In 1904 immigrants from the island of Marmara established the first mutual aid organization from the Ottoman Empire in the United States. It was established in Los Angeles, California and was named The Marmarinon Benevolent Society of Afthoni. It was officially incorporated in 1909. According to Dr. Jim Dimitriou, “There was a big Marmarinon organization […]
Dr. Yiorgo Topalidis will visit communities in eastern Pennsylvania between 10 – 19, 2023 to conduct interviews with descendant of migrants from Asia Minor, eastern Thrace or the islands of Imbros, Tenedos or those in the Sea of Marmara please contact us to schedule an interview. Interview Scheduling
Read more "Fieldwork Announcement – eastern Pennsylvania May 10 – 19, 2023"
If you are located in Florida and you are a descendant of migrants from Asia Minor, eastern Thrace or the islands of Imbros, Tenedos or those in the Sea of Marmara please contact us to schedule an interview. Interview Scheduling
From left to right, these three refugee children from Buca (pronounced Bu-ja), Turkey, a town southeast of Smyrna (modern Izmir), are Irene Sklavou, Efstratia Hatziathanasiou, and Emanuel Sklavos, their brother Thanasis is not present. In an interview, her daughter Anna asked Irene to tell her story, to which Irene replied, “I will tell you my […]
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the friends we made during our visit to Texas. In fourteen days, we traveled 1023 miles, visited four cities, and had the honor of interviewing 26 sets of descendants of migrants from the late Ottoman Empire who donated a total of 263 artifacts to […]
This past May I visited the Pacific Northwest to conduct interviews with descendants of immigrants from the former Ottoman Empire. During the next few weeks and months, I will share some of my findings. I would like to begin by introducing a new addition to the collection of documents which are a part of the […]
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On September 13, 1922, a great fire erupted in the Armenian neighborhood of the city of Smyrna — modern Izmir — Turkey.[1] The city’s inhabitants fled their homes in a panic and made their way to the city’s quay. There they awaited passage out of the city without any guarantee of its arrival. The stories […]
Read more "Return to Smyrna: Transnationalism and Citizenship in a Time of Social Collapse"
The displacement of Syrian refugees to European shores over the past five years has led US public opinion to revisit themes from the academic discourse about immigration. Isolationism, nativism, and restrictionism permeate modern public opinion and in the process transport its audience through a time warp to the early-twentieth century. These themes reverberate in the […]
Read more "The Acropolis and the Madonna: A Case Study of Refugee Deportation"