LORAIN — The 2011 Lorain International Festival got off to a good start today with a lively talk by Dr. Athanasios Thomas Dalagianni.

Dalagianni, who was born in Greece, lived under apartheid in South Africa and immigrated to Lorain County in 1977, represents this year’s spotlight nationality — the Greeks. He is chief of plastic surgery at all three major hospitals in Toledo.

Dalagianni spoke to about 200 people who gathered this morning at DeLuca’s Place in the Park for the annual breakfast to kick off festival week.

“We are talking about my culture, which is Greece, but we also are addressing so many other ethnicities,” he started. ”When you watch that movie, ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding,’ that speaks to so many different cultures, and I have so many friends in different nationalities who say ‘That is just like my household.’ ”

He continued: “When I talk about a Greek culture or a Greek community, it really is no different then being in any other international community.”

He discussed a list of the core values he believes bind the Greek community together.

First and foremost, religion.

“Religion is what binds us,” he said. “If you’re not Greek, you’re not Greek Orthodox. If you’re Greek Orthodox, you’re Greek. That’s the way it goes.”

He also mentioned culture and language, family and, of course, food.

“We associate certain foods with who we are,” he said.

Dalagianni recalled coming to Cleveland at age 11 in December 1977, which happened to be the blizzard of 1977.

Having lived in Greece and Africa “the only snow I had ever seen was in a postcard,” he said. “I know this is going to seem really silly, … but I thought snow was like cotton.”

He recalled running out of the airport in a T-shirt and shorts with his brother, jumping into the snow and only to “very quickly realize that snow is cold, and it is wet.”

Dalagianni praised the strength of immigrants coming to America and making it their own.

“Whether it’s your parents or your grandparents, they left everything they knew, and they started all over again,” he said.

“Yes, I am Greek, but I’m Greek-American,” he said. “I take the best of my culture, just like the rest of you take the best of your cultures, and we are going come and live in a wonderful place like Lorain where all these cultures can be shared.”