Nase Novine, May 05, 1982

              "Grainer" and the same happened with the Croats and Serbs;
it appeared that only the, Czechs and Poles were "always
conscious of their nationality (and) never hesitated about
saying who they were (p. 320). It is the other nationalities of
what is today Yugoslavia who receive the longest and
perhaps harshest treatment in Adamic's text, while the
Slovenes are hailed as the "most cultured and civilized of
Bohunks", next to the Czechs (the Slovene American critics
of The Bohunks seem to have missed this).
It is the final description of the "Croat or Slovene" colony
near Los Angeles, where the author lived for a time in the
twenties, that has caused the greatest confusion among
Adamic's opponents and first critics. The scene thus
deserves to bi quoted in full:
There lived the "Austrians" or "Bohunks", In low,
unpainted shacks or bleak-lookin- g apartment houses along
unpaved streets that swarmed with unclean children in torn
garments. Nowadays the Bohunks still live, preferably, at
the end ot the (street-car- ) line — in the Balkans, as they
call the Yugoslav colony in the California town where I
lived; but now their houses are painted, their streets paved,
and their children are neater, for Prosperity has blessed
them, too. But they are still Bohunks. On Saturday nights
and Sunday afternoons they get together, and, apart from
the prim and proper Nordics and the "better element"
generally, they sing, play their stringed instruments and
accordions, dring, fight, shout and roar to their heart's
content" (p. 321).
As we can see, Adamic's intention here was not, as some of
his critics would have it, to portray his Bohunks as unclean or
as drunkards, but rather, among other things, to goodnatu- -
redly and amusingly present the change in their living
standard for the better.
The third part moves to a presentation of the general
condition of most of the Bohunks, from their arrival in
America, for "two, three years, four at the most", to that
tragic point when they became "caught in America",' and a
return to the old country became a "hopeless dream". This
transient condition of the Bohunk is realistically portrayed
and points to a great number of related themes. For instance,
Adamic stresses that, "in their inmost thoughts, the majority
of them who came here as adults, no matter how long ago,
are still more in the old country than in America..." (p. 322).
Further, Adamic points out that among the Slavic groups in
America, in his opinion, the Slovenes are the most favourably
inclined toward assimilation, although Bohunks on the whole
had little interest in American society or politics, even after
they gave up the idea of returning home. After Adamic
mentions a short list of three successful Slav scientists
(Hrdlicka, Tesla and Pupin) in America, he offers the
conclusion that, "as politicians the Slavs are usually not
very adroit; the Slav is too sentimental, naive and honest a
soul for such things, even after he has gone through the mill
here" (p. 322).
In the fourth and last part Adamic returns to his
interpretation of the human condition of the Bohunks in their
first years in America and focuses on their social and cultural
life. Adamic stresses their initial social possitlon, as "with
few exceptions, low-pai- d manual labourers, performing the
most dangerous and dirty tasks", (p. 323. .Then, following a
long realistic, often amusing expose of the Bohunk saloon at
the height of immigration, the author turns to the Catholic
Church, which he considers in the post-saloo- n era as "the
most successful public enterprise in every Slovene, Slovak or
Croat community in America", and adds, "as in the old
country", (p. 323). But Adamic's energy is devoted mainly to
his characterization of what he considers the three groups of
Bohunks. First of all, he finds In most Bohunk settlement a
split into two antagonistic camps; "the church members and
the unbelievers, mainly Socialists. The unbelievers, on
course, are in a minority and largely Ineffective... The alien
Catholic parishes, with their parochial schools, are
strongholds of medievalism", (p. 323). For the others, he
j continues:
There is a third group or, rather, mob - perhaps stronger
numerically than the other two put together, but unorga-nized.
It is made up of lost, loose souls, not exactly infidel, but
keeping out of the church: yokels inflated with the conceit
born of the American idea of equality, distrustful of
everything but the most obvious fakes; an uneducated lot
in whom ignorance and prejudice create a formidable
combination (p. 323).
Today it is interesting to note that, while the first and second
groups from Adamic's Bohunks have publicly stated
something against his categorization, the third has remained
silent to this day.
In relation to culture, Adamic appraises the Bohunk
newspapers and magazines, declaring them, with only one or
two exceptions, "all very dull" and afraid to print a line that
might "disturb any reader's prejudices", or "put a strain upon
the brains of their readers". The Bohunk editors, he
continues, betray little knowledge of American literature or
politics, and are intellectually "only slightly above their
readers".
At this point Adamic exhausts his theme and calls his
picture "bleak". But he adds that he looks for a silver lining.
Indeed, as If he were attempting to undermine the darker
aspects of his portrait of his fellow immigrants, Adamic
climaxes his narrative with that often-quote- d passage about
the suffering multitudes of American immigrants "who did
not belong", and whom Adamic later was to refer to as
"dung". He writes:
America lured over by the million; she needed their
hands even more than they needed her dollars, and made
use of them. In her mines and mills she killed them by the
hundreds, crushed their bodies, robbed them of their best
human qualities, made them into machines, into slaves.
Although of the lowest strata of society in the countries
from which they came, they brought with them not only
strong backs, but also much spiritual energy. But America
wanted only their brawn... America got the best of them.
(P. 324)
These memorable lines clearly reveal Adamic's profound and
sincere admiration for his Bohunks, not to mention his
emotional attachment to them, and his realization of the full
extent and implication of their spiritual collapse in America.
And his final portrait of the Slovene singers on St. Clair Ave
in Cleveland, which was then predominantly Slovene, must
be read in the same light: "They had, apparently, had a few
drinks, and felt sentimental. They sang well, but I wished
they would stop and go on. The song would sound beautiful
back in some quiet village in Slovenia, but here in Cleveland,
In America, no. ..Where the hell did they think were anyhow?
Back in the old country?" (p. 324). Indeed, this literary sketch
is a tragic one.
The Bohunks did not contain any particularly new
discoveries about the life of our or other Slavic immigrants in
the United States. All of its themes published in the
American Mercur, without exception, had been in one way or
another already used in Slovene American literature, with the
same or at least similar conclusions. A numer of titles from
writings of authors such as Etbln Kristan, Ivan Molek, Ivan
Jontez, Joze Zavertnik, Frank Zaitz, Frank Cesen, Louis
Beniger, Andrej Kobal, Anton Slabe, and others, testify to
this. Molek's novel Zajedalci (The Parasites), published in
1920, alone treats a large number of themes contained in
Adamic's publication on the Bohunks. It is evident that
Adamic gathered material for his composition also from other
Slovene American writings of his time and added his personal
observations about life in the Bohunk settlements. What Is
new is only that he collected and analysed all of these themes
within the framework of a single publication, and that he
expressed some of the aspects of the immigrant's life and
difficulties much more provocatively than those before him.
Finally, it appeared in English, which occurred fo the first
time in the history of Slovenes in America. It is here that we