Man explains why he did not consider himself a Canadian.
D.Μ.: This is how we grew up and we knew from a young age that we were a minority. We never identified ourselves with the majority in Constantinople. And this is probably our… our curse here as well. That never myself, myself and my wife, let’s say, it’s not just the Constantinopolitans and I can’t speak for the others, because other Constantinopolitans think differently. And here, I’m never going to characterise myself as a Canadian. Whatever I do, I’m Greek. That’s how I grew up, like that, with this and not with the blimpish meaning. Greek! This is what I am! What my past is. From where… from where I hail. I hail from there, I’m of this nation, let’s say. “[...] belonging”, as we say.
RES.: Because you said that you also felt a minority there and you feel a minority here as well…
D.Μ.: Here, I don’t feel that I’m a member of the mainstream people, in the… I’m not. Firstly, I don’t have an accent and in my English I don’t… Much… I think I speak them well. I don’t have an issue, I take exams and so on. But I do have an accent, because they all tell me “Please your accent. Where are you from?”. It doesn’t bother me, alright. Of course. And I tell my story, therefore I feel that I’m not a part of… The children who are born here might arguably feel, and I should feel, but I was born in Constantinople and here lies the difference between the children of Greeks who are born here. They feel Canadians. We ourselves in the City never felt Turks. That is, you should go wash your mouth, if you say such thing. “What? You a Turk? Bad boy!”. That’s how it was… Therefore, here we feel, we are not, that’s why we always say our country is Greece. We might not go there in the end.
