YakimaGulagLiteraryGazett

the recognition from East Ethnica makes it so, as does my long ago, descent from people of the Balkans as does my interest in the region as do several journeys....

I suppose I should tell about how I got involved.
I am a person of extremely mixed heritage. Most American people are... I am on my mother's side, Irish, Scots, French,Native American, Swedish, Polish, Hungarian, and due to some royal marriages, Bosnian.I am not kidding about the royal marriages. There are lots of actual House of Anjou people on my mom's side.
My father's side is Russian, German and part of my dad's family lived in Austria before comeing to the States.They cannot be traced with any sureness. I have asked one of my aunts if anyone were of Bijeli Hravat descent or from the Bergland area. She would not rule that out, because 'all the women in that end of the family have REALLY high cheekbones, they don't look German!' There is a lot that just can't be verified on that end. I find that frustrateing when I can trace people surely who lived in the 15 century and I have no clue about people in the 18th and 19th centuries!
The Russian end of my dad's family descend from the first rulers of Russia, the Rurikovich dynasty. I said before my family like most American families is very mixed, but beyond that, it was mixed before arrival in the United States.
The cultural emphisis of my up-bringing was very un-Balkans, very un-Slavic generally.
Mostly I think growing up in the U.S. in the '50s, it was not exactly great to have too much involvement or attachement to the Slavic culture.
No one really knew much about Slavic culture, and there were a lot of negative stereotypes about Slavic culture generally.
A lot of the negativity had to do with Communism. This was the eara of the Red Scare, and the McCarthy hearings.
I hung around Irish people and Mexicans, Black folk, and felt out of place among all of them for no reason I could understand.
Until college, my only teachers who were of Slavic ancestry were a wonder ful Social Studies teacher, Miss Kukovic, she was LOVELY not just physically but in terms of really knowing her subject and loveing to teach. With her name the kids from the ghetto called her 'Miss Kukubitch. She went to Europe dureing her vacations and took marvelous pictures of everywhere. I liked her because she was more open minded. She was for example the first teacher who, in discussing the Middle East did NOT display intolerance toward Muslims. She showed her slides at lunch time, and you could get extra credit by going to see these slides, and writeing a short essay about them. I didn't really NEED the extra credit in that class but I used to go anyway and do the essays. I learned about her trips back to her homeland along with her trips to Greece, Italy, France, etc. She didn't have all that Red Scare attitude either, that made her different. My other High School teacher who was from Slavic roots was less in touch, she was an art teacher later in High School.
A lot of Slavic people in America do lose their roots. Sometimes it is moveing in search of work, and sometimes it has to do with protecting themselves against predjudice.
I had a very strong reaction to the war in BiH, it bothered me a lot, and I avoided reading about it, or watching news coverage. The reason was simple, I was in a job in marketing. I had to ahve a 'positive attitude' a 'good attitude' in order to do keep my job. I was aware of the basics, actually it turns out I was better informed than the average American. I do read things like the New Yorker, and I do listen to NPR. Several people there had good information.
There were later events one could only describe as life changeing. I will talk about them later.