In Search of 'Home': Comparative
Insights on Second-Generation
'Return Migration'
Dr ANASTASIA CHRISTOU
Sussex Centre for Migration Research
University of Sussex
ELIAMEP PRESENTATION
ATHENS, June 23 2008
•Narratives of place, culture and identity:
second-generation Greek-Americans return ‘home’
• “From the Homeland to the
Hostland and back again: the
Heritage of Immigration and
the Promise of Return
Migration”
(Life stories and identities of
first and second-generation
Greek-Danish migrants)
• “Cultural Geographies of
Counter-Diasporic Migration:
The Second Generation
Returns ‘Home’” (AHRC)
Second Generation
Ancestral Return
Migration
• images and imaginations of homeness, belongingness
and exile: second-generation trajectories
• In this presentation I reflect on the connections
between second-generation migrant identities and their
sense of belonging in the diaspora. The research seeks to
unveil the features that accentuate the participants’
sense of ‘home’ and how migratory experiences shape
their sense of self and place.
Lives and selves in migrancy:
mobility, settlement and the paradoxes
of homelands
The dislocation of diaspora:
agency, subjectivity and cultural anxiety
what are the varying kinds of impact that the state
of migrancy and migrant role
performances have on individual and group
identities in relation to spatial and cultural
constructs?
‘nesting birds’ and ‘birds of passage’
spatialities and subjectivities
the biographicity of return
Space
Place
Home
Selves & Identities
Gendered Belongingness
Migrancy & Mobilities
Narratives of place, culture
and identity
Dislocations, Displacements,
Disruptions, Deconstructions
Exclusion, Alienation,
Marginalisation
By broadly pursuing these questions, the
presentation will address the way gendered
identities and acts of identification in ethnic life
writing and life stories occur in relation to social
and cultural urban space and in response to the
ethnic place of origin and destination. This
precisely reflects a framework whereupon
transitional gendered spaces, transitional
gendered processes and research on gender and
geography emerge.
between fluidity and fragmentation
Counter-Diasporic
Migration
research questions
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
How are images of the ‘homeland’ constructed and passed on to the second
generation in the diaspora?
·
What is the role of short ‘home-country’ visits in the learning process about
the homeland and its potential selection as a ‘place to be’?
·
How do the returnees react to the discovery that the ‘pure’ Greece of their
received memory (from parents’ stories, holiday visits etc.) has been fundamentally
altered by globalisation and mass immigration in recent years?
·
To what extent is the very notion of diaspora transformed by the return of
the second generation as a ‘counter-diaspora’ – reversing the ‘scattering’?
·
How does the second generation’s return change the meaning and
boundaries of their identities: their sense of ‘who they are’ and of where ‘home’ is?
negotiations and
narratives of ethnocultural
belongingness: secondgeneration reflections
how
negotiated,
The research on first and secondgeneration Greek migrants in Denmark
had three major aims: To develop an
ethnographic profile of the Greek migration
phenomenon to Denmark,
encompassing migration processes,
experiences, ‘community’ structures and
networks.
2. To examine and to attempt to theorise processes of
integration and interaction/conflict between
generations and within the wider Nordic space (social
and cultural) but also in relation to the country of
ancestral origin.
3. To present the theoretical and empirical issues in
relation to how identification processes unfold and
individual and collective identities of Greek
migrants in Denmark are envisioned,
constructed and performed.
Key question
How do returning second-generation
Greek-Americans and Greek-Danes
react to the discovery that the Athens
they have (re)settled in is not the
‘pure, homogenous’ Greece they had
‘imagined’ (through holiday visits,
memory, their parents’ stories etc.),
but a city whose reality has changed
in many ways, above all through the
recent influx of immigrants?
Ideologies of home and return: two sets of
questions
• What has motivated second-generation
Greek-Americans and Greek-Danes to
relocate to Greece? What, exactly, are
they looking for?
• What difficulties do they encounter in
this return to their ‘ancestral home’, and
what coping mechanisms do they
implement in order to adjust to their ‘new
environment’ in the ‘old country’ ? How,
in particular, do they react to Greece’s
new immigrants?
Multiple Encounters
•Returnees are surprised and shocked by the way Athens has
changed, particularly as regards the ‘new immigration’; this
transformation of Greek society challenges their received
memories of what Greece was like and their expectations of
what it should be.
•Returnees are empathetic towards the new ‘multicultural’
nature of Greek society, both (or either) because of their own
family’s experience of migration, and because of their
experience of living in an urban, multi-ethnic environment in
the United States.
•Returnees differentiate their own (family’s) experience of
migration from that of the new immigrants in Greece: they
construct themselves as ‘good’ migrants and immigrants in
Greece as ‘bad’ migrants.
Migrant encounters:
home and host societies
• between different immigrant groups in the host society;
• between returned migrants and immigrants in a society
which is the home country for the former and the receiving
society for the latter;
• within the home country, between returnee groups from
different emigrant destinations.
Migrant encounters:
home and host societies
EXEMPLIFICATIONS
• the encounter between Greek migrants in the US (and Denmark)
and other migrant groups with either a similar geographical origin and
historical profile (e.g. Italians/US; Turks/Denmark) or a different
space/time origin (e.g. Latinos/US; African & Arab origin/Denmark);
• the encounter between returning Greek-Americans and GreekDanes to Greece and various immigrant groups who have entered
Greece in recent years, such as Albanians, Bulgarians, Poles etc.;
• the encounter in Greece between Greek migrants (or their secondgeneration descendants) returning from the main destinations of
Greek emigration – the United States, Australia, Germany etc.
Methodology:
collecting narratives of ‘return’ and ‘home’
Narratives of ‘return migration’ collected from 40 secondgeneration Greek-American migrants who have settled in
the Athens area and 40 first and second-generation
Greek-Danes in Denmark
The narratives resulted from a three-stage methodology
Methodology:
collecting narratives of ‘return’ and ‘home’
The narratives resulted from a three-stage methodology.
During the
1st stage: participants engaged in self-reflection through semistructured and unstructured one-on-one interviews; based on a lifehistory approach, participants shared thoughts, feelings and personal
data about their early lives in America and their ‘return’ to Greece
2nd stage: participants were asked to write their own personal
accounts or journals, in which they narrated their stories without
interruption or distraction from questions or conversation
3rd stage: a further meeting with each of the participants in order to
check preliminary interpretations of their narratives and offer the
opportunity for further discussion and reflection
Ideologies of home and return: why do
second-generation Greek-Americans
and Greek-Danes return ‘home’ and
what are they looking for?
What has motivated second-generation GreekAmericans and Greek-Danes to relocate to Greece?
What, exactly, are they looking for?
What difficulties do they encounter in this return to
their ‘ancestral home’, and what coping mechanisms
do they implement in order to adjust to their ‘new
environment’ in the ‘old country’? How do they react
to ‘new’ immigration?
Narratives
Narratives
Family, kinship, language and religion as
powerful markers of ethnic and cultural
identity
Narratives 1
Family, kinship, language and religion
as powerful markers of ethnic and
cultural identity
… my parents, even though we were born and
grew up in America, they always made us believe
that we were Greeks. So I always thought and
knew I was Greek… They taught us first how to
speak Greek and then English … the Orthodox
Church was always very important especially
when we were younger…. I especially remember
it was very important to go to the Church to meet
Greeks, Greek children. I remember just before I
was going to school I actually thought I was living
in Greece because my parents only used to have
Greeks around, all the relatives were Greek, all
their friends were Greek, it was like the Greeks
‘us’ and the Americans the ‘others’. (Female, GA,
aged 27, interview).
Narratives 2
My earliest memories are of a world which
was Greek. From words that were Greek to
worlds that were Greek. The smells of foods,
the tastes, the sounds of words and music,
the images of Greek movies, the images from
my grandparents’ storytelling. The images
from Greek celebrations and weddings and
even funerals. The beauty of rituals, all that
makes me feel at home in the Church, in my
Greekness and in Greece. Generations of
passing the heritage from our origins with the
same strength, nothing has faded away, we
all honor our pasts because that is our future.
It is the basis for everything we have learned
and everything we have and will achieve. Our
rich Hellenic heritage is not just memories; it’s
the reality of our lives (Male, GA, aged 37,
journal).
Motives of Return:
Personal and Social Reasons
The ‘homecoming’ as a project of being, becoming and belonging
… I need to feel the security and comfort of being immersed in
my culture and attached to my roots. I could only fully achieve
this by moving to Greece. This was a well-thought and wellplanned decision, it was my decision, it was conscious and
considered as the only option for a complete and fulfilling life in
the true country of my heritage. I could never feel at home
anywhere else than in Greece. I could never adapt to another
place devoid of my roots and heritage. I could never be happy
anywhere else. My roots are here in Greece. I belong to Greece
and Greece is part of me, the part that makes me whole. I have
completed my ancestors’ destiny and life cycle. I am finally here
(M36, GA, journal).
Motives of Return:
Personal and Social Reasons
The ‘homecoming’ as a project of being, becoming and belonging
Feeling Greek is to feel emotionally and physically connected to
the land. My home is my homeland. Once I got here for good I
felt immediately united with the land, at one with the soil… It was
a mythic return. I no longer felt like a foreigner, I no longer felt the
agony. I sensed the nostalgia turning into relief. I went to the
cemetery and touched the soil near my grandfather’s grave. As it
ran through my fingers I felt it run through my veins… I could
finally breathe the oxygen my family shared before me. No more
a stranger in a strange land, this is where I belong (M28, GA,
journal).
From ‘idyllic’ to ‘exilic’ spaces of return
I had a really difficult time at the beginning … you know how
bureaucracy is, a lot of red tape. Difficulties getting the
recognition of my degrees, getting my teaching permit, it
took a long time. Running around back and forth from one
office to another, getting the wrong information from one
office, getting different information from another. It was really
hectic. There were points where I felt like dumping
everything and just going back. The adjustment was really
hard. Very frustrating, it took me two years, and this is the
honest truth (F50, GA, interview).
•
I am still struggling to unite them
because it is like I neither belong here
nor in Greece and I then I wonder
where do I belong? It is almost as if I
don’t have a country. It’s like not
having that base that I know when I
turn eighty I will certainly go to my
country because that’s where I want to
die. I don’t have that kind of base
which on the one hand upsets me very
much and that must be such a big sense
of security because you know that is
where you belong in a way but on the
other hand I think it gives a bigger
sense of freedom which would enable
me to live anywhere in the world
because it is what you have inside and
not what country you belong and you
can see things more openly but I still
get confused because something inside
me wants to say that I belong here but
also there and then I say ok I belong
to myself. (Harriett, 2G GD, 34)
•
And for me you know it was very good
because it was Greece and even now it
is like a country you go on vacation, I
hadn’t lived the regular life in Greece.
So I went and it was a tremendous
experience because I understood then
that I belong to Denmark than Greece.
I felt not as a foreigner but when I
was in Greece I would see the Danish
aspects that I have and when I am in
Denmark I see the Greek side, so I
can’t say that I am completely Greek or
completely Danish, I see that I have
both and I try to take the good parts
from both the Danish and Greek. But
what made a big impression on me was
that in Greece you live like a robot.
That’s how I felt, that you don’t have
your freedom, you run around here and
there, it’s difficult, it’s difficult to
make new friendships, I see that the
Greeks keep their friendships from
their childhood years, it is very
difficult for them to make new
friendships. (Daphne, 2G GD, 27)
• I think just to find our
roots, … but I had to go
down and see this country
that my father left and
sees it like a country from
the third world, I mean
when he left it, it was a
country from the third
world but you still see it as
this and I had to go and
see how it is like, how is my
family like…. (Natalia, 2G
GD, 34)
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
ASTORIA, NY
OMONIA, ATHENS
OMONIA, ATHENS
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
I always wanted to return to Greece … no regrets
whatsoever … a very good decision. I was brought up within
that [Greek] culture anyway; it wasn’t a big transition, I didn’t
have trouble adjusting. I didn’t feel I was in a different
country; basically I felt I was at home. Home is somewhere
where I can identify with the people around me, where I can
speak the language. Because my family was so Greek I
always felt more Greek than American and when I did come
here I felt I was in my element – not that I didn’t in the
States but it was a different kind of element, more familyoriented. I do feel that I am Greek and this is my home …
so that’s why I’m here I guess (F23, GA, interview).
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
I went to the States in 2000 for a two-month visit…. I felt so
out of place … it isn’t even funny … a total shock. I did not
belong there anymore, I felt just like I was visiting from
outer space…. I wanted to leave so bad, it was torture. It
didn’t do anything for me. I realised how much of a fake
attempt at representing Greek life in the US was, trying to
emulate … everybody pretending to be Greek … although I
did that with my own way of life all those years that I was
there. Being here now is when I see the authentic way of
doing that (M50, GA, interview).
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
The Greece I longed to return to was the Greece I knew
back in the old days, the Greece where we would leave our
balcony doors and our front doors unlocked and wide open,
where we would spread a little mattress on the balcony and
sleep outdoors … and there was nothing to fear, nothing to
worry about, we knew all our neighbours. Now this has
changed. Greece has started to resemble America very
much insofar as there are other races here now and living
here, not that I am racist, I have nothing against those
people, but I liked it back then when Greece was Greece,
and now Greece has started to change, very much so (F32,
GA, interview).
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
Identification
I want to feel and sense that I am Greek…. When I was in America I felt Greek
and I was Greek. Unfortunately, and I say this with deep disappointment and
bitterness, at this moment, this specific time period in Greece, I don’t feel
Greek. I feel like a stranger, like a foreigner in my own country. Perhaps it’s
because of the migration policy that exists today in this country. A lot of foreign
migrants have come to Greece, especially illegal migrants. You’ll say OK I saw
that in America, too, but there you consider it a given…. We were not
accustomed to this, us Greeks, neither as a state nor as a society. It made a
big impression on me…. I didn’t like it, I haven’t accepted it … and that is
strange. In America I was in the midst of all these ethnic groups and races, all
the nationalities of this world, and I didn’t feel strange; and here, where it’s
supposed to be the authentic country, my real country in terms of where I want
to live for the rest of my life and I want to adjust better, I feel like a stranger, like
a foreigner. It has upset me, it has hurt me and it has made me angry, I can
say, yes, it has made me angry… (M27, GA, interview).
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
Alienation
In our neighbourhood there is an elementary school, and if you were there when
there is a break you would be shocked. I cried – why did I cry? Because I heard
Albanian-speaking children. I went into the class and I asked the teacher how many
children were in the class. She has 30 children in the class; out of the 30 children,
three are Greek, 27 are Albanian, Bulgarian, whatever they are. And I asked her
‘What is your most difficult problem because they don’t speak Greek?’ And she said,
‘My difficult problem is explaining [things] to the foreigners, because I can’t go on to
the next topic until they know and I keep those three Greeks behind and that is not
right….’ I don’t think that Greece is doing [enough] to address the issue, it
disappoints me. I don’t know what will happen in Greece ten years from now; I don’t
want to know. I think all this incoming immigration is a threat to national identity and
religion…. I really do. That saddens me … I don’t see them yet doing anything to
correct it, the government, they are still coming in, the borders are all open and
where I am, often I see police cars rounding them up, putting them in these big vans
and you hear them say ‘I’m coming back!’ It’s depressing. I think they should have
stricter laws… (F68, GA, interview).
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
comparative experiences
… when I was in the States I never got robbed. I got
robbed here in Athens. You know, people give you these
horror stories about the States, how there are thieves all
over the place … I never got to see these things in Boston,
it was a wonderful city. There were times when I would be
out, and return home at 1 o’clock [in the morning] and
nothing ever happened to me…. Recently [here in Athens] I
got robbed twice… (F50, GA, interview).
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
transformations & transitions
Greece has been transformed into a multicultural society,
yes, I’ve seen that, here in Athens…. It’s not problematic; it
has its positive and its negative. But it’s something you
can’t stop, you can’t tell people to stop coming to your
country; we went to other countries…. No, it’s not
problematic, I think it’s a good thing (F27, GA, interview).
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
socio-cultural landscapes
I think it’s great, I think it’s what a growing country needs …
[although] … there are a lot of risks and challenges
associated with that. Greece is so strong an ethnic country,
you know 98 per cent of us are Greek Orthodox, but the
population is stagnant … 10 million, 11 million … and there
are as many deaths as births … and that is negative longterm for a country (M50, GA, interview).
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
The ‘Other’
There are a lot of Albanians, more and more Albanians,
since I moved here to Greece. On the other hand, all the
construction work and all the work the Greeks don’t want to
do the Albanians do and the Albanians work for cheap, I
mean, I think they are discriminated against, obviously
there have been crimes involving Albanians but there are
crimes with Greeks involved as well, so I think it’s hard for
them, I don’t think the Greeks are very accepting…. But like
I said, the Albanians do the jobs the Greeks don’t want to
do, so you would think that the Greeks would shut their
mouths and be grateful… (F21, GA, interview).
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
Illegal Albanian immigrants arrested on
Greek border (BBC News)
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
‘criminalisation’ of the other
It has to do with issues of behaviour of the people who
have come here, because I was a migrant too but I
respected the country I went to, I respected the rules, the
institutions, the rules of survival and living. The people who
have come here in Greece they have respected nothing
whatsoever, which results in criminality … a situation of
intolerance … of craziness (M27, GA, interview).
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
Fourth Outcome
Being a Greek-American in Greece has a lot of drawbacks.
The Greek people are not that ready to accept someone
who is not really Greek, even though I speak Greek, my
Dad was born in Greece, I am married to a Greek, I’ve
been here 35 years, they have not accepted me at all (F68,
GA, interview).
The reality:
‘multicultural’ Athens and returnees’ reactions
Fourth Outcome
I was born in the States and I think … America is a
wonderful country, it provides lots of opportunities, and I
think anyone where they are born they have a strong tie to
that place…. I realised that when 9/11 happened. I was
devastated … very upset…. I got very patriotic. Being here
in Greece was very hard because there wasn’t any
understanding, I mean because of anti-American sentiment
there wasn’t a big understanding, people were not so upset
about it … you know I had cab drivers tell me ‘Good that
they suffered, the Americans got what they deserved’, and I
got very upset and very defensive and it made me realise
that I am truly proud to be American (F21, GA, interview).
Conclusion
For many the ‘true’, ‘idealised’ Greece of ancestral roots
and a ‘pure’ cultural heritage is indeed what they find, but
others discover that, in their eyes, the ‘authentic’ Greece
has disintegrated and lost its traditional style in a headlong
rush into modernity and uncontrolled immigration. These
returnees therefore encounter spaces of ‘exile’ and
‘alienation’ even in the ancestral homeland. Several of the
interview and journal extracts quoted above represent
‘narratives of transition’ which articulate belongingness
derived from conflicting notions of ‘home’ and ‘alienation’
where the ‘self’ meets the ‘other’, in a ‘homeland’ which is
in a rapid state of flux.
Conclusion
In this context we uncover a double dynamic:
the Greek-American returning ‘self’ is confronted by the
non-Greek immigrant ‘other’, typically in the threatening
figure of ‘the Albanian’ (King et al., 1998); and a variety of
reactions ensues, according to our three hypotheses ;
the Greek-American returnees are viewed as ‘others’ by
the hegemonic Greek society which regards all non-nativeborn Greeks as inferior ‘outsiders’ according to a ‘hierarchy
of Greekness’ (Triandafyllidou and Veikou, 2002).
the imaginative homeland
multiple new and complex journeys
Thank you