Hrvati! Transcript
- They're still derogatory remarks. I hear, these damn Croatians, they're so pushy or these damn Croatians, they just really don't know their place. There's some feelings that still persist. The Croatian Republic is today, part of Yugoslavia, but we have been able to practice our folk ways here in this small community of Anacortes. My mother, my father, and my two sisters, and I arrived here seeking political refuge after the fury of the Second World War. We came to Anacortes because my grandmother had come here in 1938. Remember at grandma's, the very first time we picked strawberries in grandma's yard, where the house is now? All this plenty, all this food reminds me of how much time we spent in hunger, in the most dire and the most base of circumstances where we were herded into compounds in Italy. And I still have some scars from the disease that you get from malnourishment, where you just have these big sores.
- I have a permanent scar to remind me of the hunger. This scar right here on above my eye. Was fighting over an orange, just a piece of an orange. And every day I look at myself in the mirror and I think I got that fighting over food.
- I always grew up with a real fear, and always being afraid that someone was after us, or that there would not be enough food, or there would not be a way out to America. And then finally when we left the camps, and then coming to the port, to the Statue of Liberty and to be turned away was a terrible thing.
- You know, you think of that inscription about give me your poor, and we couldn't get in.
- Mother had typhoid and she couldn't come.
- I just cannot forget that night when we had to sail out of the harbor. Hmm. It was the Statue of Liberty, and know that we had to wait another while before we tried to come into America. And then that night, of course, when we came back, finally, on the Santa Rosa, and it was toward evening, and I saw the silhouette, and this time we knew that we'd never leave it again. My mother's first job was working in the fields alongside the migrant workers, and we went with her. I was nine years old. It was all physically hard work, but I loved the smell of the freshly tilled earth. They were wonderful days, but especially beautiful was the fact that you were on the ground of that beautiful Skagit Valley in a country where you breathe free air. And we took great gulps of it. Gosh, it was just like a dream because you really were free. You really were free, this was extraordinary. In the fields when we worked, we would sing, chanting, harvest songs. The colors of the valley, all those wonderful primary colors, I think of those as us, as our people, because I guess it's so strong and there's nothing, there's very little that's subtle about it. People are very definite, and we have very strong opinions, and we have very strong feelings about things.
- I thought about why our people are like they are.
- Excuse me.
- It seems like from the beginning of time they have been feuding. And I think a lot, some of the things that previous generation, when we came, previous generations had already brought with them feelings of-
- Animosity,
- Animosity, jealousy. You know, some, they brought a lot of those feelings them unfortunately.
- [Maria] I think all those animosities that we bring over with us are part of the gene structure of our people.
- How do you feel about it?
- I think a major part of this is our closeness back to the old homeland.
- Yeah.
- Kept in touch.
- And it continues. And we've maintained our culture so strongly that we really haven't changed our habits much.
- Will you please stop cleaning 'em so fast, you're taking all my strawberries.
- I'm sorry. It's in-bred.
- I know.
- That's genetic, right?
- Right.
- Didn't they say so, it's genetic? My father, like many others in the family for 500 years before him, was a sea captain from the Dalmatian Coast, which is now part of Yugoslavia. And he turned to fishing in Anacortes. And I might say that my step-grandfather pioneered a lot of the commercial purse seining that is done today. In fact, probably 90% of the technique that is used in purse seining in Puget Sound today was pioneered by Croatians. We're from the island of Korcula. Our family was born in Vela Luka. And it's quite similar to Anacortes. And the San Juan Islands are remarkably like the Dalmatian Coast. The only difference is that Puget Sound, the islands here have the proximity of that gorgeous, rich alluvial Skagit Valley, which we did not have on the Dalmatian Coast. The Croatians came to these islands around 1879, and the other Croatians followed, and heard that these were beautiful islands and this was a hospitable place on which to live. They came in several waves. The first wave was seeking economic betterment and the second were seeking political refuge. When people, who are not Croatians come up and meet one of us, they think we're wild. Well, we don't think we're wild at all. We just enjoy life. But we'll have a outdoor barbecue with traditional herbs and sauces, and we use olive oil and rosemary, and garlic, and that's the traditional sauce. We put it on fish, pork, lamb. That's the all purpose sauce. One of the most important things about our culture is the extended family and keeping families together, the different generations learning from one another. All these things in the cuisine, the music, my mother taught them to us. We just partake of the festivity and joy to the utmost because we know the difference between joy and pain because we've lived it. You have two Dalmatians together and you have enough for a song. When you get a group of Croatians together, you have this feeling that comes out. All the families or families that knew one another in Vela Luka, because there's only a few families in Anacortes that are not original Vela Luka people.
- Okay, here we go.
- Out of calls to dance at parties and to dance in the park evolved this desire to be a performing company. I don't know where the spirit comes from because a lot of the young people that dance with us are second generation, maybe it's in the genes. But from the point of exuberance and joy, that's something you can't produce, you can't fake it in the company of 65 people. We try to keep 90% Croatian. You know, there's no way I can explain that. It's just that there's a feeling that comes out when we have a group of our people together. It's a living thing because if we don't keep it up, it's gonna be lost. We have the parents, the children, the grandparents all involved together, and the different generations learning from one another. It's very difficult to get ancient instruments. Therefore, we have our own instrument maker now. So we are keeping alive traditions that are possibly lost in Croatia.
- I like this instrument a lot. I made it. It was a new experience for me, I've never seen an instrument like this, let alone make one. And when I started working with Vela Luka, they asked me if I could make instruments for them. I said, sure, I'll give it a try. This instrument happened to be made by word of mouth more than seeing a design. I grew up without not even knowing what Croatia was. Yugoslavia, yes, but not Croatia. And last year, I was offered a job to work with Vela Luka. And I said what's Vela Luka? What's Croatia? And as it turns out, the dance and the music, I liked. What I liked most about it was the fact that you had the young people, the wee-little ones and the big ones, they were all dancing together.
- [Maria] My sisters disagree with the concept of a performing company. And given the fact that we're direct people, my sisters and I have had very colorful and longstanding arguments about this.
- I feel that the charm, the beauty of that group is not to be professional. Even if you are limited, it is important, more important to me to have the correct thing, the true thing, the real thing, than to have something that is professional.
- And we have to give a true picture of what the culture is made up of
- So they know what the hell they're singing about. Why are they wearing these costume?
- Well, yeah, but see, if you talk about recreating the-
- No, no, not talking
- Recreation.
- about recreating.
- Recreate the village life, that village life is extinct. We're living in the western world. We're trying to do it to the best of the ability to preserve those dances, to preserve those songs and that music and the joy that we have in singing them, regardless of whether we understand them totally.
- But you know what-
- Because there's nuances in those songs that you can't translate.
- Maybe thinking, modernizing, whatever, is missing the point.
- What? Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur because I'm trying to keep alive our dance company. And when we are ready for a very big performance, it takes many, many, many long, hard hours of work. And it takes incredible effort to take a kid, train him in the music. Our big performance for the season was to go to Seattle and dance at Meany Hall. Seeing that everyone gets the right costume at the right time is an immense job. And the women that do this are seamstresses. And our wardrobe mistress June Sapovich are just wonders. The first challenge, of course, is for them to be authentic. If we can't get the real thing, we have to make it look like a real thing. So we find weavers, milliners, leather workers, all people that can reconstruct like the original and ourselves too. For instance, this is one excellent way to keep up the stitchery
- Where's the egg basket?
- The egg basket's upstairs.
- [Maria] Mom and dad and the kids are dancing. Grandma and grandpa are helping with costumes, what have you.
- Last time I saw it, it was up there.
- None of us get compensation for dancing. We do this out of love.
- Help.
- [Maria] Whether it's Prigorije, or whether it's Bosna or whether it's Dalmatia. In all of Croatia, the whole idea of marriage has a ritual, and the procession itself is celebrating the fact that a marriage has happened and wishing them all well for a very happy future. The way that the dance company has an effect on an audience is something that is really genuine. I've seen lots of dance companies that have superb technique that don't have this joie de vivre.
- What I love about our culture and what has remained is choosing our life's partner. And from a very early age, I think I was about in the eighth grade when I knew, I was 14 years old when I knew who my husband would eventually be. And having children, you have to have strong children so you marry into good stock.
- Good stock.
- Like one relative said, you marry ugly, you be ugly, you have ugly kids if you marry ugly. So you have to marry, for instance, my grandma would say these things are passed on,
- The whole attitude of of the people was choosing a mate that would ensure the survival of the strongest. To me, it applied in every way. When I was about 12 years old, my parents decided Nick Petrish would be a very suitable mate for me. And it helped very much that Nick was a real leader in the community and was very, very nice looking besides. So it wasn't difficult at all for me to fall madly in love with Nick. When you chose your mate, you had to be strong in Croatia. One of the very important ways to do this was in ritual dances. Like in the the men would pick out women and this dance would really go on for hours. And if you became exhausted too soon, then you were not fit for the rigors of marriage.
- [Priest] And our lasting joys to Christ, our Lord.
- Amen.
- Our father.
- Who art in heaven.
- Our religion is so much a part of our lives. Every major undertaking we do, whether it's commercial or, doesn't need to be spiritual, we make everything spiritual. For instance, when my brother built the big boat and there had to be the religious celebration or it wasn't official, we had to have the priest christen it and we had to have the blessing of God on the ship. And my mother, of course, christened the boat herself. And interestingly enough she said, I christen you, the Adriatic Sea. She got very emotional and she wept because she called it my Blue Adriatic. After a situation where we had repression both physically and spiritually, to come across the Jordan, so to speak, to the land of milk and honey, we really have an opportunity to live to our greatest potential because the only limits that we have are those that we put on ourselves. Nobody is going to tell me because you are a Croatian, because you are a woman, you may not try the impossible. It may sound pat and corny, but I regret that many of the people that know nothing else, but this wonderful system take it so much for granted. We have lived through the others and that's why we love and respect this one so much. There's something unsinkable about our people. We have a tremendous courage to try things because we have the opportunity and it's possible here. For instance, my young brother, taking on a huge endeavor of a crab boat.
- The hell are you doing here?
- [Maria] Now I don't know how financially successful this venture is going to be, but at least he had the courage at the age of 25, without a great deal of financial backing, to go pursue the building of this boat and to try these horizons.
- Being able to be with my people, it's being able to eat the food, it's being able to laugh without having to be careful about that laughter. It's being able to say things that are immediately understood. My father has an incredible ability for enjoying life.
- Don't mind the water, huh? In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
- [Maria] A lot of our people, a lot of the men in our dance company are fishermen and hence have to go off to Alaska. And so we end the season before fishing commences. Our went to Alaska and his wife accompanied him, who is one of our dancers, and they both went on my father's boat. Our family in the old country was a very strong family and an influential family, and we were extremely well off. And today there is nothing that I own, nothing that I wouldn't readily turn my back on because I know I can survive. I know how to do the basic kinds of things, and if I'm near the sea especially, I know how to survive.
- Yeah.
