SERBS IN AMERICA
August 23, 2010
SERBS IN AMERICA is the latest book written by journalist and publicist Marko
Lopušina, who wrote it together with his son Dušan. For two hundred years now,
Serbs have been conquering the country which the white man seized from the
American Indian, it reads at the very beginning of the book. The book also
treats the contribution of Serbs in the building of America, about their life
there and their connection with their homeland. The author was interviewed by
Ljiljana Sinđelić Nikolić.
US President Barack Obama recently spoke to students of Washington University
about foreigners that helped build America, mentioning, among others, the
famous Serb scientist Nikola Tesla, says Marko Lopušina, adding that,
according to records, the first Serb that arrived in America was Đorđe Šagić,
in 1815. He was a stowaway on a ship and, in order to earn his fare, he cleaned
fish in the kitchen. When he stepped on the American soil, a local policeman
asked him what his name was, which he did not understand, so he replied that he
had been cleaning fish and the policeman thought his surname was Fisher. George
Fisher had a splendid career in America. He was a customs director in
Philadelphia, fought in the conquest of New Mexico and Texas, etc. He founded a
Serbian colony and church in San Francisco and wrote memoirs that were
proclaimed best adventure novel at the time. He married four times and had many
descendants, one of whom, Lari Malete, his great-great-grandson, is a
well-known art photographer, who promised he would come to Serbia in quest of
his roots, says Marko Lopušina.
For many years, America was a land of promise for numerous immigrants from all
the parts of the planet. The same applied to Serbs. The number of Serbs that
have moved to the USA has been estimated at more than a million, over half of
whom have been totally assimilated, since the practice of the USA’s immigration
policy is to make their new citizens renounce their citizenship, put the US
flag in their yard and keep, say, the Serbian flag, only in their rooms or in
church. In a population census of 2001, some 360,000 Serbs wrote they spoke the
Serbian language at home. The cities populated by most Serbs are Chicago,
Milwaukee, New York, Detroit, Cleveland, San Francisco, Pittsburgh. However,
there are many more Serbs than the records show, who did not state their
Serbian origins for various reasons, although America is a country in which
nobody asks you about money, religion or nationality, says Marko Lopušina.
In the USA, as is the case everywhere else, the Serbian Orthodox Church is the
main pillar of a Serbian colony. The first Serbian church in the USA was built
in 1894 – it was St Sava’s Church in Jackson, near San Francisco. The most
important sanctity, however, is St Sava’s Monastery in Libertyville, Illinois.
It was there that the famous Serbian poet Jovan Ducic was buried before his
mortal remains were brought to his native Trebinje and it is also the resting
place of Serbian King Peter II Karađorđević, who is thus the only monarch
buried in the American soil.
After the gold rush in California, immigrants from Serbia went to newly-opened
mines in Montana, Pennsylvania and Illinois and so the peasant working class
turned into the industrial working class. Everything happened in the first half
of the 20th century. Most Serbs, however, went to the USA in the 1990s, during
the latest conflicts in the Balkans. We have ten generations that have grown up
in the USA and each of them, even when they were losing touch with Serbian as
their mother tongue, remained faithful to the Serbian cultural heritage. That
happened not only in church, but also in various folklore associations and
ensembles, some of which are very popular all over America, says Marko Lopušina.
He says it is very difficult to pick out just one of the Serbs with outstanding
careers in the USA, as this is a large country that gives a chance to all.
However, he would like to mention a fellow-journalist, Voja, Walter Bogdanović,
a Serb living in America who has won three Pulitzer Prizes, which is something
no American has achieved ever since this most famous prize for journalism was
founded. There are, for example, as many as 34 Serbs with a Ph.D. in Houston
alone. They often come to Serbia, but they do not like media attention. Another
Serb, Milan Simic, has an interesting idea. He wants to gather young people in
Serbia who are engaged in energy issues and to found the first Serbian oil
company in the USA. One of the main members of that company would be Ruža
Marija Tomić, i.e. Rosemary Tomić, who has her own oil company OKSI, which has
been estimated at 66 billion dollars, with a profit from three and a half to
seven billion dollars. Americans like to compete and so, she has been ranked
160th on the Forbes List of the World’s Richest People. The Serbs have five
Academy Award winners, two congressmen, one governor, some one hundred eminent
scholars, many film directors, actors, musicians and sportsmen, says Marko
Lopušina.
The book treats Serbian immigrants both in the past and in the present. It does
not only cover their biographies, but it also draws serious inferences about
the social, political and cultural scene of the USA, in the past and today. The
author writes about anonymous and famous people alike and through interesting
and often witty stories and dialogues he describes the life of Serbs on the big
American continent and their connection with their Serbian homeland. The most
important thing of all is that American Serbs have succeeded in preserving
their national identity and have not become fully immersed in the American
lifestyle, says Marko Lopušina, the author of the book SERBS IN AMERICA.
www.lopusina.com <http://www.lopusina.com/>
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