To study the Greek people and the Greek immigrants properly, they must be examined against the background of the social order they came from. To be Greek is to be a descendant of one of the oldest civilizations in the world. It has been the archetype for the cultural, intellectual and spiritual development of succeeding generations. The Greek customs, language, religion, family name, social ties, foods and physical appearance provide the framework within which the individual is recognized. This "Hellas" of the Greeks, especially the Greek immigrants, makes them the proud heir of their nation's long and illustrious history.

Greece's documented history begins around 776 B.C. with the first Olympic Games and the literary works of Homer's 1 The Iliad and The Odyssey. Over time, the Greeks developed the concept of democracy and the nation-state through a constitution. Men such as Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates still influence political thought. This Hellas spread to the entire civilized world through the conquests of Alexander the Great. He brought great wealth and 2 prosperity to the region.

As with all previous civilizations, the Hellenistic Age did not last. Greece initially came under Roman rule and in 330 A.D. became part of the Byzantine Empire. For the next 2 1000 years, Greek ideas permeated, however Greece became an obscure and neglected province, a buffer state between 3 Eastern and Western Europe. With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Greece was conquered by the Turks. "This began Hellenism's dark ages of nearly 400 years of misrule, repressive taxation, atrocities, massacres, and the conscription of children to be raised as Mohammedan "4 soldiers. During the Ottoman Empire, the Greeks revolted on several occasions but could not harness the forces necessary for successful liberation. With the aid of France, Great Britain, and Russia, the Greeks finally succeeded in driving out the Turkish Army and in 1820 declared it had won its War. 5 of Independence. Greece again emerged as an independent nation, but with only one-fifth of its people.6 Modern Greece began as a very poor and undeveloped country. Many Greeks did not live in Greece itself but were dispersed throughout Asia-Minor. The new rise of Greek nationalism adversely affected these Greeks. Many of them had become established within business communities throughout the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Where once they operated freely as traders, they were now considered alien in both nationality and religion. They were forced out of cities they had lived in for centuries and exiled to a new 7 country.

During the next fifty years of independent life, Greece was predominantly an agrarian society with very little 3 8 overhead capital and a non-existent industry. Its agricultural population was poor, neglected and fixed: "Turkish rule had been too ineffective to enforce a system of slavery that would have been profitable to the master; but it was sufficiently awake to the danger g~ permitting too much profit to a subject people. This was compounded further by the chaotic political system resulting from frequent changes in the monarchical 10 governmental structure. With the approach of the twentieth century, Greece had as its economic base an undeveloped and poor agricultural society. Small villages made up the communal society, with large cities few and far between. More than eighty percent of Greece was rural and not thriving. War with Turkey in 1897 caused rising taxes and a lack of markets for the few 11 goods they produced. The formal educational level of the Greek was poor, many times completely lacking.12 The Greeks, however, were still a proud and independent race. In many respects, they were the most individualistic nationality in Europe. "This ardent individualism, coupled with a mercilessly independent mind, had an undisciplining effect."13 The Greek peasant, faced with an uncertain future in Greece, used this pioneering spirit to blend well in the American way.

ENDNOTES
1. Andrew T. Kaplan, "Greek Survival in Chicago," in Ethnic Chicago, ed. Melvin G. Holli and Peter d'A. Jones (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1981), p. 81.
2. David P. Coffin, Eugene K. Keefe, William A. Mussen, Jr., and Robert Rinehart, Area Handbook for Greece (Washington D.C.: American University, 1977), p.9
3. "Greece", The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 1985, XIII, 318.
4. Kaplan, p.82.
5. "Greece", The New Encyclopedia Britannica, XIII, 320.
6. Kaplan, p.82.
7. Oscar Handlin, A Pictorial History of Immigration (New York: Crown, 1972), p.248.
8. Nicos P. Mouzelis, Modern Greece (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1978), p.14.
9. Theodore Saloutos, The Greeks in the United States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), p.4
10. John J. Baxevanis and John A. Petropolos, "Greece", World Book Encyclopedia, 1984, XIII, 356.
11. Handlin, p.250
12. Helen Z. Papanikolas, "The Exiled Greeks," in the of Utah, ed. Helen Z. Papanikolas (Salt Lake Ci tah State Historical Society, 1976), p.409. 1 4
13. Saloutos, p.20.