Milina Jovanović came to the U.S. from Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1994. She holds a J.D. and a double master’s in interdisciplinary Social Sciences from the University of Belgrade and San José State University. She was a teaching assistant and a research associate at the Sociological and Criminological Institute in Belgrade between 1986 and 1994. As a graduate researcher in the U.S. she compared women’s education and employment in California and Yugoslavia and published the results of her research. Milina contributed to a nationally recognized study on immigrant contributions and integration practices in Santa Clara County (Bridging Borders in Silicon Valley), and co-edited KIN: Knowledge of Immigrant Nationalities. Her book All Roads Lead to Jackson: Serbian American Contributions in Amador County, CA since the Gold Rush was published in 2013 by Sebastian Press. Jovanović’s articles have appeared in Serbia, other parts of the former Yugoslavia, U.S., U.K., Belgium, and France.
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She has worked with Santa Clara County’s Office of Human Relations (San Jose, CA) since 1999, monitoring human rights, designing programs for immigrants, and providing mediation services. Her professional interests and publications include: Women and Gender Studies, Ecofeminism, history of immigration & history of Yugoslavs in the U.S., EU & U.S. foreign policy, Ethnic Studies, political history of Yugoslavia, Sociology of Law, and Sociology of Love.
In addition to her regular work, she is a community activist, environmentalist, yoga teacher, and poet. Her first collection of poems A Dog Violet in My Hair was published in 2007.
