experienced a mass exodus. On June 25, 1991, Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia and Susak remained a part of newly formed Republic of Croatia. Population Susak's inhabitants reside in a single settlement of the same name. The settlement has two parts: atop a small hill, Gornje Selo is the older part of the village where the island's church is located; and Donje Selo is the lower part of the village adjacent to the seashore and small harbor. Between 1948 and the early 1960s, the island's population plummeted because of the Istrian exodus. As of 2011, Susak had only 151 residents with approximately 2,500 emigrants or descendants of emigrants living in New Jersey, United States. While the greatest concentration of emigrants and descendants currently live in the New York City metropolitan area (particularly in northern New Jersey), most went to Hoboken, New Jersey, people from Susak can be found living throughout the United States. There are only about a dozen surnames from Susak. The engravings on the island's white tombstones boast these names (or some form of them): Busanić, Hrončić, Lister, Matešić, Mirković, Morin, Picinić, Sutora, Skrivanić, and Tarabokija. Before World War II, most if not all of the inhabitants labored as vintners, farmers, fisherman, or some combination of all three occupations. Today, the island's emigrants and descendants hold a wide variety of professions from longshoremen to conductors and from engineers to lawyers. Expulsion of Ethnic Italians and Exile to America Italians in Julian region were under extreme pressure to leave after the war, especially following the mass killings of Italians in nearby Istria. The Croat and Slovenian nationalists in the socialist government sought to impose collective punishment on the Italians after the annexation to the Slavic state (Republic of Croatia in Yugoslav federation). The inhabitants of Susak-Sansego spoke in a local idiom, with both Romance and Slavic vocabulary. Faced with poverty, famine, lack of employment opportunities, along with the desire for a better life, the island experienced a mass exodus between 1948 through the mid-1960s directly due to the political climate and nationalist policies. After World War II, Yugoslavia's new government required that all able men work for a period of time without payment. Many of the Sansegots (people from Susak) by the mid-1960s, more than 80 percent of the population had left the island. Susak's inhabitants immigrated to the United States for two main reasons. First, they believed that