Immigrants from Greece Flock to US Schools

Christos Papastephanou

Special to The National Herald

Costas Bej/TNH
St. Demetrios High School in Astoria, founded in 1979, has been somewhat of a staple for Greek immigrants who have come to America. It is the largest Greek-American day school and only Greek-American high school in the country. Typically, three or four students from Greece enroll each year, but according Anastasios Koularmanis, the principal since 1999, enrollment this year skyrocketed to about twenty, a 500 percent increase.

NEW YORK - St. Demetrios High School in Astoria, founded in 1979, has been somewhat of a staple for Greek immigrants who have come to America. It is the largest Greek-American day school and only Greek-American high school in the country. Typically, three or four students from Greece enroll each year, but according Anastasios Koularmanis, the principal since 1999, enrollment this year skyrocketed to about twenty, a 500 percent increase. That is in addition to the American-born students. Among this “new wave of Greeks” to St. Demetrios is 14 year-old Nick Psarras, who along with his brother Dimitri and their mother came to New York five short months ago. Nick explained that it is “a better life” in Greece. “Over there the schooling system is better. You learn more in a lot less time and because of that, kids rarely go to class,” joked Psarras. His brother Dimitri (age 12) acknowledged that he doesn’t get to speak to his friends and family as much but the economic stability is better here. He added that “in Greece, you’re scared to go out after 9 o’clock.”

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October 20, 2011

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1. Dionysios Markopoulos wrote on October 26, 2011 4:06 PM	Australia requested 50,000 applications from Greeks with graduate degrees and those spots went fast. It is clear that as unemployment skyrockets in Greece, the young Greeks will be forced to emmigrate to places like Germany, France, Brazil, London, and even China. As a matter of fact, many Americans are emmigrating to China these days! a remarkable fact in and of itself. People will go where the jobs and opportunity are. Its that simple.

2. Philip Vorgias wrote on October 26, 2011 6:36 PM	Greek governments have forced more Greeks to emigrate than all others reasons combined. Instead of creating a business friendly environment, a stable currency, sustainable public sector and uniform tax laws consecutive Greek governments have wrecked the business environment by demonizing businessmen, borrowing the nation to the hilt, hiring friends/families/political supporters into a bloated bureacracy and creating a revenue side that's non-functional. If any nation in the world wanted to deliberately destroy it's private economy they need only look at Greece as the model for doing that. Utterly appalling.

3. Niko Seretis wrote on October 26, 2011 8:02 PM	Greeks are a people with a strong and successful Diaspora but when the same people are asked to repeat their success in Greece, they are destined to fail. Their is no future for Greece's young other than hanging around and getting into trouble. Just like the last century when Greece lost its strong, family oriented, religious, tradional citizens to the US, Canada, etc..., the same will happen now. Only the new Greek immigrants don't have the same values as did the Greeks of the last century. They are incapable of starting churches, schools, and Syllogous like their predecesors did. I hope the schools they find here in America teach them how to be Greeks again.
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