America, America

I watched this lovely documentary that had me in tears.

After three years of research and study, director Maria Iliou, in collaboration with historian Alexander Kitroeff, currently present at The Benaki Museum in Athens a photographic exhibition plus a documentary looking at the history of Greek emigration to America, based on newly discovered visual material gathered from archives throughout America.

The photography exhibition (100 photographs from American archives and 1 from the Benaki Museum) and the documentary, which includes previously unseen film clips and photographs, provide the public with "time regained" concerning the visual history of Greek presence in America.


It was a deep, honest and beautiful look on the subject. There were interviews by some famous Greek-Americans, like the writer Geroge Pelecanos and Senator Sarbanes, Artemis Leontis of the University of Michigan, author of: Greece: A Traveler's Literary Companionwho spoke about her mother's quest to be accepted as a female student, Elias Kulukundis of the shipping family, author of The Feasts of Memory: Stories of a Greek Family, but most of all photos and narrative about the human experience.



What moved me most was the insight into the daily lives of those people who were leaving behind their homes and families in search of a better life, people who were not forced expats, bandits or fortune chasers, but in a way the elite of their breed. They may have been poor in the strictest sense, but they were dreamers and seekers. Perhaps that is why they reached the top in less than a century.

All those stories remind me of the oh so many stories I've heard over the years from my own family. So many hopes and so much hard work for all that we find today so easy and take for granted. If you haven't come across it, you may want to see the 2004 film adapted from the book by Ioanna Karistani: Brides (Nyfes) by Pantelis Boulgaris, the story of a mail order bride, one of 700, aboard the SS King Alexander, who falls in love with an American photographer. Here is one my favorite lines: The photographer, Norman Harris (Damian Lewis) asks Niki, one of the brides "Where are you from?" and she replies "I am from a place I will never see again".

Some other interesting films are the masterpiece of Elia Kazan America America (B&W), the story of this great master's family Odyssey to its promised land.
And the funny to the extreme My Big Fat Greek Wedding of 2002, by Nia Vardalos that will have you laughing to tears.

For this week's Blogging Chicks Carnival on Sunday I am posting one of my family's immigration stories on my writing blog Kazantzaki Street. I always think with a certain tenderness of all those people who made possible everything we are today.