Thu 11 Feb 2010
In the 2002 film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the main character, Toula, enumerates the primary expectations of a Greek woman:
… nice Greek girls are supposed to do three things in life. Marry Greek boys. Make Greek babies, and feed everyone, until the day we die.
Many of us (particularly those who can laugh at themselves) can chuckle along with the characters in what at first may appear to be a bigoted view of the world. The father states:
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who are Greek and those who wish they were Greek.
This phenomenon is not limited to the Greek culture but exists in many cultures of first generation immigrants to the United States of America. We would suggest that this is not really designed from evil motives but rather is the result of finding oneself in a foreign culture. It is an attempt to preserve a particular cultural identity or worldview and protect children from abandoning their heritage, adopting beliefs and practices which are considered to be inferior at best and dangerous at worst.
With the dawning of the twentieth century, (more…)