PRESS AND EMIGRATION 
Roundtable discussion, 1 October 1999
AEMI
The Association of European Migration Institutions Annual Meeting, 
Portorož, Slovenia, 29 September -  2 October 1999
KNUT DJUPEDAL (The Norwegian Emigrant Museum, Ottestad, Norway; 
AEMI chairman): Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the second day of our mee­
ting, and to this roundtable on the press and emigration. As long as we have had 
newspapers, the press has been interested in the phenomenon of emigration -  not 
perhaps as history, but because emigration sold newspapers. Advertisements for 
emigration and letters from America published in newspapers lead people to go 
out and buy and read them. And of course, whoever wished to sell tickets or land 
in America to potential emigrants could use the press. Thus the press lived reaso­
nably well on emigration. Today, the press is a source for historians who wish to 
study emigration, not only those seeking facts about the actual emigration itself, 
but also a source for those who wish to look at attitudes, feelings, and political 
ideas about the emigration. Take Norway, for example, where the press was utili­
zed both to publish letters praising America, and to make jokes about returning 
migrants and to warn against emigration because it was bad for the home country 
if all those people left it.
ADAM WALASZEK (Polonia Institute, Krakow, Poland; roundtable mode­
rator): What Knut was asking, basically, is what came first, the press or emigra­
tion, and of course I am wondering whether you will have the answer to that. 
There is much more, of course, to it; there are many more questions to be asked, 
and they have been asked and they are asked and they will be asked, as long as the 
ethnic press exists, as long as emigration exists, as long as historians live. And this 
is our agenda for today. The first presentation will be read by Irena Gantar Godi­
na; this is the paper by Marjan Drnovšek from Ljubljana, from the Academy of
Dve domovini /  Two Homelands -  10 -  1999, 137-167
138 Knut Djupedal, Adam Walaszek
Sciences and Arts, who is unfortunately ill and cannot be with us, but many of you 
already know him. The title of the presentation is »Printed Material and the Mass 
Emigration of Slovenes.« Then we will have a presentation by Janja Žitnik; she is 
from the same institution, the Slovene Academy o f Sciences and Arts, and she is 
the editor o f the publication Two Homelands or Dve Domovini. She will speak 
about Slovene emigrant literature, periodicals and other publications, and the rea­
ding public in Slovenia. Then the floor will basically be yours, we will have time 
not for endless -  there will be limits -  but for a discussion, which hopefully will be 
very fruitful. So let us hear what Dr Drnovšek has to say. (Henceforward the mo­
deration entrances will be omitted. Editor’s note.)