SLOVENE IMMIGRANTS IN USA

The first Slovenes to come to America arrived even before the USA emerged as a country. They were mainly Catholic missionaries, including Marko Anton Kappus (died 1717 in Arivecha, Mexico), an explorer of southern California and Arizona, and a reportedly smaller group of Protestants, who in the 1730s founded the town of Ebenezer, Georgia. In George Washington's liberation army we can trace soldiers with Slovenian surnames, such as, Gorshe, Vavtar, Vertnar, Cherne, and Vidmar. However, it was not until the arrival (1830) of Catholic missionary Friderik Baraga (died 1868 in Marquett, Michigan) in the Great Lakes region that Slovenian Catholic missionaries, who worked with both Indians and European immigrants, began to come in larger numbers. Until the beginning of the mass immigration of Slovenes in the 1890s, the USA was settled mostly by individuals; including priest and philosopher, Anton Füster, a political emigrant from Austria, and Anton Čižman, a scholar who traveled around America and lectured at the University of Alabama in Montgomery. They both returned to their homeland. The same period saw the arrival of individual travelling merchants, gold prospectors, miners and agricultural workers, and, after 1865, Slovenian farmers began to settle in Minnesota, founding the first Slovenian settlements in the USA (in the Brockway and Albany districts). Many merchants became rich businessmen in St. Louis (Missouri), Chicago (Illinois) and Cincinnati (Ohio). Preserved letters from emigrants as well as printed and archived sources are evidence that these first settlers adapted considerably well to American society. They were thrilled by the vast space in America, the free American spirit and the many business opportunities. At the same time, they drew the attention of their compatriots in the homeland to the fact that, in America, life and work were hard, but it offered a higher standard of living than at home.

The mass immigration of Slovenes, which took place after 1890, was halted only by the USA's new restrictive immigration legislation, including the introduction of the quota system in 1924. According to some estimates, more than 250,000 Slovenes immigrated to the USA during this time - this in view of the fact that in 1910 there were just 1,250,000 Slovenes living in Austria. According to the US census carried out in 1910, 123,631 people born in Slovenia and 59,800 people born in the USA declared Slovene to be their mother tongue. For the most part, Slovenes were based in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana and Colorado. They worked chiefly in coal and other mines, steelworks and ironworks, and a smaller number in agriculture and the service industry. Many of them became merchants, bartenders, and even businessmen; for example, Frank Sakser, a New York banker and travel agent. Slovenes founded Slovenian parishes, cultural associations, support organizations, newspapers, etc. The first Slovenian newspaper in the USA was Amerikanski Slovenec (The American Slovene), which began publication in Chicago in 1891. This was a time of close relations between Slovenian and American environments, reflected in newspapers, emigrants' letters and personal contacts. As Viljem Rohrman, the manager of the Agricultural School in Grm, near Novo Mesto (Slovenia), once said, in those days, children were more familiar with New York and Chicago than with the many cities in Austria where Slovenes lived until 1918.

Slovenian emigrants and their descendants fought as American soldiers during the First and Second World Wars, and many American pilots who were shot down over Slovenia by the Germans during the Second World War were rescued by Slovenian partisans.

After 1947, the USA witnessed the arrival of a smaller number of political emigrants who became the core of the opposition to the Communist regime in Yugoslavia, of which Slovenia was part after 1945. Current emigration to the USA is mostly related to the so-called brain drain, in particular people from scientific, artistic and cultural circles. In 1990, 124,437 people, a mere 0.05 per cent of the total population of the United States, replied to the question of ethnic origin that they were Slovenes by origin. Among these, 87,500 people reported Slovenian to be their primary line of descent. The majority (85.8 per cent) have American citizenship. If the first generations of immigrants had many problems adapting to American society due to their lack of knowledge of the language and the new social and cultural environment, their children and grandchildren have had no problems whatsoever in adopting the American way of life. Increasingly larger numbers have embarked on studies and many have become important and successful businessmen, scientists, cultural workers, artists, soldiers, politicians and so on. (See: Who's Who of Slovenian Descent in the United States, New York 1995, written by Joseph Velikonja and Rado L. Lencek).

Text by: Dr Marjan Drnovšek
Slovenian Emigration Institute
ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana