Czechoslovakia doesn’t exist anymore. But it did when my American friend moved there in the early 1990s. 

Today, we tend to think of Europe as being one of the most free regions of the world. Pro-human rights. It can be difficult to imagine how many Central and Eastern Europeans lived under Communism until the revolutions of 1989.

The Communist regime in Czechoslovakia was brutal until the people kicked them out in what is known as the Velvet Revolution for how smoothly it seemed to go. Fun fact, Shirley Temple Black, yes, the actress Shirley Temple, was U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia at the time and was involved in all this. 

Back then, my friend Jim Lukach a creative writing grad student, but the buzz of post-Communist Europe called. He packed up everything and moved to the Slovak side of Czechoslovakia to teach. 


He joins me today to talk about his expat experience in the early 90s and whether we can ever truly go native in our adopted countries. 


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