A Milestone


This issue marks the fourth anniversary of NEO, and while it is no longer “neo,” it is now established as a vital milepost of the Greek American media landscape and we have striven every year to improve it (Dimitri Rhompotis has worn the big hat in these efforts, as he often does in life).

Most of our past issues from the past four years are now available online and our website has become a familiar place to “hit” when catching up on the Greek American scene. Books and music and civic endeavors are prominently featured, as are interviews with newsmakers and celebrities, both here and across the ocean (NEO is also distributed to the Parliament in Greece).

Did we expect NEO to become so familiar and visible a part of Greek America when we started it four years ago? We hoped so, because both Dimitri and I and Kyprianos Bazenikas were all veterans of the Greek American media and knew both its potential and its shortcomings. We wanted NEO both to address those shortcomings and blaze new trails of its own, and over the four years of its existence, I think the magazine has made a splash and people have acknowledged both its presence and its influence—which is not easy to do in the backwater where the ethnic press is often relegated.

We have established our Person of the Year, with some of the biggest names on the Greek American scene awarded, we have interviewed the movers and shakers both in public and private life both here and abroad, we have provided a visible forum for all types of culture, and we have tried to do in every issue what we set out to do from the very beginning of this venture: to spotlight the people of all generations who contributed and contribute still to our way of life and get them, if possible, at least to acknowledge each other.

We set out to bridge the generation gap four years ago, which every immigrant group inevitably has, as does every succession of generations, and though we’ve scratched the surface of the people who have contributed to our heritage and culture and our prestige as Greeks in America, we have a lot more who we need to acknowledge and deserve mention in the future issues of NEO.

We hope you will be there with us; our journey has only begun and the gallery of portraits of worthy Greeks, young and old, renowned and forgotten, has a long way to go before it’s fully-stocked. Greeks have made a contribution to every walk of life for most generations since Socrates, and we’re not through yet.

Hopefully, NEO will be a small part of it.

Thanks for the journey.

Dimitri C. Michalakis

©2009 NEOCORP MEDIA

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