Greeks in New York Talk and Cheer, Then Debate Future After Referendum
It did not matter if they had left decades or mere months ago, pushed out by unemployment. Greeks in Astoria, the Queens neighborhood of blue-and-white flags and Orthodox churches, were riveted by the drama unfolding in Athens and anxious about what the coming days would hold for their homeland.
In cafes, bakeries and living rooms, over frothy frappÉ coffees and cigarettes from Broadway to Steinway Street, they waited for news about the national referendum on the terms of a proposed international bailout. On big screens, they watched cable news, while on little screens, they checked for messages from friends and relatives.
As word spread that their countrymen had rejected the terms of the rescue package, many people in the neighborhood cheered the vote but said they knew it had set their small country on an unknown course after years of austerity measures and economic crisis.
In Astoria, they might not have limits on their A.T.M. withdrawals or face the realities of a possible “Grexit,” from the eurozone, but New York’s Greeks were in a similar state of nervous excitement as the millions in Greece who cast ballots in the referendum and resoundingly rebuffed European leaders.
George Koutziouchas, the manager at Stamatis restaurant near the Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard subway station, said when one patron walked in with the news of the vote, he had to take out his cellphone to verify.
“Finally, Greek people voted against the misery,” he said, exhausted from the day. “Austerity is not the solution. Investment and prosperity is the solution.”
It was unclear what the results of the vote might mean for Greece. Some analysts say the “no” vote, which was favored by the governing leftist party Syriza and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece, is a public mandate that could strengthen Greece’s negotiating power before its creditors.
It could, on the other hand, mean default on their debt, financial collapse and expulsion from the eurozone and even the European Union.
Given these possibilities, Greeks in Astoria were measured — and mostly aligned with people in their homeland in embracing the vote. To explain their position, they spoke of years of hardship, mounting poverty and social ills that had multiplied under austerity measures.
Others spoke of protecting their national identity against Europe, Greece’s struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire, and, many said, the need to preserve the country’s soul for future generations.
A man who stopped in at Elias Corner, a fish restaurant, had more immediate concerns about what lay ahead for Greece. “I’m going to Greece next Thursday and I’m going with my stomach like this,” he said as he clenched his fist. He said he planned to pack lots of euros.
Meanwhile, at least one Greek cultural organization was planning to send clothes and other supplies, in preparation for shortages.
Astoria has long been settled as a Greek enclave; waves of immigrants arrived after World War II and a Greek civil war that left the Mediterranean nation impoverished. But recently there has been an influx of new immigrants, drawn not so much by the number of opportunities in New York as by the lack at home.
Menellaos Dhimalexi, a Greek-Albanian from Athens and a house painter, said he had arrived in New York two months ago and was looking for work to send money back to his family.
He concluded a heated debate with another patron at the Avenue Cafe, saying he appreciates his country’s historical ties to Europe, but he also knows too well the current reality of life in Greece and what that portends for future generations.
“I’m with Europe. Without Europe, we never would have been free,” Mr. Dhimalexi said “But we must do what the children say.”
He added: “My children say no.”
