Greek Odyssey in the American West

A Greek Odyssey in the American West begins with Helen Papanikolas discussing her childhood in Helper, Utah. Helper’s population was as odd a conglomeration as could be found anywhere in the West: French sheepherders; Chinese and Japanese restaurant owners; African American, Greek, and Italian rail and coal workers; and finally, Mormon, Jewish, and Slav businessmen settled in and around Helper, a way station for the Denver and Rio Grande Western railroad. This book, however, is not Papanikolas’s life story but the story of her parent’s individual emigrations to the United States, their meeting and courtship, and their migrations within the West as they pursued job opportunities. Papanikolas movingly and eloquently recreates and interprets the experience of parents trying hard to succeed in America without losing their rich heritage and who ultimately enrich the culture of their adopted country.

"A frank and haunting portrayal of two Greek children who grew up to become parents of Americans. . . . Papanikolas has mixed oral history, folk and family lore, primary documents, on-site observations, secondary sources, and personal remembrances into a heady mixture, animated with characters no longer present in the Greek-American world, pungent with smells and sounds long changed, rich in proverbs and songs near forgotten. This is a vivid description of an ethnic community in the American West."—Western Historical Quarterly, "A searching and revealing history of the author’s parents and a probing look into the creative self of an accomplished immigration and ethnic historian. . . . As history, the study transcends a mere account of two immigrants and captures the essence and flavor of immigrant life in Utah and the West."—Journal of American History

Helen Papanikolas lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is the author of Small Bird, Tell Me: Stories of Greek Immigrants in Utah and The Apple Falls from the Tree: Stories.