Americans From Yugoslavia

Sociological study of the Yugoslavian immigrant.

Early in the spring of 1932, when I received a Guggenheim Fellowship requiring me to go to Europe for a year, I was thirty-three and had been in the United States for nineteen years. At fourteen--a son of peasants, with a touch of formal "city education"--I had emigrated to the United States from Carnoila, then a tiny Slovene province of Austria, now an even tinier part of a banovina in the new Yugoslav state. -- Pg. 3.

Early in the spring of 1932, when I received a Guggenheim Fellowship requiring me to go to Europe for a year, I was thirty-three and had been in the United States for nineteen years. At fourteen--a son of peasants, with a touch of formal "city education"--I had emigrated to the United States from Carnoila, then a tiny Slovene province of Austria, now an even tinier part of a banovina in the new Yugoslav state. -- Pg. 3.

It is 1968. Across America, citizens march for social reform and an end to the Vietnam War. Amid all this, Surya Green--a New York-born, self-absorbed, modern young woman--is a student at Stanford University, blithely pursuing a graduate degree in communication. Her view of life's purpose unexpectedly starts to expand when she says "Yes" when her Stanford film mentor selects her for a writing job at Zagreb Film in Yugoslavia. Family and friends marvel at her courage, or foolishness. The Zagreb studio may be the renowned producer of the first non-American animated film to win an Oscar, but it is in a country most Americans fear and reject as "communist." Green has no idea that her stay in Yugoslavia will ultimately take her beyond national borders to the outermost limits of her mind. Although penned in the first person against the backdrop of Tito's Yugoslavia in historic 1968, Once Upon a Yugoslavia is, paradoxically, most timely. The global economic crisis has compelled people to question excessive consumption and redefine success and the good life while embracing new lifestyle priorities--just as Yugoslavia required of Surya Green decades ago. Once Upon a Yugoslavia addresses this present-day longing while also offering a lively history lesson. History books have objectively described the former Yugoslavia, but Once Upon a Yugoslavia gives personalized look at the everyday lives of people in pre-1989 Eastern Europe that shows how the experience transformed one young woman's American Dream. Chronicling the sights, sounds, and ups and downs of the everyday Yugoslav existence, Green speaks to both the positive and negative aspects of the contemporary phenomenon known as "Yugo-nostalgia." The pros and cons of the American and Yugoslav societies fly to and fro during Surya's conversations with a host of colorful characters--some of whom she lodges with and travels the countryside with, others of whom she dates. In this strange Big Brotherish country of perplexing language, culture, and customs--which gives Surya an early experience of living a monitored life without privacy in a land where paranoia is contagious--more than once readers will hear her sobbing at night. Ultimately, the Yugoslav social experiment--its plus points, at least--were to give Surya Green a considerably altered view of the American values with which she was raised. And it is what led to that perspective--a personal transformation that started for her in explosive, memorable, life-changing 1968 in Tito's Yugoslavia, and continues to this day--which makes Once Upon a Yugoslavia such a unique and remarkable book. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Surveys Yugoslav immigration to the United States and discusses the contributions made by Yugoslavs to various areas of American life.

Excerpt from The Native's Return: An American Immigrant Visits Yugoslavia and Discovers His Old Country Guggenheim Fellowship requiring me to go to Europe for a year, I was thirty-three and had been 1n the United States nineteen years. At fourteen - a son of peasants, with a touch of formal city education - I had emigrated to the United States from Carniola, then a tiny Slovene province of Austria, now an even tinier part of a banowna in the new Yugoslav state; In those nineteen years.. I had become an American; ih deed, I had often thought I was more American than W'ere most of the native citizens of my acquaintance. I was ceaselessly, almost fanatically, interested 1n the Amer ican scene; in ideas and forces operating in America's national life, in movements, tendencies and personalities, in technical advances, in social, economic, and political problems, and generally in the tremendous drama of the New World. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

In this revised edition, Warren Zimmerman, the last U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia, updates his prescient account of the catastrophe occurring in the Balkans. He provides an sightful analysis of what has happended in Bosnia since the Dayton accord, of the war and ethnic cleansing taking place in Kosovo, anf of why America had to become involved.