5 Slovenians in the US who are NOT Melania Trump

Beautiful Slovenia. image from EasyJet

That wasn’t very pleasant. You see, I am a Slovenian, and for 72 hours after Melania Trump gave “her” speech at the convention barely an hour has gone by without some wiseass sending me a joke, an anecdote or a witty comment.

Yes, I can see the funny side of it all – come ON, the entire convention hall climaxing to the words of the first lady a large number of them have been dissing for eight years? Priceless.

Also funny? How gingerly the topic of Communism is suddenly dealt with within the Republican discourse. Suddenly, Republicans believe Communists can have values? I have to lie down and give myself some time to fully grasp this. (We could dip into the story of the Donald and his Communist-reared wives – two out of three, is it? – but that might turn ugly pretty quickly, so let’s just not.)

But mostly I’ve just felt like saying “so sorry”:

Sorry that I’ve just lied: I don’t find it priceless that (the same!) values can either elicit praise or racial slurs, depending on who holds them. If anything, I find it slightly disturbing;

Sorry that the Trump posse led you believe that Melania obtained “a degree in design and architecture at University in Slovenia”; had anybody bothered to check this, they would quickly find out that no such degree exists at the University of Ljubljana (and no, nobody here knows what “University in Slovenia” means – perhaps it means “time to hire a fact checker/proofreader”);

Sorry that suddenly entire (Eastern) Europe is classified as the part of the world where plagiarism is the norm (because American students, as we know, never cheat!), all this because of someone who dropped out of college after the first year and hasn’t even lived here in over two decades (yes, sorry here is selfish: University of Ljubljana is my alma mater, and suddenly it seems my degree has become a bit of a joke);

Sorry that for the people who’ve never been to Slovenia and have never met another Slovenian, the first association to my country, so frequently used as a punch line anyways, will be the Trumps.

And just because it’s kind of difficult to meet us (there’s not very many of us, after all), here’s a little reminder for you – a completely arbitrary list of five Slovenians in the US (natural born, naturalized citizens or temporary residents) who are NOT Melania Trump:

Sunita Williams  (@Astro_Suni): Slovenian, Indian and American. A senior spacewalker and a frequent ISS resident.

image from ILoveindia.com

Amy Klobuchar  (@amyklobuchar), incumbent senator for Minnesota. Whether you agree with her or not otherwise, I think this is the bill we can all get behind:

photo: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Goran Dragić   (@Goran_Dragic), in the NBA since 2008, currently playing for the Miami Heat, with a rather wicked sense of humor (although maybe more so when he tweets in Slovenian).

image from azcentral

Anže Kopitar   (@AnzeKopitar), the first Slovenian to play in the NHL, currently the captain of the LA Kings. Eats čokolešnik out of the Stanley Cup, because he can.

image from cbc

Louis Adamic, doesn’t tweet, because he’s dead. As a good Slovenian he got himself arrested as a teen during anti-government protests and was to be sent to the jesuits, but decided ‘Murrica sounded more interesting. A writer with a sharp eye and a sharp pen. Worth reading, particularly in today’s climate. Would shred Trump to pieces. Read: Dynamite.

image from frame pool