Giorgos: from new arrivals to new identities through life in the neighbourhoods of Thessaloniki

When this interview was conducted in 2012, Giorgos was 24 years old, a student at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He had come to Greece at the age of four and in the extract, he discusses the first years of his life in Greece. Giorgos talks about the conditions under which he came to Greece, his schooling, the racism he has had to contend with, but also the sense of belonging he developed while living in different neighbourhoods around Thessaloniki.

Giorgos belongs to the first generation of people who moved to Greece shortly after the fall of the socialist regime in Albania. The newly-arrived migrants were often welcomed by the locals as ‘brothers’, but compassion and talk of ‘brotherhood’ were soon replaced by suspicion.

In an effort to assuage suspicion as well as facilitate everyday life and rapprochement with the local Greek population, these migrants developed certain practices, such as taking on Christian names. ‘I changed my name just because it made things easier’, said one of the interviewees. Despite changing their names, however, the newly-arrived migrants remained associated with the stereotype of the ‘Albanian criminal’ which was prominent in Greek society at the time.

Nowadays, we surmise that the popularity of this stereotype has waned to the point of obsolescence. With regards to stereotyping and racist hate speech among younger people, such as school students, it appears that the law granting citizenship to migrants’ children who attend Greek schools for a certain number of years (GG A 76/9.7.2015) was a turning point, paving the way for the elimination of discrimination against students of different national origins.