Wherever he went during his tenure as the United States Ambassador to Greece, George Tsunis made it a point to remind everyone he met that he was the son of immigrants originally from a tiny village in western Greece.
Ambassador Tsunis now returns to the United States leaving behind an enduring legacy. It’s no wonder that Greece’s Defense Minister Nikos Dendias praises the diplomat for building and maintaining “strategic” relations between Greece and the United States. Other Greek politicians are sure to follow suit with their own words of appreciation for the Ambassador’s work.
But I would like to take the time to point out that Ambassador Tsunis’ most successful endeavor was the reboot — or shall I say a kind reminder — of the historical, human connection that exists between Greece and the United States.
As the generations pass and immigration from Greece to the United States all but ends, as the imagery of the “Aunt from Chicago” returning to the village becomes confined to Greek folklore, now is the time for people from both sides of the Atlantic to remember that Greece and the United States share a special, human bond.
It is of course unavoidable that geopolitics plays a leading role in the strategic alliance between Greece and the United States, especially given the unreliability and instability of Turkey.
The past few years have also seen billions of dollars of American investment flowing into Greece — Amazon, Pfizer and so many other U.S. companies have opened local offices, research centers and cloud computing hubs, while corporate titans like Chase spent hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring part of a well-known Greek financial services company called Viva.
Similarly, over these past four years, politicians and CEOs from both countries have crisscrossed the Atlantic, in many cases thanks to the Ambassador’s initiatives aimed at strengthening bilateral economic relationships between the United States and Greece.
At the risk of exposing myself to criticism though, the billions of dollars of investments in technology, infrastructure and defense which (understandably) define, or sometimes dominates the story of the Greek-U.S. relationship have little meaning compared to the human stories that first forged the strong bond between our two nations.
During the heyday of Greek immigration, whole village populations left behind war and poverty, re-settling in towns and cities across the United States. Brothers left behind mothers and sisters and began new lives in this prosperous New World.
I’ve never taken a scientific survey, but I would venture to say that 70-80% of all Greeks living in Greece know of a close relative that emigrated to the United States at some point in the past century.
Reminding Greeks of these ties was, in my opinion, Ambassador George Tsunis’s biggest and most significant accomplishment during his tenure as U.S. Ambassador. During his trips throughout Greece, including to his parents’ ancestral village, he recounted how people would often share their own fascinating family stories of immigration.
I can also recall myself how, during lunch with the Ambassador at a restaurant in Kolonaki, we were visited 4-5 times by patrons who approached him to say that “my sister lives in California and my brother in Michigan,” or “My great-grandfather left for Colorado and never returned.”
My own aunt used to say that “Everybody in Greece has a cousin or an aunt or uncle in America.”
Ambassador Tsunis’s four years of hard work, his own family narrative as well as his welcoming demeanor and accessibility re-ignited an awareness within Greeks. It was through Ambassador Tsunis that Greeks were reminded of a Greece that’s “bound by blood” with the United States.
And that’s Ambassador Tsunis’ true legacy – a legacy that will be very difficult to top.
