The raisins' crisis
After the war of independence (1830), the vines in Greece were cultivated with raisins. During the second half of the 19th century the Corinthian currant was the number one exported product and it was for the Greek economy what coffee is to Brazil. However, the collapse of the trade of raisins dealt an irreparable blow to the local economy and society. More than 350.000 people emigrated between 1890 and 1915 mostly to
the USA.
Violent August: The 1918 Anti-Greek Riots in Toronto - Documentary Film The Greek immigration to Canada was peaked in the late 1960s. In August 1918 the socioeconomic conditions during the First WW led to an explosion of racist violence, focused on Greek immigrants of Toronto. 10,000 veterans of the First WW, for four days were demonstrating with 40,000 residents of Toronto, against Greek immigrants destroying shops and exerting violence in any Greek.
After 1955, labor migration to Western Europe - first to Belgium and then (since1959) to West Germany - was constantly growing. The Greek government during the decade 1955 - 1965 saw the migration of farmers and workers as a means of addressing the economic problems plaguing the country.
IIn March 16, 1964 thousands of Istanbul Greeks, who, most of them, had never been to Greece, were being deported and they were only allowed to take 20 kilos of baggage and 20 dollars with them. Fifty thousand exiles, who were accused of being too Greek in Turkey and too Turkish in Greece, would soon abandon their home and citizenship, never to return. The real property of the deported Greeks was pledged by the Turkish government as property that was abandoned by the statutory owners.