Anon fact: My last name is a source of countless arguments among my family. From as far back as I can remember during 4th of July get-togethers, my relatives would heatedly rant about it in languages I couldn't understand. Is it Italian, Slovenian, Austrian, Croatian, French, Independent?
It begins back in the late 1800's when my Great Grandfather Johan * emigrated to America. His point of departure was the sea port city of Trieste, Italy (current), but at the time it was an Austrian city. Before then, it had been in the possession of Italy, France, and even it's own autonomous municipality, independent of any neighboring nation. The cause of the problem is it's location in the north east corner of Italy, which is little more than a tiny sliver of land, with humble Slovenia surrounding it, and the more historically dominant Austria and Croatia very nearby.
The location has long been a center for shipping and trading going back to ancient times, and in more current times a region of rich natural resources which helped fuel the industrial revolution for southern Europe. Everyone wanted Trieste, and at times through the centuries, they all laid claim to it by way of wars or treaties.
How and why many in my family would say our name is Slovenian is unknown, other than that is where Johan lived and worked before coming to America to work in the mining operations that created the booming steel industry throughout north east Ohio. Johan himself didn't have allegiances to the old world. Like most immigrants of the time, they were thrilled to get away from the s-hole country they left, with it's history of wars and corrupt monarchies. When he did leave for America, Trieste had more Italians living and working there, with Slovenians the second dominant group. There were actually more Slovenians living in Trieste than in the Slovenian capitol! The whole region was a mess, and with the coming two big world wars, it became an even bigger mess!
Trieste was spared much of the damage other European cities faced when the bombs started falling at the outbreak of WW2, but ethnic Slovenians in the Trieste region were treated very badly by the Italians, beginning with the forced Italianization of their surnames, and then being sent to concentration camps when Germany took control. Following WW2, the region was partitioned off under the control of Allied forces, with a significant portion under Russian authority, which would factor in greatly when the communist nation state of Yugoslavia was created with all of the Baltic nations subjugated under it's authority.
All of the above was the background to all the arguments I would hear on those 4th of Julys as a boy. No doubt for many of them, all those injuries and scars were very fresh, given that many of them had fled communist Yugoslavia. How and why you claimed your ethnicity was a matter of importance to them! To those of us born in America, including all of my cousins, uncles, aunts and grandparents, none of that mattered. They considered all of those old arguments a waste of time, and a source of humor. My uncles especially thought all of it was hilarious. Competitive athletes in their youth, they were used to the challenges of a good face-off with an opponent, with plenty of smack talk and goading. For fun among themselves as they aged, and especially during reunions, they would insert fake arguments about our ethnicity guaranteed to generate real arguments. The more heated, the more funny.
To this day, my uncle * will start up an argument that our ethnicity is Austrian. I added to the argument in the 1990's when I learned from a Croatian born co-worker, that our family name originates from the island of Braj, the largest island in the Adriatic Sea bordering Croatia just off the city of Split. He was very insistent, saying that his close friend in college was named ****, whose family roots go back many generations in Croatia, and particularly the island of Braj. So, I say we are Croatian islanders. For all we know, my Great grandfather Johan left Braj to work in Slovenia before emigrating to America!
Anon fact: Most of my family are conservative. Many were history and civics teachers. We see through the Dem's division and control politics. They are communists.