The Citizenship She Gave Up for Love

Anna Motis Svagera, an American-born woman who lost her citizenship after marrying Czech immigrant John Svagera in 1922

In 1922, my American-born great-grandmother Anna Motis lost her citizenship when she married John Svagera, a Czech immigrant. Their wedding came mere days before the Cable Act began correcting this injustice, but Anna would wait more than sixteen years to become, legally, what she had always been: an American.

The Borglum Estate and the Birth of the Czechoslovak Dream

Army training camp, possibly at Borglum Estate, Stamford, CT.

There are moments in history that seem almost too improbable to be real. Young men working beneath the smokestacks and stockyards of South Omaha, Czech immigrants who had crossed an ocean seeking peace and stability, boarded trains eastward toward Stamford, Connecticut, not for factory work or ordinary opportunity, but to prepare themselves for war on … Read more

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