Talk:Croatian American

Anthony Robbins

He was born Mahavorick. I'm pretty sure his surname was originally spelt Mohorovic and that it is of Croatian origin.

only 0,05% with 450,000?

maybe it's correct, but how come that there are 0,04% albanians when there are only 150,000 of them?

Denise Richards?? WTF??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.172.24.209 (talk) 00:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:CaryElwes.jpg

The image Image:CaryElwes.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

The following images also have this problem:

• File:Bilandic.jpg

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --06:01, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Related nations

In my oppinion we cannot write that Croatian Americans are related only to Croatians, Bosnian Americans, Serbo-Americans and Slovene Americans because if they consider themselves of Croatian descent then who are we to limit their related nations to some of the Slavic Americans and Croatians in general. I think that it is offensive to consider that Croatian Americans are only related to Croatians as if they were two different nations. Croatian Americans have the American citizenship and Croatians can have the citizenship of the Republic of Croatia and the citizenship of any other state (country) of the World. Direktor's position is false if he belives that Croatians are not related to Bulgarians, Macedonians, Montenegrins as well as all other South Slavic Nations. -- Imbris (talk) 00:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The ethnic groups Croats are related to are Serbs, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, and (least of all) Slovenes. Its simple: the term "South Slavs" includes Bulgarians. An ethnic group Croats are not particularly related to (any more than some other Slavic ethnic groups, like Slovaks). While they are extraordinarily related to Serbs, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, and Slovenes. Therefore, there is no reason not to list the particular South Slavic ethnic groups Croats are related to, especially when they may not be anywhere near as related to other South Slavic nations.

While you may be Croatian nationalists, and you may dislike the fact that Croats, Bosniaks, Serbs, and Montenegrins are among the most "related" nations on the face of this planet, this is of no concern to Wikipedia, and is no reason to remove perfectly valid information. (Also, please try not to edit war. You're the ones trying to push this edit. It was contested, and I'm asking you to please have the decency to wait until discussions are over.) --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 00:11, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

This kind of behaviour is orriginal research at its core, who are you to insist that Slovenes are least of all related to Croatians. Where do you get such kind of information. It is not painfully simple as you put it. If you cannot understand Macedonian, why do you insist on nonsense that everybody doesn't know Macedonian which has lots of simmilarities with Bulgarian.

You speak of ethnic relations between nations and then claim only the simmilarity of languages as a standpoint. This is unacceptable.

Your "accusations" of a nationalist POV will not work here, as well as omitting Montenegrins. You are the one who insists on using a void phrase that Croatian Americans are related to themselves (Croats in general) and other Slavic Americans (of your particular choice). Plese stop this intimidating behaviour of expecting that your POV will stand in the article as long as we wait for someone to join the discussion. I will not wait for that momment in time because it is most NPOV to phrase ethnic relations with all of the South Slavic Nations.

Imbris (talk) 00:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

First of all, stop it with the Montenegrins. I did not originally write up the related ethnic groups list, and I obviously agree it is an oversight (which I fixed). Further, my logic is not "flawed". You are obviously trying to push this edit through with edit-warring. Whether or not your version is "NPOV" is your own opinion, which I happen to disagree with here. I can assure you that edit-warring will not work as a edit-pushing method.

Now then, please do your best to respond to actual arguments: not once did I mention language. If you actually believe that Bulgarians are as "related" to Croats anywhere near as much as Bosniaks (for example), you're logic is undoubtedly tainted by nationalism. If you need sources to prove what is basically obvious, you're demand shall be satisfied:

• "The Serbs and Croats are two Southern Slav nations having many common traits.", Journal of Anthropological Research‎, page 156. Note that Serbs and Croats are singled out as having "many common traits", not Bulgarians and Croats. [1]
• "...it is often forgotten how small the differences are among the current warring factions [i.e. Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks]", Genocide, an Anthropological reader by Alexander Laban Hinton, page 335. [2]
• "In one of the most detailed accounts of ethnicity at the village level, Bringa (1996) shows that (...) the cultural differences between the groups [i.e. Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks] are negligible..." Social Identity, Intergroup Conflict, and Conflict Reduction, by Richard D. Ashmore, Lee J. Jussim, David Wilder. [3]

etc, etc... I found this in 10 minutes, and can by all rights use it to source the removal of your edit. These scholarly sources are just a few of many that can be used to confirm the extraordinary similarity between Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins. Do you have sources that confirm the allegedly equal similarity between Croats and Bulgarians? --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 09:36, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

You often seem to be polite in your conversations and then insert something like "you're logic is undoubtedly tainted by nationalism". I would greatly appreciate if you could stop with such accusations. I would defend myself by commenting that it could not be anything less nationalistic when someone would like to strees that Croatian Nation is related to all Slavic Nations with an emphasis on South Slavic Nations. When someone oppose such opinion and insist on looking only certain Slavic Nations we could be speaking about ethnic exclusivity which could lead to more precise definitions. Enough said on that topic.

When you insist that we use sources to explain the relations of Croatians to South Slavs, we could be speaking about apsolutely no need of such a undertaking. except in the case of fulfillment of your strange request.

You have found unacceptable sources for the allegedly defining the Croats, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes as "closer" than other South Slavic Nations. The sources you have found have not proven your POV because:

1st source speaks about [4] other peoples in the brackets as could be seen from the previous link.

1st source aslo on its page 163 is an article, or a chapter dedicated exclusively Vicarious Paternity among Serbs and Croats thus you have included it in your "evidence".

2nd source speaks about the war in former Yugoslavia and is totally unacceptable to be used in the discussion about simmilarities of certain South Slavic Nations. It is very well known that all of nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina were involved with the defence of their homeland (with different POV toward that defence). The author is concerned with politics, war, social structure of former Yugoslavia. The author is concerned with the common history of Yugoslavia and not on any fact which would pertain to this discussion.

3rd source is also unacceptable because starting on page 47 it speaks of Culture and breakup of Yugoslavia. The author(s) quoted "A widespread view nevertheless sees the cultural differences between the constituent groups as a basic cause of the conflict (cf., the influential analysis by Ignatieff, 1994, or Huntington's controversial model, 1996)." on page 48. The book is like the previous concerned only with the conflict and former Yugoslavia thus irrelevant. On page 50. this source says that the difference between Croats and Serbs is perhaps comparable to those of Norwegians and Swedes. The Bringa 1996 speaks of Bosnia alone.

Your method of decontextualisation is what is bothering me the most.

Anyone who has aspirations of unconstitutional acts such as the return of a certain joint state and all should stop with their greater nationalism.

Imbris (talk) 03:21, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh you find these sources "unacceptable", do you? That's a shame because, as I'm sure you know, these people were published and, to the best of my knowledge, you were not. I'm quite sure that any and all sources presented would be "unacceptable" because they disagree with you, and some excuse or another would be found to label them as such. The best example of this would be your marginalization of Bringa. Are you saying that Croats in Bosnia are not really Croats, I don't understand? Maybe the Serbs aren't really Serbs?

I have no choice but to repeat myself: Croats, Serbs, Montenegrins, and Bosniaks are amongst the most similar nations to be found anywhere. This plain and obvious FACT can easily be supported, not by one, but by a dozen scholarly published sources. If you think that you can disregard all sources I present to this effect by imagining some reason why they are "unacceptable" to you personally, and then continue to edit-war in the article until you've pushed this edit, you can forget it. These sources are fully in accordance with WP:SOURCE and I am completely within my rights as a Wikipedian to source my wording with these references.

For another example, author Kathryn Woodward in her ("completely unacceptable") scholarly source Identity and difference even states that the Serbian and Croatian identities are defined by "what they are not", i.e. Croats or Serbs respectively. [5] Now, I know this too is an unacceptable source, but I was hoping you would tell me why? --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 09:10, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

In the Introduction (p. 8) we have an excerpt from Michael Ignatieff's story about an event when he interviewed a Serbian soldier in 1993. An opinion based on one-man's opinion is not a scientific method but rather newspaper's sensationalism. He asked the soldier what he belives are the difference between Croats and Serbs. He said something about cigarettes and then explained his POV that "Look, here's how it is. Those Croats, they think they're better than us. They think they're fancy Europeans and everything. I'll tell you something. We're all just Balkan rubbish." (Ignatieff, 1994. pp. 1-2).

Your precious Kathryn Woodward constructed the entire epilogue on the basis of one-man's story. This is substandard in many ways, and could not be used as a valid source in any debate (maybe as a dinner table story). Her interpretation of is offencive and her "superior" posture over the poor SE European Nations is not worthy of commenting.

Your sources are void because of quoting certain articles which do not describe the entire South Slavic population (they do not speak of Montenegrins and most certainly not about Slovenes and others, Macedonians and Bulgarians). This way you could always use a source which concerns Croats and Serbs to falsely construct whatever your POV could be.

You have no sources that Bosniaks, Bosnians, Croats, Herzegovinians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes are "more" related and Macedonians and Bulgarians should be excluded from that group.

Your POV is hardly neutral and quoting misleading sources is at least rude.

Imbris (talk) 23:58, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

1) Here's the thing: you cannot simply disregard sources you disagree with. If you personally think that the methods of "my precious" Katheryn Woodward were incorrect, that's your opinion (and in any event anyone with half a brain can see the story was only an example). If you want to discredit a source, you'll need references to that effect: scholars that have denounced her as the unprofessional fraud you believe her to be: a published scholar who forms opinions on one single conversation (LoL). In short, nobody cares about your damn analysis of a published work, especially when it is presented against you. You would probably say the same about every source I present.

2) "DIREKTOR's POV is based on false quoting of sources which (...) do not deem the MKD and BUL as not related." That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in weeks. Now you want me to find a source which says "Croats and Bulgarians are NOT related"? My point is that if we use "South Slavic nations" in the article, we may as well use "ALL Slavic nations" since Croats are no more related to Bulgarians than they are to other Slavs (the best example would be Slovaks). Are you aware that:

a) the rules of logic prevent you from demanding I prove a negative. Before something needs to be disproven, it has to be PROVEN FIRST.

b) nowhere did I state that Bulgarians and Croats are NOT related. As I've clearly stated more than once, while Croats are related to every single Slavic nation on this planet (including Bulgarians), they are extraordinarily related to Serbs, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins. This I have corroborated with anthropological scholarly sources.

By the rules of logical debate, without which discussion makes no sense, you should now attempt to prove that Bulgarians are extraordinarily related to Croats as well. This would, in turn, support your edit which states that Croats are equally (or nearly equally) related to all Southern Slavic nations in particular, which of course, they are not.

Instead, you just edit-war and haughtily proclaim published scholarly anthropological sources I've presented as "unacceptable". Are you aware how utterly irrelevant your own personal opinions on the methods and hard work of professionals are? --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 08:39, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Your sources do not prove that Croats and certain South Slavic Nations are "more" related than all South Slavic Nations. Your sources describe the war in former Yugoslavia, the villages of Bosnia and Herzegovina and some remarks by a single author which you decontextualized by quoting a part of her sentence where she describes (on the basis of one Serbian soldier) that Croatian and Serbian identity is based (in majority) on what the other identity is. This is highly controversial and you are the one who should prove that it is highly acceptable by anthropologists that Croatian and Serbian identity doesn't exit and that those nations are defined as not-the-other-nation. -- Imbris (talk) 21:48, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

First of all, the sentences I quoted from sources are not decontextualized. You do not apparently know what that means. They are not removed from context in such a way that alters their original meaning.

Your idea that a scholar has based an entire theory on national identity on the testimony of a single Serbian soldier shows exactly how far you are willing to stray from logical thought in order to discredit a source that contradicts your opinion. The conversation with the soldier is quite obviously an example she used. He may not even have existed at all, it is completely irrelevant.

Furthermore, your cunning attempt to divert this discussion will also not work. I do not believe, nor am I trying to prove, that either the Serbian or Croatian identities "do not exist". Neither does the author state that: it is your own interpretation. In any event, the source is meant to show that the two nations are so similar, some authors even believe their identities define each other. This is the author's view, stated plainly in the text. As is quite obvious, this source, and the others, do indeed prove that Croats, Serbs, and Montenegrins are far more similar than other South Slavic nations.

In order for you to prove that Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins are not extraordinarily related nations when compared to other South Slavic peoples, you must (by all the laws of logical argumentative debate) provide sources that support your idea that Croats are equally (or nearly equally) related to Bulgarians. You have provided a grand total of zero sources to that effect. All you do is repeat your personal opinions on sources and edit-war. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 22:18, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

That sentence can not be found but in your POV and biased interpretation of sources that do not deal with social, cultural, anthropological, ethnological scientific methods but pollitical, military and crimminal law scientific methods. Your invention and own orriginal research is : "As is quite obvious, this source, and the others, do indeed prove that Croats, Serbs, and Montenegrins are far more similar than other South Slavic nations". That sentence cannot be found in any source other than your own POV contstructs. The entire POV is constructed by you and nobody stands behind you and your POV.

And I will not in any way indulge your demands to confront my energy in finding what has been written in Wikipedia and based on veryifiable sources. South Slavic Nations are a group of nations which have enough simmilarities to be considered a subgroup of Slavic Nations. This need no further proof but on the other side your orriginal research that yet again exclude Slovenians is what you have not proven because of false referencing with substandard sources your invention.

Imbris (talk) 22:28, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

"That sentence can not be found but in your POV and biased interpretation of sources" Yes, of course, you want me to find you a source that says "Croats are NOT related to Bulgarians"? Maybe an author decided to write up a book called List of Nationalities Croats are NOT Particularly Related To? As I have stated earlier, it is not possible, nor is it required to prove a negative in any sensible argumentative debate. Before one has to disprove something it has to be PROVEN FIRST. It's like asking someone to prove an invisible pink elephant is NOT standing right behind you. It is impossible.

"South Slavic Nations are a group of nations which have enough simmilarities to be considered a subgroup of Slavic Nations." No, South Slavs are merely Slavs living in southern parts of Europe. The group was not formed based primarily on the cultural similarities of the Slavic nations, but on the geographical position of its members. Slovens (South Slavs), for example, are far more related to certain West Slavs than they are to South Slavic nations like Macedonians or Bulgarians.

As for the sentence, "As is quite obvious, this source, and the others, do indeed prove that Croats, Serbs, and Montenegrins are far more similar than other South Slavic nations". I have proven this extraordinary similarity, it is specifically mentioned by the many sources. You will not find a single source specifically singling out the similarity or relation between Croats and Bulgarians. If you can, prove me wrong, if not, you cannot demand proof for the non-existence of something (i.e. particular similarity between Croats and Bulgarians).

Concerning sources.

Source 1) The Journal of Anthropological Research. Believe it or not, it deals with anthropological research, not matters of "politics, military and/or crimminal law". The link I have provided clearly proves that on page 156 this source states "The Serbs and Croats are two Southern Slav nations having many common traits." Full stop. The sentence could not be plainer and is clearly not "decontextualized".

Source 2) Genocide, an Anthropological Reader. I assume this source does not deal with anthropology as well? On page 335 the author states "...it is often forgotten how small the differences are among the current warring factions [i.e. Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks]." Another plain sentence, not "decontextualized" in the slightest.

Source 3) "Bringa, 1996" is quoted in this source as "one of the most detailed accounts of ethnicity at the village level in Bosnia". The author does deal with Bosnia, yes, but that cannot be used as an excuse to disregard the results of the research: namely that the "differences between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks are negligible". The fact that this research took place in Bosnia is irrelevant, as it included all these nationalities. Croats in Bosnia are equally Croats, just like those in Croatia and the US (indeed, some may argue more so).

Source 4) Identity and difference. A book that deals with, believe it or not, national identities and the difference between them. Once again, it does NOT deal with either "politics, military and/or crimminal law". Which shows that your assertion to the contrary was completely false and purposely misleading. As I've stated above, this source proves that the nations are so similar, some authors even believe their identities define each other. This author's opinion was not "decontextualized", nor does she try to prove the non-existence of the Croatian or Serbian nationality. The mention of a conversation with a Serbian soldier in this source is merely an example used to corroborate the author's view. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:09, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Macedonian Americans

This article has no related ethnic group section.

It should be considered for all dubious matters to upstain from entering the ethnic group section of this article.

The Direktor doesn't allow the following NPOV statements:

• other South Slavic Nations
• other Slavic Nation in particular Southern

Imbris (talk) 22:38, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Edit war

Both Imbris and DIREKTOR are using this article to prove their points which really have nothing to do with Croatian Americans per se. The nature of the Croats and their relationship to neighbouring peoples in their homeland has nothing to do with whom Croatian Americans closely relate. Your sources deal nothing with people of Croatian descent in the U.S.A. What closely relates any Croatian American to any other ethnic group? Language? Many (if not most) Croatian Americans do not understand Croatian, so they would also not understand any "cognate" languages. Culture? The culture of Croatian Americans is diverse, and is not simply an extension of traditional Croatian culture. The music of Krist Novoselic has nothing to do with the acting of Milla Jovovich, despite this "related groups" claim. Association? Croatian Americans certainly interact much more with other Catholic Europeans (Italians, Portuguese, etc.) than with Orthodox groups such as the Bulgarians, or Serbs. Migration? There are no "Balkan quarters" in the USA, and Croats formed their own enclaves in the new world separately from these other groups.

The majority of other "x American" articles avoid the issue of related groups altogether, while some just link back to the ethnic group in general (i.e. Estonian Americans are related to Estonians). If you want to wax poetic about pan-Slavicism, Yugoslavism, Balkanism etc. you can do it at Croats. This article is about Croatian Americans and if you'd like to improve it, you might like to contribute something that is relevant to them.--Thewanderer (talk) 01:34, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Look, Wanderer, first of all I did not write up the "related ethic groups" bit, it was like that for months and years. Imbris is edit-warring to push his edit without any sources or a talkpage consensus. Second, I don't appreciate you trying to make me out like some fanatic when all I'm doing is stating the plain obvious similarity between Croats and Serbs. I'm not trying to prove we should all now reunite into a "third Yugoslavia", all I'm saying is that Croats are extremely similar to Serbs. To such an extent that foreigners would have a very difficult time making out the differences. Anyone saying that Croats are as similar to Bulgarians(!) as they are to Bosniaks is not being logical, objective, or even realistic. That's my point.

Furthermore, the article does not list "Serbs, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins", it lists "Serbian American, Bosnian American, and Montenegrin American". It stands to reason that if Serbs and Croats are related, then Serbian Americans and Croatian Americans are related ethnic groups as well. That much is obvious to anyone (including Imbris, apparently). --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 08:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Both of you, DIREKTOR and Imbris, are fighting over a stupid detail. DIR the plain obvious similarity between Croats and Serbs was artificially fabricated in the last 100 years, as well as "Montenigrins are Serbs" and similar Serb turbo-crap. Wouldn't it be more logical to draw relation between "Croatian American" to "Croatian Australian" or "Croatian African" than to Serbian American, Bosnian American etc? You have examples in Dalmatia where the members of the same family but different generations moved to both California and Sidney. How come they are more related to the members of another ethnos rather than to their direct relatives? The most of the Cro immigrants left to America in ages when so called Serbo-Croatian quazi-language still wasn't recognized as spoken by anyone really. Do you know that in America there are some "Cro-Amer" families whose members have saved Chakavian Croatian, one that you will recognize as archaic form of it (but widely spread in Dalmatia only 80 years ago). You will have problems to understand it if you're not really familiar to Chakavian (I don't mean its modern hybrids that you can hear now in the Dalmatian cities) and try to imagine how could some Serb from Šumadija understand it. I guess some Kajkavian Slovene would understand it much easier because of the same Slavic word pool shared with Chakavian. Concerning ethnogenesis, Croats and Serbs are nothing closer than Croats and Bulgarians or Croats and Slovenes. In the northern Dalmatian islands (especially island of Ugljan) you have many Chakavians whose surnames end with suffix -ev or -ov, typical for the Bulgarian surnames, undoubtly showing some ancient Bulgarian origin. Huge number of Croats from Ugljan island moved to America between 2 world wars and became "Cro-Amers". On what basis these people are closer to Serbs than to Bulgarians?

By anthropology you can draw similarities between different South Slavic ethnicities by geography rather than ethnicity, so you'll probably find out that the most of Croats belong to the same so called "Dinar type" together with the most of Montenigrins and many Bosniaks (PaleoBalkan substratum). And while many Serbs belong to that group, much more of them belong to so-called "Mediterranean type" (Neolithic migrations) shared with the Romanians, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Greeks... You can say that many Northern Croats are anthropologically the same people as the Slovenes, Slovaks,...

You're losing too much energy on something ridiculous, so many problematic articles are waiting for 2 of you around... I mean you don't even need sources to find resolution here.

Why can't Cro-Amers be related to Croats and nothing else as they surely are? Why every God damn article about Croats must be politicized and pushed to some pan-Slavic space? Zenanarh (talk) 13:27, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is a very minor detail. You are absolutely right. However, that is no reason to give in to edit-warring as a method of pushing through changes in the article.

"DIR the plain obvious similarity between Croats and Serbs was artificially fabricated in the last 100 years, as well as "Montenigrins are Serbs" and similar Serb turbo-crap."

First of all, I do not agree. The Illyrain movement, for one, advocated the union of Croats and Serbs (based on their similarity) from the early 19th century, almost 200 years ago. Medo Pucić, a Dubrovnikan, lead an essentially Croatian faction that supported the notion that Croats are Catholic Serbs (a radical example but it serves to prove my point), etc., etc... The idea that the similarity between Serbs and Croats was somehow "invented" by Yugoslavia during its 73 years is itself a modern "invention", clearly contradicted by historical events. Second of all, even if the similarity was created by Yugoslavia (and it was not), what difference does it make? The causes do not change the fact.

Third of all, to advocate that an extraordinary similarity exists between Croats and Serbs is hardly "pan-Yugoslav" or "Greater-Serbian rhetoric". Greater-Serbian rhetoric advocates the idea that Croats and Serbs are NOT similar , but are, in fact, all Serbs, (true) pan-Yugoslav rhetoric calls this nation "Yugoslavs". --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 15:24, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Illyrian movement was started by Croatian and Slovenian writers in 19th century and was supposed to mean cultural union of all South Slavs, as a kind of resistance to the centuries long Romance, Germanic, Hungarian, Greek and Turkish aspirations for the "Illyricum" lands settled almost exclusively by the Slavic speakers. It was not fight for the union of Croats and Serbs (based on their similarity) from the early 19th century. Where did you find it? Their writings and songs were about their own homelands. Cro Illyrianists were writing about beauties of Croatia. They wrote patriotic songs to spread social conciousness. People were tired of being servants to the Italians, Austrians, Hungarians etc in their own homeland. "Vila Velebita" was one of the songs from that age, about natural beauties of one Croatian mountain. This song was strictly forbiden to sing in SFRJ, only because of adjective "Croatian" in the lyrics. I suppose adjective "Serbo-Croatian" for a mountain in Croatia would be more acceptable for the communists? Illyrian movement was the last accepted in Serbia, but never really had some bloom there. There was "Srbija do Tokija" movement very soon, with Montenegro as the 1st victim. Zenanarh (talk) 16:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, of course, the Illyrians demanded a cultural union of South Slavs almost a century before Yugoslavia was founded. We are talking about culture are we not? Cultural similarity? This (cultural) similarity quite clearly existed faar before Yugoslavism was even a coherent ideology, let alone a force capable of assimilating ethnic groups. If and when the Serbian Illyrian movement became Greater-Serbian is a debatable point, and does not really effect my example. (Remember, we are not talking about communism here, which could not be more unrelated to the subject, especially since the Federal Yugoslavia was actually far less unitarianist than the non-communist Kingdom of Yugoslavia (which did not even recognize Croats as a nation). --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 21:01, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

No, we are talking about resistance to Italianization, Germanization, Hungarization, and other ations, in 19th century Europe hit by the wave of national awakenings. In the spirit of that moment, the intelectuals were calling for a friendship and support from the familiar speakers (South Slavic in this case) to preserve their own language. There's no need to mythicize it and equalize to some exclusive Serbo-Croatian relation. Almost all prominent Croatian Illyrianists were engaged in Slovenian and Bulgarian national questions as well, probably more than in Serbian. Miladinov brothers "Bulgarian folk songs" were printed in Zg in 1861 by bishop Strossmayer who was also a patron of the Bulgarian unitarist movement. They got Strossmayer Square there in Bulgaria. F. Rački wrote "History of Bulgaria" in 1863, etc.

But nevermind, we are out of topic. Zenanarh (talk) 22:10, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we are :). But to narrow the Illyrian movement to resistance to foreign influence is simply incorrect. The movement undoubtedly demanded the cultural, and even political, union of all Serbs, Croats and Slovenes: this was its primary long-term goal (besides, perhaps, cultural advancement). It cannot be questioned whether or not the very existence of this movement was founded on the exceptional similarity between the nations it aspired to unite. Thus proving (as quickly as possible) that these similarities indeed existed much, much earlier than 1918. (Also, the movement aspired to unite only Illyrians on the basis of their similarities, this does not include Bulgarians to the best of my knowledge) --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:00, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Croatian American

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Croatian American's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Census":

• From United States Congress: "US Census Bureau news release in regards to median income". Archived from the original on 2010-01-17. Retrieved 2007-08-28.
• From Serbs: "CIA World Factbook". Retrieved 2008-08-24.
• From Kraków: "Microsoft Word - 13_DZIA. 05.doc" (PDF) (in (in Polish)). Retrieved 2010-11-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 16:37, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Removing section on Croatan Indians

I am removing the section on the Croatan tribe of Native Americans for the following reasons:

• It was plagiarized word for word from the website of the Croatian Embassy in Washington
• The embassy website does not cite any research or critical analysis
• The "legend" of Native Americans descending from Croatian sailors is specious

The embassy says only that some "historians" believe in the legend, but mentions no specific names, universities, or journals. The legend itself depends on "the story of Croatian sailors shipwrecked off Cape Hatteras in 1498". However, the website does not tell us if this story is based on documentation of a specific shipwreck, if it is oral tradition based on a supposed shipwreck, or if it is merely a modern hypothesis conjured out of thin air to explain how a pre-contact tribe of Algonquians could plausibly descend from Croats.

Just because two anglicized ethnonyms have a similar spelling (Croatan and Croatian) does not mean that the two groups are related. Without linguistic, archaeological, anthropological, and genetic evidence, that claim is a huge leap. It is unclear if anyone even believes it. The embassy website presents this legend in the context of fostering positive feelings between the US and Croatia, not as a serious assertion.

--Wechselstrom (talk) 21:00, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

File:WilliamFeller.jpg Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:WilliamFeller.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests May 2012 What should I do? Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. To take part in any discussion, or to review a more detailed deletion rationale please visit the relevant image page (File:WilliamFeller.jpg) This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 17:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

SF Bay Area vs. City of San Francisco

Hi Folks, I'm not disputing the importance of the Croatian population in the city of San Francisco, I just want to point out that the greater SF Bay Area is far more significant for its population of immigrants and descendants. Anyone object to a short paragraph after the one mentioning the Tadich Grill about the rest of the SF Bay Area? Specifically I'd like to mention halls in SF and San Jose (Napredak Hall) and few of the cities with significant populations. There have been ample articles in the SF Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News to cite over the years mostly attributable to agricultural interests and businesses. There is also a fairly decent number of CFU lodges around the Bay Area. Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 23:43, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Regarding Tesla

@Canadianfixerupper, we can discuss it here. I believe there is a misunderstanding. Nikola Tesla is an ethnic Serb, as far as I understand; born and raised in in what is now Croatia (Austria-Hungary at the time). This article is exclusively concerned with Americans of ethnic Croatian heritage and not people who happen to have been born or have/had a Croatian citizenship. I believe you're misconstruing the terms "nationality" and "ethnicity", thus not differentiating between them, as evident from one of your arguments: "born to Serbian parents in Croatia this makes him Croatian with Serbian Hertige? Are people born in Canada from British ancestries considered current British Citiziens NO. He is Croatian/Serbian". Your argument concerns nationality and not ethnicity. People of both UK (the English, Scots, the Irish, etc.) and Canada (nationality - Canadian) come from different stocks; bloodlines if you will. As far as Tesla goes, I do not have an opinion on the matter, and I do not oppose including him; however, I'd like to avoid any unnecessary discussions with those who are of different opinion. I won't name anyone in particular, but let's just say there are many camps who individually insist on him being called exclusively American/Yugoslavian/Serbian; and needless to say all provide a rather sizable amount of evidence and references to prove their claims. Again, I won't object or edit anything, but I am sure someone is going to change it sooner or later. ProKro (talk) 22:56, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

The only problem is: Serbs will come to this page, and they will keep editing about that thing --MisterBean (talk) 17:40, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Stop with these nosensnes....Nikola Tesla was Serb, born to Serbian parents in Austro-Hungary!!!! in Lika where the majority of population were Serbs! He himself wrote proud of Serbian origins and of Croatian homeland. We all know how many Serbs have lived and were being killed in Croatia and is logical that to many of them Croatia is homeland! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.85.157.139 (talk) 19:17, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Hence the discussion. As is, there is a "disputed" tag next to his name in the list. Alleged quotes from dubious sources are not something to go by, especially if they are that vague. Tesla's ought to be replaced with someone in the infobox. ProKro (talk) 21:07, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Okay makes sense I just was passing by and was wondering why he was labbled as such, thanks for the information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Canadianfixerupper (talk • contribs) 01:21, 17 June 2015 (UTC)