The text presents different ways of preserving ethnic identity and heritage among Slovenian immigrants and their descendants from the beginning of the 20th century till now. It presents them through the two intertwind perspectives. The first one describes the social and political circumstances in the USA in the three different periods, in which the Slovenians have immigrated: before the second world war, after it and after 1970. The second perspective is given by the narratives of the Slovenian women or their descendants, in which the practical aspects of the preserving of the ethnic identity or its denial are described. The outline of the social conditionsin the three periods of Slovenian immigration summarizes the ideological pressuposilions of the pre- war official rasism, the revival of the ethnicity after 1970 and the conservative counter-attack, which followed the decade later. The outline gives the women's narratives the context, which is for the understanding and feeling of their stories of an utmost importance.