Episode #5: Maria Mihaylova & Louiza Gueorguieva
The mother-daughter pair, Maria Mihaylova and Louiza Gueorguieva, are from Bulgaria. They immigrated to the United States when Louiza, the daughter, was a teenager. The reason for leaving their homeland was because the economy there was - and still is - in a shambles, and the movies they saw about life in the United States convinced them that they would have better opportunitiese here.
Once they arrived, they found that life in the United States was not as rosy as they imagined. The family was torn apart, as the mother and her husband divorced. They were dismayed by not understanding the customs or the language, but as time passed, they began to fit in. They opened a small coffee shop that features Bulgarian dishes as well as coffee and other standard items, and frequently, a Bulgarian musical group called Nestinari comes and plays in their shop. Money raised through the musicians will go towards opening an Eastern Orthodox Christian church that will be directed primarily towards Bulgarians.
The host of this episode is filmmaker Eve A. Ma.
