In the beginning, there was this: "My parents were Greek."

When I began to interview Dr. James Estafanos Alatis about his life and career, he told me, “One might want to start from the beginning. And how I got involved in languages at all.”

I said, “Yes.”

“My parents were Greek,” he said.

For Dr. Alatis, his life’s work in foreign language education, the teaching of English as a second language and advocacy for less commonly taught languages begins with Greek. From a Greek community of steel workers and small business owners in Weirton, West Virginia, Dr. Alatis pursued a vigorous academic career that encompasses work in education policy, educational leadership, and teaching. The stories of his origins and his sense of self as a Greek American highlight the transcultural nature of his experience. This exploration of Dr. Alatis’s life examines his fluid movement between cultural narratives of Greece and America, his interaction with the borderland language of Americanized Greek, and his dual experience of belonging to and alienation from the Greek community.