OXI*: You Should be Proud to be Greek

How I found my voice.

Ioanna Engarhos
Jul 23, 2017 · 3 min read

My name is Ioanna.

And it is pronounced Yo-Anna. It’s not that hard, but for my whole life every year there’s teachers who get it wrong. I was the only kid who had to raise their hand and correct them. And I hated it. I hated it when I heard the other kids laughing behind me and I hated the way my teachers paused before they said my name.

So sometimes, I wouldn’t correct them.

It wasn’t a big deal; my friends didn’t care and I was never called on anyways, so I managed.

Until one day in grade 8 (I think that’s still middle school for the United States) my parents went to the parent-teacher interviews, and you can imagine how that went.

“Hello, we are Ioanna’s parents.”

“I’m sorry, who?”

“My daughter, Ioanna. Curly hair, a little bit shy?”

“Oh, yes, yes, Ioanna.” (They pronounce it as I-o-Anna.)

So when my parents came home, my dad yelled at me. I was paralyzed and traumatized and I could see my sisters giggling on the staircase behind my dad.

“You should be proud to be Greek!” Said my dad, quoting one of his favourite movies. (If you want to meet my dad, just watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It’s his spitting image.) It was my dad’s worst nightmare to realize his daughter wasn’t sticking up for herself. Because according to him, ‘you will only ever have your name.’

So the next day I had no choice but to raise my hand and correct my teacher. I had to repeat it a few times because my voice was so small, and I remember how quickly my face heated up under the stares of my classmates.

But my life changed after that.

I should be proud to be Greek. Everyone else is, and I have spent the rest of my life trying to stick up for myself. To say no to someone and to walk with my chin up.

And that helped me when someone cut me in line at McDonald’s, or when I told my parents I was taking a year off before college. I forced myself to put my foot down and look my dad in the eyes and say no, you can’t talk to me like that. It saved me from dating someone who would talk badly about my family. It gave me courage to turn around in the theatre and tell that girl to stop talking. I spelt out my name and repeated it and forced people to say it until I was satisfied.

Sometimes I listen to the Greek news and I hear about all of Greece’s problems. With kids my age around my area, they don’t know much, except all they know is how to eat and party. And I defend us and say, hey, listen, we are so much more than that. (But they’ll never really believe me. I could see it when they eat our yogurts and our gyro pitas that that’s all we’ll ever be to them.)

All of these years Greece has been shot down and beaten and ruined, but we’ve always managed to return.

And do you know why?

It’s because we will look at you in the eye, inches from you, and tell you no. We will make you say our name until it’s all you know and we will be proud when we rise again.

*Oxi means no.

Thank you for reading!

Ioanna Engarhos

Written by

18//MTL//I am a writer, a student, a sister, and a receptionist.

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