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/> http://glassrbije.org/E/index.php?option=com_content <http://glassrbije.org/E/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11898&Itemid=28> &task=view&id=11898&Itemid=28 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]