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Old World Sexism Transplanted “Test of the Sheet”
Abstract
When Nick visits the café of his brother-in-law, Lombros, they become embroiled in a heated discussion over who is and who is not genuinely Greek. Nick takes the position that to be a true Greek you must not only have been born and raised in Greece but also speak Greek perfectly. On the other hand, Lombros takes the position that being Greek depends only on how much you love Hellenic culture and thereby what is in your heart. The conversation then turns into the real reason for Nick's visit. He wants to arrange a marriage between their sister-in-law, Penelope, and Yiannos, an older Greek man who owns a thriving restaurant. Yiannos's demand for a virgin bride threatens to doom any possibility of his marrying Penelope, until Lombros's cook, Josephine, saves the day with a fool-proof plan for Penelope to pass the “test of the sheet.”
... note This story is part of a larger narrative, titled Melting Pot Boils Over. Readers who may be interested in reading other stories in this narrative or discussions about it, should see: Athens, 1996Athens, , 1997Athens, , 2004Athens, , 2005aAthens, , 2005bAthens, , 2005Athens, c, 2006Athens, , 2007Athens, , 2008aAthens, and 2008b references Athens, L. (1996). Greek Americans, "New Greece, " & Greek Orthodoxy. ...
Due to heavy rains, the industrial canal that runs by Pop's café threatens to overflow and spill into it and the one-room station house next door. Pop organizes a work party to place sandbags around the two buildings. Despite their best efforts, the water from the canal floods the buildings destroying much of their interiors. Unable to secure a loan from the bank to pay for repairs and purchase new restaurant equipment, Pop contemplates selling his café. Just before Pop closes the deal, however, he learns that the company owning the canal has offered to settle the damage suit that he brought against it, sparing him from the need to sell the cafe. Pop learns from this ordeal who his true friends are.
... That semiotic self is essentially a view of the self where the semiotics of symbols and habits is taken more seriously than it often is in Symbolic Interactionism, Dramaturgy (Goffman 1974) and Peformance Studies. We can apply the theory of the semiotic self to the "pragmatics" of social action Athens (2005Athens ( , 2008. ...
Norbert Wiley (1994) provides a synthesis of Peirce’s and Mead’s views on the self. The Peirce-Mead ideal type model of the self involves the
I and the me as well as the I and the you. Hence, at each moment we are a combined “me-I-you” in past, present and future.
Milton Singer (1989) discovers the semiotic self through his anthropological research, but does not apply the concept as rigorously as one might
hope. Peirce’s triadic epistemology and Pragmatism is explored to frame his contribution to the semiotic self. His categories
of Firstness, Secondnes and Thirdness are briefly considered. Some anecdotal information about the self in Indic Civilization
is discussed. It is argued that the INSOR model can be useful. The key is to move beyond Cartesian notions and to see the
semotic self as a “semiotic object,” always subject to interpretation by the person engaged in symbolic interaction and exchange.
KeywordsPragmatism–Semiotic self–Peirce–Mead–Triadic epistemology–INSOR model–Indic civilization–Symbolic interactionism
During this tale, Father Constantine conducts a funeral service for Herikula Zaharias, a long-time member of his congregation. After delivering his incensed-filled eulogy, Father Constantine recalls the circumstances surrounding her immigration to Virginia from Samos, Greece, and life in America with her husband, Lombros, after their arranged marriage in 1924. Among other things, Father Constantine points out that while Samos is known for its beautiful women, Mrs. Zaharias' culinary skills even surpassed her great beauty. He also notes that by all counts their marriage was a successful one, although as was customary at the time, it was arranged. The funeral service ends at Riverview Cemetery, which is wedged between the city's larger white Protestant and black graveyards, with Lombros saying “goodnight” to his wife of 34 years for the last time.
Pop becomes entangled in an ever growing web of problems. His wife, Herikula, nags him to accompany her and their two daughters to the island of Samos for a long visit with her parents, although he cannot find anyone one to manage his café in his absence. Later at the cafe, a robber threatens Pop’s life with a gun, which Herikula takes as omen from God that he should take his family to Samos before something else bad happens to him. After finally finding someone to manage his café Pop discovers while in Samos that the manager is embezzling the café’s funds. Pop must cut his visit short to Samos to resolve yet another problem that he looks at from his characteristically philosophical perspective.
The work of George Santayana belongs simultaneously to North American and European traditions of social thought. Although an important figure of the Western tradition, Santayana is not well known among sociologists. The main purpose of this chapter is to introduce Santayana's social thought to sociologists, and especially to those interested in interactionist and interpretivist theory. I pay particular attention to the concepts of psyche, domination, and dramatic sympathy. I also analyze how some of Santayana's concepts fare when compared to those by Mead and radical interactionism.
In this chapter, Jeffrey Togman recounts how Home, an ethnographic film, which he directed, came to be made. While directing the film, Togman fluctuated between the various classical roles of the participant observer – complete observer, observer as participant, participant as observer, and complete participant. The camera and the microphone allow the researcher to record information in quantities and at speeds than are exponentially larger and faster than what can be accomplished by conventional note-taking, but the equipment is also more obtrusive and disruptive. The tyranny of the camera demands that the director puts it in a “real” place, and thus, it is the nature of ethnographic films to challenge generalizing, predictive theories of human behavior. Togman also presents the findings of his filmic project, stripped of its visual elements. The film's main character, Sheree Farmer, a single mother of six children, tries to get her family out of public housing in Newark, New Jersey. With the help of Mary Abernathy, a former fashion executive turned community activist, Sheree endeavors to purchase her own home. As Sheree struggles to clear her credit and qualify for a mortgage, it becomes clear that she faces more than material obstacles to becoming a homeowner.
We view novelists as people who work alone through the night typing away at their keyboards while deeply absorbed in thought. Although no novel could be published without the performance of the solitary role of the writer, the publication of a novel involves far more than merely the performance of this one role. Book agents must screen writers' novels for possible representation by their agency, acquisition editors must screen them for possible publication by their publishing houses, and production editors must prepare them for distribution; therefore, the publication of a novel is a genuine "social act." Nevertheless, a novel's publication is a distinctively creative social act because it affords greater opportunity than most social acts for people to express their "selves" or, more precisely, "phantom communities," which are etched from their past "significant social actions." A novelist's phantom community primarily discloses itself through the "voice" in which she tells her story. Thus, the "voice" that an author uses while writing her novel can provide telltale signs of not only her phantom community, but also of the past significant social actions in which she has and has not participated during the course of her life.
While Pop works in the lot behind his café, Floyd Pumice, a romantic product salesman, drops in. Although Pop frowns on Pumice for selling his merchandise in the café, his counterman, “Pete the Greek,” welcomes the opportunity to watch Pumice ply his trade on the café’s patrons. Pumice, who adroitly tailors his sales pitch to his customers, closes sales with a long-married, middle-aged man with a wife of the same age, a young single man who is desperate for sexual relations with his steady girlfriend, and a young single man suffering from feelings of sexual inadequacy. When Pop unexpectedly enters the café, Pete the Greek and Pumice must find a quick and graceful way to get out of an awkward situation.
Romantic product salesmen sold what now are popularly known as “sex toys” but in their day were called “marital or sex aids.” They plied their trade in the Bible Belt and served a primarily male clientele. By playing on their clientele’s sexual ignorance and sexist attitudes, romantic product salesmen were able to sell merchandise that ironically, increased rather than decreased their customers’ sexual frustration at outrageously inflated prices. With the spread of X-rated bookstores to the Bible Belt in the mid-1960s, this little-known and secretive occupation vanished from the American cultural landscape.
The three tales retold here from Melting Pot Boils Over revolve around different challenges that “Pop,” a Greek immigrant, faced while operating a segregated café. In the first, a “White” ne’er-do-well breaks into Pop’s café, drinks several bottles of his wine, and passes out under a booth. Pop must decide whether to press charges against the intruder, a long-time patron of the café. In the second, a “Black” patron provokes Pop while giving his order. Both Pop and a Native American patron react angrily to the provocation, and the Black patron takes offense at their reaction. In the final tale, a race riot breaks out in Pop’s café when a White male patron makes vulgar gestures toward two Black waitresses. Pop, who is the sole provider for his family, must find a way to regain the good will of both his Black and White patrons to keep his café thriving.
Two tales about confrontations between Whites from different ethnic back-grounds that took place in Virginia during the twilight of the Jim Crow era are told here. In both tales, Pete Aegean, whose parents are Greek immigrants and who works as a counterman in a Greek-immigrant-owned café, gets into conflicts with the patrons who are White native Southerners. The conflicts turn violent after they trade ethnic slurs. Although Pete emerges as the victor, it creates a serious dilemma for him. On one hand, he maintains his pride and gains the begrudging respect of the White mill hands who patronize the café. On the other hand, Pop, the café's owner, fires Pete for placing his false sense of ethnic pride above their mutual economic interests. Pete's firing raises the question of what is the right and wrong way for immigrants and their offspring to win the respect and admiration of their host country's native inhabitants.
Pop, the Greek-immigrant owner of the Manchester Café, fires his counter-man, “Pete the Greek,” for getting into too many altercations with customers. To appease some of his long-time patrons, Pop, then, decides to hire Linwood Lots, a local native, as Pete's replacement. Pete and Irene, Pop's daughter, get married and, later, have a son, Pop's first grandchild. After catching Linwood drinking wine filched from the café's wine stock, Pop fires Linwood and immediately rehires Pete. Pop's action ignites a bitter rivalry between Linwood and Pete that is charged with ethnic hatred.