An Amulet of Greek Earth: Generations of Immigrant Folk Culture

by Helen Papanikolas

Overview

The boys and men who left their Greek valley and mountain villages in the early 1900s for America came with amulets their mothers had made for them. Some were miniature sacks attached to a necklace; more often they were merely a square of fabric enclosing the values of their lives: a piece of a holy book or a sliver of the True Cross representing their belief in Greek Orthodoxy; a thyme leaf denoting their wild terrain; a blue bead to ward off the Evil Eye; and a pinch of Greek earth.

In her evocative and meticulously researched book An Amulet of Greek Earth, author Helen Papanikolas explains and examines the vibrant culture these immigrants brought with them to the new world. The Romiosini culture, as it was called, provided the foundation for their new lives and was oftentimes the cause of strife as they passed on their beliefs and traditions to successive generations of Greek Americans.

In the tradition of her fictional accounts of Greek immigrant life, Helen Papanikolas unearths the cultural beliefs and passions that compelled the Greek-American community to make its own way into the broader culture of America. Based on extensive study, personal interviews, and a lifetime of experience, An Amulet of Greek Earth is a revealing and informative chronicle of the immigrant’s experience in becoming an American.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804010382
Publisher:	Ohio University Press
Publication date:	08/15/2002
Edition description:	1
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Helen Papanikolas was the author of several books of fiction and non-fiction, most recently the novel The Time of the Little Black Bird, winner of the Utah Book Award for Fiction.

Table of Contents

	Preface	IX
	Acknowledgments	XIII
Part 1	Ancient Lore and Lost Greatness
1.	The Azure Land	3
2.	The Byzantine Eagle	13
3.	Seed in Numbers	19
4.	Poverty and Communal Celebrations	31
5.	Death and Black Flowers	39
6.	Stories for the Poor	42
Part 2	Nationhood and Exile
7.	Romiosini, the Beautiful Word	47
8.	Toward the Unknown	51
9.	Leaving the Ships with Fleas	60
10.	Shoeshine Boys	67
11.	The Coffeehouse	70
12.	The Greek American Press	76
13.	Priests and Apostates	78
14.	The Midwest and West	88
15.	Strangers among Strangers	92
16.	Riding the Rails	98
17.	The Midwife Magherou	109
18.	Men Wanting to See the Sky	113
19.	Maria Economidhou, Journalist	116
20.	Picture Brides	122
21.	Strikes and Strikebreakers	138
Part 3	Americanization
22.	Disorder and World War I	151
23.	The Ku Klux Klan and the American Legion	158
24.	The Greek Cult of Success	164
25.	America Swallows the Young	169
26.	Refugee Songs for Solace	174
27.	Straddling Two Cultures	179
28.	Never a Nickel for a Drink	205
29.	Archbishop Athenagoras	214
30.	The End of the Great Immigrant Era	224
31.	The Lost Native Land	238
32.	Rebels and Pilgrims	245
33.	Maria Callas: A Lost Childhood	251
34.	Anguish in the Confessionals	254
	Epilogue: Vestiges of Romiosini	262
	Notes	283
	Glossary	303
	Index	305

Editorial Reviews

Writers like Papanikolas should live a thousand years.”—Journal of the Int. Greek Folklore Society

From the Publisher

An author of fiction and non-fiction, Papanikolas began writing down some of the stories she had heard growing up in a Greek immigrant community during the 1920s in a mining town in Utah. Later she incorporated studies of immigrants into her college courses about the state. Since the early 1970s, she has given talks to Greek Americans around the country, and here assembles stories of their experience and cultural traditions. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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