Joanne Tica interviewed Peter (Pete) Lalic on several occasions to learn more about his mother, Draga, a refugee, and immigrant to the United States. The Obrad Lalic family settled in Gary, Indiana, where Pete and his siblings, Millie and Mike, grew up. They were active members of the Serbian Orthodox Church community in Gary.
My mother wanted me to become a grocery store manager. In that job, I would stay safe and she could get fresh groceries.
Memory of Draga Lalic by her son, Peter Lalic
Q: Tell me what you know about your mother’s youth.
My mom, Draga Lalic, lived in a rural agricultural area and grew up on a farm in Dalmatia (former Yugoslavia, now Croatia). We never talked a lot about her youth and ambitions. Her younger brother eventually became a competitive bicyclist in Europe and the family thought that it was a weird thing to do. Her youth was limited because of the timing of the Balkan civil war and WWII. The wars limited both her future and the futures of her peers and family.
I doubt if they even thought about the future as they didn’t know if they would survive the war.
Q: How did your parents meet?
They met when they were younger and got to know one another better in the Chetnik organization. They joined the Chetniks together. Other than their Chetnik memories, they didn’t talk about their relationship too much with us.
(NOTE: Chetniks are members of a Serbian nationalist force that formed during World War II to resist the Axis invaders and Croatian collaborators. They also fought a civil war against the Yugoslav communist guerrillas, the Partisans).
Q. You mentioned your early memories of the DP (displaced person – refugee) camps. Did your mother ever speak of her experiences there?
My mother often spoke of the challenges of being 25 years old and taking care of three young kids – all under 4 years old – in the DP camps. She was responsible for her family’s survival in that environment. It was not an easy life for her or for anyone in the camps.
She remembered that the ethnic groups stayed together in the camps for survival. Nothing was as important as survival. The camps set up their governments based on ethnicity. The ethnic groups tried to attain some type of normalcy and set up schools, police departments, sporting events (boxing), and soccer teams, to keep people occupied and engaged. Kids born in the camps had birth certificates that were issued by the priests in the camps, not by the state.
My father was a police officer in the DP camp at Buchholz, Germany. Although he eventually got a pension for his work there, my mother was not thrilled about his role.
Q: Your parents eventually emigrated to the United States as refugees. They had other options but held out for the United States. Do you know why?
America was the “land of opportunity”. Women looked at resettling more realistically than men because they were caring for children and others. When opportunities were available for permanent resettlement, my parents began the discussion about “where do you want to go” and “what do you want to do”. The focus of those discussions was always America. America was the dream and not everyone could get there. It was the first choice for most refugees, not just the Serbs. The Serbs came to the United States to work but always expected to return to Yugoslavia someday. It didn’t work out that way.
Both of my parents became citizens of the United States as soon as they could. My mother insisted that Millie, Mike, and I receive our American citizenship documents before we turned 18 years old. She felt that it was an important step for us to stay eligible for opportunities and feel a part of the culture.
Q: You indicated that your family entered the USA through Ellis Island. Did your mother ever speak about that experience? What do you remember about that experience?
My mother was very frightened when we arrived at Ellis Island because she didn’t know what would happen to any of us. She told me that I was in the infirmary during the entire journey to the USA and that scared her. In addition to being worried about me, she had heard that sick people were turned away from America. During the entry interview, I got up from the chair and started playing with things on the adjudication officer’s desk. My parents were very scared they were going to be kicked out of the country because of my behavior.
The Ellis Island building where we entered the USA had many stairs. An immigration officer stood at the top of the stairs. During processing, you would get marked with chalk and told to stand in an assigned line. If the immigration officer saw that you had difficulty with the stairs, then you were assigned to a certain line. The healthy people went into the other line.
We stayed at Ellis Island until our processing was completed. The United States didn’t want undesirable or sick people in the country, so if you were either undesirable or sick, you could be sent back. It was a very frightening experience for her and the family.
Q. How did your mother like her life in the United States? Was she enthusiastic about the possibilities of her new opportunities and those for her children?
My mother was enthusiastic about life in the United States. She felt that life in the USA was good and that it truly was the land of opportunity, but it was not the place she wanted to be. She would’ve preferred to live at home (Dalmatia). However, she knew that the United States could provide her children with a life of opportunity that she did not have. That kept her focused and positive.
My mother felt her lack of English-speaking skills held her back. She did not go to school in the USA. She realized her limitations and did not search out other alternatives for herself. The opportunities were there but she knew she couldn’t balance her schedule to watch her kids, work, and go to school. She sacrificed all her abilities and opportunities for the benefit of the rest of the family. She worked to add more things to the family home and for us. She was able to provide financially for the extras that the family wanted and needed.
My mother was a very practical woman. She was very, very smart. Yet, she worked as a janitress for many years at Gary National Bank. She didn’t feel that larger opportunities were open to her, primarily because of the language barrier.
Q. What do you remember about your mother’s social life in the United States?
The activities at the Serbian Orthodox Church people and her friendships with Serbian people comprised her social life. The Serbs had their networks and supported each other. Serbian men always projected that they were in charge but it was the Serbian women who were in charge of everything. They took control in private and never let go.
I should mention that that it was the immigrant Serbs who had a network, outside of the American Serbs who were already established in the United States. The American Serbs didn’t understand us. We never felt accepted by them because they weren’t that welcoming. There was a clear divide in the Serbian community.
The immigrant and refugee women stayed close to the people who could understand their experiences and history. So did the men. Unless you lived through it, you couldn’t understand it. The American Serbs couldn’t connect to these experiences. PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) was a major factor that impacted many within the immigrant population, although there was no name for it at that time. It is truly remarkable how well most of them survived, given the losses and trauma that they had experienced in their lives.
Q. Did your mother raise you and your siblings to be adventurous or to stay close to the Serbian community?
My mother encouraged us to make friends with people outside of the Serbian community. She did stress the Serbian connection, but it wasn’t a restrictive environment. Despite her encouragement, however, my mother was frustrated that I was not as connected as she would like to the Serbian community.
She wanted me to marry a Serbian Orthodox woman. She believed that when you marry someone outside of your faith, then there could be trouble. She had seen first-hand the divisive nature of religious differences on marriages and did not want her children to experience those difficulties.
Q. What do you want our readers to know about your mother?
My mother was smarter than most people. She cared about her family and the way that they lived. She wanted every opportunity that was available to her children.
She was a compassionate woman with a dry sense of humor. I loved her sense of humor.
WHITE HOUSE – WASHINGTON DC: My mother (left) and her friend, Sophie, traveled to Washington DC to visit me and my family. Because my mother was visiting me, I was offered a private tour of the Oval Office so they could see this famous place. I was so proud that this was offered to me and very proud to offer this to her. She turned down the offer for a private tour of the White House because it was “too much walking”.
Peter Lalic is a Serbian American, senior-level civil servant (retired), who currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with his family. Pete was born in a refugee camp in Eboli IT, lived in a camp in Bucholz, DE and emigrated to the United States with his family after WWII when he was four. He grew up in Gary IN and graduated from Indiana University Northwest before beginning his public service career with the Internal Revenue Service. He emphasized during our discussions that he was incredibly proud of his heritage and his family. I thank Pete for sharing his memories of his mother with Femigration.