Date
12-11-2024
Department
College of Arts and Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)
Chair
John Wineland
Keywords
immigration, transnationalism, Greek, particularism, cosmopolitanism, Wyoming
Disciplines
History
Recommended Citation
Pace, Patrick Michael, "Hellenic Cohesion: A Historic Approach to Transnationalism, Particularism, and Cosmopolitanism in the Greek Immigrant Communities of Wyoming" (2024). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 6234.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/6234
Abstract
Greek immigration to the United States began slowly in the late nineteenth century but found its stride by the second decade of the twentieth century. Behind the incrementally increasing numbers of Greeks emigrating from Greece was an economic collapse related to a mismanaged agricultural industry, leading mostly young men to pursue economic reward abroad in support of families and villages back home. Most early Greek migrants anticipated an eventual return home; however, many moved beyond simple sojourning into permanent settlement for a variety of reasons, including the establishment of proprietorships, the building of families, and nativist driven anti-immigrant legislation. For those who stayed or eventually arrived as immigration laws eased, the Greek population in America found itself in a liminal place between assimilation and insularity. This antinomy led to Greek-American integration, whereby Greek-Americans found an uneasy balance between Greekness and Americanness, becoming a truly bifurcated community.
This dissertation evaluates the Greek-American experiences and history in Wyoming, which escaped many of the pressures Greeks found in other parts of the country, but nonetheless Greek-Wyomingites made similar adaptive decisions toward cultural integration and settlement. In this study, several institutions aided Greek-American or Wyomingite communities maintain cultural cohesion, despite the pressures of racialized Americanization efforts, regional labor conflicts in the mines and railroads, and shifting demographics. These institutions – Greek-American business ventures (especially coffee shops and taverns), cultural associations, the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Greek Festival – lend toward a functional duality in the Greek communities of Wyoming, each expressed through a social sciences methodological paradigm. This orchestration included elements of transnationalism, whereby the Greek community maintained international connections home; particularism, whereby Greeks retained their ancestral identities through subsequent generations in America; and, cosmopolitanism, whereby Greeks became Americans and Wyomingites through sustained interactions with broader US and Wyoming culture.
Furthermore, in the course of Greek-American community development, some institutions lost their efficacy toward dual-cultural maintenance. Greek proprietorships gave way to largely indiscernible run-of-the-mill American businesses. Greekness became muted as business ownership was no longer necessary or able to retain Greek identity. And associations like the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA) lost their importance in cultural influence as membership became more cosmopolitan and less Greek. This left the Greek Orthodox Church and its offshoot, the Greek Festival, as the principal agents of Greek identity in the community, albeit with adaptations.
In the conclusion of this dissertation, the cohesion o
