Slovak American Paul Leonovich is planning to visit his ancestor's home village and hike in the High Tatras.
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For many people, trying to get Slovak citizenship by descent is a way of reconnecting with their roots, a distant past, to “make it a full circle” as they say. Not for Paul Leonovich, a third generation Slovak American.
“With me, it never really felt like that. I grew up in a house with my grandmother yelling at me in Slovak when I was misbehaving. As soon as I heard that the citizenship by descent law was passed, it just seemed the logical thing for me to do to maintain the ties to Slovakia,” he told The Slovak Spectator.
“Most of the generation, well, I would say all of the generation that was born in Slovakia and then immigrated to the US have now passed away. Now the intermediate generation is passing away as well. Its more of an attempt to maintain that connection rather than re-establishing something that was more in the past.”
