A Xeno in Greece
I grew up a foreigner in my own country. I was born in Australia to Greek immigrants, but my parents were born in Egypt, not Greece. So I grew up a Greek-Egyptian boy in Australia, a cultural mix that was a target for racism.
There wasn’t much room to fit in. In the 1970s, Bondi was predominantly working class Australian, with a small Jewish community as well. I was regularly taunted at school for my accent, and even the teachers who knew me well would insist on calling me Ian, not Ion. At home, I would often hear our neighbour shouting from her window that we should go back to where we came from.
We weren’t the only ones. Even our friendly Belgian neighbours, who seemed to fit in well with the community, were affected. This was despite the fact that one of their three daughters was school captain of my school. After a few years in Bondi, they had had enough of racism and went back to Belgium.
The one place I eventually found I related to was the sea. I spent a lot of my formative years swimming, watching the powerful ocean, and wandering the rock platforms looking for crabs, anemones and molluscs. By the sea, I felt free. I connected with nature, even when winter storms crashed hard on the rocks.
My parents spoke some English, but brought me up speaking Greek. That’s what they were fluent in. When I went to kindergarten, I didn’t even know how to tell the teacher that I wanted to go to the toilet. The weird thing was that, even though Greek was my first language, when I did meet some Greeks, I didn’t always understand them.
I didn’t understand that the Greek language and culture was different to what I knew as a Greek-Egyptian. As a Greek-Egyptian, we used a few Arabic words that the Greeks did not use. For example, for the word bin, we would say zibala, not skoupithotenekes. To socialise, my family and I would go to a Greek-Egyptian club, not one of the local Greek clubs. So not only did I end up feeling out of place with Australians, I also felt out of place with Greeks.
I can’t imagine how difficult it was for my parents. Although they met in Australia, both of them were born in Egypt—but at very different times. My mum arrived in Australia in 1956, at only eleven years of age. My father was twenty years older than my mum. He arrived when he was forty, in 1965. To this day, Mum has never been to Greece. My dad only had a six-month stay in Athens, just before arriving in Australia.
The first wave of migration from Egypt, which was when Mum left, was part of Egypt’s wave of nationalism. This nationalism was especially evident after the Suez Crisis in 1956, when Israel, Britain and France invaded Egypt in order to keep open the Suez Canal, a vital trade route. Even though the crisis lasted a short time, international pressure forced the British and French to withdraw.
The withdrawal of the British and French strengthened the position of the Egyptian President, Nasser, who encouraged, if not forced, all minorities to leave Egypt. This included Greeks, Italians, Armenians, Jews, French and British. Mum’s family left in 1956, although a few stayed behind. Eventually, my dad and his family left Egypt in 1965.
Dad’s migration saw him separated from his mother and sister. While my dad went to Athens looking for work, his mother and sister went to live in Montreal, and later moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Although they kept in contact, Dad never saw his mother or sister again.
Greece was not a good choice for Dad. After the Greek civil war ended in 1949, there was very little future there for him. Greece was a poor country, relying mainly on local agriculture. If you didn’t have land, life could be very difficult. Dad lasted six months before moving on.
At the same time, Australia was inviting immigrants to settle, especially as it had labour shortages. Between 1949 and 1970, more than 800,000 immigrants arrived in Australia. This included my parents. But once they arrived, they were treated with little welcome.
When Mum got to Australia, she attended school, but she couldn’t understand English. Over the next two years, she attended four different schools. As there was little to help her with her transition into Australia, she had no choice but to leave and work instead. By the age of thirteen, she was working in a sewing factory. My dad was more fortunate. Being older, and speaking some English (as well as French, Arabic, and of course, Greek), he obtained a job as a clerk in a large food company.
At home, Mum and Dad kept a lot of Greek-Egyptian customs, even while they were integrating into Australian culture. We predominantly ate Eastern Mediterranean food, including falafel, fava beans, tahini, houmous and Greek salad. We ground our own spices, such as cumin, pepper and cardamom, and dad listened to a lot of Greek music.
We spoke Greek at home, but as I grew older, I spoke it less and less. I felt that it was better to disown the language and culture I grew up in. I rejected a lot of my Greek heritage, forgetting how to speak fluently, as well as read and write. I thought I would have better opportunities without a first-generation’s baggage. I wanted to be Australian, but even my foreign-sounding name was enough for people to exclude me.
By my early 20s, I began to take a greater interest in my background. I started looking into my parents’ history, listening to Greek music, reading Greek books and making plans to go to Greece. By this stage, I felt more comfortable saying I was Greek, but I could not fully embrace it.
I still couldn’t say I was Australian either. To be Australian was to mock my Greek heritage, make fun of it, tell it to go back home, and generally revile it. I had stopped mentioning my Egyptian heritage years ago. It was an uphill battle.
When I finally got to Greece, I didn’t like a lot of what I saw. I found it messy and generally disorganised. The roads were in poor condition and ancient ruins lay hidden in overgrown weeds. Even the countryside wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped. I imagined olive trees full of plump olives and fields of wildflowers. Seeing it during the hot summer meant it was dry and bare. But my trip still sparked something in me.
When I got back to Australia, I enrolled in an online university course to study Greek language and literature. I encountered short stories, poetry, history and the ancient myths of Greece. I loved reading in Greek, and studying the culture. It helped me to understand my parents, my language, and my background.
Soon after, I revisited Greece. This time I felt a connection to it that I did not feel before. I felt like I was that young boy I once was, speaking fluent Greek—except I was a young adult speaking broken Greek. I struggled to understand the news and even some basic conversations around me.
There was one Greek word that was particularly confusing to me. Sometimes the Greeks referred to me as a xeno, which means stranger or foreigner. Greeks use this word in many ways, but it is mostly used in a friendly manner. For example, philoxenia (philo-xeno) literally translates as friend of the foreigner. In Greece, philoxenia means offering hospitality and kindness to visitors or strangers. Even so, I couldn’t help but see the word xeno as part of the word xenophobia, a word I grew up with.
I didn’t return to Greece again till my early 40s. This time, I went with my partner, Lisa. We were both excited about seeing Greece together. While some Australian friends and acquaintances considered our trip a regular kind of holiday, others questioned us. They made comments about why we were travelling around Greece, rather than around Australia.
While these negative comments about our travels to Greece were usually presented lightly, I could still feel the racism behind them. When we travelled within Australia, nobody asked us any questions. When we visited America, nobody had any problems with it. But when we decided to go to Greece, the questions came. I felt a new kind of racism, only the words said to me, as an ‘integrated white European,’ were more subtle.
I could also see that the ‘old racism’ of Australia had not gone away, but had simply shifted to someone else. I often saw newly arrived African immigrants treated very badly. One day, while I was at work, I witnessed a woman abusing an African man over a parking spot. She told him to go back home. The language used against these newer immigrants was the same as what I grew up with.
On our first visit to Greece, Lisa and I had an amazing time. We experienced far more than we expected, including an abundance of philoxenia. For example, when we arrived at a small town late at night, our accommodation host bought us dinner. In the morning, we woke up to fresh eggs outside our door. When we later went for a walk, an old man gave us a bag of oranges as we admired the orange grove in his garden.
Throughout our visit, we were given gifts of food, free lifts, complimentary drinks, and many warm welcomes. And nothing was expected in return. This is the way things are done in Greece. It is not about favours. In fact, if you try and return the favour for a Greek’s philoxenia, it can be considered offensive. They give to you because you are their guest.
Lisa and I have returned to Greece several times over the years. I still don’t feel Greek, and the Greeks still call me xeno, which I now know means ‘not from here.’ I understand the word xeno and see that they are not using this word in a derogatory way. After all, to be from another place can also mean that you are a visitor, and when I visit Greece, I am welcome.
I have been embraced in Greece, and that’s a great relief after a lifetime of rejection and having to justify myself in Australia. The Greeks recognise me as an Australian, but also as a Greek, whose Greek parents were born in Egypt. To the Greeks, that means I am Greek. And even though my Greek has an Australian accent, and really isn’t that good overall, I am accepted.
Over the years, I have been many things to myself, including an Australian, a Greek-Egyptian, a Greek, and a Greek-Australian. It has been an interesting journey in hindsight. Even though it has been difficult at times, I have gradually learned to see myself somewhat outside of ethnicity, race, and nationality, despite what others may think, or say, about me.
Somehow travelling between Greece and Australia I have finally found the locus of my ‘self.’ And where I find my ‘self’ is within myself. That is the irony of my journey. I will forever be a foreigner wherever I go. But now I understand who I am comes from within, I am no longer a foreigner to myself. And being a xeno is not a bad thing anymore.
Ion Corcos was born in Sydney, Australia in 1969. He won the Poetry Kit Summer Competition 2016 and has been commended in several competitions, including Earlyworks Press, Rush, Red Shed and Sentinel. Ion is a nature lover and a supporter of animal rights. He is the author of A Spoon of Honey (Flutter Press, 2018).