d the first half of the 20th century, nearly one-third of the population of today's Slovenia permanently settled in countries around the world. Many more were traveling back and forth, searching for work to ensure the survival of the family members left behind at home and the prosperity for the families and communities they were creating abroad.

From one of the smallest nations in Europe, barely reaching one and a half million inhabitants at the time, people departed in numbers reaching 440,000. This book tells their stories about the "daring dreams of the future," as the Slovenian poet Oton Zupancˇicˇ--whose words open the book--so beautifully put it. The people who left took recipes for their foods, accordions for their music, and love for their culture and language, which was, and has remained, a linguistic island between Vienna and Venice. In their new communities, they built homes, churches, and cultural institutions that have survived until today.