Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Fall/Section017/George Ellison

Overview

George Ellison was interviewed for the Federal Writer's Project by Mary A. Hicks on February 16th, 1939.

Biography

Personal Life

George Ellison was born in Turkey to his two Greek parents. At the time of his birth, Ellison's parents were being held captive by Turkish noblemen — Ellison's father was a tutor that the Turks captured to teach their children. Ellison's father taught him to read and write and he grew up attending Turkish public school. He enlisted in the Turkish army at the age of sixteen and served until 1905. In 1906 he immigrated to the United States. He worked in New York until he received his citizenship papers in 1918; he was immediately drafted to fight in WWI. When he returned, he spent another seventeen years in New York. During this time, he got married, and in 1935 Ellison and his wife moved to Raleigh, North Carolina(after receiving letters from his cousin in Raleigh, he realized he detested the New York climate and wanted to live somewhere warmer). They moved in with Ellison's cousin and his family, and soon after had a daughter. Ellison's greatest ambition was that his daughter received an American education and become a teacher. He had high hopes for her to become fully assimilated into American culture and marry an American man. Ellison had a deep appreciation for democracy and was very patriotic, but wanted he and his wife to maintain some of there traditional Greek culture. In Raleigh, he and his wife attended a Greek Orthodox Church, but were going to let their daughter choose her faith when she grew older.

Professional Life

When Ellison arrived in New York, his cousin and uncle met him and offered him work in their cafe in the Bronx. He left this job to fight in WWI, but began again immediately upon returning. He worked in the lunchroom for seventeen years as both a chef and a waiter. When he realized he would like to move to Raleigh, he asked his cousin there if he could provide him employment in his lunchroom. George worked for his cousin for three and a half years, making fifteen dollars a week. He saved some of this money so that in 1938 he could open a lunchroom of his own. He and his staff of four served 'home cooking', and his diner quickly became a town favorite. Ellison boasted that "once they eat with me they come again".

Social Context

Greek Immigration from Turkey to the United States in the Early Twentieth Century

In the early 20th century, there were around two million Greeks living in the Ottoman Empire. Under Ottoman rule, all non-Muslim religions, although tolerated, were treated as inferior to Islam. The discrimination of Greeks under the Ottoman Empire dates back to 1822, when during the Greek War of Independence thousands of Greeks were massacred on the island of Chios. This showed an important caveat in the empire's tolerance of non-Muslim religions: that the “empire tolerated non-Muslim subject populations, provided they acknowledge their legal and institutional inferiority in the Islamic order of things”(Meichanetsidis 2015, 7). When the Greeks questioned their status in the empire, they were brutally oppressed.

Before WWI, the Ottoman Greeks were the most educated non-Muslims in the empire and also played a big role in the economy. The Muslims viewed this as a threat and misconstrued the Greeks as ungrateful; Greeks were seen to reap the benefits of the Ottoman Empire without being loyal to Turkey. Strong Turkish nationalism developed for natives, and as a result, genocide and enslavement occurred for the Ottoman Greeks. George Ellison’s father fell victim to this enslavement, captured to teach Turkish children before Ellison was born.

For Ellison, the discrimination experienced in the Ottoman Empire lead him to migrate to the United States. “Greeks were among the last of the Europeans to immigrate to America during the Great Migration… Immigration and Naturalization Services data provide documentation that approximately 421,000 Greeks immigrated to the United States between 1890 and 1921”(Hellenic-American Project 2021, 2). Ellison wrote that “Americans do not appreciate their government enough. They couldn’t unless they lived for a while in Turkey, expecting the Turks to capture or kill them daily”. Ellison’s immigrant status shaped both his values and his experience in America.

Immigrant Voting Rights in the Twentieth Century

In the twentieth century, citizenship and voting rights were not one and the same. In many instances, citizens of the United States were denied voting rights despite their citizenship status. After WWI, women and immigrants alike believed they deserved suffrage based on their contribution to the war effort — it was seen almost as a form of compensation. However, many immigrants returning from war faced a similar problem: the "disenfranchisement of immigrant declarants"(Gunter 2020, 6). An immigrant declarant was any immigrant who had been granted citizenship but had not yet gone through the naturalization process. This was significant because immigrants were barred from voting under the pretense that they were not yet naturalized. Immigrants often supported the women's suffrage movement and were a key group who could have passed the 19th amendment. It was for this reason those who could vote were interested in disenfranchising them. Alternatively, some white women wanted to disenfranchise immigrants as well. White women wanted to view themselves as superior to these immigrant populations.

Ellison was granted American citizenship right before WWI. This was inferably so that the United States would be able to quickly draft him to fight in the war. Ellison was never interested in voting, but if he had tried to vote, he would have been kept from it due to his status as an immigrant declarant. Contrastingly, Ellison hoped his daughter would vote one day. Despite his personal disinterest in voting, he was very patriotic and had faith in democracy. This is the experience of many first generation immigrants. “There are at least two possible explanations...the optimistic explanation is that immigrants appreciate how well the US government functions because they remember that their home governments were quite bad. The cynical explanation is that immigrants and their children have not had enough experience to realize how poorly these American branches of government function"(Nowrasteh 2017, 25).

The Success of Greek Immigrant Entrepreneurs in the South

In the early twentieth century, Ottoman Greeks made their way over from Turkey in mass numbers. To make a living, Greek immigrants began entering restaurant and service industries in southern cities, typically at much higher rates than their native born counterparts. The reason for this was that at this time, immigrants from Europe were oftentimes more literate and more accustomed to urban life than their native born southerners. This made them better equipped to manage businesses. There were different factors that made immigrants particularly successful in this business. Immigrants established restaurants that served a previously unserved population: middle and lower class workers. Before the establishment of immigrant eateries, restaurants were largely seen as a luxury for the rich. Immigrants found a new target market by creating a social experience centered around serving American food. Another reason for immigrant success in this business was the Greek categorization as “ethnologically Caucasian"(Davis 2019, 7). In the early twentieth century, the south was racist and segregated. Therefore, the status of white immigrants rose above that of native born blacks, "giving them access to economic stability at almost the same rate as native born whites in the south"(Davis 2019, 8). Finally, Greek culture called entrepreneurs to look out for their fellow Greek entrepreneurs, subsidizing failing businesses temporarily and helping when needed. Each of these factors contributed to Ellison’s great success as a restaurant owner in Raleigh, North Carolina in the late 1930s.

Bibliography

Davis, Marni. "Toward an "Immigrant Turn" in Jewish Entrepreneurial History: A View from the New South." American Jewish History 103, no. 4 (10, 2019): 429-456. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ajh.2019.0046. http://libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/toward-immigrant-turn-jewish-entrepreneurial/docview/2330799224/se-2?accountid=14244.

Gunter, Rachel Michelle. "Immigrant Declarants and Loyal American Women: How Suffragists Helped Redefine the Rights of Citizens." The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 19, no. 4 (10, 2020): 591-606. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S153778142000033X. http://libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/immigrant-declarants-loyal-american-women-how/docview/2449156169/se-2?accountid=14244

Meichanetsidis, Vasileios Th. “The Genocide of the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, 1913–1923: A Comprehensive Overview.” Genocide Studies International 9, no. 1 (2015): 104–73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26986016

Nowrasteh, Andrew, and Andrew C Forrester. “Immigrants Recognize American Greatness: Immigrants and Their Descendants Are Patriotic and Trust America’s Governing Institutions.” Cato.org, February 4, 2019. https://www.cato.org/publications/immigration-research-policy-brief/immigrants-recognize-american-greatness-immigrants#patriotic-assimilation

“The History of Greek Immigration to America.” Hellenic-American Project. Accessed October 7, 2021. https://hapsoc.org/greeks-in-america/