Oral Histories & Stories

Individual stories of Greek immigrants — in their own words, or told by those who knew them.

17 stories found
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Labor & Trades

Halsted Street: The Rise and Resilience of Chicago's Greektown

For more than a century, a stretch of South Halsted Street on Chicago's Near West Side has been the beating heart of Greek America…

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Postwar Migration

Little Athens on the East River: How Greeks Made Astoria Their Own

Astoria, Queens became the largest Greek community outside of Greece itself by the 1970s, a city within the city where the languag…

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Labor & Trades ·1905

The Sponge Divers of Tarpon Springs: A Dodecanese Village on the Gulf Coast

— John Cocoris, from Hydra, Greece

When John Cocoris arrived on the Gulf Coast of Florida in 1905, he brought with him a technology, a workforce, and an entire way o…

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Labor & Trades

Monroe Street: Detroit's Greektown and the Neighborhood That Outlasted the City Around It

Detroit's Greektown was built by immigrants who came for the auto industry and stayed to build churches, restaurants, and a commun…

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Labor & Trades

The Invisible Greektown: Baltimore's Lost Greek Neighborhood and Its Lasting Legacy

Baltimore's Greek community never achieved the fame of Chicago's or Astoria's, but for three decades in the early twentieth centur…

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Behind the Counter: The Greek Diners of New York City
Labor & Trades ·1976

Behind the Counter: The Greek Diners of New York City

— Kay Zakariasen (Photographer) / Greek Diner Workers of New York, from Greece (various regions)

In 1976, photographer Kay Zakariasen walked into the Greek-owned diners of New York City with a camera and a notebook. What she fo…

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The Sponge Capital of the World: Greek Divers of Tarpon Springs
Labor & Trades ·1905

The Sponge Capital of the World: Greek Divers of Tarpon Springs

— Greek Sponge Divers of the Dodecanese Islands, from Kalymnos, Symi, Halki — Dodecanese Islands, Greece

In 1905, Greek sponge divers from the Dodecanese islands of Kalymnos, Symi, and Halki arrived in a small Florida coastal town and…

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The First Greeks in America: From New Smyrna to the Revolution
Family Migration

The First Greeks in America: From New Smyrna to the Revolution

— Greek Colonists of New Smyrna, Florida, from Greece, Minorca, and the Mediterranean

Greek immigrants did not arrive with the great waves of the 1890s. The first Greek settlement in what would become the United Stat…

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The Closed Door: Greeks, the 1924 Immigration Act, and the Ship Jumpers
Immigration Law ·1924

The Closed Door: Greeks, the 1924 Immigration Act, and the Ship Jumpers

— Greek Immigrants and Ship Jumpers, Post-1924, from Various regions of Greece

In 1924, the United States Congress reduced the annual immigration quota for Greece to one hundred people per year — a deliberat…

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The Men of Carbon County: Greek Miners in the American West
Labor & Trades ·1902

The Men of Carbon County: Greek Miners in the American West

— Greek Immigrant Miners of Utah, from Crete, Peloponnese, and various regions of Greece

From the villages of Crete and the Peloponnese, thousands of young Greek men came to the coal mines and copper smelters of Utah in…

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Miles of Track: Greek Railroad Workers in the American West
Labor & Trades ·1900

Miles of Track: Greek Railroad Workers in the American West

— Greek Railroad Workers of the American West, from Various regions of Greece

In the early 1900s, thousands of Greek men spread across the railroad lines of the American West — laying track in Wyoming, Oreg…

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The Kafeneion: Greek Coffeehouses and the Making of an Immigrant Community
Family Migration ·1895

The Kafeneion: Greek Coffeehouses and the Making of an Immigrant Community

— Greek Immigrant Communities across America, from Various regions of Greece

In every American city where Greeks settled in significant numbers, the coffeehouse was the first institution they built — befor…

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