San Pedro Street Renamed in Honor of Area'sCroatians


September 24, 2003 E-mail story Print
San Pedro Street Renamed in Honor of Area's Croats

By Jessica Garrison, Times Staff Writer

The days when Balkan upheavals echoed in San Pedro's neighborhoods seem to be comfortably in the past, prompting Croats to turn their attention to getting civic recognition for their heritage.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to name a portion of 9th Street in San Pedro "Croatian Place," and dozens of aging Croatian immigrants, along with Croatian Consul General Sanja Bujas Juraga, crowded into City Hall to celebrate the honor.

"So happy today for our street," said Antonija Rancic, 63, one of about 35,000 Croats who make the harbor area one of the largest Croatian communities in the United States. "Everybody be so proud."

Croats began immigrating to Los Angeles in great numbers at the end of the 19th century, fleeing the harsh regime of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

On San Pedro's bluffs, they found a landscape that resembled the sun-kissed islands and inlets of the Dalmatian Coast. And in the waters off the harbor, they fished as they had for generations in the crystal blue waves of the Adriatic Sea.

In many respects they were model immigrants — successful business people who sent their children to college, supported St. Anthony's Croatian Church and fell in love with America — while holding on to their taste for plum brandy, strong coffee and cigarettes.

But they could not escape the ethnic tensions that roiled their homeland.

Until the 1990s, Croatia was part of Yugoslavia, a Communist country that also included Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Macedonia and Kosovo. The government, headquartered in the Serbian city of Belgrade, made it a crime to sing Croatian songs or fly the Croatian flag, and many Croats believe Serbs were treated to nicer apartments and better jobs.

Halfway around the world in San Pedro, the community was split between those who called themselves Croats and those who referred to themselves as Yugoslavs, even if they were of Croatian descent, according to Josip Mardesic, a controller who also serves as president of the Croatian American Club.

Mardesic said that in the 1970s several Croat-owned stores in San Pedro were bombed, and he himself received a threatening letter. Some community members blame the Yugoslavian government, while others say the culprits' identities remain a mystery.

But tensions in San Pedro ran high, and played out at community events as well. A riot erupted at San Pedro's Daniel Field in the 1980s when the local Croatian team played the local Yugoslav team.

"There were Croatians who wanted a free Croatia, and others who saw unity within the Yugoslav nation," said Anthony Misetich, a former president of the Dalmatian-American Club, which used to be called the Yugoslav-American Club.

Yugoslavia's civil war brought the two Croatian factions together. In the 1990s, as Yugoslavia disintegrated and Serbia and Croatia fell into a bloody conflict, the Croats of San Pedro directed their anger toward Serbs. San Pedro's Yugoslav club dropped its rivalry with Mardesic's Croatian American club and changed its name to the Dalmatian Club. "No more Yugoslav," one Croatian man declared at the time.

Today, tempers have mellowed and civic boosterism is the focus.

But until this year, no street in San Pedro bore witness to the area's Croatian heritage. In July, Councilwoman Janice Hahn pushed a successful plan to change the name of a section of Palos Verdes Street to Ante Perkov Way after the recently deceased founder of San Pedro's best-known Croatian restaurant, Ante's.

This summer, Mardesic and other members of the Croatian American Club asked Hahn to rename a portion of the street in front of their club. When the change was announced Sunday at St. Anthony's Croatian Catholic Church, the staid congregation broke into applause.

"It feels great," Mardesic said. "This colony that has been here since 1800s, they have always been very humble, work hard, be productive and go home to their families, and that's all they ever ask for. To have a street named after them, it is great."

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Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

Source:http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-croatsep24,1,2045392.story?coll=laheadlines-california  

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A block-long stretch of Ninth Street in San Pedro was
renamed Croatian Place in honor of the community's century-old
Croatian/American community.

The City Council voted Tuesday to change the name of the street between
Grand Avenue and Gaffey Street. The ceremonial "Croatian Place" signs will
go up soon, but the street section officially will remain Ninth Street.

"Croatians were pioneers in San Pedro, going back to the late 1800s," said
Joe Mardesic, president of the Croatian American Club. "This gives some
recognition to this history."

Efforts for the street name change began about two years ago when club
members approached Councilwoman Janice Hahn with the request, said Vladimir
Lonza, past president of the San Pedro Croatian-American Club.

The street designation is a way to honor the historic Croatian-American
influence in San Pedro, said Lonza, who came to the United States in 1959.

"It's symbolic and special for us old-timers," Lonza said. "We're getting
older and some of us are passing away. This says, 'We were there.' Even if
the club disappears, it will be Croatian Place."

Source: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/6851287.htm

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Letter to European Commission and answer
 

Mr. Romano Prodi
President
European Commission July 22, 2003
Rue de la Loi 200
B1049 Bruxelles, Belgique

Excellency:

As Croatians in the Diaspora we follow closely the political and economic
developments in Croatia. Especially of interest to us is to see Croatia
admitted as an equal partner to the EU and NATO in the near future.
Therefore we find it very disappointing to read your recent speech in the
Croatian Parliament in which you mentioned "years" before Croatia would
be eligible for EU membership. The majority of the Croatian population
approves of Croatia's entering into the EU and we find the conditions
which you mentioned in order to be accepted inconsistent with ones' other
countries were required to meet.

You mention for example "the return of refugees". As you must realize,
Croatia has only recently come out of a brutal war of aggression by
Serbia, in which these Croatian Serb refugees were the ones who rebelled
against Croatia and with the help of the Yugoslav/Serb army killed some
twelve thousand and "ethnically cleansed" several hundred thousand
Croatians in their own country, destroying and plundering their homes and
properties.

No other country in the world has been forced to forgive and forget so
soon what has been done to it. May I remind you that the Czech Republic,
which is accepted into the EU, has not allowed its Sudeten German
refugees to return or compensate them for their material losses even
after more than fifty years. This was not a requirement by the EU for the
Czech Republic. Therefore, is it not obvious that the EU stand in regard
to Croatia and the refugee situation is quite unfair and inconsistent.
Furthermore, one has to realize that it was first the Croatians who were
driven out by the Serbs (1991-1995), years before in 1995 Croatia
liberated its Krajina territory and the Serbs left on the orders of their
own leadership.

Consequently, the returning long-time Croatian refugees must have
preference for housing. Since Serbs destroyed most of Croatians' homes,
out of necessity Croatians have been settling in some of the Serb ones'.
Croatia after the ravages of war simply does not have the money to build
homes for all the refugees, Croatian or Serb. This problem should be
understood by the EU and not held against Croatia.

The other great inconsistency is the requirement for Croatia to open its
borders without visa requirement to Serbia/Montenegro and
Bosnia-Herzegovina. If the EU wishes open borders between nations, why
has Slovenia, next in line for EU membership admittance, been allowed to
seal its borders with Croatia while Croatia must open its borders to its
recent aggressor Serbia? Certainly the EU leadership must know about the
huge criminal element in Serbia, Bosnia and Albania, with drugs, white
slavery and people smuggling among other criminal activities in addition
of providing easy access to terrorists and Islamic fundamentalists. Just
why would then the EU require Croatia to freely open its borders to be
inundated with such undesirables? Croatia does not want them or need them
any more than any other European country. Obviously, such an EU demand of
Croatia is totally unfair and detrimental.

Last but not least, Slovenia was part of former Yugoslavia and will be
accepted into the EU, on what grounds is Croatia less eligible? Slovenia
was never in history a state, while Croatia was one of the oldest
European kingdoms centuries ago. Croatia was never part of the Balkans as
the border was between Croatia and Serbia. It divided the Western culture
and Christianity from the Eastern Orthodox, Byzantine and Muslim culture
and religion. Croatia only became part of the Balkans when, without the
privilege of a vote, it was united with Serbia and Slovenia into
Yugoslavia in 1918. Croatians are simply not Balkan people, they are
Central and Mediterranean Europeans, historically and culturally.

Excellency, please consider these facts and do not let the EU push
Croatia into these Balkan associations to which it does not belong any
more than does Slovenia and which goes against the wishes of the Croatian
people.

Very truly yours,


Hilda Marija Foley
American Croatian Association
13272 Orange Knoll
Santa Ana, Ca. 92705 USA

Hrvatske izmedju autopoiesisa i alopoiesisa

Postovani!

Projekt koji ima za cilj Kako povecati GNP (bruto drustveni proizvod u
Republici Hrvatskoj s 20 na 100 milijardi USD pod vodstvom profesora dr.
Ante Lauca s Ekonomskog fakulteta u Osijeku trazi suradnike koji zele
sustavno suradjivati na ovom programu.

U sklopu toga pozivamo nase gradjane u svijetu koji su voljni suradjivati,
imaju znanja, dobre volje, tehnologiju, materijalnih sredstava i inovacija
da slozno radimo na realizaciji povecanja GNP u RH.

Stoga molimo sve zainteresirane gradjane u inozemstvu i domovini da svoja
misljenja, prijedloge na kojim bi podrucjima zeljeli suradjivati bilo
iskustvima, savjetima, organizacijskim aktivnostima ili podizanjem
samostalne gospodarske aktivnosti kako bi pridonijeli izgradnji ovoga
projekta, dostave na dolje navedene adrese.

Ujedno nas zanimaju i vasa iskustva koja ste vec imali u suradnji s
Domovinom kako bismo u buduce mogli raditi na poboljsanju i daljnjem
razvijanju gospodarskih odnosa.

Na tom poslu treba raditi zajednicki, ustrajno i to oni koji misle da
znaju, mogu i hoce, te oni koji nemaju dovoljno znanja, ali imaju volje da
se ucenjem i radom formiraju u uspjesne osobe.


Kontakt osobe:

Voditelj projekta: prof. dr. Ante Lauc (lauc@efos.hr)
Voditelj za korespondenciju: Ivana Ivancic, prof.(anavicicnavi@yahoo.com)


Voditelj za korespondenciju: Voditelj projekta:

Ivana Ivancic, prof. prof. dr.
Ante Lauc