Book Review:  Andrew Christakos, NC State University

Lazar “Larry” Odzak completed his studies in US History at the University of Florida.  Concentrating on the twin topics of Immigration and Ethnicity, Odzak wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Greek immigrant group, as it arrived in the US in the early 1900s and specifically on its relatively small segment that settled in the southern United States.

Originating from various regions of economically depressed Greece and politically oppressed Greek-speaking areas of the Ottoman Empire, these immigrants came to the developing American South looking for opportunities to make a living.   As most people of the Mediterranean, the Greeks were astute in the ways of trade and engaged in small businesses such as shoe shine stands, modest restaurants and sandwich shops, sales of confectionery and sweets, dry cleaners, narrow fruit stores, and similar small enterprises. 

With hard work, during long hours, providing needed services, by and large these self-employed owners of small businesses prospered and their enterprises grew into larger restaurants, pool halls, hotels, chains of fruit stores and shoe shine facilities, employing mostly kin and other Greeks, who were in turn saving money and looking to open their own businesses.

Dealing with the American public caused the newcomers to learn English quickly and greatly facilitated their Americanization process as well as their journey to middle class status. Odzak aptly describes how Greeks adapted to the host culture by joining fraternal and political organizations, in many cases simplifying or changing their names, and adopting southern attitudes.  On the other hand, the Greeks also struggled to retain their own ethics, culture, and traditions. The Hellenic tradition of democracy served double duty, convincing the Greeks that they could embrace American ways and still be Greek, while assuring white southerners that these particular immigrants could and would become good Americans.

Odzak describes in excellent detail the formation and subsequent growth of the oldest and largest Greek American fraternal organization, the AHEPA [American Hellenic Educational and Progressive Association].  AHEPA was organized by several Greek businessmen in Atlanta, in 1922, to fend off the attacks of the second Ku Klux Klan on all that is foreign and not 100% American.   Another chapter describes how the Greek immigrants managed to maintain their Orthodox faith in the new homeland, as well as the social and political pressures that acted upon the newly established parishes, that eventually allowed pews in the church and English within the Liturgical Services.

In addition, the book contains interesting and informative chapters on several communities in the South, such as New Orleans, where we find the first Greek Orthodox Church built in America, as well as a split between the Greek American settlers and the transient Greek sailors; and Birmingham, where the self employed small entrepreneurs clash with Greek factory workers in steel and related industries.  Another chapter deals with Tarpon Springs, Florida, where immigrant sponge divers from the Dodecanese Islands form the first Greek town in America and operate hundreds of sponge fishing boats from its harbor, while the Greek businessmen sell the product at the only Sponge Exchange in the USA.

Odzak’s book provides a much needed history of the Greeks in the southern US.  His writing is clear, his research is excellent – there are end notes following each chapter, as well as a thorough bibliography and index at the end of the book, to show the reader all of the sources used by the writer to complete this most interesting and educative work.   

“Demetrios Is Now Jimmy:” Greek Immigrants in the Southern United States, 1895 to 1965 is available from Monograph Publishers, 204 Pineview Road, Durham, NC 27707.   Also see the web site <DemetriosIsNowJimmy.com> ISBN  0-9778024-1-8.