Greek Immigrants Research Articles

Katherine Metrakos: July 13, 1924–May 12, 2005

On May 12, 2005, the medical community lost an incredibly devoted, compassionate, and strong person with the death of Katherine Metrakos. Kay Chrones was born in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, on July 13, 1924, the daughter of Greek immigrants. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Saskatchewan in 1945 and her medical degree from McGill University in 1949. While in medical school, she met and later married Julius Metrakos, who was to become Professor of Human Genetics at McGill. They also were a team in clinical research and helped to lay the foundations of our current understanding of the inheritance of the epilepsies. Kay and Julius were internationally renowned as leaders of genetic investigation in epilepsy and were the bridge between the work of William Lennox and the present explosion of genetic epilepsy research. For many years, they acted as consultants in this area for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Their remarkable success was due to the unprecedented pairing of expertise in human genetics with clinical and neurophysiological acumen. In recognition of their work, they received several awards, including the Penfield Award from the Canadian League Against Epilepsy (1987), Hellenic Benevolent Society Award (1992), and, in 1994, an award from the Neurogenetics Research Group of the World Federation of Neurology. Their joint articles are regarded as classics in the field. For nearly 40 years, Kay was associated with the Montreal Children’s Hospital, where she succeeded Herbert Jasper as director of the Neurophysiology Laboratory and founded the Convulsive Disorder Clinic, the pioneering and, for decades, the premier Epilepsy Clinic in Canada. She was an excellent teacher and clinician, freely sharing her experience and knowledge with residents and students. Rarely did a clinic or EEG reading session pass without several pearls of wisdom emerging. She was a devoted mentor to generations of young epileptologists and clinical neurophysiologists. She had great warmth and compassion for the children under her care and endless patience for their parents’ questions and concerns. The Clinical Neurophysiology laboratory at the Montreal Children’s Hospital has been named after her. Kay was able to balance her busy professional career with her private life. She was well known for her cooking ability and was a wonderful hostess. It was not uncommon for her to prepare a gourmet dinner from scratch effortlessly on very short notice. She was a dedicated wife and mother and a staunch supporter of her extended family. The death of her husband and partner, Julius, was a great loss for her. Throughout their lives, they were a great strength to one another. She is survived by her two children, Stephanie and Dimitri, and four grandchildren.

Katherine Metrakos July 13, 1924 - May 12, 2005

On May 12, 2005, the medical community lost an incredibly devoted, compassionate, and strong person with the death of Katherine Metrakos. Kay Chrones was born in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, on July 13, 1924, the daughter of Greek immigrants. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Saskatchewan in 1945 and her medical degree from McGill University in 1949. While in medical school, she met and later married Julius Metrakos, who was to become Professor of Human Genetics at McGill. They also were a team in clinical research and helped to lay the foundations of our current understanding of the inheritance of the epilepsies. Kay and Julius were internationally renowned as leaders of genetic investigation in epilepsy and were the bridge between the work of William Lennox and the present explosion of genetic epilepsy research. For many years, they acted as consultants in this area for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Their remarkable success was due to the unprecedented pairing of expertise in human genetics with clinical and neurophysiological acumen. In recognition of their work, they received several awards, including the Penfield Award from the Canadian League Against Epilepsy (1987), Hellenic Benevolent Society Award (1992), and, in 1994, an award from the Neurogenetics Research Group of the World Federation of Neurology. Their joint articles are regarded as classics in the field. For nearly 40 years, Kay was associated with the Montreal Children’s Hospital, where she succeeded Herbert Jasper as director of the Neurophysiology Laboratory and founded the Convulsive Disorder Clinic, the pioneering and, for decades, the premier Epilepsy Clinic in Canada. She was an excellent teacher and clinician, freely sharing her experience and knowledge with residents and students. Rarely did a clinic or EEG reading session pass without several pearls of wisdom emerging. She was a devoted mentor to generations of young epileptologists and clinical neurophysiologists. She had great warmth and compassion for the children under her care and endless patience for their parents’ questions and concerns. The Clinical Neurophysiology laboratory at the Montreal Children’s Hospital has been named after her. Kay was able to balance her busy professional career with her private life. She was well known for her cooking ability and was a wonderful hostess. It was not uncommon for her to prepare a gourmet dinner from scratch effortlessly on very short notice. She was a dedicated wife and mother and a staunch supporter of her extended family. The death of her husband and partner, Julius, was a great loss for her. Throughout their lives, they were a great strength to one another. She is survived by her two children, Stephanie and Dimitri, and four grandchildren.

An Interview with United States Senator Paul S. Sarbanes

Senator Paul Spyros Sarbanes is the senior Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. He was chairman of the committee when Sarbanes-Oxley was enacted. Senator Sarbanes is the longest-serving U.S. senator in Maryland history, having won his fifth term in 2000. He also serves on the Foreign Relations, the Budget and the Joint Economic Committees. He was born in Salisbury, Maryland, holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a law degree from Harvard. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship that brought him to Oxford, England. After law school, he clerked for Federal Judge Morris A. Soper before going into private practice with two Baltimore City law firms. In 1966, Sarbanes ran for the Maryland House of Delegates in Baltimore City and won. During his four years as a State Legislator in Annapolis he served on the Judiciary and the Ways and Means Committees. In 1970 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, the first of three terms. While in the House, from 1971-76, Sarbanes served on the House Judiciary Committee, the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, and the Select Committee on House Reorganization. It was during his service in the House, in August 1974, that Sarbanes was selected by his Democratic colleagues on the House Watergate Committee to introduce the first Article of Impeachment, for obstruction of justice, against President Richard Nixon. On November 2, 1976, Sarbanes was elected to the United States Senate. He was re-elected in 1982, 1988, 1994, and 2000. Throughout his public service, Senator Sarbanes has worked hard to provide the citizens of Maryland with dedicated, independent representation; representation based upon intelligence and integrity; representation which gives people the confidence that elected officials are there to serve the public interest. Paul Sarbanes was born in Salisbury, on Maryland's Eastern Shore on February 3, 1933. He is the son of Greek immigrants from Laconia, Greece -- Spyros (deceased 1957) and Matina Sarbanes (deceased 2001) who owned the Mayflower Restaurant on Salisbury's Main Street. The principles Senator Sarbanes learned growing up in Salisbury that have guided his public life are opportunity and fairness - principles that he strongly believes are fundamental to a decent and just society.

“Remembering Generations: The Greek Immigrant's Journey.”

“Remembering Generations: The Greek Immigrant's Journey.”

Socio-economic integration of ethnic Greeks from the former USSR: Obstacles to entry into the Greek labour market

The purpose of this study is to collect data on the demographic and socio-cultural characteristics of ethnic Greeks from the former USSR and then assess the extent to which these characteristics affect their integration into the Greek labour market. To achieve this target we employ logistic regression analysis to test a model to predict the case of being employed or not by considering various factors as explanatory variables. A field survey carried out in the broad area of West Athens (total of 6,994 respondents) is used to estimate the parameters of this model. From past experience we identify 13 major variables contributing to employment or not. The results generate an overall model with six of the 13 variables statistically significant. The final part of the paper discusses the policy implications of the findings, particularly the necessity for better professional and language training of the ethnic Greek immigrants from the ex-USSR.

Migration of Ethnic Greeks from the Former Soviet Union to Greece, 1990-2000: Policy Decisions and Implications

In the 1990s a flow of ethnic Greek immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Greece created several challenges for the Greek state, which attempted to assist in their settlement and social integration, and for the immigrants themselves, since their problems were increased upon their arrival. Language barriers, unemployment, lack of quality housing options and the overall lack of social integration continue to plague them as they lose faith in Greece and in themselves. The Greek state has introduced relevant policies but the lack of implementation of laws and projects has rendered the whole attempt ineffective. However, new policies could give these people hope for a prosperous future.

Tales of the Heart: Dreams and Memories of a Lifetime (review)

Harry Mark Petrakis's Tales of the Heart, a collection of short memoirs and articles, provides a glimpse, albeit indirect, of the way in which Petrakis reshaped his personal experiences into literature. Petrakis's short stories and novels gave [End Page 182] permanent literary form to the experience of the Greek immigrant to America. His characters, little people like most of the Greek immigrants I have known, struggle to make it in this country, sustained by their memories of village landscapes and loved ones they left behind. His stories ring true because his characters remind me of the old, worn out immigrant men--from shoe-shiners to gandy dancers--I worked beside in Montana. For example, the gambler who would show up where I shined shoes, carrying dollar bills in his tightly clenched fist ready for an afternoon of barbuti in the back room. Petrakis's stories are filled with longing for the villages these people left behind and to which they would never return because time had run out. His women remind me of my mother and other Greek women who married old men to escape the disgrace of spinsterhood and poverty and were still vigorous and youthful even as their men passed on. Throughout Petrakis's work, one finds an enthusiasm for life, and a love of the physical world, which engourages us to imagine Petrakis as a sort of Greek-American Kazantzakis.

Strava - projev kulturní identity řecké skupiny v Praze

The Greek community in Prague was established by members of political emigration who arrived in Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1949. In those years Czechoslovakia was accepting children as well as adult people evacuated from the places afflicted by a civil war. In the first years there was only a handful of Greeks, mainly officials who were in charge of contact between the Greeks living outside Prague and the Czechoslovak authorities. They were gradually joined by others who were coming to Prague through a natural process of migration from smaller towns and villages. At present the Greek community in Prague is composed of four generations of Greek immigrants and their descendants: those who arrived as adults in Czechoslovakia; children who spent their childhood in children's homes and their equals in age; their children; and now also their grandchildren. In connection with political changes in the Czech Republic, the Greek community in Prague has been strengthened by Greek students and businessmen since the early 1990s. According to the latest census, taken in 1991, there were 268 people of Greek origin in Prague. Pecularities of their diet and food habits are among cultural signs with which present-day Prague Greks are building up their identity. The writer observes the structure of the food, the way of its preparation as well as dietary habits of the families belonging to the Greek community in Prague. She compares the habits in Greek and Czech-Greek families. She asks the questions of the transmission, modification and innovation of tradition. The question of the importance of Greek food in social and family, ceremonial, events as a selfidentifying event is a vital aspect. Although Prague Greeks' favourite food has been joined by dishes from the Czech as well as other world cuisines, Greek meals have maintained their indispensable place in the diet of festive, ceremonial as well as every-day occasions. Food of the Greek cuisine is perceived as a sign of Greek identity and origin also in ethnically mixed families. The fact whether the housewife is a Greek or Czech woman only has an impact on the frequency of the preparation of the food. However, they remain part of the tradition of families with Greek origin in either cases.

Home Society Politics and Immigrant Political Incorporation: The Case of Greek Immigrants in New York City

This article examines the processes through which home society politics affect Greek immigrant incorporation into the host society's political structures. The argument made is that immigrant concern with the home society's territorial sovereignty prompt immigrant incorporation into the American polity. Following Turkey's invasion of Cyprus in the summer of 1974 and numerous Turkish claims on Greek islands since then, Greek and American-born activists and leaders have engaged in an “Americanization project” characterized by two levels of mobilizing activity: activists and leaders have sought to first create formal relations with local and national level American politicians and parties and second to mobilize immigrants to enter American political structures (by becoming naturalized citizens, voting and contributing funds to political campaigns) so that they may this way influence American foreign policy in the Aegean. To foster the process of “Americanization,” activists and leaders have relied on the construction of binational identities.

Home Society Politics and Immigrant Political Incorporation: The Case of Greek Immigrants in New York City

Home Society Politics and Immigrant Political Incorporation: The Case of Greek Immigrants in New York City

Growth company: Dow Chemical's first century

As the focus of protest against a hated war in Vietnam it became one of the best-known company names in America almost overnight during the 1960s. Dow makes napalm, napalm kills babies, chanted student protesters on hundreds of campuses during that war. Dow shalt not kill. This feisty company did not back off from making napalm (it was the only U.S. company that did not), and it was soon embroiled in other front-page controversies -- Agent Orange, dioxin, and mercury contamination of the Great Lakes among them. Typically, when EPA planes flew over its plants taking photos, Dow sued. Growth Company is the story of a century of industrial drama told by an insider who has been associated with the firm and its top managers since 1953. Written in celebration of the firm's 100th anniversary, it traces the rise of an archetypical growth company from its unlikely beginnings in a dying lumber town in the backwoods of central Michigan. Later a Wall Street favorite, it made many of its early investors wealthy; it has not missed or decreased a dividend since 1911. Based on research in the Post Street archives, supplemented by oral history interviews with more than 150 company pioneers, this colorful panorama of growth is told in terms of the people who built this unique and spectacularly successful world-class company, beginning with Herbert H. Dow, the young genius who founded the firm, down to the son of Greek immigrants who heads the company today.

The Apple Falls from the Apple Tree by Helen Papanikolas

Reviews 411 California Fault: Searching for the Spirit of a State along the San Andreas. By Thurston Clarke. (New York: Ballantine, 1996. 417 pages, $24.00.) Thurston Clarke’s summation of California is contained in the pun of his title: California of the ’90s is full of faults, geological and otherwise, and Clarke means to show them to us as we travel the length of the state with him along the San Andreas Fault, from the town of Eureka in the north to the Salton Sea in the south. California is a huge state, in part defined and determined by the fault, and w e’re in for a long ride, and a fat book. So large and various is California that we may rightly suspect any book that purports to present its “spirit,” and to his credit, Clarke is appropriately modest in his subtitle. He searches— for hundreds of m iles— but presents us with no grand Zeitgeist. Besides the science, lore, and history of California quakes, peo­ ple and places abound in the book (politicos, editors, geologists, merchants, tourists, locals, tree-huggers, rednecks, retirees, teenagers, cops, flashers; jails, schools, malls, bars, neighborhoods, theme-towns, gated comm unities) and what rises generally out of all of this— though some of the evidence runs counter— is that California’s spirit is now tarnished and troubled. The resulting gloom , though, may ultimately work to California’s good. Clarke suggests near the end of the book that “this apparently gloom y decade [may be] a correction to years of pathological optimism.” Trouble, of course, is more interesting to write (and read) about than its opposite, so Clarke’s subject is working for him. Clarke’s responses remain fresh, and he shares them with us even when they’re illogical or inconsistent with each other. In this way, ironically, w e come to trust him as an observer. Though he can write a withering sentence when he w itnesses something partic­ ularly outrageous or foolish, he manages to portray California’s ills without seem ing to bash the state. Clarke is in fact congenial, and he’s convincing enough that he appears much of the time to be under sway o f nothing stronger than common sense. H e’s also a bloodhound for details, and he knows how to juxtapose them, often to great effect. Clarke proves such an astute observer, and he so clearly has fun in the writing, that this reader could have traveled even far­ ther with him. P a u l L e h m b e r g N o r t h e r n M ic h ig a n Un iv e r s it y The Apple Falls from the Apple Tree. By Helen Papanikolas. (Athens: Ohio University Press/Swallow Press, 1996. 241 pages, $27.95/$14.95.) This volume contains six stories of the lives of Greek immigrants and their descendants in and around Salt Lake City. Western landscapes of that city and the surrounding region permeate the stories in which Helen Papanikolas explores 412 Western American Literature urban and rural immigrant fam ily experiences. Hers are the fam ilies of urban workers and entrepreneurs, miners, and those who go “out to sheep” in the arid, mountainous countryside. A 1939 setting for the opening story and a 1995 end­ ing for the final story provide the book’s chronological contours. Gendered immigrant fam ily experience is of special interest to Papanikolas, whose complex fem ale protagonists often feel resentment (usually suppressed rather than overtly expressed) at the male privilege that suffuses their culture of origin; simultaneously they retain significant, even fierce, attachment to that cul­ ture. The stories’ women also demonstrate considerable ambivalence toward the Mormon culture of Salt Lake City and toward the larger culture of the American West, which often clashes with Greek culture while inexorably reshaping it in som e measure. Educational opportunity, for instance, appeals strongly to some fem ale characters, but “overeducation” creates anxiety about decreased chances o f marriage within the Greek American community. One woman observes that arranged marriages spared Greek women the pressure felt by American women to attract eligible men. Food, religion, and...

The Apple Falls from the Apple Tree (review)

Reviewed by: The Apple Falls from the Apple Tree Thomas Doulis Helen Zeese Papanikolas, The Apple Falls from the Apple Tree. Athens, Ohio: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press. 1996. Pp. vii + 241. $27.95 cloth, $14.95 paper. Readers of JMGS should need no introduction to the work of Helen Papanikolas, who established her reputation initially as the ethnic historian of the Greeks of the inter-mountain states and produced austere monographs of the first generation of immigrants. Papanikolas adapted her skill as ethnic historian to suit the role of biographer in her fine Aimilia-Georgios = Emily-George (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987). Written with great scope and sympathy, this novelistic version of the marriage of two strangers—her parents—is a plain, unadorned, and profoundly moving narrative, richly comic in places. Small Bird, Tell Me: Stories of Greek Immigrants in Utah (Athens, Ohio: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1993) shows Papanikolas’s struggle to free herself from the historian’s task, the embedding of necessary information in narrative, and to achieve fictional autonomy. Part of her problem is that she cannot be confident that her readers know enough of Greek-American culture to understand her fiction fully. She has made major strides with the present collection, however, and by and large achieves her goal, though she still grapples with the challenge of providing necessary information to the reader without overburdening her story. To use Percy Lubbock’s metaphor in The Craft of Fiction (New York: Scribner, 1921), she is stabilizing her ladder without leaning it against the wall of external reality, since as he points out, “there is no wall” for fiction “to stand against.” Technical information of impressive scope is skillfully embedded in these narratives, two of which, “County Hospital, 1939” and the title story, are novella length. The former contains observations of Depression era austerity seen through the point of view of Kallie Poulos, a medical technologist who must deal with peasant values of the Old World. Though she has gone to college and is a mature young woman, she must take a position secondary to her brother, who gets to drive the automobile bought explicitly for her use. The richly textured story is dense with contemporary scientific processes and with relatively few parenthetical asides meant to provide cultural information to non-Greek readers. Papanikolas does not take the easy way in defining the conflict her protagonist embodies: by educating herself, Kalliopi is narrowing her chances for finding an appropriate mate among Greek males. With little closure at the story’s end, the reader is left uncertain about what becomes of her. Using the point of view of three generations of Greek-American women, “Getting Ready for the Festival” is a study of manners and morals of a Utah Greek Orthodox church community. The oldest women are hardened, fixed by their immigrant and picture-bride status. It is their daughters, women born in this country rather than those who emigrated after the second world war, who try to cope with change. They grew up in a time when family secrets had to be kept “within four walls” and children would be beaten for revealing any detail that might harm a sister’s marital prospects. Now they live in a time when moral conduct, verbal expression in magazine subject-matter, and life styles have [End Page 158] loosened to tabloid vulgarity. Two young women, Tiffany, with her “surgically pretty nose,” and her friend Chrissie, listen to the conversations passively but judgmentally. Hovering over these themes are doubts about the prospects for the continuation of the festival as a way for the community to organize itself and support the Church. The out-marrying, primarily with Mormons, which is the major theme of the title story, is touched on here. In “Neither Nose Nor Ass,” two childhood friends, Greg and Manny, sons of old immigrants, marry twin sisters and progress though life from the 1930s to the 1970s. Greg, conservative and afflicted with ancestor-worship, is preoccupied with the achievement of Periclean Athens, while Manny, entrepreneurial and studiously anti-intellectual, is a counter to what he considers Greg’s flaws. Papanikolas, interested more in narrating external events...

Backache in Greek Immigrants to Sweden: A Cultural Interpretative Approach

Scandinavian medical methods for treating musculoskeletal pain have often proved unsuccessful with immigrant patients. This study examined the perception and meanings of back pain among Greek immigrants to Sweden to identify possible causes of this poor outcome. Fifteen Greek immigrant patients on long-term sick-leave because of backache and 21 strategi cally selected members of a Greek cultural association in Stockholm, Sweden, not on sick-leave received semi-structured interviews about backache. In addition to a content analysis, a cultural approach was used in the interpretation of the mate rial. On the whole, pain was considered as something dangerous, inevitably leading to permanent disability if the suf ferer should deliberately aggravate the pain. Persistent pain was also linked to the tendency to worry and obsess in a way that would eventually make one ill. There was little confidence in doctors' examinations and physiotherapy. The study provides a possible explanation as to why Scandinavian medical treat ment of backache is less successful in this immigrant group.

Cultural Identity and Cultural Interaction: Greek Music in the United States, 1917–1941

The rebétiko music played by Greek immigrants in the United States and recorded by American companies reflects the traditional culture of the immigrants and may thus serve to illuminate the attitude of the immigrant artist toward his or her ethnic identity and the problems of becoming integrated into new cultural surroundings. Before we can judge the actual music and its cultural significance, we must have precise ideas about which materials may be used to determine the musical culture in the immigrant community. Were recordings in Athens made with the Greek-American public in mind? As a rule, Greek musicians stayed outside the mainstream of American popular music; only in rare cases did they change their traditional means of expression. There are few examples of influence from other popular ethnic music cultures in the United States. One of the main differences between the Greek and the Greek-American rebétika songs seems to be the attitude to drugs; there are so few drug songs in the recorded American output of rebétika that this must reflect a deliberate choice either by the musicians or by the record companies.

Small Bird, Tell Me: Stories of Greek Immigrants in Utah by Helen Papanikolas

Small Bird, Tell Me: Stories of Greek Immigrants in Utah by Helen Papanikolas

Value Acculturation and Response Tendencies of Biethnic Adolescents

The purpose of this study was to investigate the modes of acculturation and the response tendencies of adolescents (n = 133) of biethnic families living in Athens, as compared to adolescents (n = 113) of homoethnic families in Athens, and homoethnic adolescents (n = 80) of Greek immigrants in Germany and the Netherlands, by means of a scale of family values. Biethnic adolescents manifested different forms of acculturation of values as compared to homoethnic Greeks in Athens, Germany, and the Netherlands. The biethnic adolescents appear to be integrating primarily to the disparate value systems of their biethnic parents, manifested by reluctance to disagree with the values of the homoethnic or heteroethnic parent, and less to the ecological and social factors of the host culture. The response tendencies appear to be closer to "accommodation" but with a different response pattern dependent on whether they are toward the traditional or rejection of traditional values poles of the scale.

Greek Immigrant Children in Southern Sweden in Comparison with Greek and Swedish Children II. Meal Pattern and Food Habits

Greek immigrant children (GI) belonging to the second generation of immigrants in Sweden have been compared with Swedish children (S) and Greek children in Greece (G) regarding meal pattern and food habits. Interviews were performed in the homes. Meal pattern and frequency of consumption of various food items were studied by 24-hour recalls, and the food frequency interview method. The meal pattern and the distribution of meals and snacks during the day did not show large differences between the groups. In the GI and G groups it was common to start the day with milk and sugar. The same habit was reported before going to bed. It was common in the GI and G groups to have a prepared meal (dinner) relatively late in the evening. Of the S children only 55% had dinner. GI children had a less frequent intake of vegetables compared to S and G children. GI and G children were heavy consumers of sweets and snacks. In conclusion, the Greek immigrant group had food habits similar to those of Greek rural children with few distinctive exceptions. Greek immigrant families had no difficulties in preparing Greek food.

Evaluational Reactions to Speech: The Role of Ethnic-Linguistic Status

Two groups of native Swedes listened to short stories, related in Swedish by Greek and American immigrants in Sweden, and rated the speakers on 15 personality traits as well as on five aspects of language proficiency. American speakers were rated more favorably than Greek speakers on two traits, namely, educated and capable. On language proficiency, Greeks and Americans were rated similarly except for the “grammar” aspect on which the latter obtained higher ratings. Speakers' time of residence in Sweden was strongly underestimated by raters, more for Americans than for Greeks. Correlations between ratings of personality and ratings of language proficiency were positive and significant on both affective and competence-related traits for the Greek speakers, while there were no significant correlations for the American speakers. The results are seen as giving support to the assumption that in judging personality from spoken language, attitudinal rather than linguistic factors play a major role, particularly if the speakers' ethnic-linguistic status is high.

Greek Immigrant Children in Southern Sweden in Comparison with Greek and Swedish Children

Greek immigrant children belonging to the second generation of immigrants in Sweden have been compared with Swedish children and Greek children in Greece regarding general living conditions. Interviews were performed in the homes of all participants. The parents in the two Greek groups had the lowest educational level. The yearly salary of immigrant families was similar to that of the Swedish families. Immigrant and Swedish parents worked outside their homes to the same extent, Greek immigrant mothers fulltime, Swedish mothers mostly part time. For economical reasons the immigrant parents looked after their children within the family while the Swedish families almost always utilized community day care facilities. The immigrant families had fewer children than the Swedish and Greek rural families and their dwellings were smaller. Corporal punishment was a common method of upbringing in Greece and among the immigrants. The immigrant families had extremely few contacts with Swedish families. A majority of the immigrant families were unsure about their future in Sweden, whether or not to stay. In conclusion, the Greek immigrant group in many respects had adapted to Swedish customs but they had also at the same time retained much of the Greek cultural characteristics.