Organized by the branch of Matica Crnogorska in Bar, the Castle of King Nikola held the forum "Montenegrin Emigrants in Latin America - Identity and Their Relationships with the Country of Origin", in which diaspora researcher Dragana Otasevic presented part of several years research in several South American countries.
Otasevic said that her interest in working with a diaspora has family roots as her two great-grandfathers lived in Argentina. When she learned of this, she first started exploring this part of the family history and came to the first contacts in South America.
She spent a month in the largest Montenegrin colonies in Argentina and then received a scholarship to study this subject in Argentina, where she spent three years in education and a research mission.
"The Institute for South American Migrant Studies in Buenos Aires has digitalized databases on all immigrants from 1862 to 1972. This was the starting point for creating a database on our migration. These data on Montenegrin immigrants will soon be published and will also include the knowledge on the relationship of their identity, because there is already the fifth-generation of Montenegrins there," Otasevic said.
Dragana Otasevic completed her basic and specialist studies at the Faculty of Business Management in Bar and completed her master’s studies in International Politics and Economics at the San Andres University in Buenos Aires. She is a graduate at the Master Studies in Politics and Management of International Migration at the Institute for Migration Policy and Asylum of the National University Tres Febrero in Buenos Aires.
"Within the research, she has spent more than two years in Montenegrin communities in Argentina, to study relationships between Montenegro's migration to Argentina, Uruguay, Peru and Montenegro, as well as on the identity of the Montenegrin descendants. During her studies, for the needs of the Montenegrin Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she worked as a researcher at the Center for Latin American Migration Studies in Buenos Aires, on the project of collecting data on the entry of Montenegrins into the Republic of Argentina from 1882 to 1960. She is the winner of the National Scholarship for the Excellence of the Ministry of Science and the Ministry of Education of Montenegro, as well as awards for the best master’s degree at San Andres in 2018. Her activities within the Montenegrin communities in Argentina were rewarded with a thank-you note of the Montenegrin Community of Buenos Aires 2017," said the mediator of the panel, Mr. Ivan Jovovic, President of the branch Matica Crnogorska in Bar.
Otasevic said that she achieved the communication with our immigrants foremost through the social networks, and then she began to visit the provinces of Argentina where our colonies were the most numerous.
Indeed, the emotion they have towards Montenegro is interesting, and they have preserved their Montenegrin identity and have a great desire to intensify contacts with the country of their origin. The Montenegrin tradition and customs are the most preserved in the province of Ćako, including our kitchen, so in Montenegrin Argentine families, they prepare kastradina, kacamak ... I did not only visit our emigrant associations, but I participated in all of their activities, staying with Montenegrins on Tierra del Fuego. It is extremely important to emphasize that before 1918 all these associations in Argentina were Montenegrin, and after 1918 their Yugoslavization began. In Buenos Aires, between 1920 and 1930, the Montenegrin peasant party was very active, as a branch of the party with the same name in the United States," said Otasevic.
Pointing out that this was the opportunity to provide adequate information on essential identities of our emigrants in Argentina, Peru and Uruguay, Jovovic emphasized that Otasevic's research was enabled on the basis of an international memorandum of cooperation concluded by the Department of Diaspora of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Latin American Migration Research Center (CEMLA).
Otasevic gained access to CEMLA databases, which in this area are the largest ones in South America. Of course, the experience gained by Dragana Otasevic in the work with our emigration can make useful recommendations to Montenegrin state authorities and institutions regarding the further approach of the originate country to their diaspora, because in this, for us very distant space, the fifth generation of our emigrants is growing up who have a strong awareness of their identity and country of origin. It is certain that up till now there has not been much interest in enlisting and promoting the overall co-operation of Montenegro with the emigrants from Latin America, and Matica Crnogorska, which was the initiator of this process, was undoubtedly responsible for such developments, "Jovovic said.
Text by Radomir Petric, on June 29th 2019, read more at Vijesti
