Greeks In The United States

   The first account of a Greek being on American soil was in the early 1500's aboard Spanish ships settling the New World. In 1528, Don Teodoro died in Florida, near Pensacola, and became the first official Greek on American soil. Later in 1763, Dr. Andrew Turnbull brought a group of Greek settlers and established New Smyrna, the first Greek colony. Greeks continued to be mostly sailors in America until 1890.

     1890 marked the beginning of the European mass migration which didn't end until 1920. To name a few jobs, Greeks worked as factory workers, street peddlers, strikebreakers, coal miners, bus boys, and as service workers. Still, many of the Greeks that were entering the U.S. would work, save their money, and travel back to Greece with their small fortune. After 1920, immigration quotas were set for each country, restricting the number of immigrants entering the U.S. The Immigration Act of 1965 put a stop to the immigration quotas, allowing more Greeks to enter the country. Today Greeks are still immigrating to the U.S. and facing many of the same struggles that their ancestors did. However, current immigrants are more educated in their core studies as well as in other cultures such as the U.S..

The Greeks adopted the culture of the U.S. more quickly than they expected and the U.S. embraced the Greeks more so than many other ethnicities. Part of the reason is due the history of the Greek nation. The works and ideas of ancient Greek philosophers have been read and adopted by many Americans. Moreover, the struggles of the Greek people in their emancipation from Turksih slavery can be compared to the Americans fighting the American Revolution against England. The rest of the reason could be because of the good hearted nature of the Greek American, one who values his country more than most other issues in his life; this was proved during the wars involving Greeks and Greek Americans. Many Greeks who were in the U.S. during WWI and WWII fought during both wars and today they claim they fought because they wanted to fight for their country. Likewise, during the early 1970's Greek Americans joined together and lobbied for the U.S. to stop supplying arms to the Turkish army that invaded the Greek island of Cyprus. A large Greek war relief effort began and Greek Americans with their Philhellenes sent nearly half a million dollars to Greece.

Today Greek Americans occupy the same positions that white Americans do; however, there is a larger concentration of Greeks in the upper middle class than any other class. Greek Americans have adopted the American culture while holding on to as much of their Greek culture as they can.