go to the public school
Most parochial school children do not even attend. The priest has
introduced a quarter hour specifically on Maronitism in the last year or
so, based on materials that he and parish teachers have developed. In
fall"1982, for the first time, there will be Maronite curriculum materials I.. '
from the exarchate education department available for children's religious
( )instruction. The priest hopes to expand the Sunda 1chool into a full
f:Lrik I n & N1cf.. 1 1 urn p. L21
hour of Mar':ni te Catholic study, using the e:<srchate materi als to
supplement the standard Latin rite—based books and catechism.
—
In tribute to his eminent predecessor and ha Father Abi-Chedid _ -----
'5 educational ambitions, the current priest has had the church 1 i brar:y named
after t —b - d ----.o+ th!-....s' o +---c n + x -- n whtch H-t-- t iu'sed; For tic
::'ears the Ladies' Altar Society has been developing the Iihrar::' s
collection, which consists o f books and pamphlets on Maronitism and • •: . . ,
Catholicism; a section of travel, 'archaeology, history, and art 1-
br.oc wc e-t Lebanon and the Middle East; a -few Arabic and Syria:
grammars and dictionaries; yearbooks and convention books from St.
and other American Maronite chu -hes; and issues of The ChallenQe, the
\ 'ç: i -\ . • .
American exarchate newspaper. Few Arabic language
\4LJ •. . - -
been L considerable number of old Arabic books -
as For the priest the "real special" section is the
o n e o n the Maron I te Rite and the history of the Maron i te people:
W e w a n t e d t h e l i b r a r y t o s p e c i a l i z e i n things of our rite,
and o f our history, and of our culture. . . . Books ar
very hard to get and expensive to find - - in English.
Any Arabic books we've gotten, people donated them
their homes and things. We're trying to classify them,
identify them, and put them out. . . You'd be
surprise a young person comes by doing a paper in school, -
and is trying to do it about the Maronite Rite, and the
history of Lebanon, or something, and they would have a
source here. We want to have things here they can't find
anywhere else. We want to have regular hours, but
„-)h i ch there k,,ii I I Lbe re-_;Lal -ig5 -from the books, or + i Ims -and tapes about the
ar the specific ritual , dogma, and history of the church, supplemented
it certainly is not for many lay advocates of the St. Elias school. T r-I
.Rrgue for the necessity of a school from various perspectives. I.tiT iu
of early immigrants to Birmingham, for example, represents the +action o+
parishioners oriented toward the old country. They aresocially, religiously, and ethnically. One of their concerns about t�it-
the Latin nu n s the lu teac hers in a schoi i
But these nuns are still real nuns. They are full habits.
And that s what we want. We don't want these nuns who look
like me and you, and they call themselves nun. They're no
They fear that St. Elias is, increasingly, "mainly social,” not religious.
This family has been central to all fundraising activities in the past,
but "I told them, "You want our family back here, you're going to have to
start that school going, because the church doesn't need anything
Conklin & McCallum, p. L23
else!'"24- Deeply religious, this family, like its priest, fears
dissolution of the Maronite parish, but espouses a different strategy for
maintenance e f f o r t s , i.e., closer alignment of ethnicity and religion via
parochial schooling that integrates secular and sacred needs.
Another parishioner who shares concern over the ntegr I t::' of the
family and abhors marriage outside of the ethnic and rel i g i o u s c o m m u n i t>
arrives at his support of the school in a somewhat different fashion. A
third-generation American in his mid-thirties, he has no strong ties to
the old country. Whereas two young men of the fami ly discussed above wi 1 1
return to Lebanon to marry village girls during 1982, this parishioner and
his family, and even his parents, have never visited the old country. He
is not trying to preserve old country ways in the United States /but to
create a sense of place and self for his Lebanese-American family. While
others in his age group opted for assimilation as an escape from
"foreign-ness," he has overcome the ethnic, minority -child experience by
integrating and promoting his Lebanese heritage. He speaks of the
privileges he had in the Birmingham community in comparison to his wife,
who grew up Lebanese in a Mississippi town with no ethnic or
ethno-religious institutions. A school at St. Elias would be a means for
passing on to his children a fuller cultural experience and sense of place
than he and his wife have had.
I'm not that old country, and I'm not that modern. But I
think we should know who we are, and about our background,
and to be proud of it. A lot of people my age
wish we could speak it [Arabic], and that's how come we
want the school . You know, there are a lot of young
C:cnkl iri & ricc..i U p. L24
married couples with chi ldreri. C d j ij s t h a 'S.' e a
-fit to have a school down there. . . I would just li:ue
for m kids to go to their own church, to their own school,
arid to participate and be around their her it age more and be
•arc'urd their own people
- -
Thu-, the school i S 4 qe-d-as a bulwark •a i nst e::ter-n.al soc al ch n e
as a positive affirmation of the immigrant experience and as a cultural
link between grandparent, parent, and child.
Interestingly, it is the latter parishioner who i-s most emphatic
about Arabic language retention or renewal. The elders in the first
family cited above were r in an Arabic-speaking home and some of the
younger adults also speak the language. Their homes are basically
English-speaking, howeverjya 4' the new Lebanese brides will be
mu 1 t I 1 I ngual , although they- Lebanese-Amer ican grooms are not / he ir.
homes, too, will be English speaking. In contrast, the adults in the
second family, without old country ties and essentially monolingual in
English, try to use the few Arabic words and phrases they still remember-
in daily conversation at home. While many innovations at St. Elias
distressed the -first Lebanese-oriented family, they did not mention the
increasing use of English in the liturgy. The latter family, on the other
hand, wants to see the entire mass returned to Arabic.
At St. El ias today ninety -five percent of the mass is in English.
The Holy Consecration is recited in Aramaic and the choir sings "a c':'uple
of hymns" in Arabic. This is a radical shift from 1940, when Father
Abi-Chedid was coached so that he could recite his first reading of t-
Gospel in English; he memorized the sounds, not understanding a sing]
Conki in &' Mcf:a lurn, p. L25
i&ijrd. One parishioner who speaks Arabi': arid is a professional musician 1
has merous Arabic hymns into phonetics for the use o1
monolingual choir members. Prayer books have bilingual texts and a
phonetic rendering of the Arabic, so that parishioners can read along. In
the parish priest's view the switch to English has been positive for the
congregation:
I'm satisfied with just keeping the flavor of it.
Aramaic is more important [than Arabic], because it was the
liturgical language. Like Latin, it was preserved just for
the liturgy. And Aramaic was closer to our people, because
they spoke it at one time. And also, Christ spoke Aramaic.
So I think there will always be a closeness to that
language, because of those associations. . You
know, I have a flavor, a flavor for it oo, and I can read
Syriac 'cause that's how we're traine &( . My idea
was that, if the rite was going to thrive, people had to
know what they're doing, especially the young. I think
these things are, can be, transmitted with a flavor, but in
Englis 2(hat they never knew, what it was before. And
the thing about these churches --- the Maronite and the L L-
Melkite churches, this old way of thinking -- was that they
were old—country churches, you know, for the old people, or
those who didn't speak Engl ish. I think we've had to
change that, if there was going to be any hope for the
young people to come, to understand �hat they were going >
And it's successful; it can't help but be
•"¼ "
7
AJ -'
Conk 1 i n & McC.a I I urn, p. L2o
successful if you approach it like that. We have m o r e
young coming to our church now than ever before
He articulates quite eloquently the 1inguistic-a imilationist
position. Yet the priest speaks often of this notion of "flavor.' It
arises in his description of the Arabic language classes. Although he
maintains that the language learning efforts are largely fruitless in
terms of actual linguistic skills, he thinks it is good for pariahicrer
to have the exper ience of studying the alphabet and learning a bit about
the language. He especially approves of their learning vocabular::. acts
such as greetings, household items, foods - - "you know, table-talk kind o f
stuff" - - since it puts them in touch with the culture they have in their
homes.
I don't think it is really going to mean a lot, except to
give you a flavor of the identity, which is all right.
Now there's more than an awareness and a real desire
for identity. [It would not be good if] you didn't
know what to call the foods your grandfathers ate and that
you eat every Sunday. And they're pretty goo ;)there's
nothing else like
The priest and his intern, both Lebanese-Americans, cite the Arabic
kinship terms as a specific example of how exposure to the old-country
language helps the people conceive of and internalize their own cultural
At-torl k,iew. As a child, the priest marvelled at the wealth of kinship
rents to denote each member of the e' ended
Conk I n & N1cC.i 1 urn, p. L2T
family in a single expression of relationship. "I don "t kn ow them all
rnxse1+ but it ' s -fantastic. There is no way we can do it [ e x p r e s s this
concept of kinship) in English."
Arahic language advocates remain confident that the young people
in the pariah could become effective bilinguals, and that is o n e o f the
outcomes they would expect from the school . One notes that h
-f i.e-year-old son can re: te the sn sect ions of the rn.aas already.
Le-ft to me, the whole mass could be in Arabic. I -feel like
we have a prayer book, we c an re-ad it and then we can
learn the words in Arabic also. You repeat it so many
times, and you hear it and can pick it
He would send preschool ers to Arabic classes before they e er at?rt e
regular day school.
I w o u ld gi v e a n yt h in g if they would open it u p. 1T the
Father would think the way some of us think; but he
doesn't. . . I don't know s I hope we get a school. I
real 1 y f9 T that, - don' t, that we'll lose it all .2 TfCQ - —
I,n a )
\- H/ STORY pF HQ
Local legend has it that three seafaring brothers were the -first
Greek immigrants to Alabama the -first settled in Mobile in 1873, the ,
second in Montgomery in 1878, the third - - GeorQe Cassimus - - in
Birmingham in 1884. Cassimus is described as a British merchant seaman,
who,-with his two brothers/ hired out on a Con-federate gunrunner. He
n N1cC..1 1 urn s p
arrived in Birmingham from the port city of Mobile, -F)rst work inc1 for the
fire department and later opening up a lunch stand. Despite the legends
surrounding the origins of Alabama's first Greek settlers, most Greek
mini crants to Birmingham entered the Un i ted States through El -I is Isi and,
settling in this country under less dramatic circumstances.
Most Greek immi gran ts to the IJni ted States until after IAIor1d .Jar II
were unskilled single males. They often planned to return with their
savinqs from America to their Peloponnesian villages to establish a farm
or business, or to support their kin or dower their daughter or sister ,
both strong Greek traditions. Many of the Greek immigrants to Birmingham
h:wever, as well as those who settled elsewhere in the country after 19i
were already married, or later returned to Greece to find a bride,
intending from the outset to establish permanent residency in America. Z)
The majority of the early Greek immigrants to Birmingham came from
the Peloponnesian area and the islands of Corfu, Samos, and Rhodes. The::.
settled in metropolitan Birmingham, as well as in many of the sate] 1 te
communities - - Ensley, Bessemer, I4ylam, and Prat ci y in particular
oriented toward Jefferson County's coal mines and iron and steel mills.
In the city of Birmingham proper Greeks settled on the Southside,
especially on Cüllom Street, and in Norwood.
Reports conflict on the number of early Greek residents in the city ,
and the official federal immigration and census statistics are
inconsistent. Growing from the 100 enumerated in the 1900 Census, Greek
residents in Birmingham numbered 908 and 1,200 in Ensley by 1913.
Census data from 1920, however, ly 485 Greeks in Birmingham.
Before World War I, but especially after 1920, Greeks in Birmingham,
f:onkl in & McCallum, p. 32'
retail businesses. A Greek-American middle class emer ged -Fairly early in
the ':ommu i t:: s hi story in this cauntr . The major i ty of the Greeks
soon made opportunities for themselues in wholesaling and retailing.
By the early 1900s Greeks had such a monopoly on street vending that a
1902 petition to the city council unsuccessfully tried to rev e their
,
retail 1 I censes.3. e'many emerged as restauraq(t urs. Other
early Greek-owned businesses included hotels ., barbershops, shoeshine
stands, lauridri es, and bill lard parlors.
The most recent wave of Greek immigrants to Birmingham followed the
1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Some 142,000 Greeks emigrated to
the United States during the late 1960s and early 19T'Os. These later
immigrants included both men and women with professional and technical
training. Many came from Athens or central Greece and had no intention of
\c, returning to their homeland. The Birmingham Greek community, however,
also includes a sizeable number of recent immigrants who have been
educated only through grammar school.
Ho
HISTORY OF
The seventh Greek Orthodox congregation in the United States, Holy
Trinity Church Was founded in 1902 with the organization of a lay
committee, the Lord Byron Society (named in honor of the British poet who
championed Greek independence). The committee's purpose was "to establi- h
a Greek Orthodox Church, also to assemble the members of the
one place for order and social improvement." 1I, Reverend,Ca1l Kanellos, an ethnic Greek from Constantinople, Turke
priest. Ptr first mass t' s ce1ebr&te-d- in 1907. AftE-
fundraising drive, during which the small parish met in rented h
/
Conk 1 in & McCal lum, p.
:'c'cict::/ purchased -?. -former Methodi st-Episcopal church building on 19th
Street and Avenue C South (now Tht7f Avenue South)
In 1906 the parish of 100 members was officially named the Greek
Orthodox Community of Holy Trinity Birmingham, Alabama, and received a
state charter. Daily afternoon Greek ool classes began shortly after Qt
the or ganization of the church in the "1 i ttle run-down building" next
door, that was also used as a general meeting place.VY When Father
K.ariel1cs left in 1912 he was replaced by Father Germarios Smirriaki a.,
described as a most learned man , a good 1 riqu at and the author of
several book-.
people on various subject s religious, historical, hygienic,
succession of, presumably, Greek-born priests appointed to the Holy
[who also] lectures every Sunday evening to hi s
etc . " A
Trinity parish by the Archdiocese followed Father Smirnakis.
On the eve of the Depression the Greek-American community in
Birmingham numbered over 1,500. "With this expansion came inter-community
[sic] tension," between factions of parishioners with differing values
relating to ethnic heritage, language, and education. 1.09101
Dissen t w i t h n
the community began developing in 1926 over the selection and hiring
process of an additional teacher. At the base of the argument was a
long-standing controversy within the Greek-American community between
ecclesiastical and lay community authority in church affairs. The
argument continued through 1932. After unsuccessful efforts at
recoric i 1 i at ion the Birmingham Greek community formally spl i t over the
school issue in 19:3:3 Approximately one-third of the Holy Trinity
parishioners '.ithdrcw their membership and formed another parish, that
Holy Cross [with] aims and purposes being of course the same, but in a
Tr fl fl C mj7e to the 'kinci.' Z /
of
educational
Conklin & McCallum, P. i3r3 11
Not form ally recognized by the Archdiocese , group :- t - _
_yawinhinners. The group advertised in the
New York Greek newspaper Atlantis for a priest and hired Father Dionvsic,;
Dimitsanos from Corfu in 1933. Services had previously been held in the
Fraternal Hall belonging to Holy Trinity, but within three months the
dissident parish had 150 members and Yen- e- r extensive fundraising
acA
efforts to build its own church. This in 1934, with the
aid of the American Hellenic Educational Progres e Association (AHEF
and other community organizations. The -first Holy Cross Church t t--
S at North 25th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenue' in Birmingham.
From the outset Mr. Anagnostou, one of the two teachers involved in the
41
confrontation at Holy Trinity, taught Greek school classes in the church
building.
Competition between the two parishes continued. In 1931 Holy Tniriit'
('the original church") bought the properties next door and erected a new
1935 the dissident par Nh, Ho'T' building. In
In 1938 Holy Cross built a rie
church next door to its old one, again with AHEPA's aid, and began using
the former church as an educational building. A Youth Center was
completed in 19 1. In 1949, after some disagreement about relocation to
an area nearer the homes of one community group, Holy Trinity built the
present church (dedicated and consecrated in 1956) on its old site.
Reconciliation efforts between the churches began in 1947. It was
the social activities of the youth groups of both parishes that final] -;''
reunited the Greek-American community in Birmingham. The factional
between the two churches had divided the entire community for thirt
years, during which time the community's mutual aid and church-affi
Conk I i ri & N1u:r::..l I un-,
Z-E4t I 'fl E. ncludi ri; the church youth Lip r:up so, be! n open i n g the i r
social and recreational functions to one another. The Greek On t flr:do::<
(outh of America (GOYA), a national orqanization aimed at the uni fi c ati cn
of independent Greek-American youth groups across the country, chose
Birmingham to host the third annual GOYA conference in 1953 • member•E
c-f both churches' chapters joined in its planning. The occasion re uIted
in the reunification of Birmingham's two Greek Orthodox parishes. The
chairman 0± the e'ent recalls the -final atherHn c-f the
convention;
Nobody that came could forget the enthusi asm. I think one
night they raised $45,'3e0, just off the floor from the
k i ds. There were old gold coins. People were crying. We
re-al i zed all the great things that needed to be done for
the community coul d, not he done without the communities
pulling together.24
A binding legal contract named the reconciled 1,1500-member parish the
United Greek Orthodox Community, Holy Trinity-Holy Cross, Birmingham,
Alabama. It specified that a new priest would be brought in to serve the
community and outlined the usages of bo h parishes' new buildings. The
Holy Trinity jducational,, &jlding be used for joint Stunday Sc c:
/ and Greek( chool classes; the Holy Cross Youth Center be used for-
all parish social functions. Th mutual use of each parish's former
property appears to have continued until the 1970s, when )he unified
parish sold the property of th e o ld Ho ly Cross Church Fter it had been
damaged in a fire. To "satisfy the newer generation," Holy Trinity-Holy
C:c,rikl i ri & McCal I urn, p.
Cr oss replaced the old educational bui lding wi th a modern one' - - the
current Hellenic Orthodox Christian Center -- dedicated in 1973. It
ntai n Surida::. fchool ci assroom;. the Greek 1 anguaqe school ':1 assrc'orn, a
parish library, social halls, a gymnasium/audi tor ium, meetinq rooms, arid
C CS.
Most of the Greek-Americans in Birmingham interviewed about the spi i t
caused by educational di f-ferences agreed that i t was unfortunate, but
rational i zed the commun i ty fact i oral i sm by drawing on Greek proverbial
lore. An elder whose oral history is in the parish library said, "I
know division is no good and all that, but, on the other side, it brinu
you. progress, too. You have to fight for existence, you know.
11 And as one of the elders interviewed in this study put it,
"Everybody wanted to be chiefs. Nobody wanted tQ be an Indian. Tha
the trouble. That's the trouble with Greeks."
Today Holy Trinity-Holy Cross is the third largest Greek Orthodox
parish in the South, ranking behind Atlanta and Houston. It boasts the
largest congregation and only cathedral in the state of Alabama. Other
smaller Greek Orthodox parishes exist in Montgomery, Huntsville, and
Mobile. There is a "mission parish" as well /" in Daphne, Alabama. Since
the 1953 reunification the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross parish has had five
priests. A variety of church-affiliated groups continue to fulfill
important aspects of the parish's religious, educational, and social
missions. The 1982 Holy Trinity-Holy Cross roster listed 650 members,
about seventy-five percent of whom, according to the current priest, are
"ethnic Greek."
The issue of the liturgical language is controversial among
parishioners today. Some want to further increase the percentage of the
for three hours daily, Mond-ay through Saturday. One
C:nk:1 i ri & McC.al lum, p. 034
1 i turgy that i n Engi i sh (wh I ch has i increased from f -f ty percent Greek
and fifty percent English to thirty--five percent Greek and sixty-five
percent English in the year and a half since the current priest, a
Greek-American, took off ice , and others would return to serc ices that are
entirely in Byzantine Greek.
HISTORY OF HOLY TRINITY, HOLY CROSS AND HOLY TRINITY-HOLY CROSS GREEK
SCHOOLS
The -first language classes in Birmingham's Greek Orthodox community
were offered shortly after the founding of Holy Trinity Church. As early N\<C -
as 1907 daily afternoon Gree�/ c hool classes 4 ight y-1r- rn tiria
in a "shack" behind the church. She was followed by Andreas
Kopoulos (also known as Mr. Andriakopoulos), who lived above the Greek
3chool. A cantor at Holy Trinity, early pa ish records indicate that his
any waE. hi ;her than that of the priest.
The Hellenic focus of the school was made clear in its state
purpose: so "Americanized children [would be] secure in Greek thc ',
legend, and tradi tion."4 ' The fledgling Greek Orthodox parish in
Birmingham recognized the value of both Greek language maintenance and
English language acquisition, and its lay organizations were instrumental
in organizing and -fundraising for language education. In 1910 the Your;
Greeks Progressive Society was conducting English language clao e; for I t
membership of 150 young businessmen. A group of Greek women attended
9. weekly sessions at a school on Highland Avenue," and in 1911 a local
chapter of the Pan Hellenic Union was organized in Birmingham 7 with
objective .b LD '"to plan and fund the Greek school." '
The earliest Greek Achool classes were held from June to September
accomodated al 1 r ocum
4
el emeritary Qraces arid - - tea':her time arnc'r student. c+
\ _
arious grade levels. As many as ninety students at one ti me - -
desks arranged according to age and ability - - studied Greek grammar,
history, geography, literature, mythology, -fo ksonqs, drama, and dial
Excercise drills occurred on Saturdays, when religion was and .4 -
athletics p- ct c.-d. The only available curricular materials were those
imported from Greece by the teacher; the teacher often had the only books
and students copied lessons from the blackboard. Rote learning,
memorization, and recitation were the standard learning method=-.. trict
disciplinary measures were the rule.
One parish elder who attended Greek ho c Classes +rcrn 11? tc' 1522
describes the curricular materials and pedagogical methods used by Father
Nicholas Lambrinides, the revered, multilingual teacher who had beer
trained in Constantinople be-fore coming to Americ
remembered, even though he only spent six years
- .4
S t.J j tie
in Birmingharr
We had only one book - - the reader. All the rest of the
subjects he would write on the board, like for history, for
instance, and we would copy it, start on scrap paper. He
demanded that we would put it in a composition book in
cal 1 graphy - - and I mean without smudges, without
misspelling1. . . and that way we had the pretty
handwriting, and that way we would memorize what we wrote
and we'd remember our history and religion topics and
geography. He stressed geography, oh yeah! He would have
the islands made in poetic -form and we would point them out
as we recited them. We w ould po int them out , and if we
Conki i n & Nlcf;allum, p. G3o
made one 1 I ttle mi take we d get a whack o n the hand. He
was v e r y strict, but we learned; he made us learn. I kne'...'
the Greek geography as if I did, better than I knew the
U.S. map. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the Greek School
( ;—cL A
Arr:ther Eeccrd -;erierat i o Greek frc'm 6 r m i nqham / recal 1 a her ear II
.per encea jr the "Helleriir' classes from arr''jnd 1'22 to 1° S:
It I...LE4 E. just a 1 ittie, s. house a ai1:- to start with, that
they had bought and converted into the Greek p'chool . And
my mother happened to be on the Board of Education for the
Greek fichool so I had to be at school on time.
Actually, the curriculum was reading writinu , cf
course, and not penmanship writing/ but what they used t o
call c'rthoQraphia, which was the correct spell iriq.
And correct yrammar
It started from the E :< year old and w e n t on up to
IN seventeen at least. . . You know, I don't know how
long I went to Greek chool ; it seemed like it was forever.
And our written examination we would write for
weeks ahead of time, and then all our papers would be hung
on line so that our parents could view them. . If
:.O'J CflC
sent o'J t
'er v unr'j I cr di d some th ng very bad, we were
to cut the so-ii tches off the trees and we were
tched on our hands - - for doinQ some thin Q really bad.
Cc'nkl in & McCal 1um p. 037
you know. It al 1 depended on the teacher , what he thou ght
was so terrible , - n-.--- --
Both women also recall
I - -
prc"iuction c -f
Greek patriotic plays, accompanied by Greek songs, was an important ocu
of the school year under Father Lambrinides and subsequent teachers. Such - C -
presentations were often hi Qh 1 i at the annual graduation exercises
the Fraternal Hall next to the church or at. 31 r-mi n' ham s Bijou Theatre
A succession of Greek-born schoolteachers -followed Father
Lamhr in ides' tenure at the Greek school . Many teachers durin g q this period
also traveled on certain weeknights to the steel mill towns of Ensley and
Greek Fairfield to hold ,School classes for the parishioners in those ø ç' -f I
communities. In 1926 controversy began to develop in the Birmingham
Greek Orthodox community over the hiring of teachers for the Greek hocl
its site, and policy-making decisions. This ument U
culminated in 1933 with the split of the community and the -formation of
the separate Holy Cross parish. Birmingham then had a second Greek ,dchool
/ supported, in part, by the fundraising efforts of Holy Cross' Chapter
T I tILa 1i -
AHEPA , a community advancement group. Holy Cross offered its own
"parochial afternoon school of Greek," taught first by Mr. Anagnostou, and
then, beginning around 1942, by the church's rector, the Reverend D
Sakellarides. After 1949 Christine Sepsas taught the classes, first
taking pupils into her home and later affiliating with the new Holy Cross
parish. I
Mrs. Sep -sas'A mother had also been a Greek 1 chool teacher.
And,
I:.:n:1 in & 1•icC. 11uri-, p. L::::
Greek Cu stom ani +amj t I ri ari c e s 1.0 0 U I d c'ri 1 al 1 caw her brother to rece i '.'e a
higher education. No longer at the Greek /chool , she continues to offer
classes ir her home, teaching English to new immigrants in Birmingham.
Another teacher from the Holy Tr in i ty par i sh re Vampak: a,
'raduated from a teachers' school in Athens, is a o w del re rnbered
today in the Greek community in Birmingh ' r W her crmer CX '
students as being "very learned.' A ...h::
attended Greek School at Holy Trinity in the late 193 s. arid e.rl 194
The class was divided - - C
you know, that's surprising, because every Greek chi
was going to Greek $'hool , every day, right after sc hoo l /
We'd get on the bus, get the tickets from the Birmingham
Electric Company, because that's what used to be the
streetcar. . . . We had to run and get the bus at six
'cause they wouldn't take your tiket after six o'clock on. IN
It was packed. The streetcars were packed. We had to
stand up and everything. . I wouldn't take a thing
for those years. In fact, we sit around the table and talk
about Greek chool. . My kids have heard these
stories a hundred and fifty c)
It seems that there were no formal Greek fi hool classes in Birmingham
during the war years, and by 1953 the two Birmingham Greek Orthodox
parishes had reunited. By the mid-1960s and through the early 1970s Greek
chool classes at the united Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Church had decreased
f:cnkl i r & McC:al I Urn, p.
to unce-a-'..jeek even i nq c Ia. sse 'i th a very h i cih at tr it i on rate b the end
of the school year.
Although not directly cited by any of our American-born respondents,
part of the problem during this period appears to have been staffing
difficulties. In the late 1960s the one teacher at the Holy Trinity-Holy
Cross Greek School was an elderly woman from Greece whose teaching style
was not well received by her students, accustomed to the ways of
American schools. One student called her a "strict discipline classic
Greek schoolteacher" in the old country fashion. She was foll owed in the
early to mid-19 70s by an immigrant from Cyprus. A current teacher
1 ersel an immigrant Greek' describes his pedagogical methods:
He was not for children. He [should have] taught adults.
He was really tough on the children, you know. He
thought he was back in Greece, in the old school in Greece,
and children would resent it. . . Well, I'll tell you
how it started. There was these three little girls"- - -
intermarriage, you know -- so they were going to this Greek
chool. Well, one day he made a mistake. In Greek [he
said], "Look at all these American kids come to Greek
chool . " Well naturall . . . they didn't want to go
back. And [my daughter] says, "If they're not going to go,
then I'm not going to go." So I said, "If you're going to
sit at home, then I'm going to teach you." . . And the
i ttl e girls say, "t4e1 1 , can we come too?" And I say,
"Yeah." And that was good, because that was one time [my
daughter] really learned her Greek because, see, the four
o+ them together , I had them two daxs a week , and I
them uf thi ngs . _
0
respondent This
Tr in i ty-H o ly Cross on one or U w e ekd a y e v e nings U
This past semester she taught a tw o - ho u r Tu e sd ay - U c la ss U a mixed
group of stu d e n ts , bu t th e ir a tt e nd anc e - irre g u la r a nd
- cl a ss . o ld e r stu d e nts every o ne knew the Greek alphabet, she used Meth o d s o f En qlish.
father e m p lo y e d he tau g ht h e r b r o th e r p It rinted
a "p ho n e ti c s ," a n d En gli s h tr a nsl a ti o n a nd fo c u s e s +,--,r-
so cial a nd b usiness co nv e rs a ti o n a s - ll a s st o ry a nd Her-
stu d e n ts a a +o u r th - ge n e ra Ltion Gr e e k-American chil d r e n a sp o us e s
conv e rt e d U Gr e e k o r th o do xy U U in te r m a rria g e .
a attitu d e s to w a r dl a n gu a g e acquisition as +ollows.:
Now I do have students , ti a t
use the English a - tics U
do. But I di a U U o n e U the ncin-Gre that
Car e ] - ma rri a g e , - Ca re ] - Gr e ek [thr o ug h int e rm a rri a g e ], th e y'r e mo r e re ce p ti v e U le arn
th a n - o n e s - a ctually a re Gre e k, b e c a us e - a p p ly-
th e mselv e s b e c a us e th a t's - th e y'r e th e re fo r. Thex
hav e a n a im within thems e lv e s - to • a so m e thin g , - U U the -, are
Ccinkl in & Mcf:al 1 urn, p. 641
l earn irici. because that s what they are applyinci themselcie
to do. . . No, we don't have history, al 1 we're doin g
is strictly conversation, but, like I said, they do know
the alphabet. They do know how to read in Greek if they do
want to read it in Greek but most of them will read in
Engl I sh O . -. _ - _-- - za ' (
Dur i ng the same per i ad two other rat i ye Greeks have been teach i n- __j
One gives afternoon and evening session rimarily to adults,
A a trilingual Greek-French-English speaking home, started teaching upon
arrival, in Birmingham in the late 1970s and attracts a somewhat more
advanced level student group whose retention rate appears to be higher.
He now teaches a Saturday morning Greek /chool class at Holy Trinity-Hol
Cross for adults only. This past semester he had six students in this
class, including a recent convert married to a second-generation
Greek-American and the couple's two daughters. The mother describes her
daughters' ethnic identification and their attitudes toward Greek School:
[They] are,very close to their background. The Greek is
definitely prevalent. My children are so Greek-oriented
that when they filled out applications for school [a
special public school, gifted-child program]' - - they're
twelve and fourteen - - and they asked for national I ty, they
put down Greek. . . And I was in a state of shock.
It didn't occur to me that they would ever consider
anything but American, but, you know, the Greek is really
Conklin & McCallum, p. 042
riQrained in them. [But] one of them is rebelling
ciainst it [Greek chocl class]I . the youn ger one.
Where the older one comes and enjoys i she has more c
a knack for langua es than the other crc .
-
This teacher describes the books he uses i ri the E turdai c E.E.:
I .'jent thrcuch a lot o± books ±rcrn there [Greece] .3rd +curid
ores that 9 in my opin:on are good books, so . take
the history of the 1:321 revolution, Iliad and Odyssey, arid
some history of that era al and since I know what th
know, what I do is,I read a chapter and rewrite in a way
that would be uncle Z ' by the people.
writing little things, little essays /I guess, in English
or in Greek, and they would have to translate i t to the
oth3r .n;u ;e. And I teach them some grammar and syntax
-- syntax is very important. It's very simple. There were
very few rules. What we do is basically, my plan
was to try to teach the people every ti e we meet a number
of new words nd that's how we started out. And then after
some time enough words, presumably, have been learned from
both phrases, and [they] make little essays using those
wcurd
His classes, which will resume after a hiatus for his students' and
his own vacations, are expected to continue in the fall with many of the
same students, some he irninq their third and fourth years. The other
Conklin & McCallum, p, G4.-:
teachers also plan to offer classes again in the -fall. There is no ne on
to believe that the level of language education activit y '.Jili diminish in
the foreseeable -future.
The factionalism over the Greek hc'ol that split the parish for
thirty years no longer dominates this community; it is now thou ght of an a
remote event. Vestigial factors underlying the controversy are manifested
in parishioners' rationales for ethnic heritage and language education
programs and their ideas about how the::' best be sustained. Commun I
opinions about the Greek hoo its past history, present status, and
prospects for the future /__ often correlate with factors such as time of
-I
immigration, age group, occupation, education, neighborhood of residence,
native and home language, and ethnic and religious tradi ticnal m or
assimilationism, all of which were important elements in the corit c.en:..
A newcomer to the community through in termarriage characterizes her
-fellow parishioners as "Greek Greeks" and "American Greeks," the former
tending to be older immigrant Greeks with orientations toward the old
country, the latter younger, native-born, professional people. There dc,
appear to be two groups, differing on questions of language used in th
liturgy and appi oach to Greek language classes. But, interestingly,
do not contrast on the issue of the importance of Greek %chool at ----------- -
A (OO + 1 The students in the 7Gr-e-e< classes are made up of parishioners frog the /
1 -
more traditional a d'j ore American-oriented group ')however, they tend to
enroll in different classes.
For example, an "American Greek" family attends a class led by a
younger, well-educated, professional man who immigrated from Greece and
who uses contemporary second-language teaching strategies and simplified
:ree. rn tn. a s ;tE. The r.ii. cn He this i-.rr to at tenj wr oO
School is not only to instill family heritage, but to offer their children
;eneral educational advantages of a second language. The "Greek
articulate an ethnic identity that is less a cc'rnplernentarit> ':+
:ultures than an amalgam. Two elders from one of the Birmingham Greek
what you learn at home. You see s when my daddy used to
see, when we used to see the Greek f1a9 - - well, we marched
and we see that Greek flag waving and the American flag
right next to it. Why, you know, you'd just have all that
patriotism in you for both countries. Because they 're
right there, side by side.&I
Her sister agrees, "Papa always said, 'You're an American. Don't ever
forget you're an American, 'ut never forget your Greek heritage.' He
if instilled that in us."6 ' This integration of Greekness with Americanism
A is the motivating factor for other parish Greek teachers and their
students. Their classes tend to be more personally constructed,
conversational rather than 1 i terary, and may include older teaching
materials that they themselves used as schoolc
Gr ek—American as well as Greek cultural conte c.
embers commented on the commsoilyAl sense
for preseruat ion and perpetuation of the Greek heritage ;
To me, without traditicins ts nothing; that s the way I
Ocinki in & McCa1 lum, p. G45
feel. And I hope I can instill this to rn>' children.
Without tr,3di tions we are nothing. You are blank. Well
real l, hat -'s the key. And tradi t i on ave got to be
mainta( ed, not only within the church/ but at least within
the home, the family. And, Yen, so w e change and we look
the other way, you know, when we start raping o u r v a r i o u s
other tradi t ons in the name of 1 iberal ism, and
modification, and understanding. But certain traditions,
if we eliminate that, wh y we're hack to nothing,
nobody.&& C we , re
The c u r r e n t status and -future direct ion of the Greek language schoo l
in Birmingham must be examined in relationship to its effectiveness in
maintaining this cultural imperative and in reinforcing shared community
val ues. But there is a considerable range of opinion among the
parishioners we interviewed about their own ethnic identification and how
it has changed over time, as well as about the importance and functior,/' T'
the language and cultural components in this maintenance effort. The
future of the Greek 81hool must be assessed in terms of how effective
continues to be -responsive to the church members' varied and changing, '
needs, interests, and expectations for it. The Greek respondents
expressed a variety of opinions about the history and degrees of
commitment to the continuation of Greek ic hool classes. Since the first
generation of Greek immigrants in Birmingham are now deceased, the city's
second generation of founding family elders (mostly women) can be used as
the baseline from which to examine generational changes in attitudes
toward ethnic and language education. This generation is perhaps the most
Conklin & McCallum, p. 04±
ethn ically retentiv e, althou gh those cul tural elements they c h o o s e to
preserve are often archaic relics and survivals from Greece as it was a t
the time of their parents' immigration to this country at the turn of the
century. Other Greek-Americans see them as having a "fantasy notion"
about their Hellenistic roots. They received a grammar school education.
Since they g r e w u p during the post-World War I period, rampant with
nativism and racism (particularly in the Deep South), their memorie s of
experiences outside the Greek Or thodox commun ity and of "American [public]
school" are often unpleasant. On the other hand, their memories of
attending ten years or so of mandatory Greek ,1 hool clasacs on
basis are, on the whole, most pleasant. Greek ,1School attendance
reinforced cultural va lues an d cus toms learned in the home and instructed
them in standard Greek pronunciation and grammar. It also taught them to
read and write the Greek colloquial language spoken within the rapidly
growing Greek Orthodox community in Birmingham. Each stressed 'that
learning to read and write standardized Greek was emphasized in the Greek
School , because: / /
We already had [Greek] conversation at home. Aii
the children at that time did, because the parents coultn t
speak English at all. And if they did, they wouldn't speak
to us because they wanted 'i a to learn the Greek
Or, the who , :r: Veer _MPT : A
upwardly mobile. These women's husbands, many of whom began workir
Birmingham as street vendors, became wholesalers, retailers, and
restaurant owners, and their children received better education than they A
Conk 1 i r & McCa1 I urn, p .
themselves had had. The '-11 are proud of and secure in their cu tural
preser'..at cr arid transmission activities. This is manifested in their,
unselfconscious continuation of home and external ethnic customs, their A
children's attendance at the Greek Achool, their own activities as members
and officers of the Greek ,School board and its parent-teacher
or ganization, their activity throughout the years in Greek community
social organizations their parish -
choir teachers, and library volunteer
They describe their own sense of
of Greek descen ½" d' their faith in Orthodoxy is so strong and
knowi edge of i ts ritual so long-standing that they tend to be n ather
liberal on the issue of the choice of language for the I i turcy. One
respondent analyzes the historical relationship between the liturgic al
language and institutionalized language efforts:
Now to my parents [first generation immigrants] it was
important that I know the Greek language. And then there
came a period of time where the parents [second generat on]
wanted their children to be a part, more a part of the
) [American] -communi ty. . . And, I th i nk , because the
parents worked so hard and seeked the bet ten educati cr -for
their children that it was uppermost in their mind that
their schooling in the public school, or in the American
school, or that they go to college, or whatever, were more
important than going to Greek $ hool And I think this is
why this change [in community atttudes toward the school]
came about. The only thing that made them hold or to the
f:cinkl i n & r•ii c 1 I u rn, p. 048
Greek ,,gchool , I think, was the fact that the church is, our
re ll i giori is in the Greek language. Because of
th i a they try to hold on to the Greek 1 anguaye .
The ir :1-ri Idren were raised in Birmingham during the 1'30s arid 1'4Us,
coming of age in the early 1950s. This generation, now the mainstay of
the congre tion, was better educated as a group than its parents, and is
so':iall pwardly mobile. During the post-war years there was
little or no new immigration from Greece into the Orthodox community in
Birmingham. Greek Orthodox spouses came into the Birmingham community from
elsewhere in the country. Non-ethnically Greek wives also converted to
the Greek Orthodox faith during this time and joined in local community
activities. Greek-American communities all across the country were
undergoing t - p od of homogenization and assimilation into the
American mainstream. These third-generation immigrants, and their peers
by extra-community and interfaith marriage, appear to be the least
ethnically retentive and most ethnically ambivalent of the Greeks studied
in Birmingham. They have been highly selective about the elements of
their ethnic heritage they choose to preserve, have felt the most guilt
about their passivity in transmitting their heritage to their children,
and have rejected many of the traditions their parents saw as essential
components of their own ethnic education, both at home and in more
institutionalized and public settings. Not surprisingly, however, it is
this group that has been most active in public display events like the
annual Greek Festival, which exhibits external ethnic customs such as
foodways, dance, music, and drama, to the public at large. TI'ey identify
themselves as Americans, albeit of the Greek Orthodox faith. One
C:onk:l in & McCal lurn, p. G4'
seccind-generat on Amer i can-born woman descr bes her persciria] and 1-ami I i al
to Greece:
I really don t [have them]. The ties that I have are
because my children [adopted as infants] were born there,
and, of course, my mother and -father. I think I'm just a
real American. I, I love my heritage. I'm very, very
proud of it. But I really don't have it [a Greek -
identity], and I don't think my children have ci ther. --
Many Greek-American women from this generation did not push their
children either to learn the language or to go to Greek /chool , and thei r
lack of assertion with regard to ethnic heritage and language maintenance
is a sore spot with them even today. Their move to the suburbs,
increasing interaction with -fr'their children's American
publ I': or Roman Catholic parochial school peers, and con-fl icts with
extra-curricular activities are most often used as Frationale for their
leniency regarding cultural transmission, as this extract from
conversation between two respondents illustrates:
A: We I, why do you not send your children to Greek
fc hool? Or have they ever gone?
B: They didn't want to go.
A: Have your children ever gone to Greek IT
B: Never gone to Greek ,,A hool . I'll tel
would.have to do all the transporting. They had so ma. -
c, t thinq. to dc and I cuId hare to tal:e them. And I
f:c!rfkl i n & McC:al lurri, p. '350
ID U it '.as just, their interest '.iasn t that b for ire to
sacrifice that time at that time. Now, oh yeah, now the.
want it. . Now they're learning it.
to know Greek. But I couldn't tell them that
ten years ago.
A: They blame the parents for not making them.
B: And then they would have blamed you for mak n them o.
I used to blame my mother.
A: When he [my son] went to college, I never will forget,
when he came home, on his first trip back home\ J . . he
turns around to me and he says, "I'll never -Forqiue .,You for
not making me go to Greek 7 hoo1.
B: I -feel I've failed my kids., 'cause
little, if I had spoken Greek to them as they grew up,
'..'c'uld know something, and I didn't. And I thought us
bringing them down here [from the suburbs] for one hour a
day, for once a week, what are they going to learn in that
short little time? . But, I thought, well gosh,
they don't even know how to count to ten, they're going to
have to learn all that, and one hour a week is nothing. 6 -
( — a-cc
These women, too, like their mothers before them, draw a strong
correlation between native home language and the effectiveness of Greek
chool classes. They cite decreasing incidence of conversational Greek at
/ home:
The only difference in the kids that go to school today and
Gre eus, ce, I mean, I learned Greek because my grandmother, my
grandfather were living. They were from Greece. My father
was from sp oke English. I mean, not well,
but he sp oke English and we could
lehad to arn Gr e e k b e c au se o f a. _ s p ok e
Greek. When we went to Greek / h hool we knew what the
teacher was telling us. I mean, in
to shut - do or , - could U c lo s e - door.
going to - U to d ay don't
count to ten most of them._ E c o ld, Jt th ey 're c o ld . It
be like you 04he-nur=breeK inlervi4a-e-r-s-]" walking
l 0ool class and learning Greek. . . And I think
that"s the greatest thing about having a grandmother and
grandfather that were born in Greece. . . It's gotten
worse, I mean, I can't speak Greek like I spoke it before
it -s got an accent, an American accent to it.,
Cross also stressed the interrelationships between language education at
home and its institutionalized component in the parish language classes.
Those interviewed agreed that the mother's role in language at home was as.
central as that of the extended family elders, and lamented their
capitulation to their children's resistance to attending the Greek A hool.
C:cnkii Ff & N1cO.l lum, p.
cc that Whenever ma:be 'c nc'uld S hat not
You Qot to do it."
-i: Now, as a mother - - my children are grown - -
tendency and my husband's is to go where we want to be •
know, with our friends. Whereas then it i....'. more c f a
toge therness. The mothers were in char' e . The mothers
came wi th us, and, t al 1 the mothers, but mothers ''crc
appoi rited almost like what became the PTA in [ publ ic
g r .mm a r h 00 1
C: I think that the mother's role i n the Greek home
'.. e r y '.) e r y important .&P P4 �
The Birmingham Greek Orthodox Community''; fourth q e n e r a t i o n , children
who grew up in the late 1960s and 1973's, dur i nq an e r a of increased ethn i
awareness and ethnic revivalism, clearly define themselves as
Greek—American. t4hi1e they perceive their ethnic identity as d'JaliEtic,
they recognize that this is not necessarily negative. They are in no
sense ambivalent about or unwi 11 ing to use elements of both cul
transform them into a synthesized whole that can revitalize the
community's sense of self—identity. These women are ethnicall>
selfconscious and aware. They care a great deal about the revival
renewal, and transmission of Greek ethnic heritage and language
traditions. Ethnic Greeks and "married—ins" alike are learning about the
community's foodways, family customs, and traditional dress from the older
women by participating in parish social organizations, and are making
every effort to reinterpret them in a meaningful way within their own
homes. This sel-Fconscious effort at ethnic education in the private
f:r: n k I n & McCall um , p,
d omain carries o ve r in to the community sr-ens their children are acti v e
member; of JO' (junior Orthodox Youth) and participants in the parish "=-
s e mi - in s ti t u t io n al i z e d dance classes, as well as student-E s t the Greek
k hool
These Young women's eff or ts at ethnic educati on have fur ther
correspondences with their act lvi t es regarding i nEt tut i onal i zed langu age
education . They tend to be strong advocates of the Greek hool
It was not even publicized at that time Cc. 1977, when she
mooed to B rm I n'ham] that there was a Greek chool We
-felt it was necessary for the kids to learn Greek. We
still do. It's helped them a great deal at Epuhi icJ
school. And they'll continue taking it as long as it s
offered, no matter how proficient they get. My husband
speaks two other languages and English and we feel it's
important to speak different
Crucial to the success of the Greek ,pchool at Holy Trinity—Holx Cross
are di -f-ferences o+ opinion within the community over the nature of
insti tutional ized language eduation in the parish today. The -future
prospects for such education must be assessed both in light of the
perceptions of the parishioners and of the parish priest, as well as in
view of recent centralization efforts by the Department of Educstiori :-F
Orthodox Diocese Greek Orthodox Diocese of North and South Americ '
At the present time there is considerable discussion of the prop-
role of Greek / hool education in the life of th e par ish. How closely
should it be tied to ecclesiastical concerns, i.e., is Greek instruction
Conklin & McCallum, p. G 4
important for reasons of cul tural heritage, or as preparation to
participate in and appreciate the (increasingly English language) litur gy?
What should be the qualifications of Greek hool teachers: need they be
trained in pedagogy, educated in the classics, holders of college degrees -'
This is a community and cultural tradition in which learning and
intellectualism are highly valued. Are there approaches that are more
appropriate for children and others for adults and, if so, how would the
now all-age classes be restructured without discouraging those whose
attendance is a family activity?
Although he is a newcomer, the parish priest's analysis of some of
the school's problems generally concurs with that of his parishioners.
The geographic spread of the parish members and their difficulties in
transporting their children to the school, which is in downtown
Birmingham-, have aiready been noted. In a recent P + -C uci-cr1 'meeting
cR \. over this probl em "satellites" - - smaller language schools out in the
suburban The problem for students of
choosinc.
the Amer
alike. Furthermore, the priest points out some of the textbooks ar
outdated and the curriculum is seriously W king, a conclusion with n
we must agree.
centralize and standardize the operation of Greek 16choo1s throughout the
United States i t, an eight -year, afternoon program of Greek language and
cultural study and y publ I cation unhadh fu, a complete series of Gree k Y�
language texts to supplement those currently avai lable. of teacher
training and school + nan': no f this national program of
C:crkl i n & r-icc:.l
lanclUaQe education is to be suLL .+ully imp] emerite Add I t I on a 11 y, Ho
Trinity-Holy Cross like the Archdiocese at I arge must address a 'ariety
of special needs, e.g. converts -ruii—Ore to Or thodc>::y arid ne'.'
mini grants, in developing Greek 7chocl cur-n cul a that '..i 1 1 acr e al I the
varying ':onsti tuenc lea whi ch now comprise the par -i -E.h
HER F RMS OF ETHNIC EDUCATION AT ST ELIAS AND HOLY TRINITY-HQJ Y. CROSS
The St. El i as Arabic School and the Holy Trini ty-Holy Cross Greek
School are the most public and formalized expressions of cul tural
transmission undertaken by their communities. Although they are commun
based and quasi - institutionalized., they rest upon educational traditions
which are integrated into the ordinary lives of I'
(Birmingham Lebane=.e
and Greek communities. The schools are a supplement to the informal
learning that takes place in the home and community on a daily basis.
Parish and community organizations represent a middle ground between
institutionalized education and unselfconscious enculturation of children
by family and community. Planned and casual community social events are
one and two steps further removed from explicit -t eaching/learning
situations in the language school setting. A-&"at the least formal le d
even in family 1 ife,,-the element of selfconscious teaching cf cul tur-al
) A heritage is very strong. Many of the activities, and sometime -s the ctu
physical environments of Birmingham greek and Lebanese homes,
calculated demonstrations of ethnic culture.
The following dialogue between two Greek respondents illustrates
common view of community education. The Greeks, they say are:
A: Very traditional people, who [ have 3L church,
Conklin & McCallum, p.
religion, and family traditions [that are] carried out in
the di fferen t ages. I th i rik that "s one of the main reasons
N or Greek cultural retention], because our family
traditions are so intertwined with our religious traditions A
— veri though, within our church, we have holy traditions,
which is altogether different from -family traditions, and
sometimes people mistake our -family traditions for holy
tr aditi ons .
0: I think it begins with the family, really. And then
from there it sort of branches out to the Greek 111choo1 and
then the church and organizations/ and things like this.
But it all begins with the parents4 with the mother and the
-father. It did with us.
A: I think now it kind of works more through organization
a little more than it did in our -first years [as
community]. And when I was a 1 i ttle girl, of course, t e
Greek hool was very important - (-
Both women experience an inseparable relationship between the v a ri o u s
settings in which community life and learning take place. The rel igious
and secular cultures are "intertwined." The activities of home, Greek
Zhool, and parish organizations are seen as "branches" of the same effort. While the components remain the same as in their childhoods, the
- emphasis has shifted - - the social organizations bear more of the burden
'—I
now , he Greek pchool less. The learning continuum is unaltered, but the
aspects of culture that are most important change as a community o
immigrant Greeks becomes a community of Americans of Greek descent.
Conk 1 in & Mr- Oal 1 urn, p.
The h i gh p o i n ts c-i- the Greek and Lebanese years are e thno-rel i gi ou;
hol i da':'s. It is -during the high hol i da>s uch as Easter and saints' da: s,,
that the mother tongue is employed most e"terisi vel y in the liturgy. In '
addition, secular songs are revived and4a host of expressions relating to
the -festival members oth w e monol i ngual . The hol idays A - - ' A
bring forth feasts of ethnic food, native costumes, banks of flowers, home
decorations, and ritual objeu:ts such as Greek Easter eggs, Catholic and
Orthodox Lenten palms, and the piphany holy water for the Greek home
altars. Special rituals are performed, both in the church and wi thin
nuclear and extended families and social networks. 1'
These holidays are celebrations and simultaneously intr group
exhibitions of ethnic culture. Our respondent; report an intense level of
activity preceding the important holidays. Women cook, prepare the family
home, and decorate the church. Greek men set up the lamb pits. Lebanese
men prepare their backyard gr I 1 1 I ng areas. The choirs rehearse. Children
practice their dance routines and pageant speeches, and are fitted in
their ethnic costumes.
0 Both the Maronite and Greek Orthdox communities also put on
A e thno-cul tural events for the general public. The annual Greek Festival
attracts participants from the entire Birmingham ea. ,Last year 7,000 ,c
meals were served and uncounted pastries sold. /oung people r-e---t ±rr d-Q. 4
to�liead tours of the cathedral , for which they must memorize the Greek
terms for all the parts of the building and furnishings. While this event
is calculated to raise money for the church and to introduce the Greek
community to greater Birmingham, it is also an important expression of the
Greek community's ethnic customs, as well as its deeper values. The
president of the Philoptochos Society, the women's organization that works
Conk I in & McC:al 1 urn, p. G58
three days a week for six months to prepare the -f':'od for the festival
says:
I think that is one way we keep the Greek customs al i'e
through that, e v e n though we don't like to admit that
people kind of know us for our food. . . Why fight it
a n y m o r e ? It's real l::' some thirc t.: e :u of And our-
customs, our dances, too, because our children always do
dances. They [non-Greeks] tel 1 us that they 1 i ke
to come because it's a family-oriented festival. And it
7-
really is -- he kids are all working, the grandmothers,
the mothers, some grandfathers that are there, fathers,
everybody. It's a community project really, but it's
sponsored by the ladies' group.
The central i ty of family and community life is made visible to outsiders,
which in turn reaffirms the community's sense of ethnic integrity.
For the Lebanese the weekly public dinners which took place from the
1930s through the 1978s served a similar purpose. They put money in the
building-fund coffers, created an ethno-cultural activity in which parish
members could become highly involved, presented a wholesome view of
Lebanese life to the external world, and rein-forced the value of the
culture for the community itself. Birmingham's Lebanese also maintain a
private social club, the Cedars Club, where organizations hold meetings,
Lebanese young people and adults swim and play tennis, and a variety of
more or less ethnically related activities take place. We visited the
Cedars Club during their weekly bingo luncheon. It is open to the public
p la ye d • U a n d consume d -a lunch of Lebanese meat
ta b oul i ad (made -from b ulgur wh e at Le b anese
�_.pice cookies, a e e ., and iced tea. The Women ̀ s Aux i I i ar." of the CPcI.Zr-
I__:lub p r e p a r e d host e d
Greek a Le b ane se _ - - co mmunity me mbers -
casual a nd s o c ia l activiti e s relat e d .
danc eethnic clubs at U ly tx - Ho ly bo th -
an d da nce a t - U
a
U ly U ly Cr o s s U p la ye d fo r a ll so r ts o f nts. The
St. El ias p a r is hi o n e r s - Ara b ic - - w York or - -
for ma jo r p arish e ve nts, - so m e tim e s e ve n
- . we d d in g s . On e o f -
Orth o do x Greek o r g a n iz ati o n s - to u r U - Orl e a ns
to - - - trav e l a a rt e xhi b it Se arch o f -
Hellenic a rtif a cts - fr o m - p e r io d o f Al e xa nd e r
- U - Gr e at. - st - -
• - g r o u p v is it e d - first Gre e k U . - Unit e d St a tes
Augustin e , Florid a . p a r is h p a r ti c ip a ti n g - fun d raising
d rive re st o re
e re ct - - me mori a l - _ I -
All such q ua si— o rg anized - a a
- th e se e thnic co mmuniti e s - ma ntain
a nd tr a nsmit. - a
b a ckg r o u nd to p a r is h - a sp ir a ti o n s U - U fo r - - - • A rabic U .
co u r s e s a nd U - - - co n ti n u in g U ity a b o u t a n d a w are ne ss - - - o f
ethnic he rita g e .
All of our respondents can readily provide a long list of examples of
family practices steming from their ethnic background. Not only are thex /11
conscious of the many aspects of their cultures which they are passinc�
down thr o ugh fa m ily lif e , b u t th e y a ls o c a n de scri b e
they - teaching Every res p o n dent menti o ns
dancin g . - women me nti o n U •
teachin U th e Le b a n e s e a nthem an d other Arabic songs to her
children an d g r a n d chil d r e n . An o th e r e xpl a ins ho w he employs all the
Ara b ic - S with his children, and a non-Greek convert
her husband uses to get their daughters to u:e
their rudimentary r 7 , % Greek. Many respondents utilize
the early days in the United States, and Greek or Arabic school, whicl-
they often find themselves retelling at their children"s request. One
Greek American tells how he repeats the bedtime stories his grandmother ow
ildrenc o tories he was surprised and delighted to
t Greek "classics" when he studied ancient Greek iF,
nd Lebanese -American homes is to enter environmentz I. 'I U
showed us their home altars decorated with icons or figures of sa -
palm-frond crosses, and vials of holy water and incense._ UI on e T
daughter's bedroom displays a collection of Greek dolls, includin; ine
mother's own dolls, hep m We dolls, and new dolls
from Greece. y also showed us a- mounted display case containin,
photos of +ami y -_1j jrAjj, porcelain, and wooden object -
distinctly Arabic in design, and Oriental rugs. EwPn in rasual npl*
on
Maronite women wear their gold jewelry, especially hoop bracelets.
Lebanese homes contain Oriental rugs, Lebanese lace tablecloths, and
photos of Lebanon-and A W Aome homes photo! of family in Zahle, CLI_ their
village of origin. In one basement we were shown a special griddle +or
Lebanese bread and,'in the backyard,va permanently installed, triple,
_Q Jars of clarified butter and gas-fueled grill over ten feet long2
I. IIvases to
hosts provided a Greek dinner for us all traditional dishes with +rewh
Greek herbs from their garden,' and Greek wine.
- ap artments - e lderly U .
memorabili a . sitories for family and Greek
Ev e ry ho m e we visite d ha d - la rge a lbum p ho to s
to Greec e conveniently at han d ,
All of these p r a c ti c e s r e flect
id e n tity a nd s tr a te g ie s ma int e na nc e . - - - - mor e U . -
hom e s - o bje c ts a re ca re fully - ch o s e n , U U la rg ely
artifacts of o ld c o u n tr y, U c u lt u r e . - mo r e worki n g - c la s s • me
fine art a nd c r a fts - re intermix e d w ith m a ss- p r o d u c e d r e p li c a s d e s ig n e d
• to u r is t U •
Lo o ki n g be y o n d - terial a rtif a cts - U le ss o b v io u s for m s o f e thnic
e xp r e s s io n , U - U a na lyze - ra ng e - ys of U e ek
o r Le b a n e se , bey o n d e xhi bi ti n g • U e thnic id e n tifi e r s . o f d e e per
or Arabic was in regular use, at least among the residents themselves.
M C
ME ME A A yea .ing to their daughters. Several,
el d e r s - Ara bi c wi t h f a mi l y a n d f ri e n d s - - U b ut
incr e asin g ly m ake u s e o fexclusi o n
to the .
In addition to language choice, we were aware of conversational
strategies that were derived from the mother-tongue culture. The Greek-=
we interviewed tend to speak rapidly, respond quickly to queries, and to
interrupt and overlap each other and even the fieldworkers. There are
scatt e re d r e marks a bo u t - co n te nti o u s - Gr e eks,
"Ev e ry b ody w a nte d t o b e c hi e fs . - tr o u ble
3r e e k1 j "Th e re will a lways be - lo t o f c on +l i c J _" I+ t h e Gr e eks a.
en ehave an my o u t si de t o fi gh t , th e y e ach o th e r.
rel a tiv e ly lo ud, q u ic k, a nd a s s e rtiv e styl e of d is c o u r s e e nc o u n t e red
Greek-langu a g eindicates that a1)O r s ati on a l pervade
By co n t r a s t , o u r ta lk s w ith L e b a n e se-Am e ricans we re far slower in
Th e re we re lo n g p au s e s b e t w e en o u r q u e s ti o n s -
Answ e rs a p p e ar e d to b e - - a nd d el i be r a te , o f t e n cl a rifi e d with
There was almost never an interruptlg-I WXKM ��
the fieldworkers or of each other. While the discourse styles typical of
not been researched, the
and, markedly, from Greek-American
Conklin & McCallum, :.
Ferh..p, tne c r : indic at or of ±arrii I Ve as an pr H
cul tural ly appropriate behavior and cultural values is the extreme
hospi tal i ty with which we were met in these two communities. The Greek:
Orthodox priest took it upon himself to carefully question us about the
nature and goal s of the research project, select ing those we would
interview based on our initial interview with him. His secretary called
one day and informed us that a series of interviews had been arranged and
we were to come to Holy Trinity-Holy Cross, where the parish members would
report to meet with us. Thus our Greek interviews were clearly conducted
under- the auspices of the parish priest. The interviewees were prompt ,
interested, and open. Subsequently some interviewees took it u p o n
themselves to introduce us to "real" Greek life by invi ti n g u s to their
homes for food, music, and conversation, so that they could share their
photo albums, artifacts, and stories d demonstrate Greek hospitality.
Our first and primary contact at St. Elias was also the parish
:riest, but he simply provided names of potential contacts.
rificantly, these suggestions included those who disagree most strorgl>
.h-him on the issue of opening an al 1-day school . In the Lebanese
homes, too, we were plied with ethnic specialties. Our most serious
interview problem was bringing the meetings to an end. The parish priest,
ever careful in distinguishing faith from culture, concluded one interview
by remarking that, while he does not like St. Elias to be thought of as an
ethnic community, he does see certain aspects of Lebanese life as part of
Maroni tism and intrinsic to parish life. "Well , the way of life, and the
feeling that we have for each other, and the hospi tal i ty. There's always
been Lebanese hospitality, always been.
- -
Always proud of that, and family
:;)
Conkli n & McCallum, p.
- EXPERIENCE
Bi rrni righam s Lebanese and Greek communi ties have severa l
commonali ties. Both are practitioners of Eastern rites of Chr i st i •n
-faiths that are very ritualistic and "hi gh church" by American Chr
standards -especi all>' for the Deep E;cu th , where
I fundamentalists and Pentecostals are in the CLCrJhC m -
The Greek Orthodox cathedral like the Maroni te church, functionE e
something of an outpost for the -faith. Holy Trinity-Holy Cross is the
oldest, largest Greek Orthodox community in Alabama, and still the third
largest in the South. St. Elias remains one of only three Maronite
communities in the entire Southeast. The two parishes were -founded within
three years of one another.
Immigration began for both communities in the 1880s, typical ioF
populations from c: r-
Lebanese and the Gr ee erri r 'ed be:
tiny -farms. They were uneducated, with the exception of a -few individua;
who became key leaders in the parishes and the parish schools. Because c
the history of -federal immigration Jaw th p"also grew in parallel ways.
toward'--6ducation b t ( rnTrrrr tl l - P .e Zfrom a
great sense of pride in their long literary traditions. Lebanese and
Greeks alike value "the learned man" as teacher and leader. Both Nicholas
Lambrinides, the most admired Greek schoolteacher, and Father Abi-Chedid
of St. Elias were characterized by this term. The Lebanese described
themselves as direct descendents of the Phoenicians and the great Arabic
cultures preceding Turkish domination. The Greek/look back to the
Hellenistic classical tradition.
These traditions have imPI ic.:Rtions for lanqu.!_;.qe_ ., ethnic: school
preservation and transmission felt by man>, community members. An elder-
explains why the St. El ias parish war. 0.re-14- 60-h.LracL Father. Abi -Chedi
They Were Very in terested i n he I p i ng the pastor get t�]-?
sch U . s ta rted b e c a us e -
preserve a nything . p r e serve he ritag e
�:�our children who they are. And of
and teEkch
start e d l e arnin g . W e start e d n a vi g ati on . W e st a rted
accounting. Just name it a n d it w a s start e d by
Whi le each o+ our Lebanese respondents asserted their, +ore+ather-s̀
co n t ri bu ti on s t o w orl d c ul t u r e with at la st - bri e f inf o r m a ti onal
re m arks, - - Gr e eks a p p e a r e d c o m p le tely co n fi d e n t - th e ir
b e we ll kn o w n a nd r e sp e c te d , - • - . a t le ast b y Am e ric a ns
+iel U U - Th e ir re m a rks - we re int e nd e d a - to sho w ho w - cl a ssical
a gainst o v e rt Gr e e ks an d Le b a n e se we re so m e tim e s co n s id e red
non-white in the segregated South. Our interviews contain frequer-'
references to discrimination in employment, housin ,-
are some representative remarks on the early year�-::
in the :cu th , there ieren t trio many e t h n i g r cup . The
only [ones were] Ital i ans, Greeks - - very few Greeks ,er
-fe w Ital ians - - and the Jewi E.h people. Arid to e w e r e locked
down I ri f a L t, hey cal I e us da c's' n thr:se da.:E. rcup
lau ghter]. T1ey did! They called the I tal I ans and the
Greeks "dagos.t' And everybody would murmur if they wanted
to speak to somebody in their native tongue; they would go
secretly to speak so they won't be ridiculed. (
[For the first Lebanese pedd1/r
1i f because they went out into [the] country and
these people who k in those days aliens were nil,
know. They were persecuted. And they didn't know the
language and might say the wrong word. . [The St.
Elias community remained strongly committed to each other
because] well , I think in the northern cities there was not
that much discrimination. See, people here were even
afraid to say they were Catholic at one time. Down South,
you know, that is a Baptist country. If you said you were
Catholic, why you got it.
My father had to go to court one time. W e had a cow a a
in the yard and somehow the cow - 1 don't think it
bothered that woman, or anything; she just made a big suit
out of it. Well he ee that cross he's wearing on his
lapel [pointing to his portrait] the lawyer told him to I -. --- -
put that cross away because they, they're going to, it
r & McCall um,
might make him lose the case. He said. "Well, let me tell
You buddy, this is going to help me win the case, don "t
worry about it. I ain't putting away no cross. It's 'c'ir
to stay right here " Sure enough, he won the case. 75
R':ial discrimination eased after World War II:
It made a lot of our American boys aware, especially here
in the South, because we have a lot of what you would call
"redneck" people th t didn't know anything beyond thei r own
i ttle area. . . And when they were exposed to the
-farmlands of Italy, England, Belgium, and so -forth and so
on, they realized, "Hey, this is what I do. These are
people , too . " I think it exposed them to a lot .
But vestiges remain:
[The Greek community at first tried to maintain its own
separate culture and education because] I think at first it
was because of this anti-immigrant. I felt this way when I
was in grammar school. And I think the war [World War II]
changed everything. Now let me say this. You
know my younger son, because of the prejudices and because
it seemed at a certain time, even after the war, that high
school children of different national I ties were not helped
into getting into, not better positions, and to hold o-f-fi':
in some of the clubs and these areas in the high school
"Well, I'm an American. My mother was born in
st,ance towar d ethnic her-i tage and language education to discriminat i on �!P
and his wife suffered as children which he doe-=-� not i-j-ant hi =-. chi ldren
to e n du r e :
- - ____1 I know 1 i. mother T1 and fathe r J di d, I
def e nding,
turning inward, i.e., creating employment in their o w n businesses .
supporting each other in various mutual-aid associations, and by turning
outward, trying to enhance the image o f the Greeks to the larger public
and actively combating discrimination. In 1922 several men from Hc'l::'
Trinity travelled to Atlanta to meet with other southern Greeks and decide
o r a r e s p o n s e to di scr mi nator::' practices and attacks by the Ku Klux K lan.
They returned to found the third Amer ican Hel len ic Educational Progressive
Association chapter in the United States, following the lead of the
communities in Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Lebanese also took care of their own under adverse conditions and
struggled to alter the racist attitudes and behaviors of those they lived
among. Dr. H/A. E e.'responded to Alabama Congressman and nativist
John Burnett's proposals made at a Birmingham civic club that "non-whites"
be excluded from immigration. In articles written to local newspapers and
a volume of privately published essays his Lebanese physician argued that
/7 not only was Burnett wrong in stating that Mediterranean peoples are
"non-white," but that the "Syrians" had been quick to adopt American ways
and to advance themselves educationally and econo lly, making a
substantial contribution to their city and nati . The Syrians
(Lebanese] are, El-Kourie state "law-abiding, 'thoroughly Americanized'
members of the white race." Dr. El-Kourie became a national spokesperson
in opposition to immigration restrictions and English language and
literacy tests for immigrants, traveling to Washington, D.C., to testify
before the Congress.
Ethnic and religious discrimination did not cease with the nativists'
Conkli n & Mcf:.i I urn, p fl'fl
success n passing immi grati on restrictions in th 1920E.. The +ol lot...ii n
decades w e r e r if e wi th attacks on blacks, "coloreds ," the non-native-born ,
Catholics and other non-Protestant Christians, and Jews. Birmingham
became o n e of the strongholds for the Ku Klux Klan, one KKK -fact i o n alone
numbering 1O,@@ø members in the city. Up until the Civil Ri ghts Movement
-forced an end to de jure segregation in the 1960 , Greek- and
Lebanese-Americans had to -Face possible challenges when using "white-only"
aci ii ties and services. Religious bigotry was a -Fact of li fe. E'..en
today the communities endure insults grounded in ignorance and, from some
elements, continued resentment. It is in this adverse context that the
parishes of Holy Trinity-Holy Cross and St. Elias perservered in the I r
efforts of religious and ethnic continuance. Their parish sch:lI:1 ; w e r e
instruments for community survival.
The Birmingham Greek and Lebanese communities have been remarkably
culturally retentive and continue to express strong ethnic identity
despite their small numbers. Immi grants to the Birmi ngham communiti es
have observed this as well and, like us, believe that this may be due in
part to the unusual social and cultural context in which they make their
homes : , /
I think Can important reason] was this community being
isolated from the other Greek communities. Because when
you go into the Carolinas, Virginia, start moving up North,
you can go five m i les and meet another Greek community, ten
or fifteen miles, you're in another Greek communit y. So
you're not an isolated person. You're really not isolated
in those areas. Here in Birmingham it's very isolated.
C':'rikl I ri & NicCal 1 um p. G
And I can that within the people I, becoming more
clannish, I cluess, and i t's because of the isolation, and
because of your different groups. I think [that elsewhere]
t became a lot more cosmopolitan , and also more social ,
and not so much c1annish.8 -
I think the Birmingham [Lebanese/Maronite] community has
ali,..Lays been very aware o-f i t';el+. I -.1. bel eve that.
And lye heard c omp imenits about them nati':na11y you
know, throughout m y time as a priest. . The ue
always stayed close to their traditions, and their
identity, and their church; haven't gone too -Far away and
had to pull them back. I mean, they know, they have had
that awareness. And I think that's due to the churches
which promote that and to the [Cedars] C1ubr 4 (i-
CONCLUSION
Brief fieldwork on ethnip- + guage and heritage schools n these two
parishes clearly suggests that-A U of community -based education offers a
valuable perspective on cultural maintenance and adaptation. By analyzing
the "fit" between school organizations, content, and pedagogies and the
cultures of the communities which create them, and, especially, through
study of community-based schools in relation to other
culturally -supportive community and family activities, we can come to
understand the worl view that a community shares and is attempting to
transmit.
Further work in this area would benefit from expansion and refinement
in several
d irecti o ns. a stu d y
other, less fo r m a li z e d, c ontexts cultur a l shoul d be
integrated to pr o vide vi e w of the ethnic maint e nanc e p rocess.
Some com p on e nts - cultur e , re li g ious
language and literacx, le nd thems e lves U te a chi n g o n
basis, while o th e r s , U - I e thnic co o king -
tau g ht milx cust oms , are easilx
U in fo r m a l e ducation ca nnot
as more and less I - - points in an array o f
transmission Processes that occur in a wide range of contexts, within the
Community members a . to th e ir instituti o ns P r o vi d e su p p ort
-1401slis p e c ts o f he rit a g e
which re q u ir e litur g ical knowl e dg e - nd
ecclesiastical • U - - - U a - • _
p r e c e p ts; - - -
o r - m t U a n e ms - - - U - •
par
• - a - - - a a - - - a _ • -
fnr which max - re q u ir e la rg e r g ro up a U p art ic
• _ - -
U - .- - I U • - -
und e rstan d in g o f tr a d itional a mmunitx va lues - b e
e xp an d e d u a - . b y
- nalys
of what - co mmunity b est ta ug ht
an d wha t le a ve s - - to inf o rm a l le a rnin g .
Secon d ,
- qu e sti o n o f la ng ua ge maint e nanc e has rar e ly b ee n
to the - a nd th o ug htful
a a na lysis - o th e r
e xp r e ss U - - U - - • _ - - fo lkl o rists a re very muc,
ll o f - - fo rms a nd le ve ls - o f cultur a l - a a lin g uist st
analysis
- b e e n o n e d im e nsi o na l: - a - - community p r a ctic e s langua g e
IN
mai ntenance i -f ita /curi people circ'w up b 1 IrciUai and' it doca not i + the.:.
become monol I n ual in the ma n-E-tream tongue . Language, however, should be
seen, as are other components of culture, as an elusive complex, and
situational phenomenon, expressed in both direct and indirect ways, and
evoking varying responses to, strate gies for, and modes of retention and
transmission. We should ask, for example, how the demands of particular
situat ions in both the puhi i c and pri vate -sectors a-f-fec t the processes c'-f
cul tural and linguistic change. What occasions demand "Greek Greek-ness?"
What situations demand "Greek-American-ness?" What situations call for
"Amer i can-ness?" How do individual responses to such situations vary
within each ethnic culture? What does it mean, for example, when St.
Elias' priest states that it is important to keep the "flavor" of the
Ar' hic I anguage alive? What would the necessary "flavor" of Greek be to
parishioners at Holy Trinity-Holy Cross? How is this metaphor of cultural
distillation used when Greek-American respondents speak of "instilling"
not only the mother tongue, but other aspects of their ethnic heritage, to
their children?
Third, study of ethnic heritage and language education can inform,
and should be infor jd by, contemporary understanding of the dynamic
nature of ethnicity.8-' Different aspects of culture demonstrate differing
rates of change and degrees of assimilation, and the relationships among
these rates are not constant across cultures. What is the place of
community-based education in the evolution of ethnic identity? Why and at
what points in a community's history is institutionalization of ethnic
maintenance chosen as a strategy? What are the roles of the Greek
Orthodox and Maronite Catholic churches as cultura.--- preserving
-"- -
institutions? f voluntary ani mutual aid assoc iations? In what respects
-
U U impinge on these conservati ,..)e
in • U • U -
- serve as - response U U -
U of re la tionships be tween different U immigration status within ethnic communities for maintenance o+
lan g u age
ethnic a
S -
U - - S - - U response - Usometimes
U - U U U - U - U U - U - and - U U -
pride sense o-F
- _ • - U •U - - - . U - - U U the
- U profiles - demonstrate, U U - -U - I U -
U - I- U - l maintenance as an affirmative
ii:iiiiiii-I;U Laboratory and McCatlum is Assistant Professor and Head, Popular Culture
Library, Bowling / reen State University. The research for this project
C:Lnkl i ri & ricc:.ai I um r•JCTEE;, p
w as carried out by both -fier rkers in complete collaboration. Likewise /
this report i s jointly au iored. However, Conkl in, a sociolinguist, has
been pr imarH ly respo _ible for the 1 I terature review and analysis of the
commun ity re pon - s concerning la n g u a g e mai ntenance ; McCallum, a
fol k 1 cr i at , _'r the li terature and responses concerning cul tural
ma ri tena
1. For its discussion of historical b a c k g r o u n d and socioeconomic
context of migration and immigration to Birmingham, Alabama, this paper
s, in part, upon the work of Nora Faires, especially her
ibutions to b. paper co-authored with Nancy Faires Conkl in,
:munity in Birmingham, Alabama,"
ted States to 194O,(ed? Eric
oogland and Evelyn Hanser shington.,— .-c-,: The Smithsonian Institution
:ress, in press). We thank Nora Faires for permission to incorporate that
aterial here. In comparing the experiences of Lebanese and Greek
mmigrants to urban-industrial Birmingham with those of in-migrating rural
southern blacks, we draw on fieldwork by Brenda McCallum, especially the
"Working Li ve s 1" Collection of historical documents and tape-recorded
interviews, which are deposited at the Archive of American Minority
Cultures, Special Collections Library, The University of Alabama,
University, AL. We also wish to acknowledge the cooperation
Norrell , Director of the BirmingFind public history project,
based at Birmingham-Southern College, for his assistance. Most
especially, we wish to express our gratitude for the cooperation of the
priests and parishioners of St. Elias Maron I te Catholic Church and Holy
Trinity-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral throughout this project.
2. "The New Patrida: The Story of Birmin';ham s Greeks," a
of Jeff
Conkli n & McCallum, .n:!TE::;, P.
Bi rmi ncFi rid p.mphi e
n . d
3. "Birmingham's Lebanese: The Earth Turned to Gold ,-̀
BirrningFind pamphlet (Birmingham : EBirminuham-Southern Colle ge],
n.d.::'.
4. Among the foundi ng fami I es in the Birmingham c o m m u ni ty were
adherent; of the t w o p ri m a r y Christian faiths in the Lebanese homeland.
Both Maronites and Melkites a r e Eastern Catholics, giving allegiance
(Birmingham, -A0 EBir'mincharn-;c tf--j r.r cci
'- I
the p o p e at Rome, but worshipping , in accordance wi th ancient li turgic al
517 rites distinct from th e La ti n e., Roman te practiced by the
majority of the world's Cath o li cs an d by th e c Church
hierarchy. The mountains of Lebanon were, _00; rrr mr turies, refuge to
minority religious groups, including Q N visionary and
ascetic, St. Maron, and his followers. The Maronites, a uniquel'
Lebanese/Syrian faith under the domain of the patriarch at Antioch, have
ma intained their union with the Catholic Church throughout the centuri es .
Their Antiochene or, more Maronite Rite is characterized
among other things, by the use of Aramaic or Syriac in the liturgy. The
first Lebanese to Birmingham were Maronites and they founded St. Elias.
Other early Lebanese settlers were Melkites, followers of the Byzantine
patriarch, and the IQ '14 th Greek Catholics of non-Lebanese na ti onal
worship at St. Georg 't he Melkit es are one of three major trad it ion s.
among Catholicism's Byzantine Rite adherents; they are known collective!
as Greek Catholics. Like Byzantine Rite adherents in southern, centr ',
and eastern Europe, the Melkit es split from Rome in the
Bt 'in the eL bt , century -ihe Arab Orthodox reunited with t
at Rome, as other Byzantine Rite practitioners had done in the intervening
.ears. , - -
Their distinct rite/ howev r, - th y retained. Thus, Melkite Gr ee k
Catholic churches, including St. George in Birmingham, may be
multi -national, attracting not only their founding Melki tes / 0'''U 7
co -religioni st Byzantine Rite Catholics of European descent.
5. Philip M. Kayal , "Reli gion in the Christian 'Syrian-Americ;r
Community,'" in Arabic -Speakinq Communities in American Cities, e4 —
Barbara C. Aswad (Staten Island: Center for Migration Studies of New York,
1974), P. 111.
6. Kayal 19- 4 p. 125.
7. 1979 Official Catholic Director
S. Interview by Brenda McCallum and Nancy Faires Conklin, 28 April
and all subsequent
interview tapes cited were recorded by the authors from April to June
1982. Original tape recordings, transcripts, and other project data are
deposited in the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folkl ife Center,
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Duplicate copies of data collected
during the course of this research are deposited in the Archive of
American Minority Cultures, Special Collections Library, The University of
Alabama, University, AL. (All ipte
her t E $ T TiT
9 2-Mc/C -ca. -.--
_LO. ESR7-1 fr/1 _r4
c- C4 • - ,
+
-4-4- -E 882-Mc/C -C1 - -
rn. € }- &.
/
1cf; I urn, CTEE, p.
?.
9 € e2
C £t------ -
23 .ES82--4c/c-c4 . .
2 4-.--.ES32—M C4
25-.-- E582—Mc,'C—Cl 6.
2.-.- E 2—Mc/C_C >- ..
27.
28. ES82'-Mc, C-C16.
2Q - 6.
I a Lafak is Petrc"j Hi tory cf the I3reek=. in Bi rrni rih rn,
- (tBirmingham m.? n p 1979), pp. 2-3.
Nicholas Christu interview by Sofia Petrou,
transcript, Oral History Research Office, Department of History,
University of Alabama in Birmingham, pp. 1-2. & (j j
Petrou 1979, p. 19 ; "Th e New Patrida: The St ry of Birmingham's
1 abama
Greeks," n.d.
C.
Christu transcript 1977, p. 12.
Petrou 1979, p. c'•
Moskos .
The Un i ted Greek Or thodc'x Commuri i t, Hol ;' Tr in' ty—Hc
3.91 Christu transcript 1977, p. 12.
hom-as Surgess, Greeks in America
R and E Research Associates, 1?7CI).., pp. 173-174.
am
4z,�- Holy Trinity-Holy Cross, 1?56, n.paq. On the role of the chur-!-_�71
in American ethnic communities, the community-based naturr-e C-It P-_Rr1_.h
E-chools, and conflicts between sacred and secular functi,_-IFI�_
churches a nd sc h ools,
Religious - of Am e rican -
Ex p lo r ati on s in Ni n - - - Soci al Hi st o r y ,T a m a r a K. Hareven, ed.
(En gl - ..a - - U - , 1971 p.
Raymon a - Immi g r a nt - a - - a
Defen s e ," - 1981
Petrou 1979, p. 35.
I 1 1111 IN IN
A&. Holx Trini tx-Holy Cross Hel lenic Orthodox Christian Center
( i&�,,)5 0. Petrou 1979, pp.
1 c; 53. Petrou 1979, p. 25.
� �'54. The Uni ted Greek Orthodox Communi ty "Holy Trini t),,-Holy Cross,"
flcnk n & N1cf'a' urn, JOTE5, p.
5 nn ufls p. : 19 -1' - Hc / Tr nit,' Dedic t H-n th
ri . : . ,1 ca. 1956), n. pa .
CLLl-r >
-4 cs 2-Mr xr ri ... _-
Q 17) M zr' _r'
71
72.. E002
73. ESS2-Mc/C-C12.
Bi r rn i n c h . . m
is conversat anal st e as been documented arncuriQ Greeks and
Greek-Amer jcans in the work of Deborah Tar men, e.g., "O,s-al and Literate
Strategies in Spoken and Written Narratives, " LanquaQe 58 (1982), 1-21
I ' } 7-5-v E 2-McJC-- t EOO2
Conkl in & McCallum, r-.I:TE;, p. ::1
80. ESSt-4c/r - rQ -
8-?-.---M -e articles appeared in the Birminc1ham Ledc1er, September 2
19 7, and the Birmin'ham Ate-Herald October 20, 1907. The essay
collection is entitled "In Defense of the Semitic and the Syrian
Espec ially" and was made available by Jeff Norrei 1
84. ES82-M 'C-€t;
or example, Mary C. Senq.tcck: 1 "Di f+ereritial Rates of \ - :
Assimilation in an Ethnic Group: In Ritual, Social Interaction, and
Normative Cultures" International Miqration Review, (1969) 8-31;
Judith A. Nagata, "Adaptation and Integration of Greek Working
Immigrants in the City of Toronto, Canada: a Situational Approach,''
International MiQration Review, 4- (1969$ 44-70; and Nora Faires, "The
Evolution of Ethnicity: The German Community in Pittsburgh and Allegheny
City, Pennsylvania, 1845-188 cPh.D. diss -iJnivers t>' of Pittsburgh,
19811
LEBANESE Ai iC SCHUOL AT ST. ELIAS MARONITE CTBOLIC CHURCH
Sirmingriain, Alabama
and
GREEK SCHOOL AT HOLY TRINITY-HOLY CROSS GREEK ORTHODOX CATHEDRAL
Birmingham, Alabama
r
Sy ria;
History of St. Elias Maronite Catholic Church
To understand the impediments to ethnic maintenance facing Maronite
immigrants, it is necessary to consider the relationship between the Maronite
faith and Lebanese nationality. Maronites are the majority Christians and
leaders in Lebanon today, and Maronite Catholicism is, for all practical-
purposes, the official religion. The identification of "Maronite" with
"Lebanese" was tenuous at the turn of the century, however —during the period
of massive immigration —and remains problematic for the church.
_ _ _ contempor ary1
2
To make matters more difficult, the American Catholic Church regarded the
Maronites —whether "Syrian" or "Lebanese" —as just another ethnic group to
assimilate into the "universal" Latin Rite. The Latin bishops directly thwarted
Maronite efforts to create autonomous churches and schools. They also
discouraged them from practicing their rituals in the style and the
Aramaic/Syriac and Arabic languages. It was not until the second Vatican
Council in 1965 tiar acknowledging the integrity of the Eastern Rites became a
policy of the Roman church. Catholics are now instructed to follow the rite of
I[tir fathers when a parish of that rite exists.
Thus the Lebanese Maronites found themselves in something ot a douDLe
On the one hand, they needed to respond affirmatively with a clear,
tionally_based sense of ethnicity, if they were to withstand assimilation
into the American mainstream. On the other, they had to convince the American
Catholic Church that their demands for separate institutions were based not on
national, but on doctrinal differences.
In St. Elias today the debate continues. The priest identifies himself not
as a Lebanese but as a Maronite Catholic. His parishioners see the Maronite
Church as the institutional core of their ethnic community, however. These
distinctions are important determinants of the practice of ethnic—heritage and
Arabic language education in the parish.
The Lebanese community in Birmingham was established in the years
following 1890. Settlement continued until the iimni
1924. Most Lebanese migrated first to cities in the
and thence to Alabama. The founding Lebanese families in Birmingham originit
3
in the farming villages in the area around Zahie in central Lebanon. They were
attracted to Alabama by opportunities to enter into itinerant trade among rural
residents or in urban areas amidst the growing numbers of mining, steel, and
iron workers. They did not often choose farming or even industrial wage labor
because they intended to return to the old country. Also the tenant farmer and
sharecropping agricultural system prevalent in this region was antithetical to
their experience and ambitions as independent small farmers. Most Lebanese
immigrants became peddlars, traveling the back roads carrying notions, dry
goods, and hand-crafted items on their backs. The profit was high, the
investment low, and only minimal English was necessary. A route and a stock
could be obtained from more established Lebanese who owned shops and organized
routes for newcomers. As they became permanent settlers they often moved from
peddling into shopkeeping and wholesale grocery and produce businesses.
By 1915 sixty-five Lebanese families were settled in Birmingham and had
established a Maronite Catholic urch with an Arabic school in the afternoons.
St. Elias was founded in 1910 in a converted public school building at 20th
Street and Sixth Avenue South. It is named after the church in
Wadi- el-Arayeche, the home village of many Birmingham families. Until the 1960s
St. Elias was one of only two Maronite churches in the Southeast.
St. Elias was established under the authority of the
who supplied the parish with a series of priests from Lebanon. Once
established, however, it became a responsibility of the Latin Rite Diocese in
all other matters, and held inancial obligations to the bishop and to the
Latin parochial schools.
f irst thirty years, although it does not appear to have been as high as the
estimated fifty percent reported for Maronite congregations nationally I V t
remained I its original, settled away from the church area into the neighborhoods of Glen Iris and
Idlewild on the southwest side of Birmingham. Finally, the church closed in
1939 for lack of a priest; appeals to the patriarchate went unanswered for over
six months. The community then contacted a priest directly who happened to be
visiting his brother in Detroit and later obtained permission for Father Joseph
Ferris Abi-Chedid to come to Birmingham rather than return to his monastery in
St. Elias. The only remaining functioning church organization was the Ladies'
Altar Society, which raised $311 to add to the church treasury of $7.87 so
that Father Abi-Chedid could reopen the building and begin calling the
Maronites together again. He quickly learned sufficient English to read the
gospel and to comm u nicate
community. He then set about obtaining property in the Lebanese neighborhood
and managed to have almost a full city block of land donated to the parish.
In 1949 consfruction began on the present church building at 836 Eighth
Avenue South. At the time of Father Abi-Chedid's ( ' 1'l lan d retu rn 4S
Lebanon in 1970 the complex consisted of the church, a parish house, an
also 1 plans for )
5
buildings was paid for in cash raised primarily through the Ladies' Altar
Society weekly Lebanese dinners, which became a veritable institution for many
Birmingham residents.
The church had a series of short-term resident priests after Father
Abi-Chedid. In 1972 the present priest, Father Richard Saad, was appointed to
St. Elias. Father Saad, a member of one of the first classes to graduate from
the American Maronite Seminary in Washington, D.C., is the first American-born
priest at St. Elias. Although of Lebanese descent, he is also the first priest
not to speak Arabic fluently. Since 1972 Father Saad has concentrated his
efforts on consolidating the parish membership, reaching out to Maronites who
have turned to the Latin Rite, and restoring the teaching and celebration of
the Maronite Rites. He has also begun converting one classroom into a
library--one of only two or three such Maronite libraries in the United
States--with the help of the Ladies' Altar Society.
St. Elias now has 260 active families, totaling 800-1,000 people, most of
whom are of Lebanese descent. These numbers reflect the post-1965 immigration
of educated, professional people, displaced by recent conflicts in the Middle
East. It is now one
churches in Atlanta
the entire country.
of three Maronite churches in the Southeast, including
and Miami, and one of fifty churches and five missions in
In 1962 the pope authorized an apostolic exarch to the
United States with a mission to unify the American Maronites. The exarch at
Detroit became bishop of the Eparchy (Diocese) of St. Maron of the USA in 1971,
and the Maronites were removed from the authority of the Latin hierarchy. The
eparchy is now administered from its seat at Brooklyn, New York. It oversees
the churches and missions, the seminary in Washington, and a convent in
Youngstown, Ohio. Nationally, Maronites number over 36,OOO\ ,,/
Father Saad has applied for an assistant priest at St. Elias to extend his
outreach to Maronites in the Nashville, Tennessee and Mobile, Alabama areas who
now worship in Latin Rite churches. St. Elias maintains friendly relations with
St. George Melkite only three blocks away, and their parishioners
sponsor some joint act vities. St. Elias is the meeting place for the
* Amer ican-Lebanese Alliance, though it occasionally meets at St. George to
demonstrate its ethnic, non-denominational basis. The two major religious
festivals celebrated at St. Elias and other Maronite churches are the Feast of
St. Maron on February 9 (Latin calendar February 14), and the Feast of St.
Elias on July 20 (Latin calendar July 25). The former is marked with a special
mass followed by Arabic food, music, dances, and other entertainment, and the
h rt d
;t ory .t i r H 1
The parish organized the first Arabic language classes in 1915, just five
years after its fdunding. During the early years Khattar Wehby, one of the few
well-educated immigrants, conducted them. At first the classes took place in a
section of the old church and later at another location. Webby taught as a
volunteer, giving classes after school for several hours each day. Both the
students and the teacher were bilingual in Arabic and English amd used the two
7
languages in class. The classes were to make the children literate in Arabic,
familiarize them with Arabic/Lebanese literature, and supplement the cultural
education they were receiving in Latin parochial schools.
The classes were not successful for very long. Wehby perservered,
starting classes each fall until the 1920s, but the consistent attrition
discouraged him. Josephine Wehby Sharbel describes her father's teaching
efforts as follows:
He didn't receive cooperation. And, you know, he didn't want anything from them. He'd say, "Give me your children.
I don't want anything, just let me teach them." . . . Well,
it just wasn't supported, I mean, in that they didn't cooperate with Papa. Maybe the parents, you know, kind of just drifted away. And then my father just got disgusted and lie just quit. (ES82-Mc/C-C3)
As textbooks Wehby used grammars, dictionaries, histories, and poetry and
essay volumes that he had brought with him from Lebanon. Although
trained in classical Arabic, he taught the vernacular language. "We learned the
alphabet. We learned to read, to spell. We learned poetry and songs," says his
daughter. Except for the songs, the efforts were ciirected toward refining the
children's language skills. She also recalls that the instruction was:
t1ore or less, 1 would say, conversational . . . and the spelling and things like that, but barely writing. 'Cause
I don't think we ever got to the point where we were doing too much writing, specially not the print. I think we were printing more or less. (ES82-Mc/C-C3)
Elizabeth Boohaker and her brothers also attended the Wehby classes for
Arabic-speaking children. She reports a similar experience.
d
Ana the reason we learned--we took part in the choir at the church and we sang in Arabic. And we took the books and
would start reading, you know, out of the books, the Arabic language, ah, print. Now, script, I can't read, but I can read print. ES 2-Mc/C-C4)
The next serious efforts at language education did not take place until
Father Joseph Abi-Chedid became priest of St. Elias in 1940. He came to
Birmingham intending to open a full-day Maronite parochial school. Elizabeth
Boohaker recalls riis arrival:
The people were riungry for a new church. In fact, be didn't want to build a new church first; he wanted to open a school first. He says--which is true--"without the school you have no parish." The children are going to disperse, they're going to go to other places, they're going to learn other cultures, and you just won't have, won't have your parish. (ES82-Mc/C-C4)
But the school building was not immediately forthcoming, so Father bi-Chedid
introduced Arabic classes for the young people after school and on Saturdays.
James Mezrano was one of his pupils.
He tried to teach us Arabic, but his bedside manners were very rough and the children were very scared of him. We'd just shake. He was just very stern and strict, and, I don't know, we just couldn't learn from him. (ES82-Mc/C-C16)
Father Abi-Chedid's students were no longer Arabic-speaking or bilingual
in Arabic and English; they were second- and third-generation Birmingham
Lebanese, with, at best, passive knowledge of the language. Mezrano describes
his own skills as typical: he can understand a considerable amount, but he
cannot respond nor can he read or write Arabic. "Even though they [his
9
generations's parentsj Knew Arabic, and we were spoken to by them in Arabic,
and I understood it, we were never taught to speak it fluently," he explains.
(ES82-Mc/C-C16)
Father Abi-Chedid emphasized conversation, pronunciation-drill (in some cases,
physically trying to force laryngeals out of his pupils), and the alphabet. The
classes would start up again and again and stop because the children dropped
out after a month or so. "I guess that's why I know the alphabet so well,"
says Mezrano, "we went through it so many times." (ES82-hc/C-C16) Although
these experiences were not promising, Father Abi-Chedid did not waver from his
determination to have a school at St. Elias to supplement the Latin parochial
education of the students.
At his parish's wish Father Abi-Chedid built first the new church and tnen
the rectory. Working with the Ladies' Altar Society and the Knights of St.
Maron, a special parish organization established for the purpose, Father
Abi-Chedid raised the money necessary for the first half of the school
building. Finally, in 1958 the prospective school's auditorium/cafeteria was
completed and in 1960 the first four of the planned eight classrooms. The
completed complex would be in the shape of a cross. The school was to have
eight grades and teach all subjects required by the state. In addition, the
school would offer instruction in Lebanese heritage and the Maronite Rite.
To ensure the realization of his dream, Father Abi-Chedid established a
trust fund designated specifically for the school. It totalled $250,000 in
1969, when he retired from the parish. The school fund was kept
all other church accounts, so that it could be hidden from the Hi
IDJ
who regarded a school at St. Elias as unnecessary competition with the existing
parochial schools and who generally resented the Maronites "outshining"
(Mezrano's term] him. Father Abi-Chedid had tied up the money in such a fashion
that he felt it was safe from the Latin bishop, but one of his successor
priests brougftt the existence of the fund to the attention of the newly
appointed Maronite bishop. A struggle ensued which made the question of
Maronite education the most divisive issue in St. Elias's history. Elizabeth
Boohaker, church secretary under Father Abi-Chedid, recalls:
This money in the trust fund was placed by an organization
in the church that was working toward building a school. It was a St. Maron organization. And they put the money in the
trust •1 s o - bi shop wouldn't get his handson it and
- ire acame up [i.e., was built and dy to occupy], you see, we g o t a n e w p ast or aft e r .. al e ft. I .J • _ •
got I o f - - bisho p kn o w i t . W e ll, b y
courtthat time we had our own says, "that's rch money, and
be a ey
went togot up :operate the bishop'•':ind court decreed —I don't pued the arishioners ': f each trust (there were .:1ee —that the parish H. trusts)T . . And the bishop got, you know how
m u c h h e tax!es I !I1IIL!
portionx
The parish, therefore, owns a school complex of which it makes ver ,.
use. The land adjacent, designated for the remainder of the school, stall
vacant. In such a situation it is unlikely that the school issue would e
11
disappear from memory. Indeed, today's parishioners and priest report that,
over ten years later, it is the key to the factionalization within the
congregation.
Advocates of the school foresee a full curriculum of public and parochial
school subjects, as well as supplementary classes, including Lebanese history
and culture, the Maronite Rite, and the Arabic language. James Mezrano believes
that Arabic should be begun "at an early age--two or three. I think it would be
great for the younger, because it's easier for them to speak at that time."
(ES82-Mc/C-C16) Elizabeth Boohaker describes the school she envisions this
' 1 L Lk& J uu d LCdC:k LL a Lu LR y Al c , jUu 11L
where they came from. Teach them the history of Lebanon
from the time of the Phoenicians to the time of our present-day situation. Teach them their religion, which is the oldest rite in the church. Teach them the family life.
And besides, they would get this basic education that is necessary for college or high school. . . . We were gonna have nuns who would teach them in English, except the Arabic language, and the rite, and the church —the hymns, the prayers, and everything that they would learn in church. . . . Probably they would have included in their classes the Arabic language, as a course. That would be in addition to their regular studies. (ES82-Mc/C C4)
Pupils would be drawn from the 250 or 300 (informants' estimates vary)
children in the parish. Others might come from Latin Catholic families who feel
their children "miss all that tradition and heritage" in the Latin church,
suggests Mezrano. Financial arguments are made in addition to the cultural and
religious justifications for the school: between fifty and seventy-five percent
of St. Elias's children attend Latin parochial schools, where they pay
out-of-parish tuition. Supplements provided by St. Elias to families who cannot
meet the cost amount to at least $15,000 per year. Combined with the surpius
the treasury (which advocates see as school money, despite the court decision
this money could go a long way toward staffing a school, if it is run by nuns ]
Even the teaching staff of the projected school is a much discussed issue.
Father Abi-Chedid had first planned to bring eight nuns directly from Lebanon.
Later the parish contacted nuns at the Maronite National Shrine in Youngstown.
"We had Maronite nuns . — . waiting to teach, and the bishop did not encourage
them", recalls Elizabeth Boohaker. "We have a bishop who is not very
aggressive. He did not encourage them. They finally got disgusted and went back
to Lebanon." (ES82-Mc/C-C4) She and her family and friends have now discussed
the question with four Latin nuns of St. Rose of Lima in Birmingham who attend
St. Elias and who report themselves willing to learn the * t. take .js 4T
jobs. Mezrano preferssays, and multilingual. His group's plan would be to send them to Sacred Heart
College in Cullman, Alabama until they pass the state's teacher certification
examination. If established, the St. Elias school would be the only Maronite
school in the United States.
Along with the controversy about a Maronite parochial school., AraibLc 1ingua4e
classes have (continued to take place at irregular intervals. In the 1970s a
1ILebanese [ f priest ) TI from 1 Ir-t.i
learned. He taught, taught a higher grade, where the young ones could not [keep up]--you have to start from the
13
beginning. . . . I went when the priest was teaching, because I knew a little bit higher Arabic and I could, you
know, appreciate it and learn it. (ES82-Mc/C-C3)
In recent years there have been classes given by seminarians from Lebanon
interning under Father Saad. One man, who was at St. Elias for three summers
between 1978 and 1980, offered Arabic classes twice as part of the Summer
Enrichment Program. This program for families includes Lebanese cooking,
movies, crafts, and other "enriching activities," notes Father Saad. James
Mezrano attended with his wife and older children. He recalls that the
classrooms were filled. "We went there very energetic. There's no textbook —you
bring your own pencil and paper, and you get there, and you write. You try to
write it down and pronounce it, and it's very hard to pronounce."
While the Summer Enrichment Program itself lasted only four weeks, the weekly
Arabic classes continued throughout the summer. Father Saad observes that
attrition H . ' ' : • : . - ( 1U ñ
at the en:.
During the summer of 1982 Father Saad has had an intern, Mr. Joseph Kour.
a Lebanese-American who does not meet even the minimum Arabic-skills guidelines
established by the bishop. To expose Koury to the language and renew Arabic
teaching at the school, Father Saad arranged that an immigrant elementary
teacher, Jackie Aki, offer a children's class. Unlike most of the post-1965
immigrants, the Aki family is highly language retentive, a fact that Father
Saad attributes to their plans to return to Lebanon. Mrs. Akl, who teaches her
own daughter at home, agreed to take on other children in the six to ten age
group. An announcement in the Sunday bulletin drew children and a number of
adults to the course. An additional immigrant teacher, Michael Wehby, was then
found, and an adult class has also begun.
14
Both classes meet for just one hour each week during the Sunday school
period between early and late mass. The time is usually devoted to religious
instruction. As Joseph Koury and Father Saad describe the children's class, it
now has just over ten children. Mrs. Akl is introducing the alphabet, reading
and writing, counting, and rhymes for word memorization, using photocopies of
elementary schoolbooks she used in Lebanon. She assigns homework tasks of
rewriting, copying, and translating, which the pupils have completed
diligently. The seven or eight adults in the other class requested
conversational Arabic. Their time is devoted to speaking, not reading and
writing, with the exception of learning the characters associated with the
sounds which have no parallel in English. Practical conversational phrases seem
to be the main emphasis. This appears to be the first course at St. Elias
genuinely following a conversation approach. So far the attendance has been
good and enthusiasm high. Most of the adult students have minor passive
knowledge of Arabic, but cannot speak it. Father Saad expects the classes to go
on into the fall, if interest continues at the present level. The adults had
hoped for a longer session or a weekday evening class, but their teacher was
not available except on Sunday mornings. If the adult classes continue, they
may have to be scheduled for another time.
Future of the St. Elias Arabic School
Under Father Abi-Chedid the parish work.i 0
funds, first for the church and rectory and then for the school. Now, with no
plans for further expansion of the school, there are far fewer activities at
the church, because money-making projects are not necessary. Father Saad, the
current priest at St. Elias, is not an advocate of the school. The struggle
around ethnic education has now shifted, therefore, from one between the parish
and the church hierarchy to one between conflicting factions within St. Elias
tET u...
Father Saad argues that the plan for a school runs counter to the general
movement in the Catholic church away from parochial education brought 1about 1 11
the loss of nuns and the high cost of lay teachers. More importantly, however,
hr -t* Maronitism as a rite, a special tradition of Catholicism, and resists
the equation of Maronitism with Lebanese ethnicity. In part it is a question of
making clear the doctrinal and ritual integrity upon which the church is based.
As he explains:
People associated the rites [Maronite and Melkite] with
ethnic communities which wanted their own parishes. And
that is a misnomer, because a rite is a distinct entity in
the Catholic church, and that includes us. We're a Maronite
church and they're [St. George Melkitel a Greek Catholic
church. And so those will stand, you know. The ethnic
thing, if we depended only on ethnicity, I think it would
The t c o nfusi o n s) r eligi o u s a n d e thn ic identification i peculiar to
lb
ambivalence appears to stem from a fear that the emphasis will tip away from
the internal Maronite faith to external cultural manifestations of a
non-religious nature, rather than that the association of Maronite with
Lebanese is incorrect. As a priest, his primary concern is with spiritual
affairs and the maintenance of the faith. He does not wish to see himself in a
dual role as the leader of the ethnic community. No doubt this, too, is partly
the response of an urban American. Perhaps an additional factor is that this
Lebanese Maronite parish in the Deep South, long isolated and self dependent,
and has different expectations of the roles its priest should assume than a
parish in a more densely Maronite area such as the Northeast might.
Father Saad's parishioners do not attempt to make the delicate distinctions
between faith and nationality upon which their priest insists. As Elizabeth
Boohaker puts it, "Well, that sort of goes together, being Maronite and being
Lebanese. If you're Lebanese you're Maronite. Because the Maronite is the
majority in Lebanon." For her, "Well, the church, really, is the real
foundation of the [Lebanese] community. Everyone gathers there. If you don't
see them at all, you see them at church." (ES82-Mc/C--C4) James Mezrano, too,
directly connects his religious and cultural life:
I love it. 1 love the music, the food, the dancing --it's all the religion. To me it's a great culture. . . . We
[i.e., American-Lebanese generally] keep the food and lose all the others [elements of culture], and we're so fortunate that we have the church and our whole life. .
Right now the church is the center of everybody's life; that's what's holding us all together. If we didn't have the church, we'd be like all the other Lebanese
communities. I think we're very fortunate in this area to have two churches [i.e., two Lebanese churches, St. Elias and St. George Melkite]. (ES82-Mc/C-C16)
For these parishioners furthering the i-laronite cause and Maronite education are
identical to furthering Lebanese ethnic awareness and cultural maintenance;
they are simply not separable.
The struggle surrounding the St. Elias school must be understood in light
of the above sentiments. Father Saad and his parishioners share deep concerns
about the education Maronite children receive in the Latin schools and the
negative impact that Latin school tends to have on the level of participation
at St. Elias--families are drawn to work for the school's parish instead of
their own, and the children make friends among their Latin Rite schoolmates. In
addition, part of the Latin school curriculum is Catholic liturgy, catechism,
and custom, and Maronite children learn that this "is" Catholicism. Until
Father Abi-Chedid started to grant first communion to St. Elias youngsters
early —six instead of seven years of age —the Maronite children were even
studying for and taking their communion at school in the Latin Rite with their
Latin classmates.
quarter hour Ispecifically o n o !Maronitism in the last year or)
10
department available for children's religious instruction. Father Saad hopes to
e'pand the Sunday school into a full hour of Maronite Catholic study, using the
iLocesan materials to supplement tile standard books and C atechism.
t:r 5iite ) ifs c:nfnetir nrR(ir cess)r Si ki tD Vat:der •\nt
educational ambitions, Father Saad has had the church library named after the
builder of the school complex in which it is housed. For two years the Ladies'
Altar Society has been developing the library's collection, which consists of
b o s and pamphlets on Maronitism and Catholicism; a section of travel,
n(, c)Lay, history, and art books and brochures about Lebanon and the Middle
a few Arabic and Syriac grammars and dictionaries; yearbooks and
c: ntjon books from St. Elias and other American Maronite churches; and
issues of The Challenge, the diocesan newspaper. A few Arabic language texts
have already been shelved. A considerable number of old Arabic books have
recently been donated by the Mickwee family and other parishioners. For Father
id the "real special" section is the one on the Maronite Rite and the history
md of our history , and of our culture. . . . Books are Very hard to get and expensive to find--in English. 'My Arabic books we have gotten, people donated them from heir homes and things. We're trying to classify them, identify them, and put them out. . . . You'd be surprised
young person comes by doing a paper in school, and is trying to do it about the Maronite Rite, and the history of Lebanon, or something, and they would have a source here. We want to have things here they can't find anywhere else.
We want to have regular hours, but we're not at that point yet. (ES82-Mc/C-C1)
general
The library committee of the altar society will help him plan a summer
literature and film series to help advertise the library, during which there
will be readings from the books, or films and tapes about the rite and Lebanese
If this approach-- centering more on Maronite Catholicism and making clear
the specific ritual, dogma, and history of the church, supplemented with
certain cultural activities--is sufficient for Father Saad, it certainly is not
for advocates of the St. Elias school. They argue for the necessity of a school
from various perspectives. Elizabeth Boohaker, the daughter of early immigrants
to Birmingham, for example, represents the faction of school advocates oriented
toward the old country. She and her family are extremely
conservative--socially, religiously, and ethnically. Much of her concern with
the Latin schools is that they are no longer strict enough with the children.
She feels that the liberalization of the liturgy, the lifestyles
nuns, and the approach to social issues in the Latin church have
mistakes. Of the Latin nuns she would hope to retain as teachers
St. Elias she says:
of priests and
been very bad
in a school at
But these nuns are still real nuns. They are full habits.
And, and that's what we want. We don't want these nuns who
look like me and you, and they call themselves nun. They're no more nun than I am. (ES82-Mc/C-C4)
20
functions. Bringing a non-Lebanese Catholic spouse into St. Elias does not make
amends. The Boohakers drew a parallel between excommunication from the family
and excommunication from the church:
They knew at the time they did that that they would lose their privileges of unity to the family. . . . What bothers me is they knew they were doing wrong. It's not wrong to marry somebody like that. But we're trying to keep our heritage together. (ES82 Mc/C-C4)
The Boohakers are so adamant and conservative that they have chosen to withdraw
their active support from almost all parish activities because of what they see
as religious liberalizations, and because of disagreements over the school.
They think the church is now "mainly social," not religious. This family has
been central to all fund-raising activities in the past, but "I told them, 'You
want our family back here, you going to have to start that school going,
because the church doesn't need anything else!'" says Boohaker. (ES82-Mc/C-C4)
While James Mezrano shares Elizabeth Boohaker's concern over
the integrity of the family and abhors marriage outside of the ethnic and
religious community, he arrives at his support of the school in a somewhat
different fashion. A third-generation American in his mid-thirties, he has no
strong ties to the old country. Whereas Boohaker has two nephews who will
return to Lebanon to marry village girls during 1982, Mr. Mezrano, his family,
and even his parents have never visited the country. He is not trying to
maintain traditional Lebanese ways in the United States, but to create a seiis
of place and self for his Lebanese-American family, having inherited a
fragmentary culture. While others in his age group opted for assimilat
escape from "foreign-ness," he has overcome the ethnic, minority-child
experience by integrating and promoting his Lebanese heritage. He speaks of the
21
privileges he had in Birmingham in comparison to his wife, who grew up Lebanese
in a Mississippi town with no ethnic or ethno-religious institutions. For
Mezrano the St. Elias school would be a means of passing on to his children a
fuller cultural experience and sense of place. He wants them to have what he
did not. He describes his position regarding the school as follows:
I'm not that old country, and I'm not that modern. But I think we should know who we are, and about our background, and to be proud of it. . . . A lot of people my age wish we could speak it [Arabic], and that's how come we want the school. You know, there are a lot of young married couples with children. . . . We'd just have a fit to have a school down there . . . I would just love for my kids to go to their own church, to their own school, and to participate and be around their heritage more and be around their own
people more. (ES82-Mc/C-C16).
It is not so much reaction or resistance to external social change that
motivates Mezrano, but a positive affirmation of an immigrant experience and
cultural heritage.
Interestingly, it is James Aezrano who is most emphatic about Arabic
language retention or renewal. Elizabeth Boohaker was raised in an
Arabic-speaking home and some of her nieces and nephews speak the language. Her
brothers' homes are basically English-speaking, however, and the new Boohaker
Lebanese brides are multilingual, although their Lebanese-American grooms are
not. Mezrano, essentially a monolingual, tries to use all the Arabic words and
phrases he still remembers in daily conversation at home. Boohaker mentioned
many innovations at St. Elias which distressed her, but the increasing use of
English in the liturgy was not one. Mezrano, on the other hand, wants to see
the entire mass returned to Arabic. Because he completely identifies M
with Lebanese heritage.
not
1 11
22
At St. Elias today ninety-five percent of the mass is in English. The Holy
Consecration is recited in Aramaic and the choir sings "a couple of hymns" in
Arabic. This is a radical shift from 1940, when Father Abi-Chedid was coached
by Josephine Sharbel so that he could recite his first reading of the gospel in
English; he memorized the sounds, not understanding a single word. Sharbel, a
professional musician, has also transcribed numerous Arabic hymns into
phonetics for the use of monolingual choir members. Prayer books have bilingual
texts and a phonetic rendering of the Arabic, so that parishioners can read
along. Father Saad thinks the switch to English has been a good move:
I'm satisfied with just keeping the flavor of it. Aramaic is more important [than Arabic], because it was the
liturgical language. Like Latin, it was preserved just for the liturgy. And Aramaic was closer to our people, because they spoke it at one time. And also, Christ spoke Aramaic. So I think there will always be a closeness to that, to that language, because of those associations. . . . You know, I have a flavor, a flavor for it too, and I can read
Syriac, 'cause that's how we're trained. . . . My idea was that, if the rite was going to thrive, people had to know what they're doing, especially the young. I think these
things are, can be, transmitted with a flavor, but in English. What they never knew, what it was before. And the
thing about these churches--the Maronite and the Melkite
churches, this old way of thinking —was that they were old-country churches, you know, for the old people, or those who didn't speak English. I think we've had to change that, if there was going to be any hope for the young
people to come, to understand what they were doing. .
And it's successful; it can't help but be successful, if you approach it like that. We have more young coming to our hiirch now than pvpr hefor . (ES 2-Mc/C-C1
St
k)obLLiOfl. Yet he speaks often of this notion of "flavor." It arises in his
description of the Arabic language classes. Although he maintains that the
language learning efforts are largely fruitless in terms of actual linguistic
skills, he thinks it is good for parishioners to have the experience of
23
studying the alphabet and learning a bit about the
approves of their learning vocabulary sets such as
foods--"you know, table-talk kind of stuff"--since
the culture they have in their homes.
language. He especially
greetings, household items,
it puts them in touch with
I don't think it is really going to mean a lot, except to give you a flavor of the identity, which is all right. Now there's more than an awareness and a real desire for
identity. . . . [It would not be good if] you didn't know what to call the foods your grandfathers ate, you know, and
that you eat every Sunday. And, you know, they're pretty good; you know, there's nothing else like them. (ES82-Mc/C-Cl)
Father Saad, and later he and Joseph Koury both, mention the Arabic
kinship terms as
helps the people
marvelled at the
a specific example of how exposure to the old-country language
conceive of their own culture. As a child, Father Saad
wealth of kinship terms that enabled his parents to denote all
members of the family in a single expression of relationship. I don't know
them all myself, but it's fantastic." There is no way that this conce
1 1 - 1
effective bilinguals, and that is one of the outcomes he would expect from th
school. He notes that his five-year-old son can recite the non-English sections
of the mass already.
Left to me, the whole mass could be in Arabic. I feel like
we have a prayer book, we can read it, and then we can learn the words in Arabic also. You repeat it so many times, and you hear it and can pick it up. (ES82-Mc/C--C16)
He would send preschoolers to Arabic classes before they ever started regular
day school.
24
"I don't think we would ever, I would ever build a school" says Father
Saad.
I would never want to run a school, 'cause the Catholic
church has gotten out of that, I think, and, in the place, tried to develop [a] good educational program, good catechistjcs in the parish. . . . No, I think it's fairly resolved now. I mean, I say there is still talk about it, yeah. But I think everyone knows where 1 stand.
(ES82-Mc/C-C2)
He admits, however, that "Now, there's, we have a have a lot of children now
coming up, and there's more talk, ah, from some." There certainly is lots of
talk. Although there is as yet no official committee to organize the school,
James Mezrano was recently elected to a seat on the church council. Elizabeth
Boohaker is an alternate, much to her surprise, since she feels she is on the
outs with the church. As she says:
I think that they're, our church, has become sort of a faction thing. Some want it, some don't want it, you know. And there aren't enough in there in support of it. Of course, now that they have to make all these big payments
for education that they make, they've started thinking over again what it could be. . . . We talk about it everywhere we go. We propagate a school, 'cause that's the only way you're going to preserve your parish. (ES82-Mc/C-C4)
"I would give anything if they would open it up," says James Mezrano. "It
Father Richard would think the way some of us thinks; but he doesn't. . . . I
don't know, I hope we get a school. I really feel that, if we don't, that we'll
lose it all."
LiLsiory ot doly frinity-Iiol 1 r ee k r lod x .t lu d
Local legend has it that three seafaring brothers were the first Greek
immigrants to Alabama: the first settled in Mobile in 1873, the second in
Montgomery in 1878, the third —George Cassimus —in Birmingham in 1884. Cassimus
is described as a British merchant seaman, who, with his two brothers, hired
out on a Confederate gunrunner. He arrived in Birmingham from the port city of
Mobile, first working for the fire department and later opening up a lunch
stand /Despite the legends surrounding the origins of Alabama's first Greek
settlers, most immigrants entered the United States through Castle Garden on
Ellis Island (the kastengardi that is often the setting for immigration
narratives),\,4ettling in this country under less dramatic circumstanceà /
Greek migration to the United States has always followed political
developments in the Mediterranean area, particularly between 1880 and 1920, a
period marked by continued tensions between Greece and Turkey, the Balkan Wars
(1912-1913), and the flight of Greeks from army conscription or persecution in
Asia Minor-\7/Turbulent internal politics and unstable leadership also
contributed to the exodus at this time. Most of the early Greek immigrants to
America, however, left their homeland as a result of the poverty resulting from
the severe depression of its agricultural economy. The Peloponnesian peninsula
was especially hard hit from 1882 to 1886, when the European market for raisins
and currants, Greece's principal exports, collapsed. /
Most of the earliest immigrants to the United States until after World War
II were unskilled single males. They often planned to return with their savings
from America to their Peloponnesian villages to establish a farm or business,
26
or to support their kin or dower their daughter or sister, both strong Greek
traditions. Many of the Greek immigrants to Birmingham, however, as well as
those who settled elsewhere in the country after 1900, were already married, or
later returned to Greece to find a bride, intending from the outset to
establish permanent residency in America /
The majority of the early Greek immigrants to Birmingham came from the
Peloponnesian area and the islands of Corfu, Samos, and Rhodes. They settled in
metropolitan Birmingham, as well as in many of the satellite
communities —Ensley, Bessemer, Wylam, and Pratt City in particular--oriented
toward Jefferson County's coal mines and iron and steel mills.
Reports on the number of early Greek residents in the city conflict, and
official U.S. government immigration and census statistics are inconsistent.
Growing from the 100 enumerated in the 1900 census, Greek residents in
Birmingham numbered 900 and 1,200 in Ensley by 1913.\3 /ensus data from
1920, however, reports only 485 Greeks in Birmingham.
In this early phase of the county's industrial development labor was in
short supply, and southern blacks as well as immigrants from southern and
eastern Europewere sought for the heavy, dirty, manual work. By as early as
1909 there were 500 Greeks in Ensley, many living in the Sherman Heights area,
where "nine out of one hundred stores were Greek owned," and the majority of
the Greek residents were Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company
employees.\1
27
have been little "ghetto" living, although Greek families generally lived
within the same neighborhoods. In Birmingham proper Greeks settled on the
especially on Cullom Street, and in Norwood.
Before World War I, but especially after 1920, Greeks in Birmingham, as
elsewhere, began leaving their jobs as common laborers to go into retail
businesses. A Greek-American middle class emerged fairly early in the
community's history in this country.'\ /The majority of the Greeks soon found
work in wholesaling and retailing.\ /A 1908 survey of Greek-American enterprises
in Birmingham included 125 food-related businesses: sidewalk fruit stands,
confectionaries, groceries, drink-bottling companies, bakeries, and meat
markets J 'Many of these enterprises began as sidewalk food stands which
required a small capital investment and almost no overhead. By the early 1900s
Greeks had such a monopoly on street vending that a 1902 petition to the city
council unsuccessfully tried to revoke their retail licenses.'\V1'As a profitable
sideline to their numerous restaurants, Greeks in Birmingham apparently also
comprised the majority of the city's bootleggers during the Prohibition Era,
importing "Pensacola rye" from Florida and selling it openly to a large,
heterogeneous, city-wide clientele\ Ather early Greek-owned business
included hotels, barbershops, shoeshine stands, laundries, and billiar:
r 1 r
The most recent wave at breek imm igrants to iiirmiiigiiain roilowed toe 19t
Immigration and Nationality Act. It was also precipitated by the increasing
conflicts between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus. Some 142,000 Greeks emigrated
to the United Stated during the late 1960s and early 1970s. These later
immigrants included both men and women with professional and technical
213
training. 1any came from Athens or central Greece and had no intention or
returning to their homeland Birmingham community, however, also includes
a sizeable number of recent immigrants who have been educated only through
rammar school.
History of Birmingham's Greek Orthodox Churches
The seventhJi U thodox congregation in the United States, Holy irinity
/ ri Triada)
of a lay committe
British poet who
urch, was founded in 1902 with the organization
the Lord Byron Society (named in honor of the
Greek independence). The committee's purpose was
establish a Greek Orthodox Church, also to assemble the members of the
y in one place for order and social improvement"
os Kanellas, an ethnic Greek from Constantinople, Turkey, was its first
priest. The first mass was celebrated in 1907. After a three-year, fund-raising
irive, during which the small parish met in rented halls, the society purchased
i former Methodist-Episcopal church building on 19th Street and Avenue C South
In 1909 the parish of 100 members was officially named The Greek Orthodox
Community of Holy Trinity, Birmingham, Alabama and received a state charter.
Daily afternoon Greek school classes began shortly after the organization of
the church in the "little run-down building" next door, that was also used as a
general meeting place 9 /When the Reverend Mr Kanellas left in 1912 he was
replaced by Father Germanos Smirnakis described as "a most
learned man, a good linguist, and the author of several books . . . [who also]
lectures every Sunday evening to his people on various subjects--reltgi m ,
historical, hygienic, etc. 0/A succession of, presumably, Greek-born rt -
inity parish by trie Archd iocese to L oued F itoer
Hfl H e Ve OI o SoLoi r re -\ioer cdo 1 7
numbered over 1,500. "With this expansion came inter-community [sic] tens
between factions of parishioners with differing values relating to
heritage, language, and education .1/ issent within the community b
developi
teacher.
Greek-American community between ecclesiastical and lay community authority in
church affairs. The argument continued through 1932. After unsuccessful efforts
at reconciliation the Birmingham Greek community finally split over the school
issue in 1933. Approximately one-third of the Holy Trinity parishioners
"withdrew their membership and formed another parish, that of Holy Cross,
[with] aims and purposes being of course the same, but in manner more to their
liking. 422
Not formally recognized by the Archdiocese, this group was led at first by
a ma e tria tfia ('group of three). The group advertised in the New York Greek
newspaper antis for a priest and hired Father Dionysios Dimitsanos from
Corfu in 1933. Services had previously been held in t Ce Fraternal Hall, but
t � �111 within three months the dissident parish had 150 members and had begun
extensive fund-raising efforts to build its own church. This was accomplished
in 1934, with the aid
Cross (Agi a Starvou
d other community members. The first Holy
urch was built at North 25th Street
30
between Seventh and Eighth Avenue in Birmingham. From the outset Mr.
Anagnos , one of the two teachers involved in the confrontation at Holy
Trinity, taught Greek school classes in the church building.
Competition between the two parishes continued. In 1931 Holy Trinity ("the
original church") bought the properties next door and erected a new educational
building. In 1935 the dissident parish, Holy Cross, was officially recognized
by the Archdiocese and a canonical priest, Father Milelis, was sent to replace
Father Dimitsanos, who had resigned because of a salary dispute / n 1938 Holy
Cross built a new church next door to its old one, again with AHEPA's aid, and
began using the former church as an educational building. In 1949, after some
disagreement about relocation to an area nearer the homes of one community
group, Holy Trinity built the present church (dedicated and consecrated in
1956) on its old site. In the same year Holy Cross built a new Youth Center
(dedicated in 1951) for educational and recreational purposes.
Reconciliation efforts betweem the churches began seriously in 1947. It
was the social activities of the youth groups of both parishes that finally
reunited the Greek—American community in Birmingham. The factionalism between
the two churches had divided the entire community for thirty years, during
'Which time the community's mutual aid and church—affiliated organizations,
Including the church youth groups, had also split off into separate chapters.
In the 1950s the two church youth groups —Holy Trinity's Elliniki Orthodoxy
Neolea (EON) and Holy Cross' Orthodoxy Elliniki Neolea (OEN) —began opening
their social and recreational functions to one another 2> %he Greek Orthodox
Youth of America (GOYA), a national organization aimed at the unification of
independent Greek—American youth groups across the country, was founded in
31
1950. The two local youth organizations, EON and OEN, became separate chapters
of GOYA. When Birmingham was chosen to host the third annual GOYA convention in
1953, however, members of both EON and OEN joined in its planning and the
occasion resu e reunification of Birmingham's two Greek Orthodox
parishes Jerry 0. Loran (?), the chairman of the event, recalls:
Nobody that came could forget the enthusiasm. I think one
night they raised $45,000, just off the floor from the kids. There were old gold coins. People were crying. We realized all the great things that needed to be done for the community co ld ot be done without the communities pulling together.
The first public step toward reestablishing the unity of the Greek
American community in Birmingham was taken one month after the GOYA convention
with an announcement published in the Holy Trinity Church bulletin that its
parish had been invited by Holy Cross, its "sister church," "to unite with
them" for the Divine Liturgy celebrating Holy Cross' nameday. Shortly after
this announcement local attorneys were retained to counsel both parishes and
present a proposal to unify the community. Parishioners from both churches
voted on the proposal —Holy Trinity members met in their Educational Building
and holy Cross members met in their new Youth Center. On the second vote both
committees were unanimously in favor of union 6 /
The binding legal contract named the reconciled 1,500-member parish TH
United Greek Orthodox Community of Holy Trinity-Holy Cross of Birmingham,
Alabama. It specified that a new priest would be brought in to serve the
community and outlined the usages of both parishes' new buildings. The H
Trinity Educational Building was to be used for joint Sunday school and Greek
school classes; the Holy Cross Youth Center was to be used for all parish
32
social functions. This mutual use of each parish's former property appears to
have continued until the 1970s, when the unified parish sold the property of
the old Holy Cross Church, after it had been damaged in a fire. To "satisfy the
newer generation," Holy Trinity-Holy Cross replaced the old educational
building with a modern one —the Hellenic Orthodox Christian Center--dedicated
in 1973. It contains Sunday school classrooms, the Greek language school
classroom, a parish library, social halls, a gymnasium/auditorium, meeting
rooms, and offices.
Most of the Greek-Americans in Birmingham interviewed about the split
agreed that it was unfortunate, but rationalized the community factionalism by
drawing on Greek proverbial lore. As Nicholas Christu said, "I know division is
no good and all that, but, on the other side, it bring you progress, too. You
have to fight for existence, you know. . . .'\ J 4hristine Grammas recalls,
"Everybody wanted to be chiefs. Nobody wanted to be an Indian. That's the
trouble. That's the trouble with Greeks." (E582-Mc/C14)
Today Holy Trinity-Holy Cross is the third largest Greek Orthodox parish
in the South, ranking behind Atlanta and Houston. It boasts the largest
congregation and the only cathedral in the state of Alabama. Other smaller
Greek Orthodox parishes exist in Montgomery, Huntsville, and Mobile. There is a
"mission parish" as well, in Daphne, Alabama. Since the 1953 reunification the
Holy Trinity-Holy Cross parish has had five priests, including Father
Vasilakis, the current priest. A variety of church-affiliated groups continue
to fulfill important aspects of the parish's religious, educational, and social
missions. At the present time the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross roster lists 650
members, about seventy-five percent of whom, according to Father Vasilakis, are
33
"ethnic Greek." The parish includes a mix of Lebanese, Palestinian, Russian,
Ukrainian, and other non-Greek nationalities as well, however. While the
problem of marriage outside the Greek Orthodox faith, or to a member of a
non-Greek ethnic group, is still an active issue in the community, it is not as
volatile as in times past. The issue of the liturgical language, on the other
hand, is a controversial one among parishioners today. The community is
currently split between those wanting to further increase the percentage of the
liturgy that is in English (which has increased from fifty percent Greek and
fifty percent English to thirty-five percent Greek and sixty-five percent
English since Father Vasilakis's arrival eighteen months ago) and those wanting
a return to services that are entirely in Byzantine Greek.
History of Holy Trinity, Holy Cross, and Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Greek Schools
The first language classes in Birmingham's Greek Orthodox community were
offered shortly after the founding of Holy Trinity Church. As early as 1907
daily afternoon Greek school classes, taught by Mrs. Stamatina, were held in
shack" behind the church. She was followed by Andrea ]
Mr. Andriakopoulos), who lived above the Greek school.
Trinity, early parish records indicate that his salary was higher than riat UL
the priest
The Hellenic focus of the school was made clear in its stated purpose: so
"Americanized children [would be] secure in Greek thought, legend, and
tradition, /4 e fledgling Greek Orthodox parish in Birmingham recognized the
value of both Greek language niaitenance and English language acquisition, and
34
its mutual aid organizations were instrumental in organizing and fund-raising
for language education. In 1910 the Young Greeks Progressive Society was
conducting English language classes for its membership of 150 young
businessmen. A group of Greek women attended weekly sessions at a school on
Highland Avenue 31 d in 1911 a local chapter of the Pan Hellenic Union was
organized in Birmingham, with its objective being "to plan and fund the Greek
The earliest Greek school classes were held from June to September for
three hours daily, Monday through Saturday. One room accomodated all elementary
grades and the teacher's time was divided among students of various grade
levels. As many as ninety students at one time —their desks arranged according
to age and ability —studied Greek grammar, history, geography, literature,
mythology, folksongs, drama, and dialogue. Exercise drills occurred on
Saturdays, when religion was also taught and athletics practiced. The only
available curricular materials were those imported from Greece by the teacher;
the teacher often had the only official books and students copied lessons from
the blackboard into their tetradia or notebooks 33/Iote learning, memorization,
and recitation were the standard learning methods. Strict disciplinary measures
were the rule.
Christine Grammas, who attended Greek school classes from 1917 to 1922,
describes the curricular materials and pedagogical methods used by Father
Nicholas Lambrinides, the revered, multilingual teacher
Constantinople before coming to America and who is wid
though he only spent six years in Birmingham:
We had only one book--the reader. All the rest of the su bje cts - b o ard ,l i ke fo r h i s t o r y , I
ill I in st a n c e , ' iwe would co p y i t , s t a rt scr a p p a per.
dem a n ded t ha t w e 1, • p ut it in - co m p o sit i o n b o ok in
ca lli g ra phy--and * II - . Iwithoutsmud g es,• S.
II Ii m is s p ellings S . . we ha d the p r e tty
ha ndw rit tin g, and tha t wa y we I mem o r i z e what we wrote and we 'd r em e m b e r o u r h i s t oryI! a nd r e li g io n t o pic s a nd
stresse dgeography. He g e o g r a phy, oh yeah! He would1'-the e in poetic rm nd we ut as - islands _:l_ • .,I • . ' . : - woulid p oint them out, int . ithem if we ,,:,. one little get a whack on the hand. He was
very strict, but' - - ' . hy etter than I knew the U.S. H , thh; Gmarpee. k And I
Maude Morgan, another second-generation Greek from Birmingham, recalls her
early experiences in the "Hellenic" classes from around 1922 to 1928:
It was just a little, a house actually to start with, that they
had bought and converted into the Greek school. And my mother
happened to be on the Board of Education for the Greek school,
curriculum was reading, grammar, writing, of course, and not
penmanship writing, but what they used to call orthographia,
which was the correct spelling. . . . And correct grammar.
It from the six-year-old and went on up to seventeen at
leas eek scho seemed like it was forever. . . . And our written exam time, and thenthatTT _ know, _n we had, would write S _
to be written and then, too, like I said before, orthographia, write this in class the i 5!'TWe read from our lesson. We were assigned lessons . . . that had which we were assigned —a verse or whatever. Then we had to
!IJ: • : ' .it 1:' to be correct or else -we were . did somethin g ' ' I - sent out to cut I I Ithe switches off th e
tre es a nd we were switched o n o u r ha nd s - fo r d o i n g s o mething
re ally .- a y o u k n o w. It a ll d e p e n d e d o n t h e t e ac h e r , IT
thoughtwas . terribl e
teachers. Such presentations were often highlighted at the annual graduation
exercises at the Fraternal Hall or at Birmingham's old Bijou Theatre. "And, of
course, near the end of the semester he would assign us with a poem or
dialogue, and we'd perform on stage like actresses," recalls Christine Grainmas.
Really. If we wouldn't act . . . he wanted us to learn expression. And he said, "You get out there and you're supposed to cry when you say these words." I couldn't cry. He whacked me on my legs with a ruler, and I cried, and he said, "Now say it. I said it. We loved him, we really loved him, but we were scared to death of him, too. (ES82-Mc/C-C9)
A succession of Greek-born schoolteachers followed Father Lambrinides's
tenure at the Greek school. Many teachers during this period also traveled on
certain weeknights to the steel mill towns of Ensley and Fairfield to hold
Greek school classes for the parishioners in those communities-' %'n 1926
controversy began to develop in the Birmingham Greek Orthodox community over
the hiring of teachers for the Greek school, its site, and policy-making
decisions. The argument culminated with the 1933 split of the community and the
formation of the separate Holy Cross parish. This resulted in the establishment
of a second Greek school in Birmingham, supported by the fund-raising efforts
Chapter 3 of the AHEPA and by a Holy Cross ladies' group, Pistis-Elpis-Agapis
Cross offered its own "parochial
and then, beginning afternoon school of Greek," taught first by Mr
around 1942, by the church's rector, the Reverend D. N. Sakellarides. After
1949 Christine Sepsas taught the classes, first taking pupils into her home
and later affiliating with the new Holy Cross parish. Mrs. Sepsas's mother had
also been a Greek-school teacher. Her cousin A1exandr Bonduris describes
Christine Sepsas as a "self-taught, natural-born teacher," who was prevented
from attending college because Greek custom and family finances would only
allow her brother to receive a higher education. No longer a Greek-school
teacher, Mrs. Sepsas apparently has returned to offering classes in her home,
teaching English to new immigrants in Birmingham. (ES82-Mc/C-C14)
Another teacher from the Holy Trinity parish —Irene Kampakis, who
graduated from a teachers' school in Athens —is also widely remembered today in
the Greek community in Birmingham and is described by her former students as
being .. very learned." She taught Tasia Fifles, the third-generation,
Greek-American daughter s) Christine T Grammas,
Trinity in the late 1930s and early 1940s. As Fifles recalls:
The class was divided —each row was a dif f erent grade. And,
you know, that's surprising, because every Greek child was
going to Greek just a handful, every
I Greek child in my generation, every Greek child was going
to Greek school, everyday, right after school. We'd get on
the bus, get the tickets from the Birmingham Electric Company, ecause that's what used to be the streetcar . . .
Ill -' ' - - - I I - wo uld n't
takei: i was packe d. str __i'II were ;. . . . . . S st a nd , • everything,
you know.1 Iwouldn 1 I rs. In fact, we sit around the tab le 'e a 1: : • schoo about Greek l.
1 - heard these stori e s .
It seems that there were no formal Greek school classes in Birmingham
during the war years, and by 1953 the two Birmingham Greek Orthodox parishes
had reunited. Dr wng the lateI VJ,1SI and early 1960s, third-generation
Greek-American parents like Tasia Fifles were reluctant to make the same kind
r;T co mm itment 1
38
Cross Cathedral illustrates the prevailing post-war attitudes as well as
generational differences and similarities toward their children's ethnic
language education:
dorgan: Well, why do you not send your children to Greek School? Or have they ever gone?
Fifles: They didn't want to go.
Morgan: Have your children ever gone to Greek school?
Fifles: Never gone to Greek school. I'll tell you why not. I would have to do all the transporting. They had so many other things to and I would have to take them. And I guess it was
just, their interest wasn't that big for me to sacrifice that time at that time. Now, oh yeah, now they want it. . . . Now they're learning it. Now they want to know Greek. But I couldn't tell them that, you know, ten years ago.
Morgan: They blame the parents for not making them.
Fifles: And then they would have blamed you for making them
go. I used to blame by mother.
Morgan: When he [my son] went to college, I never will forget, when he came home, on his first trip back home . . . he
turns around to me and he says, "I'll never forgive you for not making me go to Greek school."
Fifles: I feel I've failed my kids, 'cause when they were Little, if I had spoke Greek, spoken Greek to them as they grew u p , they would know something, and I didn't. And I thought, just bringing them down here [from the suburbs] for one hour a day, for once a week, what are they going to learn in that short Little time? . . . But, I thought, well gosh, they don't even know how to count to ten, they're going to have to learn all that, and one hour a week is nothing. (This and interview quotes above - ES82-Mc/C-C9)
By the mid-1960s and through the early 1970s Greek school classes at the
united Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Church had decreased to once-a-week evening
classes, with a very high attrition rate by the end of each school year. Two of
our informants (Georgia Kampakis and Janice Mastoras) had school-aged children
during this period, but in each case their children only attended Greek school
for a few months and the experience was "not very beneficial" for them. The
L LAIC L . CtUU I IL L iiL, po L LOU LS ILL L L DUL O J\ 11UL i
oUrLousLy to the church's downtown location and the parishioners' dispersement
to the the suburbs, to competition over their children's free time between
parish-related schools and clubs and the extra-curricular activities of the
parochial or public schools, to their children's increasing interaction and
identification with their peers in "American" school, and, perhaps most
importantly, to decreasing parental authority and increasing maternal leniency,
for which these mothers assume a great deal of responsibility, even guilt.
Although it was not directly discussed by any of our American-born
informants, part of the problem during this period appears to have been
staffing difficulties. In the late 1960s the one teacher at the Holy
Trinity-Holy Cross Greek school was an elderly woman from Greece whose teaching
style was not well received by her students, accustomed to the ways of the
American schools. Nichi Jovaras called her a "strict, discipline [sic], classic
Greek schoolteacher" in the old country fashion. She was followed in the early
to mid-1970s by Dr. Michaels, an immigrant from Cyprus and speaker of the
Cypriot dialect, who was also unpopular here. Nichi Jovaras, who immigrated to
the United States in the 1950s, describes his pedagogical methods and how she
herself took over some of his students in 1978 or 1979, becoming a teacher at
Holy Trinity-Holy Cross:
He was not for children. He [should have taught] adults. He was really tough on the children, you know. He
thought he was back in Greece, in the old school in Greece, and, you know, children would resent it . . . and nobody
wanted to go to Greek school. So then one day they asked me if I wanted to teach . . . because I had children, you know. . . . Well, I'll tell you how it started. There was
these three little girls —intermarriage, you know —so they were going to this Greek school with Mr. [sic] Michaels. Well, one day he made a mistake. In Greek [he said], "Look at all these American kids come to Greek school." Well naturally . . . they didn't want to go back. And Donna
40
[Nichi Jovaras' youngest daughter] says, "If they're not going to go, then I'm not going to go." So I said, "If you're going to sit at home, then I'm going to teach you.'
• . • And the little girls say, "Well, can we come too?" And I say, "Yeah." And that was good, because that was one time Donna really learned her Greek because, see, the four of them together, I had them two days a week, and I make them do things. I make them learn, and they [learned], like, "I want to go outside and play" and "Here's a beautiful tree," children's conversation." (ES82-Mc/C-C12)
Nichi Jovaras has now taught Greek language classes at Holy Trinity-holy
Cross on one or two weekday evenings for the past four years. This past
semester she taught a two-hour Tuesday evening class to a mixed group of
students, but their attendance was irregular and attrition rates were high.
During the same period, and apparently up through this year, Theodor (Ted)
Lafakis also a native Greek speaker, taught some afternoon and evening GreeK
èii5ol classes, experiencing many of the same problems.34 In her class of older
students last semester, in which everyone knew the Greek alphabet, Jovaras used
Methods of English, which her father employed when he taught her brother Greek.
It is printed in Greek, English "phonetics," and English translation, and
focuses on exercises for social and business conversation as well as story and
letter writing. Her students included fourth-generation Greek-American children
and spouses converted to Greek Orthodoxy through intermarriage. She describes
their mixed attitudes toward language acquisition as follows:
Now I do have students in that class that would rather not use the English phonetics, but read it in Greek, and they do. But I did find out one thing--the non-Greeks that
within a marriage, that [are] within the Greek faith [through intermarriage], they're more receptive to learn than the ones that actually are Greek, because they apply themselves because that's what they're there for. They have an aim within themselves to do something, so they are the ones that are really my best students. They are learning, because that's what they are applying themselves to do. •
• No, we don't have history, all we're doing is strictly conversation, but, like I said, they do know the alphabet.
31
it in j.'r iin Greek if they dothem will read in rnriirrr
Themis Kannellopoulos, born in 1949 into a trilingual (Greek, French,
English) home and educated as an engineer, came to Birmingham in 1979. During
his first year in the Greek Orthodox parish he team-taught Greek school with
Mrs. Jovaras on weekday evenings., n 1979 or 1980 they split the classes in
Themis now teaches a Saturday morning Greek school class at Holy
Tr1nit7 =-o y Cross for adults only. This past semester he had six students in
this class: his wife Sheree, a third-generation Greek-American who came to
Birmingham from Florida in 1980 when they were married; a student who has not
been attending regularly because she has a new baby; an "American" woman who
married a first-generation Greek; Terri Grammas, an ethnic Irish and recent
convert from Roman Catholicism, married to a second-generation Greek-American
from Birmingham who is twenty years her senior; and the Grammas's two
daughters. Terri Grammas describes her daughters' ethnic identification, and
their attitudes toward Greek School:
[They] are very close to their background. The Greek is definitely prevalent. My children are so Greek-oriented
that when they filled our applications for school [a special public school, gifted-child program]--they're
twelve and fourteen--and they asked for nationality, they
put down Greek. . . . And I was in a state of shock. It
didn't occur to me that they would ever consider anything
but American, but, you know, the Greek is really ingrained
in them.- . . . (But] one of them is rebelling against it
[Greek School class] - . . the younger one. Where the older
one comes and enjoys it —she has more of a knack for
languages than the other one. (ES82-Mc/C-C6)
Kanellopoulos describes the books he uses in the Saturday class:
I went through a lot of books from there [Greece] and fou
ones that, in my opinion, are good books so I . . . tak ,,
the history of the 1821 revolution, Iliad and Odyssey, i::::
some history of that era also, and, uh, since I know what
they know, what I do is I read a chapter and rewrite in a way that would be understood by the people . . . . I was
42
writing little things, little essays, I guess, in English or in Greek, and they would have to translate it to the other language. And I teach them some grammar and syntax —syntax is very important. It's very simple. There were very few rules. . . . What we do is basically, my plan was to try to teach the people, uh, every time we meet a number of new words and that's how we started out. And then
after some time, you know, enough words, presumably, have been learned from both phrases [sic], and [they] make little essays using those words. . . . (ES82-Mc/C-C9)
Kanellopoulos's classes, which will resume after a hiatus for his
students' and his own vacations, are expected to continue in the fall with many
of the same students, some beginning their third and fourth years. Jovaras also
plans to teach again in the fall. Taking into account the commitment of the
teachers and the attitude of the priest toward Greek school classes at Holy
Trinity-Holy Cross, there is no reason to believe that the level of language
education activity will diminish in the foreseeable future.
Ethnic Maintenance: Greek Institutionalized Education
The factionalism over the Greek school in the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross
parish that split the community for thirty years no longer dominates this
community; it is now thought of as a remote event. Vestigial factors underlying
the controversy are manifested in parishioners' attitudes toward community
identity and the value of, rationale for, and problems in sustaining effective
ethnic heritage and language education programs. Community opinions about the
Greek school —its past history, present status, and prospects for the
future —often correlate with factors such as time of immigration, age group,
occupation, class status, education, place of residence, native and home
language, and ethnic and religious traditionalism or assimilationism, all
43
which were important elements in the controversy. Terri Grammas, a relative
newcomer to the Birmingham Greek Orthodox community through intermarriage,
characterizes its composition with reference to several of these factors:
In the Greek community, to me, there's two factions. The Greeks from the old country ["Greek Greeks," as she calls themj that, I don't even know if they've ever become American citizens. . . . Most of the Greeks here still have family in Greece or in Cyprus, and I think that has a lot
to do with it. They do really keep up with the news there. It's surprising. We don't, you know, because we don't have
family there. . . . I don't really know how the split has come. . . . There will always be a lot of conflict. They won't change. They won't change their attitudes, ever. There is still a group here that is fighting, every inch of the way. . . . I would say [the other group: "American Greeks" has very educated people —lawyers, doctors, teachers. The others [first group] are restaurant owners, people that have maybe a high school education, not necessarily in this country, but, you know, some of them do; but who have been raised very strictly Greek--you know, spoke Greek in the home. (ES82-Mc/C-C7)
In addition to Terri Gratninas's polarized "Greek Greeks" and "American Greeks,"
a third, mediating position rounds our the Greek parishioners' own picture of
Holy Trinity-Holy Cross ethnic identity. As Christine Grammas explains:
See, it's what you learn at home. You've got to go [with] what you learn at home. You see, when my daddy used to see,
when we used to see the Greek flag--well, we marched and we see that Greek flag waving and the American flag right next
to it. Why, you know, you'd just have all that patriotism in you for both countries. Because they're right there, side by side. (ES82-Mc/C-C14)
Her sister, Alexandra Bonduris, agrees, "Papa always said, 'You're an American.
Don't ever forget you're an American, but never forget your Greek heritage.' He
instilled that in us. (ES82-Mc/C-C9)
44
Clearly, the strong Greek immigrant imperatives for educational and
occupational advancement into the American middle class are critical in the
study of language and ethnic heritage education among Greeks in Birmingham
and are viewed as paradoxical by members of the community themselves. Maude
Morgan comments on the Greek "entrepreneurial tradition" that coalesces with
its American counterpart, the work ethic:
The Greek people are hardworking people and they're always trying to better themselves, trying to progress in whatever they're doing, and they want something better for their children . . . . And, for example, my husband was an established produce man, not from the very beginning. When he first came here--he came here as an orphan when he was fourteen and, of course, he went
into the restaurant business like so many others have. But when he really went into business for himself, went into the wholesale produce business, and, eve
though my children were in high school and went on college while he was still in this business, he dio want this for them. He didn't like the hours of the business. He didn't like not being able to do things because of the hours, to participate in other things socially. And now, what is so funny, my older son is graduate of Vanderbilt University. And he was an Eng major, and he'd gotten part of his master's degree f English and history and then went off to Korea. When
came back [he went] in the restaurant business. [Laughs. He's the one who owns the restaurant. . . . But, it was so funny. . . . Like I said, we wajired something better for them. (ES82-Mc/C-C8)
C. W. Jovaras characterizes the community's sense of cultural necessity for
the preservation and perpetuation of the Greek heritage:
To me, without traditions it's nothing; that's the way I feel. And I hope I can instill this to my children. Without traditions we are nothing. You are blank. Well, really —that's the key. And traditions have got to be
maintained, not only within the church, but at least within the home, the family. And, ok, so we change and we, uh, you know, look the other way, you know, when we
start raping our various other traditions in the name of liberalism, and modification, and understanding. But certain traditions, if we eliminate that, why we're back to nothing, we're nobody. (ES82-Mc/C-CIO)
45
The current status and future direction of the Greek language school in
Birmingham must be examined in relationship to its effectiveness in
maintaining this cultural imperative and in reinforcing shared community
values. But there is a considerable range of opinion among the parishioners
we interviewed about their own ethnic identification and how it has changed
over time, as well as about the importance and functions of the language and
cultural components in this maintenance effort. For the Greek Orthodox
community in Birmingham we have a relatively large sample of informa nt,
representing a variety of opinions about the history and degrees
commitment to the continuation of Greek school classes. It is
possible to abstract a small generational sample, both by age and }v
of United States residency, to isolate and analyze the critica
sociocultural factors that interact in shaping the evolution 0!
community's attitudes toward mother-tongue education.
Since the first generation of Greek immigrants in Birmingham are now
deceased, the city's second generation of "whitehairs," as Father Vasilakis
calls them, represented in this study by Christine Grammas, Maude Morgan,
and Alexandra Bonduris, are the baseline from which to examine generational
changes in attitudes toward ethnic and language education. This group of
informants is perhaps the most ethnically retentive, although those cultural
elements they choose to preserve are often archaic relics and survivals from
Greece as it was at the time of their parents' immigration to this country.
Father Vasilakis sees them as having "a fantasy notion" about their
Hellenistic roots. These women received a grammar school, or at best, high
school education. Since they grew up during the post-World War I period,
46
rampant with nativism (particularly in the Deep South), their memories of
experiences outside the Greek Orthodox community and of "American [public]
school" are often unpleasant. Their memories of attending ten ye
mandatory Greek school classes on a daily basis are, on the whol
pleasant
customs
pronunciation and grammar. It also taught them to read and write .
colloquial language spoken within the rapidly growing Greek 0rthod
community in Birmingham. Christine Graimnas and Alexandra Bonduris stres
that learning
Greek school,
the children at that time did, because the parent , couldn't speak English at all. And if they did, th :
wouldn't speak to us because they wanted us to 1e:ir: Greek. 2- 1cjC-Gi )
On the whole, this group of second-generation Greek Americans were
upwardly mobile. These women's husbands, who began working in Birmingham is
street vendors, became wholesalers, retailers, and restaurant owners, and
their children achieved a better public school education than they had. They
are proud of and secure in their cultural preservation and transmission
activities. This is manifested in their unselfconscious continuation of home
and external ethnic customs, their children's attendance of Greek school,
and their own activities as members and officers of the Greek school board
and its PTA. Further evidence of their sense of Greek identity includes
their firm allegiance to Holy Trinity during the period of divisiveness,
their activity throughout the years in Greek community social organizations
like the Philoptochos Society and the neighborhood Knit-Chat-Chew group, and
their parish work as Sunday school teachers, choir teachers, and library
They describe their own sense of ethnic ident-ity as "Americans born of
Greek descent," and their faith in Orthodoxy is so strong and their
knowledge of its ritual so long-standing that they tend to be rather liberal
on the issue of the choice of language for the liturgy. Christine Grammas
does not seem to care which language is used. Her sister Alexandra Bonduris
prefers that it be exclusively in the original Greek. Maude Morgan analyzes
the historical relationship between the liturgical language and
institutionalized language education efforts as follows:
No w S II• S. generation] . important
that I I I I I kn o w t h e Gre ek language. • I' there Ii -
p e r i o d S ii . whe r e the I. [s e cond gen e r a t i on] wa n t ed the ir c h ildren S b e a p a rt , m o r e - p a r t o f t h e
" worked •
, I think, because the nd pare n ts I community.i ' . - b e t ter education
fo• r the ir childrenI th a t it I • uppermos t in their Ii i .
• their scho o l i n g t h e p u blic 55 o rAmerican !school, or that they :• to college,
whate v e r , - m o r e • • - t han to Greek
school. And I think this is why this change [in co m m u nity i a t t i t u d es to w a r d - s cho ol] H a b out.
only t made them hold on to the Greek school, I
think, was the fact that urch is, ur religion is
a on to • langua ge .
in the Greek : -:- 1 hi o f this they try to •
Their children, represented here by Tasia Fifles (daughter of Chrisrine
Grammas), were raised in I U UTis!tI,' during age in the early 1950s. They were better educated as a group then their
parents, upwardly mobile , and upper-middle there was little or no new immigration from Greece into the Orthe
co mmunity in Birmingham, although out-migration was beginning to occur and
Greek Orthodox spouses came into the Birmingham community from elsewhere in
the country. Non- ethnic Greek wives, such as Janice Mastoras, also
converted to the Greek Orthodox faith during this time and joined in local
community activities. Greek-American communities all across the country were
Iundergoing ri
mainstream. These third-generation immigrants, and their peers by
extra-community and interfaith marriage, appear to be the least ethnically
retentive and most ethnically ambivalent of the Greeks studied. They have
been highly selective about the elements of their ethnic heritage they
choose to preserve, have felt the most guilt about their passivity in
transmitting it to their children, and have rejected many of the traditions
their parents saw as essential components of their own ethnic education,
both at home and in more institutionalized and public settings. Not
surprisingly, however, it is this group that has been most active in public
I really don't [have them]. The ties that I have are
because my children (adopted as infants] were born
there, and, of course, my mother and father. I think I'm
just a real American. 1, 1 love my heritage. I'm very,
very proud of it. But I really don't have [a Greek
identity], and I don't think my children have either.
Greek women from the 1950s generation did not push their children
learn the language or to go to Greek school, and their lack of
with regard to ethnic heritage and language maintenance is a sore
spot with them even today. The problems of their move to the suburbs,
increasing interaction with and influence of their children's American
public/ parochial school peers, and conflicts with extra-curricular
activities are most often used as a rationale for their leniency regarding
cultural transmission. They too, however, like their mothers before them,
draw a strong correlation between native home language and the
effectiveness of Greek school classes. Tasia Fifles discussed the
decreasing incidence of conversational Greek at home:
The only difference in the kids that go to school today I - . I Gr e ek •- II - , gr a nd m o t he r,
my !grandf a ther m e a n,
- i_i we re - living . II _ J_ - from Gr e ece .
father was from Greece, but he I I
not well, but. he spoke Eng lish sp oke i : . Course I . to learn Greek because ,
g randparents; spok ewe in Gr e ek. _ n we j we nt I . I knew
- teacher - I - telling I sch oo lmean, ! I ! .1 ii. I
she told us to shut th e •., A- • • • . clos e I I -
These kids going to Greek sc hooldon't even r • R how to c o u n t to te n m o s t of
cold , the y're cold. It • b e - you walking • Greek school class and learning Greek. . . that's the II d I think
g re ate st thin g - I S - •. - g randmother and I I gr a ndf a ther
- - - ' gotten worse, I - • . me an, it's got I I ii
a n a cc e nt , a n A m e ric a n a cc e n t I
Our group interview session at Holy Trinity-Holy Cross cathedral also
stressed the interrelationships between language education at home and its
institutionalized component in the parish language classes. Those
interviewed agreed that the mother's role in language acquisition was as
c entral of J SI- e x t e nded family elder s , -a n d I Dl : T. their
Kampakis: They've lost a lot by
Like Janice [Mastoras] and I were
children say, "I don't want to do
"Well, that's A." Whenever maybe
not doing that. saying, when our
that," we tend to say, we should say, "That's
50
Morgan: Now, as a mother--my children are grown--my tendency and Daddy's [her husband, James] is to go where we want to be, you know, with our friends. Whereas then it was more of a togetherness. The mothers were in charge. The mothers came with us, and--not all the mothers but mothers were appointed almost like what became the PTA in grammar school.
Kampakis: I think that the mother's role in the in the Greek home is very, very important. (This and above interview quotes - ES82-Mc/C-C8)
The Birmingham Greek Orthodox community's fourth generation, who grew
up in the late 1960s and 1970s, during the era of increased ethnic awareness
and ethnic revivalism, clearly defines itself as Greek-American. While
they perceive their ethnic identity as dualistic, they recognize that this
is not necessarily negative. They are in no sense ambivalent about or
unwilling to use elements of both cultures and transform them into a
synthesized whole that can revivify the community's sense of self-identity.
This fourth-generation group is represented by Terri Gra mas, a recent
convert through interfaith marriage, and Sheree Kannepoulos, an Orthodox
Greek who grew up in Florida outside any Greek Orthodox community and came
to Birmingham with her Greek-born husband Themis. These women are ethnically
self conscious and aware. They care a great deal about the revival, renewal,
and transmission of Greek ethnic heritage and language traditions. Both are
learning about the community's foodways, music, and dance from older women
by participating in parish social organizations, and seem to be making every
effort to reinterpret them in a meaningful way within their own home
cultures. This selfeonscious effort at ethnic education in the private
domain carries over into the community arena: Grau as' children are active
members of JOY (Junior Orthodox Youth) and participants in the parish's
semi-institutionalized dance classes.
51
Their efforts at ethnic education have further correspondences with
their activities regarding institutionalized language education. Tern
Gra as attends the Saturday classes with her two daughters and her husband
Nick, a native of Birmingham who is on the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Parish
Council. They are strong advocates of the Greek School:
It was not even publicized at that time [c. 1977 when
they moved to Birminghaml that there was a Greek school. We felt it was necessary for the kids to learn Greek. We still do. It's helped them a great deal at school. And they'll continue taking it as long as it's offered, no matter how proficient they get, you know. My husband speaks two other languages and English and, you know, we feel it's very important to speak different languages.
(ES82-Mc/C-C7)
Crucial to the success or failure of the Greek School at Holy
Trinity-Holy Cross are differences of opinion within the community over
definition of the problems of institutionalized language education in the
parish today and the best means to resolve them. The future prospects for
such education must be assessed both in light of the perceptions of t
parishioners and of the parish priest, as well as in view of recent
centralization efforts by the Department of Education of the Greek Orthodox
Diocese of North and South America. It is principally over the issue of the
two Greek school teachers, whom Father Vasilakis says he "inherited," that
there appears to be some ecclesiastical/ lay disagreement. The disagreement
reflects ongoing tension in the community generated by the length of United
States residency, class, educational background, and pedagogical approach
of the two teachers —Nichi Jovaras and Themis Kannepoulos —both post-World
War II, first-generation immigrants. Jovaras, who came to the United States
in the 1950s and to Birmingham in 1980, is a working-class woman, educated
pragmatic, conversational approach may be well suited for elementary-aged
)opular with all of her students or their
personal and political differences" with the
)riest, by his account. Kannepoulos, on the other hand, is highly praised
by Father Vasilakis, principally for his advanced education (as an
engineer), "both in the United States and in Greece," for his "detached
political and intellectual approach," as well as for his emphasis on the
classics.
While the parish priest highlights the crux of the Greek school matter
as personality differences and dislike of particular individuals, his
analysis of some of the school's problems also concurs with that of his
parishioners, discussed earlier in this report. The geographic spread of the
parish members and their difficulties in transporting their children to the
school, which is in downtown Birmingham, have already been noted. In a
recent Parish Council meeting over this problem, Father Vasilakis told us
that "satellites" —smaller language schools out in the suburban
communities--had been considered. The problem for students of choosing
between their Greek Orthodox friends and activities and those at the
American public/parochial school has likewise been mentioned by several
parents. Father Vasilakis also told us that some of the textbooks are
outdated and that the curriculum is seriously lacking, a statement with
which we agree. The Archdiocese, however, announced in 1980 a long-range
plan to centralize and standardize the operation of Greek schools throughout
the United States into an eight-year, afternoon program of Greek language
- !d -T. Tt I n1 'nihi I ()fl crh dil fr
53
complete series of Greek language texts to supplement those currently
available from the Archdiocese. Problems over teacher training and financing
must also be resolved if this national program of institutionalized language
education is to be successfully implemented nonetheless. Additionally, the
Holy Trinity-Holy Cross parish, as well as the Archdiocese at large, must
address the special needs of converts (non-Greeks) to Orthodoxy, as well as
those of new immigrants, in developing Greek school curricula that will
serve the varying constituencies that now comprise most Greek Orthodox
parishes in this country. Finally, as discussed earlier in this report, the
lack of parental and student commitment, with the flagging attendance which
results, must also be addressed. Parents of fourth- and fifth-generation
Greek-Americans in Birmingham must become committed to the idea of Greek
school classes for their children, as are the parish's converts and more
recent immigrants.
Other Forms of Education
The Holy Trinity-Cross GrLK i o u ,,: iv . t L.i.- .\rjh
most public and formalized ex
by their communities. Althoug
institutionalized, they rest upon educational traditions which are
integrated into the ordinary lives of the Birmingham Greek and Lebanese
communities. The schools are a supplement to the informal learning that
takes place in the home and community on a daily basis. Parish and community
organizations represent a middle ground between institutionalized education
and unselfconscious enculturation of children by family and community.
W
Planned and casual community social events are one and two steps further
removed from explicit teaching/ learning situations in the language school
setting. Even in family life the element of selfconscious teaching of
cultural heritage is often very strong. Many of the activities, and
sometimes the actual physical environments of Birmingham Greek and Lebanese
homes, are calculated demonstrations of ethnic culture.
The following dialogue between two Greek informants, Georgia Kampakis and
Maude Morgan, illustrates their view of community education. The Greeks,
they say are:
Morgan: Very traditional people, who, ah, church,
religion and family traditions carried out in the
different ages. I think that's one of the main reasons
[for cultural retention], because our family traditions
are so intertwined with our religious traditions--even
though, within our church, we have holy traditions,
which is altogether different from family traditions, and sometimes people mistake our family traditions for holy traditions.
Kampakis: I think it begins with the family, really.
And then from there it sort of branches out to the Greek
school, and then the church and organizations and things like this. But it all begins with the parents, with the mother and the father. It did with us.
Morgan: I think now it kind of works more through
organizations a little more than it did in our first
years [as a community]. And when I was a little girl, of
course, the Greek school was very important. (This and
above interview quotes - ES82-Mc/C-C8)
Both women experience an inseparable relationship between the various
settings in which community life and learning take place. For Morgan, the
religious and secular cultures are "intertwined." Kampakis sees t-he
activities of home, Greek school, and parish organizations as "brarich(�
the same effort. Interestingly, Morgan notes that, while the component
55
remain the same as in her girlhood, the emphasis has shifted--the
organizations bear more of the burden now; the Greek school less. The
learning continuum is unaltered, but the aspects of culture that are most
important are somewhat different as the community becomes a culture of
Americans of Greek descent rather than a community of immigrant Greeks.
The high points of the Greek and Lebanese year are ethno-religious
holidays. It is during the high holidays such as Easter and saints' days
that the mother tongue is employed most extensively in the liturgy. In
addition, secular songs are revived and a host of expressions relating to
the festivals are used by members otherwise monolingual. The holidays bring
forth feasts of ethnic food, native costumes, banks of flowers, home
decorations, and ritual objects such as Greek Easter eggs, Catholic and
Orthodox. Lenten palms, and the Epiphany holy water for the Greek home
altars. Special rituals are performed, both in the church and within
extended families and social networks.
These holidays are celebrations and simultaneously intragroup
exhibitions of ethnic culture. Our informants report an intense level of
activity preceding the important holidays. Woman cook, prepare the family
home, and decorate the church. Greek men set up the lamb pits. Lebanese men
prepare their backyard grilling areas. The choir rehearses. Children
finalize their dance routines, pageant lines, and dress.
Both the Maronite and Greek Orthodox communities also put on more
public ethno-cultural events. The annual Greek Bazaar attracts participant-s
from the entire Birmingham area. Last year 7,000 meals were served and
external
Uncountable pastries sold. Young people are trained to lead tours of the
cathedral, for which they must memorize the Greek terms for all the parts of
rhe building and furnishings. While this event is calculated to raise money
for the church and to introduce the Greek community to greater Birmingham,
ir is also an important expression of the Greek community's external ethnic
customs, as well as its deeper values. Georgia Kampakis, president of the
Philoptochos Society, the women's organization that works three days a week
for six months to prepare the food for the bazaar says:
i think that is one way we keep the Greek customs alive,
through that, even though we don't like to admit that-people kind of know us for our food . . . . Why fight it
anymore? It's really something to be proud of. And our
customs, our dances, too, because our children always do dances . . . . They [non-Greeks] tell us that. they like
to come because it's a family-oriented festival. And it
really is —the kids are all working, the grandmothers, the mothers, some grandfathers that are there, fathers,
everybody. It's a community project. really, but it's
sponsored by the ladies' group. (ES82-Mc/C-C8)
The centrality of family and community life is made visible to outsiders,
which in turn reaffirms the community's sense of ethnic integrity.
57
weekly bingo luncheon. It is open to the public and at least 300 people of
all ages —mostly women, some Lebanese, and many non- Lebanese--played bingo
and consumed a lunch of Lebanese meat pies, tabouli salad (made from bulgur
wheat, and vegetables), Lebanese spice cookies, coffee, and iced tea. The
Women's Auxiliary of the Cedars Club prepared the lunch and hosted the
affair.
Greek and Lebanese community members also participate in a variety of
casual and social activities that are culturally related. There are dance
clubs at Holy Trinity-Holy Cross, and both Greeks and Lebanese regularly
enjoy ethnic music and dance at weddings, festivals, and private parties.
Until recently there was a Greek music band of young boys from Holy
Trinity-Holy Cross who played for all sorts of events. The St. Elias
parishioners hire Arabic musicians from New York or elsewhere for major
parish events, sometimes even for weddings. One of the Greek Orthodox men's
organizations sponsored a tour to New Orleans this summer to see the
traveling art exhibit "In Search of Alexander." Last year a women's group
visited the first Greek school in the United States in St. Augustine,
Florida. The parish is participating in a national fund-raising drive to
restore the school building to its original state and to erect a memorial
chapel.
All such quasi -organized activities reinforce the cultural
heritage that these ethnic communities wish to maintain and transmit. They
form the background to the interest in Greek and Arabic school courses and
indicate a continuing curiousity about and awareness of their ethnic
heritage.
Ail of our informants can readily provide a long list of examples of
y practices stemming from their ethnic background. Not only are they
conscious of the many aspects of their cultures which they are passing down
through family life, but they also can describe the ways in which they are
teaching them. Every informant mentions ethnic music and dancing. All the
women mention cooking instruction. Josephine Sharbel tells of teaching the
Lebanese national anthem and other Arabic songs to her children and
grandchildren. James Mezrano explains how he employs all the Arabic terms at
his command with his children, and Terri Grammas describes the strategies
her husband uses to get his girls to use their rudimentary Greek. The
Jovaras and Derzis sisters show
I T E home altars palm-frond crosses, and vials of holy water and incense. Nichi Jovaras
Sever aproudly displays a clollection of Greek dolls, including her own dolls, her
mother's dolls, and new dolls she has brought back from Greece, which she
has given her eldest daughter. She also shows us the mounted display case
containing artifacts from her wedding and explains why it hangs over the
marriage bed. inform ants uti l
th eistories about the old country, the early days in the United States, and r
Greek or Arabic school, which they often find themselves retelling at _ _ _ _
children's request. C. W. Jovaras says he has repeated the stories his
grandmother ri ,
were the great Greek classics when he studied ancient Greek in college.
To visit their homes is to enter an environment designed to express
ethnic identity. Sharbel's living room is decorated with paintings and
photos of family members, small knick-knacks distinctly Arabic in design,
59
and oriental rugs. She and Boohaker wear heavy gold jewelry, especially hoop
bracelets. Boohaker's home contains oriental rugs, Lebanese lace
tablecloths, and photos of Lebanon and h- family in Birmingham and in
Zahle. In her basement is a specia cooker 7or Lebanese bread; in the
backyard, a permanently installed, triple, gas-fueled grill.
Every surface and every wall in the Jovaras home displays Greek
artifacts. They range from replicas of ancient vases to postcards of
costumed Greek dancers, Aegean seascapes rendered in oil, and homeland
statuary. The walls are blue, and even the furniture is upholstered in the
Greek national colors. The apartments of Christine Grai as and Alexandra
Bonduris are similar repositories for family and Greek memorabilia. Every
home we visited had a large album of photos from trips to the old country
conveniently at hand, which was quickly brought forth for our examination.
All of these practices reflect conscious statements of ethnic identity
and strategies for its maintenance. In the more middle-class homes the
objects are carefully chosen, consisting largely of artistic artifacts of
old country, high culture. In the more working-class homes fine art and
crafts are intermixed with mass-produced replicas designed for tourist
consumption. Looking beyond the artifacts to less obvious forms of ethnic
expression, it is important to analyze ways of "being" Greek or Lebanese,
not- jist exhfhi ing er1in c idetiriffers.
Ui L CU UL eI1t Uy is SoiflU idrig uag e us e • In dli
homes we visited, except Father Saad's rectory which is a semi-public space,
Greek or Arabic was in regular use, at least among the residents themselves.
English augmented with Greek when speaking to their daughters. Boohaker
and Sharbel both use Arabic with family and friends of their generation, but
increasingly make use of English with the younger generation, practically to
the exclusion of Lebanese.
Beyond simple language choice, we were aware of conversational
strategies that were derived from the mother-tongue culture. The Jovarases,
like other Greeks we interviewed at the cathedral, tended to speak rapidly,
respond quickly to queries, and to interrupt and overlap each other, as well
as the fieldworkers to a lesser extent. There are scattered remarks about
the contentious "nature" of the Greeks, e.g., "Everybody wanted to be
chiefs. . . . That's the trouble with the Greeks" [Christine Grammas];
"There will always be a lot of conflict" [Terri Grammas]; "If the Greeks
don't have an enemy outside to fight, they just fight with each other" tC.
W. Jovarasi. The somewhat loud, quick, and assertive style of discourse we
encountered indicates that Greek-language conversational norms unconsciously
pervade the community's English as well.
By contrast, our talks with Lebanese-Americans were far slower in pace.
There were long pauses between our questions and their responses. Answers
seemed to be careful and deliberate, often clarified with illustrative
stories. There were few interruptions, either of us or of each other. While
we are not familiar with the discourse styles typical of Arabic conversation
among Lebanese, the differences from our own Anglo-English were pronounced
enough to elicit our comments on the Lebanese sense of timing and
deliberation.
61
Perhaps the clearest indicator of family life as an expression of
culturally appropriate behavior and cultural values is the extreme
hospitality with which we were met in these two communities. Father
Vasilakjs took it upon himself to carefully question us about the nature and
goals of the research project, selecting those we would interview based on
our initial interview with him. Much to our surprise, his secretary called
one day and informed us that a series of interviews had been arranged and we
were to come to Holy Trinity-Holy Cross, where the parish members would
report to meet with us. Thus our Greek interviews were clearly conducted
under the auspices of the parish priest. The interviewees were prompt,
interested, and open. Subsequently the Jovarases took it upon themselves to
introduce us to "real" Greek life by inviting us to their home for an
evening of food, music, and conversation, so that they could share their
photo albums, Greek artifacts, and hospitality.
In the Lebanese homes we were plied with ethnic specialties. Our most
serious interview problem was bringing the meetings to an end. Father Saad,
the most apparently de-ethnicized of our Lebanese informants, concluded our
interview by remarking that while he does not like St. Elias to be called an
ethnic community, and while he does not favor a parish school, he does see
certain aspects of Lebanese life as part of Maritonism and intrinsic to
parish life. "Well, the way of life, and the feeling that we have for each
other, and the hospitality. There's always been Lebanese hospitality, always
been. Always proud of that, and family life."
62
The Southern Experience
Birmingham's Greek and Lebanese communities have several commonalit-
Both are practitioners of Eastern rites of Christianity, '-
very ritualistic and "high church" by American Christi
standards —especially for the Deep South, where E'rotesrw : -
and Pentecostals are in the overwhelming majority.
The Greek Orthodox cathedral, like the Maronite church, functions as
something of an outpost for the faith. Holy Trinity-Holy Cross is the
oldest, largest Greek Orthodox community in Alabama, and still the third
largest in the South. St. Elias remains one of only three Maronite
communities in the entire Southeast. The two parishes were founded within
three years of one another.
Immigration began for both communities in the 1880s, typical for
populations from countries in the Eastern Mediterranean. Both the Lebanese
and the Greeks emigrated because of declining income from their tiny farms.
They were uneducated, with the exception of a few individuals who became key
leaders in the parishes and the parish schools. Because of the history of
federal immigration and naturalization law, they also grew in parallel ways.
Attitudes toward education in both communities are derived from a great
sense of pride in their long literary traditions, and both value "the
learned man" as teacher and leader. Nicholas Lambrinides, the most admired
Greek schoolteacher, and Father Abi-Chedid of St. Elias are characterized by
63
this term. The Lebanese described themselves as direct descendents of the
Phoenicians and the great Arabic cultures preceding Turkish domination. The
Greeks look back to the classical Hellenistic tradition.
These traditions have implications for language, ethnic school
curricula, and pedagogy, as well as for the imperative for cultural
preservation and transmission felt by many community members. Elizabeth
Boohaker explains why the St. Elias parish was united behind Father
Abi-Chedid's plan for a Maronite parochial school:
They were very interested in helping the pastor get the school started because that's the only way you're going to preserve anything. You'll preserve your heritage and teach your children who they are. And of course, we have the proudest heritage there is. We started civilization. We started learning. We started navigation. We started accounting. Just name it and it was started by the
Phoenicians. (ESS2-Mc/C-C4)
SC L; I tI11I Il L
forefathers' contributions to world culture with at least some brief remark,
the Greeks were more confident that their Hellenic culture is well known and
respected, at least by educated Americans. Their remarks were intended to
show how the classical culture taught as a scholarly subject in America is
part of everyday life for Greeks.
The Birmingham Greeks and Lebanese also shared a long struggle against
overt racism. Greeks and Lebanese were considered non-white in the
segregated South. Our interviews contain frequent references to
discrimination in employment, housing, and schools. Here are some
representative remarks on the early years:
In the South, there weren't too many ethnic groups. The only [ones were] Italians, Greeks--very few Greeks,
very few Italians--and the Jewish people. And we were
looked down, in fact they called us "dagos" in those
days [group laughter]. They did! They called the
Italians and the Greeks "dagos." And everybody would
murmur if they wanted to speak to somebody in their native tongue, they would go secretly to speak so they
won't be ridiculed. (Christine Grammas - ES82-Mc/C-CIO)
[For the first Lebanese] it was a very hazardous life
because they went out into country and sold to these
people who, back in those days aliens were nil, you know. They were persecuted. And they didn't know the
language and might say the wrong word. . . . [The St. Elias communit y re m ained committed S each
] well, I think in citie
• there - - - was not that It discrimination. - Northern p e o ple 1: • ere we r e even afraid to i_I they !J_ - Ca tholic
a t o ne
I. • • s S B a p tis t S y ou II I I I I I
• . y o u w e r e Ca tho l i c , w hy yo u got it. My fa th e r h a d t o
go to c o u r t o ne tim e . We ha d a c o w in the ya rd • I
womans ,omehow the cow —I don't think it ' • a nything; : _ . _ b- o ' there d : -
•
• ll he - se e • cro s s - 's wearing on his la p el
[p oin tin g S I• - - la wy er to l d II t o put that
cr o ss aw ay beca use the y, the y'r e going • it m ight m a k e
ca sehim lose the . : u buddy, • : ,, • • - - case, ::
ay no going • 1_I_ : enoug h he '' ' (Elizabet h the case. :
Alexandra Bonduris says that the discrimination eased after World Wdr il:
It made a lot of our American boys aware, especially
here in the South, because we have a lot of what you
would call "redneck" people that didn't know anything beyond their own little area . . . and when they were
exposed to the farmlands of Italy, England, Italy,
Belgium; and so forth and so on, they realized, "Hey, this is what I do. These are people, too." I think it
Maude Morgan, although she prefers to think things are far better ,
[The Greek community at first tried to maintain its own
separate culture and education because] I think at first
it was because of this anti- immigrant. I felt this way
65
when I was in grammar school. And I think the war [World War II] changed everything. . . . Now let me say this. You know C. J., my younger son, because of the prejudices and because it seemed at a certain time, even after the war, that high school children of different nationalities were not helped into getting into, ah, not better positions, and to hold office in some of the clubs and these areas in the high school life. And, ah, they were discriminated against. Not the Greek people only, but, like I said before, the different groups. And he would always say when they'd ask him, or he'd say to
me, "I'm an American." Or if anybody asked him he'd say, "Well, I'm an American. My mother was born in America." You know, he was kind of defensive. (ES82-Mc/C-C9)
James Mezrano attributes his aggressive stance toward ethnic heritage and
language education to discrimination he and his wife suffered as children
n Mississippi growing up [apart from an organized Lebanese community]. . . . I know my mother and father did, in this area . . . I think they got so tired of defending, having people not understand. Me, I consider it ignorance if they do not understand. I just feel like they should look at their own background, you know, who are they to judge me? . . . And that's what I tell my children. And I tell them if anyone calls you anything bad--and I tell them what the words are that I think are bad —you have my permission to pick up a brick and hit them. I don't like violence, but they do [have permission]. And we're in 1982 now and those days are gone, you know, where you have to defend your religion, and your heritage, and your background.(ES82-Mc/C C16)
Petrou reports on the harassment of the Birmingham Greeks, including being
asked to sit in the black sections of segregated restaurants, being unable
to buy houses in desirable residential sections, and a 1902 Suit brought
against Greek street vendors in which it was argued that their fruit stands
were "nuisances" and that they themselves were "abominable and filthy. "35 The
Birmingham Greeks responded both by turning inward, i.e., creating
employment in their own businesses and supporting each other in various
66
services, and by turning outward, trying to enhance the image of the Greeks
to the larger public and actively combating discrimination. In 1922 several
men from Holy Trinity travelled to Atlanta to meet with other southern
Greeks and decide on a response to discriminatory practices and attacks by
the Ku Klux Klan. They returned to found Chapter 3 of AHEPA, following the
lead of the communities in Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Lebanese also took care of their own under adverse conditions and
struggled to alter the racist attitudes and behaviors of those they lived
among. In 1907 they responded to Alabama Congressman John Burnett's
proposals made at a Birmingham civic club that "non-whites" be excluded from
immigration. Dr. H. A. Elkourie, a local Lebanese spokesman, wrote a series
of articles to local newspapers in which he argued that the Lebanese were
"law-abiding, 'thoroughly Americanized' members of the white race." The
Birmingfind study reports that Dr. Elkourie became a national spokesman
against the English literacy requirements that were proposed as a basis for
excluding Mediterranean immigrants:
In 1911 Dr. Elkourie testified before the United States
Congress on behalf of immigrants from Greece and Lebanon. These two nations had given Western
Civilization the beginnings of its culture, he said, and
it would be a terrible irony for America, the West's most civilized nation, to refuse Greeks and Lebanese a home because they could not read English. "You owe it to them for no other reason but that of paying a debt."
Up until the 1960s, when the Civil Rights Movement brought a de jure
end to segregation, dark-complexioned Greeks and Lebanese might have been
challenged when using "white only" services or facilities. Ku Klux Klan •I:
other racist activists continue to use the narrow definitions of "whit
Americans that include these peoples among their targets. And the ster r,
67
of a monolithic black/white South has yet to be overcome, both within the
region and nationally. There is little public consciousness of the variety
of peoples who make up the American South outside of the particular locales
where European ethnics, Asians, or Native Americans are settled.
According to our findings, the Birmingham Greek and Lebanese
communities have been remarkably culturally retentive and continue to
express strong ethnic identity. Immigrants to the Birmingham communities
have observed this as well and, like us, believe that this may be due in
part to the unusual social and cultural context in which they make their
homes:
I think [an important reason] was this community being isolated from the other Greek communities. Because when you go into the Carolinas, Virginia, start moving up north, you can go five miles and meet another Greek community, ten or fifteen miles, you're in another Greek community. So you're not an isolated portion. You're really not isolated in those areas. Here in Birmingham it's very isolated. And I can see that within the
people, becoming more clannish, I guess, and it's because of the isolation, and because of your different groups. I think that in other communities that were not
isolated, I think it became a lot more cosmopolitan, and also more social, and not so much clannish. (C. W. Jovaras - ES82-Mc/C-C12)
I think the Birmingham community has always been very aware of itself. I really believe that. And I've heard compliments about them, nationally, you know, throughout my time-as a priest. . . . They've always stayed close to their traditions, and their identity, and their church; haven't gone too far away and had to pull them back. I mean, they know, they have had that awareness. And I think that's due to the churches which promote
that and to the [Cedarsj Club. (Father Saad -
ES82-Mc/C-C1)
68
Recommendations
Our fieldwork among the Greeks and Lebanese has been very exciting and
informative, yet leaves us feeling that we have just begun to scratch the
surface of two extremely interesting histories and experiences.
classroom education in the context training and maintenance activitie
2. An approach more informed by t i u
other disciplines, particularly with regard to rese methodologies and perspectives which can account fo
evolution in both the schools and attitudes towar: education as the communities chan
3. A longer, more flexible timelii:
schedules of ethnic community classes and cultural events and to permit thoughtful analysis of the dat:i
before report writing.
Some of the components of ethnic identity lend themselves to r.eachin
on an institutionalized basis. This is especially true of language. Others
can be learned and reinforced in less formal ways--in the home or in casual
or directed community activities. Thus formal and informal education cannot
be ranked as more and less serious or important. Their intents--even their
intensities--may be the same. The method used is determined by the nature of
the content. Third-generation Greek- and Lebanese-American women can teach
their children to cook ethnic foods, so they do so. They cannot teach them
the Greek or Arabic language, so they look to the parish for this service.
b9
To study the scope and effectiveness of institutionalized ethnic education,
we must first know what institutionalized education is intended to
supplement.
The question of language maintenance has rarely been treated to the careful
and thoughtful analysis with which other forms of cultural expression have
been approached. Whereas folklorists are very much aware of all the forms
and levels of cultural transmission, most linguistic analysis has been one
dimensional: a community practices language maintenance if its young people
grow up bilingual and it does not if they become monolingual in the
mainstream tongue. Language, however, should be seen, as are other
components of culture, as an elusive, complex, and sometimes partial
phenomenon, expressed in both direct and indirect ways.
Although we could only do a rather quick review of the vast literature on
ethnicity in the United States, it became clear that the research required
more complex definition of ethnic maintenance and identity than suggested
the brief project guidelines, if we were to understand the history an'i
current attitudes of the Holy Trinity—Holy Cross and St. Elias Communities.
In particular, a situational approach based on viable, current definitions
of "assimilation" and "integration" would strengthen the conceptualization
of the project. The notions of varying rates of assimilation in different
aspects of culture, as developed by anthropologists in Africa and as
articulated with respect to United States immigration by Mary Sengstoc
and of the evolution of ethnicity, ethnic identity, and practice, as
70
proposed in Faire -37, would contribute significantly to our analysis of
cultural maintenance and language retention, and especially to changing
community attitudes toward them.
The short duration of the project was a severe problem for us. Most
obviously —because of the parishes' language school calendars and the late
start-up date of the project--it prohibited our visiting actual language
class sessions. We were not able to conduct interviews with a number of
informants whom we had contacted and who would have provided a fuller
picture of the evolution of the schools. There are large gaps in our
information about the Greek schools in particular. Prospective additional
informants include young people who attended the classes held in the 1970s,
younger adults who were enrolled in the 1960s, and several middle-aged
people who attended Holy Trinity and Holy Cross schools during the time of
their separation.
We were also unable to attend the major community cultural events at Holy
Trinity-Holy Cross and St. Elias because the principle holidays fell
outside the research period. Even during our brief period of interviewing we
developed sufficient rapport with our informants that we were invited to
public and private gatherings. The fieldwork phase was so short, however,
that we could not -participate in many of them.
In general, our findings substantiate the hypotheses set out in the
project guidelines. Our suggestions here serve as refinements of
those guidelines, based on this initial research. We wish to strongly urge
the continuation of the project, on a longer term and more broadly conceive
71
basis. By understanding the "fit" between school structures, content, and
pedagogies, and the cultures which create them, and by studying schools in
relation to other culturally supportive community and family activities, we
will come to understand the woridview which communities share and are
attempting to transmit.
'Philip H. Kayal, "Religion in the Christian 'Syrian-American Community,'" in Arabic-Speaking Communities in American Cities, ed. Barbara C. Aswad (Staten Island: Center for Migration Studies of New York, 1974), p. 111. 2Kayal 1974, p. 125. 1979 Official Catholic Directory.
4Petrou 5Charles C. Moskos, Jr., Greek Americans: Struggle and Success (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1980), p. 13. 6From transcripts of a tape-recorded interview of Nicholas Chrisru by Sofia Petrou for the Oral History Research Office of the University of
Alabama in Birmingham, February 3, 1977; pp. 1-2. 7Theodore Saloutos, The Greeks in the United States (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), P. 20. 8James G. Patterson, The Greeks of Vancouver: A Study in the Preservation of Ethnicity (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada, 1976),
7.
Patterson, p. 8. '0Petrou, p. 19. "Petrou, p. 14. '2Moskos, p. 17. 13 Christu transcripts, 14Petrou, pp. 11-13. 15Petrou, p. 9. 16Christu transcripts, 17Moskos,
18"Holy Trinity-Holy Cross," The United Greek Orthodox Commui Birmingham, Alabama, 1956, n.p. and Petrou, p. 7. 19 Christu transcripts, p. 12. 20 Thomas Burgess, Greeks in America, 1913. Reprint (San Francisco: R 'nd E Research Associates, 1970), pp. 173-174. 'Petrou, pp. 29-30.
22 "lioly Trinity-Holy Cross, n.p. 23 Christu transcripts, p. 30. 24 Petrou, P. 35 . 25Petrou, p. 36. 26Petrou, p. 39. 27 Christu transcripts, p. 34. 28Petrou, p. 25.
M edication Book, Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Hellenic Orthodox Chrisitian
P. 9.
P. 10.
p. 17.
ent er, Bir m i n g h a m, • •.II .
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