In the introduction Mary writes “Immigrant Woman is a fictionalized biography of my mother, but every incident in it is true, and derived from first-hand experience as her oldest child.” One aspect of the book “What kind of women come out of a highly-controlled, rigid atmosphere? Answer: passive women; dependent women. This is according to the books, the studies, the conclusions. None of that applied to the children of the Immigrant Woman. Never were daughters more rigidly, tightly controlled; never did any develop into more individualistic, independent women.”

The SUA online book club brings members across the country together and there are several regulars! We meet quarterly to read and discuss books to help us better understand our Slovenian heritage as it pertains to the main Slovenian immigration periods to the U.S. and elsewhere. We also read books that explain what was happening in the homeland or nearby countries in these same time periods. Please read the article “SUA Zoom Book Club” to see the first six books we read (we started in the fall of 2021): Click here to see full article.

Members, email suabookclub@gmail.com for more details and the link to register for quarterly SUA Book Club Zoom meetings. Registration is required for each discussion in order to receive the Zoom link.

If you would like to lead a separate book group, please send your proposal and it will get forwarded to the SUA Board for review. An additional book group(s) could meet a few times a year or a limited series could be organized around a specific time period, a specific topic or a selection of books by a specific author.

“One is compelled to say that for Slovenians, even in times of struggle for bare existence, books were as vital for survival as loaves of bread.” Aleš Debeljak (1961-2016) – Slovenian Literato