Identity and Participation in Culturally Diverse SocietiesA Multidisciplinary Perspective

Edited by

Assaad E. Azzi, Xenia Chryssochoou, Bert Klandermans, and Bernd Simon

A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

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ffirs.indd iiffirs.indd ii 8/3/2010 5:46:23 AM8/3/2010 5:46:23 AM

Identity and Participation in Culturally Diverse Societies

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Identity and Participation in Culturally Diverse SocietiesA Multidisciplinary Perspective

Edited by

Assaad E. Azzi, Xenia Chryssochoou, Bert Klandermans, and Bernd Simon

A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

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This edition fi rst published 2011© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd except for editorial material and organization © 2011 Assaad E. Azzi, Xenia Chryssochoou, Bert Klandermans, and Bernd Simon

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s pub-lishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical busi-ness to form Wiley-Blackwell.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Identity and participation in culturally diverse societies: a multidisciplinary perspective / edited by Assaad E. Azzi … [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4051-9947-6 (hbk.: alk. paper) 1. Ethnicity. 2. Political participation. 3. Group identity. 4. Ethnic relations. I. Azzi, Assaad Elia. GN495.6.I34 2011 305—dc22

2010016186

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Set in 10/12pt Sabon by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, IndiaPrinted in Singapore

01 2011

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Contents

About the Editors and Contributors viii

Introduction 1 Xenia Chryssochoou, Assaad E. Azzi, Bert Klandermans,

and Bernd Simon

Part I Development, (Re)Construction, and Expressionof Collective Identities 5

Xenia Chryssochoou

1 The Role of Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Class in ShapingGreek American Identity, 1890–1927: A Historical Analysis 9

Yannis G. S. Papadopoulos

2 Religious Identity and Socio-Political Participation:Muslim Minorities in Western Europe 32

Maykel Verkuyten

3 The Bicultural Identity Performance of Immigrants 49 Shaun Wiley and Kay Deaux

4 Perceptions of (In)compatibility between Identitiesand Participation in the National Polity of People belonging to Ethnic Minorities 69

Xenia Chryssochoou and Evanthia Lyons

Part II Collective Identity and Political Participation 89Bernd Simon

5 Winners and Losers in the Europeanization of PublicPolicy Debates: Empowering the Already Powerful? 93

Ruud Koopmans and Paul Statham

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vi Contents

6 New Ways of Understanding Migrant Integration in Europe 114 P. R. Ireland

7 Collective Identity and Political Engagement 137 Bernd Simon

8 Collective Identity, Political Participation,and the Making of the Social Self 158

Stephen Reicher and John Drury

Part III Radicalization 177Bert Klandermans

9 Radicalization 181 Jacquelien van Stekelenburg and Bert Klandermans

10 Citizenship Regimes and Identity Strategies AmongYoung Muslims in Europe 195

Catarina Kinnvall and Paul Nesbitt-Larking

11 Going All the Way: Politicization and Radicalizationof the Hofstad Network in the Netherlands 220

Martijn de Koning and Roel Meijer

12 Trajectories of Ideologies and Actionin US Organized Racism 239

Kathleen M. Blee

13 No Radicalization without Identification:How Ethnic Dutch and Dutch MuslimWeb Forums Radicalize Over Time 256

Jacquelien van Stekelenburg, Dirk Oegema,and Bert Klandermans

Part IV Integration 275Assaad E. Azzi

14 Immigrant Acculturation: Psychologicaland Social Adaptations 279

John W. Berry

15 Ethnic Social Networks, Social Capital,and Political Participation of Immigrants 296

Dirk Jacobs and Jean Tillie

16 Naturalization as Boundary Crossing: Evidence fromLabor Migrants in Germany 315

Claudia Diehl and Michael Blohm

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Contents vii

17 Confronting the Past to Create a Better Future:The Antecedents and Benefits of Intergroup Forgiveness 338

Nyla R. Branscombe and Tracey Cronin

Conclusion: From Identity and Participation to Integrationor Radicalization: A Critical Appraisal 359

Assaad E. Azzi

Name Index 368Subject Index 379

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The following biographical details are given in chapter order.

Part I

Xenia Chryssochoou is Associate Professor of Social Psychology at Panteion University (Athens, Greece). She is interested in the social psy-chological processes in multicultural societies and in particular in identity construction. Currently, she works on mobility, migration, and justice as well as on perceptions of globalization and political participation. She is the author of Cultural Diversity: Its Social Psychology published by Blackwell.

Yannis G. S. Papadopoulos is a historian at the Department of History and Political Sciences, Panteion University, Greece. His research focuses on issues of ethnicity in the Ottoman empire, transatlantic migration, and the reper-cussions of the Eastern Question in the United States of America.

Maykel Verkuyten is Professor at the Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science at Utrecht University and the academic director of the European Research Centre on Migration and Ethnic Relations (ERCOMER) at the same university. His research interest is in ethnic, national, and religious identities, and in intergroup relations.

Shaun Wiley is a Social-Personality Psychologist and an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the College of New Jersey. His research interests include how people deal with discrimination and inequality and manage their mul-tiple social identities across contexts.

Kay Deaux is a Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a Research Affiliate in the Department

About the Editors and Contributors

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About the Editors and Contributors ix

of Psychology at New York University. Her recent book, To Be An Immigrant (2006), offers a broad-gauged social psychological perspective on the immi-grant experience.

Evanthia Lyons is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Centre for Research in Political Psychology, School of Psychology, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her research has focused on influences and under-standings of ethnic, national, religious, and European identities and political participation.

Part II

Bernd Simon is Professor of Social Psychology and Political Psychology, and one of the Directors of the Institute of Psychology at the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel (Germany). In his research, he investigates inter- and intragroup processes, with particular emphasis on minority–majority rela-tions and issues of identity, politicization, power, and respect. He is the author of Identity in Modern Society: A Social Psychological Perspective published by Wiley-Blackwell.

Ruud Koopmans is Director of the Migration, Integration, Transnation-alization Department at the Science Center for Social Research (WZB) in Berlin, Germany, and Professor of Sociology at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His research interests are social movements, immigration politics, European integration, and evolutionary sociology. He is the (co-)author of several books, including Democracy from Below (1995), New Social Movements in Western Europe (1995), and Contested Citizenship (2005).

Paul Statham is Professor of Political Sociology and Director of EurPolCom, the International Research Network on European Political Communications, hosted by the School of Sociology, Politics, and International Studies at the University of Bristol. His research focuses on European integration, media and political contention, and citizenship and migrants’ political mobiliza-tion in Europe. He is co-author of Contested Citizenship: Immigration and Cultural Diversity in Europe (2005) and editor (with Ruud Koopmans) of The Making of a European Public Sphere: Media Discourse and Political Contention (2010).

P. R. Ireland is Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Social Sciences Department at the Illinois Institute of Technology; he was trained at the University of Notre Dame, the University of Texas, and Harvard University. His research interests include migration, migrant integration, and migrant health in Europe, North and sub-Saharan Africa, and the United States.

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x About the Editors and Contributors

Stephen Reicher is Professor of Social Psychology at the University of St. Andrews (UK). He is interested in the issues of group behavior and the individual–social relationship, crowd action, the construction of social categories through language and action, and political rhetoric and mass mobilization – especially around the issue of national identity. He is the author (with N. Hopkins) of Self and Nation (2001).

John Drury is Senior Lecturer of Social Psychology at the University of Sussex (UK). His research deals with crowd behavior and dynamics, the psychology of emergency and mass evacuation, and the mediating role of social identity in cognitive, behavioral, and emotional reactions to situa-tions of crowding.

Part III

Bert Klandermans is Professor of Applied Social Psychology at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He has published extensively on the social psychology of participation in social movements. He is the editor of Social Movements, Protest, and Contention, the book series of the University of Minnesota Press. He is the editor and co-author (with Conny Roggeband) of the Handbook of Social Movements Across Disciplines (2007).

Jacquelien van Stekelenburg is a post-doctoral researcher at the Sociology Department of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She studies the social psychological dynamics of moderate and radical protest participation with a special interest in group identification, emotions, and ideologies as motivators for action.

Catarina Kinnvall is Associate Professor at the Department fo Political Science at Lund University. Her main research interests are centered on political psychology, globalization, religion, and nationalism with a particu-lar focus on Muslim diaspora groups in the West and South Asian politics.

Paul Nesbitt-Larking is Professor of Political Science at Huron University College in Canada. He is a scholar and teacher in the fields of Canadian politics, political identities, political communication, and political psychol-ogy. He is currently Vice-President of the International Society of Political Psychology.

Martijn de Koning is an anthropologist and a researcher at the Department of Islam and Arab Studies at the Faculty of Religious Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen (The Netherlands). Within the research program Salafism as a Transnational Movement, he focuses on the rise of the Salafi movement in Europe.

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About the Editors and Contributors xi

Roel Meijer is lecturer in Middle East history at the Radboud University, Nijmegen (The Netherlands), and senior research fellow at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael. He is a specialist in Islamist movements in Iraq, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. He is editor of Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement (2009).

Kathleen M. Blee is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and History and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement and Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s.

Dirk Oegema is a social psychologist and assistant professor at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (The Netherlands). He studies the content of news and its effects on voting behavior, protest behavior, and reputation. He is exploring the possibilities of using Web forums as a proxy for the public response to media content.

Part IV

Assaad E. Azzi is Professor of Psychology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium. He is director of the social psychology unit. His research focuses on identity, resource distribution, and the perception of justice and injustice in majority–minority relations. He is currently working on the per-ception of discrimination and participation in anti-discrimination actions in multicultural societies.

John W. Berry is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Queen’s University, Canada. He has published over 30 books in the areas of cross-cultural, social, and cognitive psychology. His main research interests are in the areas of acculturation and intercultural relations, with an emphasis on applica-tions to immigration, education, and health policy.

Dirk Jacobs is Professor of Sociology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. His research focuses on migrant voting behavior, ethnic associa-tional life, and political integration processes.

Jean Tillie is Professor of Political Science at the Universiteit van Amsterdam (The Netherlands), and coordinator of the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies. His research deals with networks of migrant organizations, political mobilization, and the institutional design of multicultural democracies.

Claudia Diehl is Professor of Sociology at the Universität Göttingen, Germany. Her research interests include immigration and integration of eth-nic minorities, especially issues of identity, participation, and belonging.

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xii About the Editors and Contributors

Michael Blohm is a sociologist and a researcher in the Department of the ALLBUS Survey at the GESIS-Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences, Germany. He is mainly interested in migration studies and survey methodology, espe-cially non-response and interviewer behavior.

Nyla R. Branscombe is Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Kansas. Her research focuses on intergroup relations from the perspectives of both disadvantaged and privileged groups, with an emphasis on the role of group history and its implications for emotional reactions to group- relevant outcomes in the present. She is co-editor of Collective Guilt: International Perspectives (2004) and Commemorating Brown: The Social Psychology of Racism and Discrimination (2008).

Tracey Cronin is a PhD candidate in social psychology at the University of Kansas. She received a Master’s degree from Claremont Graduate University, and a Bachelor’s degree from Sonoma State University. Her research inter-ests include collective action, coping responses to discrimination experi-ences, perceptions of and reactions to injustice, prejudice toward single people, and intergroup reconciliation.

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Introduction

Xenia Chryssochoou, Assaad E. Azzi, Bert Klandermans, and Bernd Simon

There is no doubt that most societies and states are nowadays culturally diverse. This observation has recently produced much theoretical and empir-ical interest across several social science disciplines. This interest may on the surface seem to reflect a “fad,” judging by the number of articles and books written on the subject by scientists, policymakers, and journalists alike, and by the hot political and legal debates going on in most Western democracies. The debates revolve around, inter alia, Western democracies’ capacity to adapt to what is being described as a problematic increase in cultural diver-sity, threats to peaceful coexistence of culturally dissimilar communities within a single political entity with a supposedly superordinate collective identity, and the related inability to “integrate” these various communities into one common socio-political structure and identity.

This book’s main objective is to demonstrate that the interest in the politi-cal fate of culturally diverse societies cannot simply be viewed as a fad, neither can it be considered to be comprehensible through the theoretical or methodological lenses of a single discipline. While we do not deny that the scientific focus and output on this subject in various social science disci-plines provide separate in-depth and complex accounts of the processes or mechanisms that might explain the political and identity dynamics in cultur-ally diverse societies, it is our aim to show that a significant dose of intel-lectual and scientific “integration” may be essential to produce, or at least to open the way for, a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of identity and political integration in culturally diverse societies.

The underlying theme of the book is the relation between identity and political participation in diverse societies. It is divided into four parts: development of identities; political participation; radicalization; and political integration. In these parts, we provide a sample of theories and empirical research from adjacent yet separate disciplines (social psychol-ogy, sociology, history, political science) in a structure that asks four

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2 X. Chryssochoou, A. E. Azzi, B. Klandermans, and B. Simon

specific yet fundamental questions that have been investigated separately but, to our knowledge, have never been linked together.

These questions are:

1 How are multiple identities constructed and developed, in relation to both migrants’ country of origin and their country of residence, how are these identities enacted, and how are group membership and citi-zenship redefined in diverse societies? These questions are discussed in the first part of the book entitled “Development, (Re)Construction, and Expression of Collective Identities.” This section deals with issues of multiple identities, compatibility of identities, and the construction of identities in relation to the politics of both receiving and sending socie-ties. A main argument is that identities are constructed and performed in context and relate to societal projects.

2 Once we have understood the dynamics of changing collective identities in culturally diverse societies, the next step is to investigate the possibili-ties of, and routes to, integration. Our second set of questions focuses on political participation as one such possible route. We therefore ask: What is the context in which integration and political participation take place? How do macro-, meso-, and micro-level variables affect political partici-pation, what role does collective identity play in linking these variables to political participation, and how, in turn, is identity shaped by political participation? These questions are dealt with in the second part of the book, entitled “Collective Identity and Political Participation.” An important argument in this section is that identity-driven political par-ticipation allows people to make their own history.

3 Our third set of questions deals with another path that collective identi-ties may take in culturally diverse societies. Instead of allowing integra-tion through political participation, might it lead to more militant politicization and radicalization? How and under what conditions? How exactly can radicalization be defined and conceptualized? For example, are policies regarding citizenship shaping the forms of actions that peo-ple might choose? Is it only migrants or ethnic minorities who radicalize, or do members of the receiving group tend to radicalize as well? These questions are the theme of Part III, entitled “Radicalization.” A main argument of this section is that radicalization is a collective process that evolves in the context of developing social movements and is shaped by processes of social influence.

4 Collective identities might, however, take a different path, away from radicalization, and produce significant changes in host and immigrant identities and societies alike. The last part of our book deals with the conditions under which cultural diversity produces individual and societal changes, and with the nature of these changes as well as their

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Introduction 3

consequences in terms of individual and collective identities. What are the consequences of immigrant choices to maintain their ethnic identity and tradition in the new society as well as the consequences of receiving populations’ choices? Is there a strategy that is most successful? Are eth-nic networks an obstacle to the integration of immigrant populations or can they function as social capital? Do all ethnic groups in one society use opportunities for integration in the same way? What are the social psychological factors that can contribute to the peaceful coexistence of ethnic groups with a history of conflict within the same political entity? These questions are addressed in Part IV, entitled “Integration.” The main argument here is that maintaining immigrants’ ethnic identity and participation in ethnic networks, on the one hand, and granting them full citizenship, recognizing their right to maintain their identity, and construing history with reconciliation in mind, on the other, are impor-tant facilitators of integration and harmonious coexistence.

In addressing these questions, we were careful to give equal weight to differ-ent disciplines and to the different parts of the book, to cover different levels of analysis, and to provide state-of-the-art reviews along with reports of new empirical findings. We are keen to integrate these different contributions with brief introductions to each part. In the concluding chapter, Assaad Azzi draws together the key ideas expressed in the book, making explicit the links between parts and highlighting possible answers to the questions outlined. He also points out directions for future research and scientific discourse.

We would also like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the European Science Foundation (ESF), which enabled us to initiate the dialogue between disciplines on issues of identity and socio-political participation – issues that are undoubtedly of high import for Europe. This book, which brings together contributions from European and North American scholars, is an outgrowth of our ongoing dialogue. We certainly hope that this book will stimulate further discussions and debates on these issues among experi-enced scholars and newly interested students alike.

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Part I

Development, (Re)Construction, and Expression of Collective Identities

Xenia Chryssochoou

The chapters in Part I aim to address issues concerning the relationship between processes and patterns of identity at different interrelated levels of social inclusiveness (i.e., local, regional, ethnic, national, and European lev-els) in the context of multi- ethnic and multicultural societies. Cultural homo-geneity within national borders is no longer the reality for many European nations and ceases to constitute the basis of the national project of “living together.” In addition, globalization trends constitute the frame within which collective identities at an ethnic, religious, national, and supra- national level are developed and expressed. These identities are enacted in the claim of rights and socio- political participation of ethnic minorities and in attitudes and behaviors (often xenophobic) of ethnic majorities aiming to secure their identities. The chapters included here discuss the power struggle for and by identity along with how different levels of identities are developed, reconstructed, and interrelated in a context where nation- states aim to con-tinue being the guarantors of a unifying identity for their ethno- cultural majorities while trying to integrate denizens of different cultural and social backgrounds.

Part I starts with a historical analysis of the development of Greek American identity. Yannis Papadopoulos analyzes historical documents of the early twentieth century when Greek migration to the United States expanded in order to unveil how this dual identity developed and with what political purposes. His work highlights the importance of the his-torical framework in which identities develop. Moreover, he shows how the meaning of an identity is constructed as a response to pressures of both the sending and the receiving societies and emphasizes the role of the elites, the “identity entrepreneurs,” in shaping the meaning of these identifications. The chapter shows that other memberships such as class and religion influence the way ethno- cultural identities are constructed and enacted.

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6 Xenia Chryssochoou

The important role of context is underlined in other chapters in this section. Chapter 2, by Maykel Verkuyten, brings us to the current context where Muslim identity is at the forefront of debates. The chapter deals with the relation between religious identity and political participation and presents the case of Muslim identity in Western Europe. It examines what it means to be Muslim in the current social context and how this meaning is constructed and performed. This identity consolidation is linked to different forms of mobilization. Verkuyten argues against the perceived homogeneity and essentialization of the Muslim identity. There are different meanings of Muslim identity that relate differently to intergroup experiences and socio- political participation. These meanings are constructed in interaction with others within the national polity and are expressions of the power struggles within this community as well as the global one.

There are multiple audiences toward which identities are performed and this idea is further developed in Chapter 3 by Shaun Wiley and Kay Deaux. The authors present and discuss literature on bicultural identity and pro-pose another way of conceptualizing it. They emphasize the situated nature of bicultural identities and consider that the performance of these identities varies within individuals and across situations. A major point of their argu-ment is that the compatibility between different memberships is not an indi-vidual difference factor but the outcome of the interaction between a person and his or her audience. Thus, the identity takes different forms both when its performance is threatened and in the absence of threat. Bicultural identi-ties contain elements of self- categorization, importance, and meaning whose relation is different among individuals: for example, for some people certain aspects are blended whilst others are not depending on the context. The chapter offers an interesting and useful theorization of biculturalism and contributes to the discussions of this book on dual identities.

The last chapter in Part I, by Xenia Chryssochoou and Evanthia Lyons, raises in particular the issue of the perceived incompatibility between identi-ties that questions the possibility of biculturalism and is seen as a threat to social cohesion. The chapter argues that perceived incompatibility between national, ethnic, and religious identifications constitutes a political state-ment that is ideological in nature. The empirical evidence for this incompat-ibility is not conclusive and the research reported in the chapter highlights the importance of the social context in which identities are developed. Beliefs about the incompatibility between identities partially mediate the negative relationship between ethnic and national identities. The authors suggest that further research should be done in order to understand which factors pro-duce a negative relationship, and to examine the role of beliefs about the incompatibility between identities in enabling or constraining identification with the national polity. Chryssochoou and Lyons argue for a thorough understanding of how minorities can identify with the national polity, not

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Part I: Introduction 7

only because this identification is a marker of integration and insertion in the new society, but also because such identification, at a higher level, would allow minorities to fight for their rights, interests, and social justice. The chapter offers a theorization of minority identification with the national polity and opens the discussion of the next chapter by presenting the rela-tion between identifications, beliefs about identity incompatibility, and political participation.

The ideological and political nature of identity construction is a common theme in all of the chapters presented here. Each deals with the construction of identities, highlighting different moments in time and different levels of analysis. Chapter 1 by Papadopoulos looks at the past to offer a vision of the present. Chapter 2 by Verkuyten looks at the present and opens our vision toward the future. Deaux and Wiley in Chapter 3 highlight an inter-active level of analysis, whereas in Chapter 4 Chryssochoou and Lyons emphasize ideological explanations. Each chapter implies in a different way that identities express projects. The first two chapters emphasize whose projects these identities are expressions of, while the two last chapters address the question of who and what these projects are aimed at. Thus, although Part I refers only to the construction and development of the iden-tity of minorities, the fact that these identities are addressed to others and are constructed through the pressures of the context and the recognition of others, and since their presence and development impact on the (re)con-struction of national identities, the majority’s perspective is not ignored.

The arguments developed in Part I run counter to five popular myths about identity that circulate in both academic and commonsense discourse. Myth 1, that national, ethnic, and religious identities are de facto compet-ing; myth 2, that national, ethnic, religious, and class identities are of equiv-alent nature and have similar social psychological and political consequences; myth 3, that immigrants and ethnic minorities choose to enact mainly their ethnic or religious identity; myth 4, that these identifications are similar for majorities and minorities as if there are no power issues involved; and myth 5, that once constructed these identities are invariably performed. The argu-ments of the four contributions to this part introduce Part II concerning the relationship between collective identity and politicization.

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1

The Role of Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Class in Shaping Greek American Identity, 1890–1927A Historical Analysis

Yannis G. S. Papadopoulos

Massive emigration from Greece to the United States started in the 1890s. It was part of the “new immigration,” a term introduced in about 1880 to describe the wave of immigrants to the United States in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the majority of whom came from Eastern and Southern Europe (Higham, 1967, p. 65). The arrival of these immigrants, who were considered as seditious and inassimilable by many, resulted in the adoption of the Quota Acts by Congress in 1921 and 1924 that set limits on immigration (Tichenor, 2002, pp. 143–145).

The majority of Greek- speaking immigrants came from the provinces of the Greek kingdom. However, from the beginning of the twentieth century, large numbers of Greek Orthodox Ottoman subjects started to settle in the United States.1 According to the Greek administration, an immigrant was defined as “a Greek citizen settling in countries outside Europe, beyond the Suez Canal and the straits of Gibraltar and traveling third class” (Metanasteusis, 1906, p. 29). From 1890 to 1924, 397,987 Greek subjects and 102,476 Greek Orthodox Ottoman subjects migrated to the United States (Dillingham, 1911, p. 408, Thirteenth Population Census, 1910, vol. 3, pp. 216–217, cited in Kourtoumi- Hatzi, 1999, p. 53). The push factor for the majority of emigrants from the Greek kingdom was an economic crisis that hit the agricultural sec-tor during this period, although the prospects for a better life should not be

1 For methodological reasons, I use the term “Greek Orthodox” for members of the Millet- i Rum, the ethno- religious community under the head of the patriarch of Constantinople, and “Greek” for the subjects of the Greek kingdom.

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10 Yannis G. S. Papadopoulos

underestimated (Papastergiadis, 2000, pp. 36–37, 47–48). As for immigrants from the Ottoman empire, according to, among others, the Greek consul in Trebizond (Trabzon), the most important reason for emigration of Greek Orthodox populations was the imposition of compulsory military service for Christian subjects of the Ottoman empire after the Revolution of Young Turks in 1908 (IAYE,2 F. B53, 2412, 10.12.1911; Gordon, 1932, p. 306). In both countries, sources stress the role of travel agents who roamed the prov-inces describing bright prospects awaiting immigrants to the United States (IAYE, F. B12.1/1902, 07567; 29.5.1902, A12.1/1888, 07945, 13.7.1888; Ellis Island Archive, MSS. AKRF- 91, Euterpe Bouki- Doukakis’s testimony). Nevertheless, the conditions that immigrants encountered did not correspond to the image they had formed prior to their arrival in America.

In the following chapter I aim to explain the procedures that led to the construction of Greek American ethnic identity in the first quarter of the twentieth century, focusing on the ideological formation of the leading immigrant groups and their activity in local and national organizations and taking into account both Greek irredentism and assimilationist pressures in the American society. The decision to deal with Greek associations in the United States results from the lack of first- hand testimonies from immi-grants. The available sources – dispatches from Greek and Ottoman diplo-mats in the United States as well as Greek- language newspapers – express the views of the local elites and the interests of the states that wished to control immigrants. My argument is based on these archival sources and is bound to the limits they impose. We can therefore only guess at immigrants’ collective attitudes indirectly through the rare surviving letters and some interviews in the Ellis Island archive that do not necessarily deal with issues of collective identity.

A closer look at the sources of the early twentieth century, the period when the Greek American community started taking shape, reveals that the conceptualization of this community was not simply a reiteration of previ-ously existing tendencies but the result of a long process that was inevitably bound to the socio- political and cultural currents in Greece and the United States, that is, to the social status of the Greeks in the United States and their relation to their country of origin and country of residence. As Ioanna Laliotou (2004, p. 11), has pointed out, “migrants become migrants in the context of their encounter with cultural traditions, racial stereotypes, and technologies of social integration in the countries they come from as well as in the countries they arrive at.” It is more accurate to argue that a unified identity was the outcome of specific conditions inside the Greek American organizations AHEPA (American Hellenic Progressive Association) and GAPA (Greek American Progressive Association) and the Greek Orthodox

2 IAYE is the abbreviation for the Historical Archive of the Greek Foreign Ministry.

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Archdiocese of America after World War I. While the Greek state had attempted to cultivate a pan- Hellenic identity among immigrants, not neces-sarily different from the ideological orientation of the Greek state, it was only after World War I that a Greek American ideology, and consequently a certain identity, was successfully framed. This identity, however, was not merely a reflection of the Greek national ideology, but was rather a con-struction along the lines of American nationalism. It was also supposed to serve as a bulwark against the xenophobic and racist climate prevalent in the United States during this period. Moreover, as Werner Sollors has pointed out, “the strengthening of ethnic consciousness often coincides with the rise of agitation against marginal men and disloyal group members” (Sollors, 1981, p. 274). The Greek American identity was primarily the outcome of a complicated process that has been little examined.

Some researchers have remarked that immigrants, when they arrive in their host country, are initially integrated within networks that are repro-duced through family, local, occupational, or patronage ties (relational mode of identification) (Brubaker, 2004, p. 41). In the process of integration in the “receiving society,” immigrants start to identify themselves through their incorporation in groups, organized by race, social class, ethnic or national affiliation, language, and nationality (categorical mode of identifi-cation). Gradually, although relational identifications do not disappear, cat-egorical identifications become more important for immigrants (Brubaker, 2004, p. 42). These categorical identifications serve not only as ways to conceive the present, but also as efforts to determine the future, and as a result define the position of subjects in the present and the future (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001, p. 48). It is thus interesting to study through what proc-esses, in order to achieve integration, a national categorical identification can be transformed into an ethnic one, by shifting the reference frame from homeland nationalism to host country nationalism. I will therefore try to define under what circumstances Orthodox Christian immigrants from Greece and the Ottoman empire adopted different categorical identifica-tions, and how the content of “Hellenism” evolved first in a national and then in an ethnic frame.

As diaspora scholars put it, in order to achieve their foreign policy goals, homelands often try to utilize immigrants’ attachment to their place of ori-gin and their sense of duty (Østergaard- Nielsen, 2003, p. 4). Migration therefore offers national states the chance to broaden their range by devel-oping transnational economic, social, and political links with their citizens who live abroad (Østergaard- Nielsen, 2003). Especially during the nine-teenth and early twentieth centuries, a period when the nation- states of Europe were founded and a considerable part of their populations migrated to the United States, the strengthening of links with their citizens abroad became an important goal of state policy (Green & Weil, 2006, p. 11). The

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12 Yannis G. S. Papadopoulos

Greek state was mainly interested in ensuring the continuing flow of immi-grant remittances, as well as motivating immigrants politically with the aim to advance national propaganda and counterbalance any adverse propa-ganda from enemy states. This obviously opens up the question of institu-tions seeking to mobilize to their political project individuals who have emigrated mainly for economic reasons.

According to social scientists, the ability to convince a group of individu-als to consider themselves as part of a given community is necessary in order to mobilize them to achieve an ideological goal. The entrepreneurs of iden-tity define the content of categorical identifications and impose on a given group forms of mobilization for achieving an ideal future (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001, p. 49). These individuals seek to present themselves as expressing the voice of the nation and to promote a particular political project in order to obtain power, exert influence, and convince others to fol-low them (Chryssochoou, 2004, p. 110).

Following the results of the studies cited above, I begin by defining how the putative leading immigrant groups may have substantiated and used the concept of “Hellenism” to mobilize immigrants and legitimize their influ-ence. My study examines how their choices led to national or ethnic group-ings and finally to the formation of a Greek American identity. This process consists of two stages. First, I examine how the leading immigrant groups and the organizations they created before World War I, independently or at the instigation of the Greek state, used national categories. Second, I analyze how, as a result of the rise of xenophobia as well as the change in the social structure of Greek communities after the end of World War I, new leading groups emerged that sought to describe a Greek American community as an integral part of the American nation. My main purpose is to examine “how, why, and in what contexts ethnic categories are used – or not used – to make sense of problems and predicaments, to articulate affinities and affiliations, to identify commonalities and connections, to frame stories and self under-standings” (Brubaker, 2004, p. 25).

To reply to these questions, it is essential to study the influence of the “two national centers of Hellenism,” Greece and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, in the construction, acceptance, and evolution of the lead-ing groups, as well as the ideology of the political organizations that were founded in the United States in order to mobilize immigrants.

Previous researchers have noted how the Greek government tried to exploit Greek organizations in the United States. Nevertheless, the creation of these organizations has not been studied as part of the process that led to the construction of Greek American ideology. It is important to stress the effort of the Greek state to advance its foreign policy goals on the one hand, and, on the other, the struggle of the leading groups in the Greek communi-ties to establish, by means of nationalism and with the support of the Greek

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state, their power over immigrants. In order to study this process, we need to focus on the establishment of Greek organizations in the United States and the conflicts between immigrant elites and the foundation of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. To do this, we utilize the theoretical frame of categorical identification use by identity entrepreneurs. In what follows, I show how research questions are substantiated in the historical period under examination.

However, it should be noted that the available sources (the Greek- and English- language press in the United States, Greek and Ottoman diplomatic dispatches) do not provide adequate or unbiased information about the popularity of the nationalist or ethnic organizations with immigrants. Therefore, my analysis focuses on the ideological content of the discourses expressed by these organizations and the leading groups.

Local and Religious Identifications and the Influence of Greek Nationalism

As mentioned above in reference to the Greek communities and associations in the United States, we have to distinguish between immigrants from the Greek kingdom and those from the Ottoman empire. Although the two groups shared a common religion and in many cases a common language, they did not necessarily share common political visions.

For emigrants from the Greek kingdom, the “manifest destiny” of the Greek nation was very strong, expressed by a messianic nationalism in the form of the “Great Idea” (Μεγα′λη Ιδε′α) that envisaged the restoration of the Byzantine empire with Constantinople (Istanbul) as its capital. Nevertheless, this nationalistic fervor was combined with contempt for King George I of Greece and the country’s political and military elites, who were considered corrupt and were held responsible for Greece’s defeat by the Ottomans in 1897 as well as for the economic crisis that had forced them to emigrate.

On the other hand, emigrants from the Ottoman empire identified them-selves with the ethno- religious group (millet) to which they belonged (namely, the Millet- i Rum, that is, the Orthodox community instituted offi-cially in the Ottoman empire during the Tanzimat reforms under the author-ity of the patriarch of Constantinople) and with their hometown or county of origin, rather than with a political authority, that is, either the Ottoman or the Greek state. The Greek- or Turkish- speaking Orthodox emigrants from Asia Minor and Thrace did not necessarily identify themselves with the irredentist policy of the Greek state. Greek diplomats considered the immigration experience to be a way for immigrants to assimilate the domi-nant discourse of the “Great Idea” through social intercourse with Greeks

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14 Yannis G. S. Papadopoulos

from mainland Greece. As the Greek consul in Adrianople (Edirne), Leon S. Matlis, wrote to the Greek foreign ministry (IAYE, F. B/44/1910, 1812, 5.7.1910), “All, without exception, have Greek as a mother tongue and are Orthodox Christians; nevertheless, there is a great need for the benevolent impact of frequent social intercourse with other Greeks in America. Unfortunately, the Thracians’ national conscience, their patriotic feeling, is very little developed, and they need to be reborn by immersion in Matsukas’ patriotic baptistery.”

For both Greek Orthodox and Greek groups, strong religious sentiments as well as close family and local ties were key elements of identification. This explains why Greek, Slav, Albanian, and Arab- speaking Orthodox Christian immigrants, irrespective of their ethnic origin, participated in the managing boards of the first Orthodox churches in the United States (Fitzgerald, 1995, p. 23; Kanoutas, 1918, p. 194). On the other hand, for most immigrants, ethnotopika somateia, that is, mutual help associations uniting immigrants from the same village or county, constituted the most powerful hub of social life and group identity. Usually, when in the host country, immigrants tended to settle in cities where people from their village or province of origin had settled previously (chains of emigration). Localism played an important role in social networks and, contrary to strong local patriotism and adherence to messianic nationalism, attachment to Greek state institutions and solidarity with Greeks from other provinces of Greece and the Ottoman empire were not self- evident. As the National Herald of New York newspaper noted as late as 1923, “The Greek shop owner not only would not hire American employees but even worse, if for example the owner hails from Sparta, he prefers to have Spartan employees, the Thessalian, Thessalians, the Thracian, Thracians and so on. The employees declare, ‘I don’t work in such a shop because the owner is from that prov-ince’ ” (Georges Papageorgiou, National Herald, 10.8.1923). For instance, in Chicago, localism led to the foundation of a second Orthodox church by immigrants from another province of the Greek kingdom (Holy Trinity Church, 1937, pp. 19–22; Kourvetaris, 1971, p. 50). As with other ethnic groups, it is therefore more accurate to state that immigrants from both Greece and the Ottoman empire were, at least in the first year of their stay in the United States, part of trans- local rather than transnational networks (Baines, 1991, pp. 28–31; Dicarlo, 2008, pp. 3–4; Gabaccia, 2000, pp. 3–6; Vecoli, 1964). This does not imply that the trans- local networks, and espe-cially mutual help associations, did not diffuse a Greek nationalist discourse, but this was combined with distrust for centralized organizations, especially those under the control of the Greek state. As the Greek ambassador Lambros Koromilas pointed out, “they were thus thrown on narrow streets and into places of debauchery, working like helots, at the mercy of every villain; the only thing they understand from life in the United States is that

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they are relieved from Greek laws and the pressure of their lender; the only thing that sustains them is the memory of their village” (IAYE, F. B12/1908, 25.3.1908). Under these circumstances, the Greek state tried to fight local-ism among immigrants from the Greek kingdom on the one hand, and, on the other, to convince Greek Orthodox immigrants from the Ottoman empire, irrespective of their mother tongue, that, based on their affiliation with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, they belonged to the same “imagi-nary community” as Greeks from the Greek kingdom and therefore should make financial contributions and undergo military training in order to be drafted into the Greek army in the event of a Greco- Ottoman war. I will now examine in more detail the development of immigrants’ attitudes toward Greece and the process that led to the construction of Greek American identity.

The Emergence of a Greek American Discourse

In 1890, the flow of immigrants from mainland Greece began. The first Greek communities were formed in New York and Chicago, and in 1894, the first major Greek- language national newspaper, Atlantis, was published in New York by Solon Vlastos. From about 1893, the Greek community in New York was divided into two factions, one patronized by merchants who had settled in the United States before 1850, and the other led by Solon Vlastos. The “Ralli faction,” which initially united the first merchants to settle in the United States after the Greek War of Independence, constituted the higher strata that were well integrated in the receiving country and did not highlight their ethnicity. Moreover, they felt that their social status was threatened by the massive arrival of poor Greek immigrants, as is evident from dispatches from the Greek consul in New York, Dimitrios Botassis (IAYE, F. A5/1894, 8.7.1894). On the other hand, Solon Vlastos gave voice through Atlantis to the newly arrived Greek immigrants, and later to the emerging lower middle class of the Greek communities.3 While the Ralli fac-tion did not initially support Greek irredentism, Atlantis editor Vlastos expressed his nationalist ideas. This clash was, to a great extent, a product of the antagonism over the position of intermediary between the immigrants and the Greek and American state (IAYE, F. 115.1/1912, 12721, 16.5.1911;

3 Clashes of a similar kind erupted in other Greek diaspora communities. In Alexandria, the lower classes did not have the right to participate in the community, which was under the con-trol of merchants. See IAYE, F. 92.1.3/1911, Greek consul in Alexandria Christos Mitsopoulos to Greek foreign ministry, 1295, March 21, 1911. In Brussels after World War II, the merchants who had settled in the city were annoyed by the massive presence of immigrant workers in the Greek Orthodox Church. See Venturas (1999), p. 118.

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Kanoutas, 1918, pp. 220–222). We should nevertheless point out that the term factions does not imply well- organized groups but rather loose social networks, and that the loyalty of their supporters and even the attitudes of their leaders toward Greek state politics shifted according to circumstances and particular interests.

Solon Vlastos juxtaposed the cosmopolitan upper classes that made up the Ralli faction to immigrants, seen as bearers of Greek ideals. Until the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, he remained a staunch critic of the palace, cor-rupt Greek governments, and political forces that forced people to emigrate (IAYE, F. A.5.8/1894, 8.7.1894). As a supporter of progressive ideas, he castigated the corruption and machinations of Tammany Hall bosses and was critical of the Greek padrones (labor contractors) who exploited them in the United States (Contopoulos, 1992, p. 141). Nevertheless, the most interesting element in Vlastos’s discourse was the combination of Greek messianic nationalism and support for immigrants’ naturalization. Vlastos tried to introduce immigrants to US politics and was a staunch supporter of Theodore Roosevelt.4 In 1911, perhaps as a result of Vlastos’s influence, the majority of the 2,000 New York Greeks who had taken American citizen-ship supported the Republican Party and had even founded a Republican Political Club (Fairchild, 1911, p. 152). One may assume that Vlastos was the first to try to forge a Greek American identity by underlining the influ-ence of ancient Greece on American institutions and culture while simulta-neously resisting Greek state interference in Greek immigrants’ associations. At the same time, Vlastos fought against institutions under the control of the Greek state in the United States only when they threatened his own influence on Greek immigrants.

The first national organization that tried to mobilize Greek immigrants in the United States, the Panhellenic Union, was founded initially in 1907 as a federation of the Greek societies and communities in the United States (Burgess, 1913, pp. 63–67, 88–89, 153, 159; Kanoutas, 1918, pp. 214–215, 221, 223; Saloutos, 1964, pp. 246–247). Its aims were to assist immigrants to adapt to the American environment and become American citizens while keeping their ties with Greece (Atlantis, 11, 15, 16, 19.10.1907). At the same time, the new organization aimed to com-bat Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Young Turk propaganda in the United States (Atlantis, 28.9.1907). Adding to the intervention of the Greek state after the arrival of Lambros Coromilas as Greek ambassador to the United States in 1908, its main purpose became to control immi-grants and promote a unified nationalist ideology. The foundation of the

4 In a series of articles under the general title “United States Are Governed by Patriotism,” he presented the US Constitution (Atlantis, 4.5.1896, 22.10 and 19.11.1897, 26.9, 2 and 26.10.1900). He also wrote History of the United States of America in Greek.

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