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ethnicity are very strong based on the fact that over 90% of the participants honor and celebrate Greek heritage within their families and they are in frequent contact with family members who do not live in their home. The attitudes towards retention of ethnicity in the same domain are very diverse. It is shown that the participants preserved certain values such as expecting their children to have a college degree and to take care of their parents when they get older. However, family traditions such as 'father is expected to have the final say' and 'sons should be given more freedom than daughters' have experienced a dramatic decline across generations.

Isajiw (1993) asserted that the retention of ethnic identity from one generation to another does not necessarily mean retention of both behaviors and attitudes or retention of different domains in the same degree. Some components may be retained more than others and some may not be regained at all. Therefore, we should not assume that the ethnic identity retained by the third generation is the same type or form of identity as that regained by the first or the second generation. He further distinguishes various forms of ethnic identity. For example, a high level of retention of practice of ethnic traditions accompanied by a low level of such subjective components as feelings of group obligation - is ‘ritualistic ethnic identity’. On the other hand, a high intensity of feelings of group obligation accompanied by a low level of practice of traditions - is ‘ideological identity’. Negative images of one's own ethnic group, accompanied by a high degree of awareness of one's ethnic ancestry - is a ‘rebelling identity’. Positive images of one's ancestral group accompanied by a practice of highly selected traditions by the third generation - is an ‘ethnic rediscovery’. In this sense, our study demonstrated that the Greek Americans either have ‘ideological identity’ – such as in the language domain - or ‘identity rediscovery’ – such as in the ‘cultural activities’ domain.

To summarize, Greek America is changing its identity from one generation to another as Greek identity has different meanings to different generations. On one hand, all generations maintain those traditions which are central to their lives, such as the Orthodox Church and the sense of pride of being Greek. On the other hand, ability to speak Greek has experienced the most significant decline as the younger generations may not perceive it is as important as the First generation. These results are relevant to the theory of deconstruction and reconstruction of ethnic identity (Isajiw, 1993). Isajiw suggested that in a culturally pluralistic society like the United States, there is a large number and a great diversity of ethnicities with one 'mainstream' socio-economic structure as the legitimate locus of aspirations for all groups. Thus, pressures are exerted on all the aspects of ethnicity – to adapt. The process of deconstruction and reconstruction is the mechanism through which this adaptation is achieved. Deconstruction consists of some objective aspects of ethnic identity losing their meaning and use or retaining the meaning but no longer used. Although some aspects of one’s identity may be abandoned本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。