Abstract
In 2018, Czechia celebrates the decaversaries of three events that caused three great waves of political emigration in the 20 th century: the Munich Agreement (1938), the Communist Coup (1948) and the Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1968). Based on the analysis of transcriptions of oral testimonies from 25 first- generation immigrants in Chicago and NYC who - having experienced these freedom-limiting moments - crossed the ocean, losing (sometimes forever) families, property or citizenship.
The presentation focuses on the "words of migrants," both what they declare and how. It discusses respondents' bilingualism (or multilingualism - for example many respondents spent years in several displaced persons camps) and language biographies.
The presentation briefly discusses key factors influencing maintenance and intergenerational transmission of heritage, language and culture, as well as the attrition and language shift seen in Czech-American communities and the difficulties in learning English in "tight knit", almost monolingual, environments (e.g. compact Czech neighborhoods, companies, parishes). The project examines, from the perspective of simple language management, how bilingual skills and the identity of respondents interact.
It analyses the language features (such as accents, and names) that reveal the origin of Czech-Americans, the reactions they have garnered because of those features and what, if any, assimilation strategies are used to alleviate such stigma. Using transient accounts from the last surviving witnesses to the harsh reality of war in Central Europe, the research offers genuine insight into the experiences of migration and escape despite oppressive governments and the fear of imprisonment or death.
These accounts are disappearing literally every day, as the migrants themselves range between sixty and ninety, with one Czech-American turning 102 this year.