‘Don’t give up!’: Alice Ždrale, head of the Czech and Slovak School of Pittsburgh, on language and expatriate life

Just over 100 years ago, the American steel town of Pittsburgh was host to a memorandum of understanding between the nation’s Czech and Slovak immigrant communities to create an independent republic following the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Today, the city is home to one of America’s largest Slovak communities, a modest Czech one, and a school that unites expatriates of both. Alice Ždrale, head of the Czech and Slovak School of Pittsburgh, on a working trip back to her native Prague, shares the story of the informal school, one of the newest among the diaspora in North America.