Migratory Birds visited the residence of the United States Ambassador in Athens, George James Tsunis, to interview him.
The discussion revolved around his life before becoming an ambassador, the skills one needs to succeed in this office, and what might be the secret to becoming successful. At the same time, Ambassador Tsunis talked to Migratory Birds about the Embassy’s projects pertaining to migrants and refugees.
Could you please tell us more about your life and how a Greek immigrant ended up being an ambassador?
My mom and dad grew up in Greece, in a very small village in the mountains about an hour outside of Nafpaktos. My father left in 1953 to go to the United States, and my mother in 1961. They grew up during World War II and the Civil War in Greece. It was a very difficult life, but my mother would tell me: “We were poor, but we had love and we were happy”.
They left their country with very little money. They couldn’t speak English and they traveled four and a half thousand miles to establish a new life. I went to public school. When I started, I couldn’t speak a word of English. Because of some outstanding teachers who cared, I was able to go to college and law school, build a business, and now have the opportunity to serve in government as President Biden’s ambassador to Greece.
What skills do you think are vital for your position as ambassador?
When you’re engaging diplomatically with people, I have a cardinal rule in every interaction: to treat everyone with a very high degree of respect and courtesy. The approach that I would take is that we have a common challenge, we have a common problem. You need a degree of humility. The greater amount of respect and courtesy you extend, the greater amount of success you’re going to have.
We want to know if you have any projects for migrants and refugees.
The U.S. government has been the largest contributor to UNHCR for many years. In addition to funding for refugee support at the international level, and since the start of the refugee crisis in 2014, U.S. Embassy Athens has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in support to local NGOs that offer services to refugees – such as Metadrasi, Arsis, ActionAid Hellas, and others.
More recently, the Embassy partnered with Doctors of the World to organize an exhibition and offer capacity building workshops that support refugees from Ukraine and other countries. We also worked with NGO Solidarity Now to offer STEM workshops for Ukrainian youth.
From 2018-2021, we supported a refugee scholarship program in Athens and Thessaloniki, providing more than 150 scholarships to young refugees to study in Anatolia, ACG-Deree, and the American Farm School. We continue to work with the American College of Greece to support scholarships for 40 refugee students from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Ukraine, and other countries.
We have also supported several educational and capacity building programs for refugee women, partnering with organizations like Melissa Network, and Irida in Northern Greece.
What is the secret to becoming a successful human being?
I don’t think you guys need advice. I didn’t have the same type of upbringing some of you have had. I feel a little uncomfortable giving anyone advice when I haven’t lived through a set of circumstances.
But I’ll give some general life advice. You can’t go backwards. Some horrible things have happened to people that I’ve gotten to know which are very difficult to overcome and I don’t know if I would be able to overcome them. But we work with the circumstances that are ahead of us. If you happen to be in a new country, you don’t forget your heritage, you don’t forget your culture or your language, because it’s who you are. But you also seek to acclimate yourself to civil society, you’re a good citizen, you help others, and you go to school. That is the magic recipe for everyone.
Do you have any advice for teens?
This is the advice I give my children: If you do your best and you work hard and you don’t quit, it doesn’t matter what happens after that.
I know that life is cruel and unfair, and for many much crueler than anything that I have ever experienced, but please have a mindset that you go out every day and seek some happiness. It is my dream, that in the future we don’t have to have a publication like yours. Unfortunately, that day is not today, but we need to work together to make sure that migration and refugee issues are dealt with a sense of dignity, love, openness and acceptance.
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