Muamer Avdic

Abstract:

Muamer Avdic  was born in Bosnia in 1991 and left the country with his family not long after that, immigrating to Germany. They eventually made their way to the United States in 1998, settling first in Washington D.C. and then moving to Carlisle. Muamer describes his own views on personal identity as he has spent most of his life in America and has no memories from Bosnia. He also explains what it is like to revisit the country that his family is from with his wife, who is also Bosniak. The interactions he has had with other members of the Carlisle community also features into the interview, along with his own practices as a Muslim.

Keywords:

Bosnia, Washington D.C., Slovenia, Germany, Tuzla, Zivinice, Kalesija, Sarajevo, Dodik, Republika Srpska, Red Cross, Islamophobia,

Time Stamp Summary:

(1:34) Leaving Bosnia

(5:43) The process of coming to America

(6:48) Hearing about the Bosniak community in Carlisle

(8:12) Relationship with Bosnian, and non-Bosnian peers

(9:55) Cultural barriers in coming to the states

(11:25) Thoughts on Americans not knowing anything about Bosnia

(12:24) Islamophobia, relationship to Islam

(14:36) Returning to Bosnia

(17:44) Personal definition of home

(19:15) Thoughts on the current political situation in Bosnia

(20:34) Feelings about interacting with Serbians

(23:05) How his parents explained the war to him

(27:30) Islamophobia

(29:44) How he met his wife

(33:31) His experience with his own identity as an American

(36:10) His Father’s experience immigrating to America

(38:44) Final thoughts

Transcript:

0:00 Samuel Lavine (SL)

Uh so great so my name is  uh and I'm interviewing Muamer. Could you state your first and last name?

0:07 Muamer Avdic (MA) 

My name is Muamer Avdic.

 0:09 SL

Uh can you spell that?

 0:10 MA 

[Each letter is spoken aloud] M U A M E R. Last Name: A V D I C.

 0:15 SL

Great. Um so we are, real quick, I'm gonna turn on this recording just so we have a backup of this interview. Um, so, for this project of Bosnians in Carlisle, Cumberland County, as you know, we are interviewing survivors and descendants of  Bosniaks from the war with Serbians. So first of all, do I have your consent for this interview?

Yes, you do. Thank you. So the date today is April 14th. It is currently 11:40 ish. 11:31, the time is now 11:31,and we are in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Muamer, thank you so much for participating in this interview. Can you tell us your age?

 1:11 MA 

I'm 30 years old.

 1:13 SL

Mhm. So how old were you when the war began?

 1:19 MA 

So I was a baby, I was an infant, basically, So, I was born December 31 of ‘91, and the war kind of started February or March of ‘92,so I was pretty much a couple months old.

 1:34 SL

Mhm

 1:35 MA 

And my family pretty much escaped Bosnia fairly quickly, as soon as it started.

 1:40 SL

Where did your family go?

 1:42 MA   

We went, so initially, when the war started, my dad basically left everything we had, we hopped on a train went to Slovenia, and at the time, you know, there wasn't too much information, it wasn't like a social media era where you knew where to go, so we basically went to Slovenia, and once we got there, there was a Red Cross shelter set up and we ended up staying there for about 18 months or so, in Slovenia at this Red Cross shelter.

 2:12 SL

Do you know what that decision was like for your family to move?

 2:16 MA   

I mean, it was tough, you know, like my dad, he just started his job. He was a math professor back home. Obviously, like, he had my sister, she was a little bit older. She was like, three, four at the time, then he has a newborn and me. And you know, things start, you don't really know what to do. You're basically kind of just guessing, like, hey, where can we go to survive? And then you just hear stories from other people, you kind of know of safe zones where you can go where you can’t go. He just, you know, settled down, bought his first apartment, had like a little weekend house as well, just got a brand new car. You basically have to leave it all behind. And it's like, you know, where do you go? Like, do you just have to do what you got to do? I guess?

 3:08 SL

Mhm. Do you, so where did, how long were you in Slovenia? and then where did you go?

 3:13 MA 

We were there for about 18 months. So we were at this, you know, a shelter where a lot of other Bosnian families were. After that, a lot of countries had borders that were open. Obviously, people that were there, they didn't really know that there was open border just because of the lack of communication and the lack of news and things like that. But my grandfather, he ended up being in Germany, and somehow through communication, you know, calling here and there, we ended up finding out that he's there, that we could get in there, and technically, we actually got into Germany illegally. He, um, he knew some people that could just, basically, drive us cross the borders. And from Slovenia. We ended up getting into Germany. And we stayed in Germany for about five and a half years in Berlin.

 4:01 SL

So, would you say some of your like, early memories are from Germany?

 4:06 MA 

Yeah, so, yeah, 100%

 4:09 SL

What would you like? What, what was specifically like, do you remember from your childhood in Germany? Like, what was that? Like? Did you feel like you were welcomed or?

 4:19 MA 

Oh, yeah, I mean, I was still very young. But Germany was amazing, I mean, Germany, even though we were illegal, they still welcomed everybody with open arms. Obviously, at the time we were immigrants coming from Bosnia, so not many Bosniaks really worked initially. Were basically on like government welfare of some sort, but German, the German people they really welcomed us. They gave everybody housing. They they made sure all the kids went to school. They welcomed us with open arms, but around like the five-year mark is when they kind of said “hey, you guys have to kindly get out", so a lot of, it was basically like a threat, where they kind of told everybody like, “hey, we're gonna kick you guys out, either go back to Bosnia, go to the United States, go to Canada go to Australia”. So they gave us multiple different options on different countries that we could choose from. We obviously ended up choosing the United States, but come to find out, you know, years later, people that didn't end up leaving, they actually ended up getting German citizenship, so it was more like a scare tactic used by German people, like get out as many people as they could and then whoever stayed stayed.

 5:34 SL

Okay. Um, that's, that's interesting. Um how, so that was probably like, ‘97? When that happened?

 5:43 MA 

Um well we came to United States, July of ‘98.

 5:47 SL

And what was that process like? Do you remember that?

 5:51 MA 

So one of my cousin's, he actually lives here in Carlisle, his name is Damir. He got adopted by an American family, because he was he was actually in an internment camp over in Bosnia, and he ended up getting adopted by an American family in Washington, DC. And that was probably maybe like, ‘94 ‘95. After that, he ended up bringing his parents over from Bosnia, and they were our cousins, and then just through that, we kind of came to the United States through them. So we lived in Washington DC initially, right, right around like  Columb..., Columbia area, DC, whatever. But yeah, that's basically kind of how we came here.

 6:38 SL

Mhm. And how long were you in DC?

 6:41 MA 

In DC? We weren't there more than like, maybe like less than a year

 6:45 SL

And then did you come to Carlisle?

 6:46 MA 

Carlisle? Yep.

 6:48 SL

And how did you find Carlisle?

 6:50 MA 

Carlisle? We actually, one of my good friends is named Ibnel. Ibnel Hrnjic. He lives here in Carlisle as well, his dad was very well connected with a lot of different Bosnians . I'm not really sure. But he's just always been connected. And he knew a friend of ours that lived down in DC. And we basically ended up kind of connecting, networking and [Emina, Muamer’s wife walks into frame] a lot of Bosnian people came from down there to the Carlisle area. And a lot of people were saying, like, hey, it's like a really nice area, great schools, a lot of jobs for people that don't really speak the language. Jobs are very close by so it just really worked for for us. You know, because not many people really spoke English. Many people weren't educated, even if they were those degrees didn't really carry over or transfer over. So people worked the worst jobs. And in big cities, like say, like Washington DC, it's like you can work in a hotel or you can and then you're in the inner city, your kids are in predominantly very bad schools. Versus here, it's like you're in Carlisle small town, still pretty good schools. Think things like that.

 8:03 SL 

So, growing up in Carlisle, so you're probably around like eight years old?

 8:08 MA 

I was around like six, seven. I mean, I started first grade here in Carlisle.

 8:12 SL

So, so that's for like six ish. Yeah. So did you do you remember mainly hanging out with fellow Bosnian?

 8:21 MA 

Mostly? Yeah. So init..., initially, I mean, I had a few American friends but, cause we lived in College Park, I don't know if you're, if you're familiar with where College Park is right behind Dickinson, but a lot of Bosnians came, and like we kind of settled there in College Park. And again, it was word of mouth, like we like to hear kids can walk basically to school, because a lot of parents would go work for a shift, so they can really take the kids to school. So we'd all kind of just go as a you know, as a pack, we'd go to school, and it was very close, safe. [Emina, Muamer’s wife walks into the frame] But yeah, that's pretty much.

 8:53 SL

How would you describe like the relationships that like you'd have developed with the non-Bosnian students?

 9:02 MA 

Around here? Yeah. I mean, initially, like, you start school, and you just kind of gravitate to people. I don't know. I don't even know why certain people become friends. Obviously. Initially, that was, the number one thing was the language barrier. I spoke German fluently and I spoke Bosnian fluently, but obviously I didn't understand English at all. So in my first grade class, I had like two other Bosnian kids. And obviously, we gravitated to each other cause we lived next to each other our parents knew each other and then we can understand each other and then obviously as the years went on, once you started learning the language you start talking to other kids and being able to communicate and then you start developing other friends, I started playing basketball different activities around school and started getting other friends as well. But initially Yeah, all my friends were pretty much Bosnian.

 9:55 SL

And so like, did you feel there were like, cultural barriers like Besides, like the obvious, like language barriers were like there things that made you feel like it was particularly difficult to assimilate or did it the opposite?

 10:08 MA 

I mean, people obviously knew that we were different. I mean, it helped us that we were, you know, not to sound like, you know well we were white, so that, you know, white people, they saw us as White still. So we didn't really stand out as much as you know, maybe Arabs or something, you know, where there's discriminated by based on what the way they look or what they wear, because we still wore the same clothes as white, we looked the same. The only thing that was different was our names. And initially, we didn't really speak the language. So people were like, Who the heck are these people? I had people like to, I mean, to this day, there's people that don't know where Bosnia is, and especially very early on, people thought that Bosnia was like, some random part of America, I had people to ask me like, what part of Texas is Bosnia in? Yeah. So it's like, you hear like, all these crazy like remarks and people just asking you these crazy questions. And then they're like, why’s your name so weird if you're just from Texas? And I'm like, where did you hear this from? And it was crazy rumors that get passed on. And I mean I guess that was being talked amongst some of the American people, but I don't know.

 11:16 SL

How do you feel about the fact that like, so few Americans, like know anything about Bosnia?

 11:25 MA 

I mean, I don't really feel any type of way. It's, I'm not gonna be mad at them. It's like, people are gonna learn about what they're interested in and what their I don't know. It's, it's like asking me like, why don't I know about some random person or something. It’s like if they're not exposed to or if they don't really know, it's, it's hard to be mad at them. It's hard to expect things from people. But it's a pleasant surprise when people do actually know about Bosnia, you can start a conversation you can talk to him, and more and more over the years, you're starting to see that people do know things about Bosnia. Initially, we had pretty much I don't think anybody knew anything about Bosnia. But now you know, like, one person meets somebody through work, that's Bosnian, and they have a friend of a friend that's Bosnian or something and more and more people are starting to know, but overall, I think most people still don't really know why we're here.

 12:24 SL

Um so uh you're talking about like, how, like, you know, you come off as white, you know you dress you know, very similar to a lot of you know, your neighbors in Carlisle. Do you feel like you faced a lot of like, Islamophobic discrimination growing up?

 12:41 MA 

Not really, not really, because, me personally, I don't really like wear, like, what I am on my sleeve, like I just blend in, I don't want to stand out. Like, why would I put like, why would I? Why would I want to be like a sore thumb? I mean, like, like, growing up, like my grandfather was always like just “fit in.” Obviously, when somebody like you comes in, starts asking me more personal questions. It's like you want to know, but why would I go out there and tell people what I am if they're not even interested in it? So personally, I didn't really, I don't think I experienced that. But then again, I never really put myself out there either.

 13:23 SL

So in terms of like, your personal relationship with like your, like Bosnian and like, Islamic identity, like where would you say like that fits among, like your identity as like an American, like, would you say like, you're like, Bosnian and like Islamic identity. It's like really close to you, or do you think it's just kind of like, well,

 13:42 MA 

I mean, I think like, my Bosnian is like super close. Obviously, like, you know, I'm proud of who I am, I'm proud of where I come from, I'm proud of, you know, what we've been able to achieve here. So yeah, I hold, I, you know, I love it, I love who I am. I love where I'm from, when I go to Bosnia like, it's home. And even here, like when I hang out with Bosnians, like it's just natural, it's easy for me, because I just, we just get each other. But as far as how close I like have it to me, I mean, it's pretty close, but not, it's not I don't know how to explain it. I don't know. It's hard for me to explain, but it's pretty close. Like, I value it. And I respect it. And like obviously, I love who I am and where I'm from.

 14:36 SL

Um, so you said that you've been back to Bosnia? Did you go there often or how often have you been back?

 14:43 MA 

Yeah, I mean, initially, when not when we were younger, obviously my parents didn't have that much money. They worked very like low end jobs. So we didn't go that often. We might have went twice. From the point when I was like, in America, to the end of high school. I went twice. So twice in like almost two decades. But now that I'm older I mean obviously I'm married now we'd like to go every other year.

 15:09 SL

Mhm. Was it initially like difficult like psychologically or like emotionally for your family to return to Bosnia?

 15:17 MA 

Umm. I mean it's hard for me to speak cause like I never really went into that with my parents, obviously for them like they they have a lot of memories. I'm sure it impacts them a certain way for me going over there, it was all brand new. I didn't know anything I didn't really remember much. All I know is the stories and what I've been told, but going over there, it always felt good.

 15:47 SL

Mhm. So where is your hometown in Bosnia?

 15:51 MA 

So I was born in Tuzla, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. But initially, obviously, I would have probably I would have lived maybe somewhere else. I was just born there. There's like a big hospital there. So a lot of Bosnians that are kind of from that general area, probably, you know, got born there. But I might have either lived in a town called Calessia or Svordinic. It's all kind of on the same same side.

 16:21 SL

When you return to Bosnia, do you go back to Tuzla, or?

 16:25 MA 

So, I go to a place called Zivinice or Sarajevo. So my, my dad, he has a sister that lives in in Sarajevo and then I have an uncle that lives in  Zivinice. So so it's a much smaller town and Sarajevo is obviously the capital, its a huge city. So I mean, nowadays like you have family like throughout, you have friends, my wife has the house kind of right outside of Tuzla. And it's all fairly close, like say from from Tuzla to Sarajevo, it's about two hours, driving, kilometers wise maybe like only like 80 kilometers, but it's all through the mountains. It's like curvy roads. So it takes about two hours get there, but nothing's that far. So we go from place to place, now my parents bought a condo close to my uncle, so they're gonna have a spot. So we you know, we travel obviously, we, we have cousins in different places. And, you know, we, we try to experience as much as possible.

 17:26 SL

Yeah.

 17:27 MA

Because we are tourists after all. It's like weird, you know, here, we're considered foreigners. And you go over there, and we're considered foreigners, again. It's like, nothing's really like, everywhere we go, we're not like really considered as like, from there. It's weird.

 17:44 SL

So would you, in terms of what you would say is like home like when I say home, like does Bosnia come to mind? Is it Carlisle?

 17:53 MA 

I mean, this is my home. Yeah, this is my home. So I consider that Carlisle my, my hometown, basically. I mean, it's given us everything we have so I’ll always love Carlisle for that.

 18:08 SL

Okay. Um, but like, so when you returned to Bosnia, you know, you, you it's not just Tuzla you see as many people as many like family, friends throughout –

 18:19 MA

Wait, say it again?

 18:20 SL

So, like, when you return to Bosnia, it's like you see as many like family and friends as possible. It’s not like you’re just going to one place?

 18:26 MA 

Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much because everybody wants to see you, obviously, you know, every..., it's hard, it's hard to like, just say, “I'm going to this person's house”, and then somebody’s going to be like “Oh, you didn't come see me.” And, its family, imagine its like here and its like all of a sudden your family was across the world, and then you go to that location where they're at. And you're like 10 miles away from them, and you don't go see them. They're gonna feel some type of way. So it’s like you got to make time to see everybody. But you find time, you know, usually when we go we go for at least a month at a time because it is so far away. And then you don't have to pay for housing. You don't have to, it's much cheaper, in general over there, to eat to go out to do whatever, but not having to pay to sleep and stay anywhere is a huge plus.

 19:15 SL

Mhm, so currently, the situation on Bosnia between you know, the Bosnians and Serbs is really difficult to say the least. Can you tell us a little bit a little bit about that and then also just like how your family in Bosnia is feeling about it?

 19:37 MA 

Well, I mean, obviously I don't know if like, cause I live here so I don't know first person how, how they're feeling or like what the actual situation is. All I can you know talk about is the news that I'm reading and what I'm hearing from them. I mean, for the most part, it’s still cordial like the neighbors are obviously still like, somewhat, okay, they're cool, you know, they're making it as best as they can, but people do know that there's tensions now rising, you know, like, the Serbian side especially like with with Dodik, that represents kind of like the Serbian side or Republika Srpska. He, obviously he has his ways that a lot of Bosnian people don't agree with. And, I don't know, there could be there's obviously there's tension. There could be repercussions and things that come from it, but only time will tell, I guess.

 20:34 SL

In the United States, have you met any like Serbians?

 20:40 MA 

Oh, yeah.

 20:41 SL

And what are those relationshipsLike?

 20:43 MA 

I mean, I have I have good friends that are um. Well, they're Bosnian, they're Bosnian Serbs kind of, you know? Basically, they're Catholic Bosnians. But they're still from Bosnia. And even back in the day, I mean, we were all, we were all civil like Bosnia has churches, Bosnia has synagogues, Bosnia has mosques, like we were basically a country similar to the United States. When you look out, we had everything. We weren't just a Muslim country. But the war led to like, so much tension between people just based on religion, but before that, we all live together, just kinda like we are now. So to say that our wars never gonna happen again. That's what people said before, too. And kind of like I said, now, like neighbors were cordial neighbors were cordial back then, too, but all of a sudden, they turned on each other. Just for a simple fact. And I think that religion number one.

 21:44 SL

But you would say that like, like so you do have Serbian friends then? Like you get along with them?

 21:50 MA 

Yeah. I mean, I have a couple of friends like they're not like, like full on Serbian, but they're Bosnian and they're Catholic. But yeah, we're friends. I mean, I grew up with a lot of them. It's funny, like, over there, we couldn’t coexist. But here we still coexist. And honestly, like, with me, I'm very open minded. So I don't really judge people based on their religion or who like I just based on, you know, the type of person they are, to me. Obviously, like, there's certain Bosnians that are worse people than some of them. Not every Serbian was bad. Like, another thing I didn't include in the opening is like, my dad's roommate in college was Serbian. And he's actually the one that got us into Slovenia. So while you know, it's like Serbia, versus Bosnia basically, there is a good guy on the other side, that's like, hey, come over here, like, you're gonna be safe. So even though he was on the other side, he still like respected that friendship that they built through college, and he still looked out for us.

 23:00 SL

How did your parents explain the war to you?

 23:05 MA 

I mean, I don't, I don't even know. All I've heard is like stories. Obviously, you hear, like all the bad things that happen. Obviously, there's nothing really good came out of it, so it's all negative stories. When you hear the way people were treated, obviously, like, I have family members that died. Plenty of my friends that live in Carlisle don't have dads or don't have certain relatives because of the war, so there's nothing good. It's all stories are negative. There was a lot of bad things that happened. Civilians got killed for no reason. People got chased out. I mean, we're here and like, thousands of miles away, not because we want to be but because we were forced out, so it sucks. A lot of stories were negative, and you hear a lot of things that you don't really want to hear. But -

 24:01 SL

What, what other stories were you told about uh Bosnia? So well, first, how old were you when you finally, like, returned to Bosnia?

 24:12  MA 

I was maybe like 10 or 11? Maybe 12. I don't know somewhere around there.

 24:19 SL

Besides the war, like what were you told about Bosnia?

 24:24 MA 

Not much. I mean, I didn't really know like too much you know, like you're a kid and who knows maybe I was even told things but how much do you remember is another. All I knew was I was just a kid I was just growing up here and I had friends that are Bosnian and it just felt natural it felt normal. You didn't like we didn't really know like what we escaped. All we know is the stories and, it's kind of weird man, you kind you kind of almost become like, like immune to it, or something like I never even, like I had multiple friends that all they have is a mom and you don't even like question you don't even you don't really, it seems normal.

 25:08 SL

How did, how did that like, normalization of like, you know, awful things? Do you think that shaped your life? That is the shape your worldview and like how, how so?

 25:22 MA 

I mean I don't know. I don't know, it's hard for me to answer that. Because all I know is like the person I am today, obviously, I'm pretty sure the things that happened in my life have shaped who I am. But the number one thing that I try to take away from it is a lot of us a lot of Bosnians just obviously, it's it hasn't been a long time since this happened. So most Bosnians like view Serbians very negatively. You know, I believe the majority of them aren't very close friends. Like, I'm not gonna, like, say that I have Serbians that come over and hang out with me all the time or something. Because it's not, it's not the case. But I'm civil with a lot of people. And we can still talk, but I don't know if I'll get that close to them just because I know how quickly like, things turn. And I'm, and it's hard for me to, like trust somebody because I know how people are raised and like, how much tension it might not even be tension, like amongst people our age, or like our generation, but it's just like, maybe their parents, the way they, they, the things they said about us is the same thing and like that our parents said about them. So it's like, it seems like that, hate was more down like the older generations. We'll see how you know how things go. Like obviously, as you know, we get older and like once we have kids, if that's going to kind of like fade away a little bit. But it's so hard to like really speak on it, because I'm just like one person that didn't really experience that much. I try to you know, like, evaluate every single person based on who they are. And not judge too much. But I don't know, it's very difficult to really answer like a lot of these questions.

 27:30 SL

No, thats absolutely okay. I'm circling back. Oh, we're talking about Islamophobia in the United States. Um, have you ever felt like, you know, in the past, say 10 or 20 years where like, you have that like, same level of like, distrust to like, fellow Americans?

 27:46 MA 

Yeah. I mean, if you're, I believe, like, if you're openly going out and saying you're Muslim, like, people are gonna judge you, 150%, like, that's without a doubt, like, people don't, people, first, people are uneducated, they don't even know what Islam is. There's plenty of people kind of like what we what I said earlier about, like Bosnia. They have no clue, what, where Bosnia is. And it's the same thing with Islam, like, majority of people have no clue what Muslims believe in. People have these crazy like, ideas in their head, that we're bad people that we believe in the devil or who knows, like, what they come up with, that we believe in killing people, or, you know, these crazy things, when in reality, like, Islam is just like any other religion, you know, pushes you to be a good person and to care about people and to, you know, be compassionate and to do good things. But the lack of knowledge and people just not knowing leads to a lot of Islamophobia, like you're talking about and 911 didn't help, the war in Iraq, and it was basically almost like a war on Islam. Because the only thing people know is all Muslims are Arabs when in reality, there's Muslims of all skin colors, and races and ethnicities. But the lack of knowledge that kind of gives people the Islamophobia. And that's kind of why me personally, I don't want to get involved. I don't want to go out there and preach to people. I just don't want people. I don't want to be a target. I want people to judge me just based on like, my conversation with you and how I treat you. I don't want people to judge me based on who I am or what I believe in.

 29:44 SL

So I asked you about this earlier, so you said that your wife is also Bosnian? So when did you meet her?

 29:52 MA 

I met her in, hm, she'll get mad at me.  But I think it was 2014? Maybe before, 2013? Let’s say 2013.

 30:05 SL 

Yeah. So what was it here in Carlisle?

 30:09 MA 

No. So she's from she's from California. She's from Alameda, California its right outside of San Francisco. And believe it or not, we actually met online, and then we met in person in Bosnia.

 30:23 SL

Oh!

 30:24 MA 

Yeah. Yeah. So we were from a similar area. And we just, you know, her family was going over there 2015, July 2015. And I went out there too. And we just spent like a month, month and a half together. It was great. But then I went to California, visit her a couple times, she would come here, and we just kind of went back and forth. We tried to visit each other as much as possible. And she was in college in the meantime, I was working on growing my business. So we were just, it was long distance, but we tried to see each other as much as possible too. And then we would spent every, like, we went I think it was every other summer, we went to Bosnia and spend like a whole summer together a couple weeks. It'd be at least like four to six weeks at a time. And then the rest is history. Yeah. And we ended up getting married in 2019.

 31:19 SL

Aw, congratulations!

 31:20 MA 

Thank you, man.

 31:22 SL 

Were you looking, like, I guess like hindsight, you know, is just sort of like, were you looking for like a Bosniak person?

 31:29 MA 

Yeah, I mean, obviously, growing up in America. Like my parents were very open minded. Like in general, compared to maybe most Bosnians, they're a little more open minded than usual. They let me choose with any type of girl I wanted. They weren't like, “Oh, you gotta marry a Bosnian girl” versus with a lot of Bosnians like, like, that is the case, like we're a lot of Bosnian, you have to marry a Bosnian girl. And my parents just didn't view that as fair. Just because we're in America. It's like how many Bosnians are here and how many other races and different people are here? So they always let me choose. But it was just like the simplicity and the ease of just the same upbringing. Like the way she was raised the same way I was raised, is the same thing with you, you're probably going to find the most mutual connection and a girl that similar very similar to you, things, you know, the way you were brought up and everything is easier. And then when you have kid... cause I like, with me, I just, I don't know, I'm very like logical. It's like, the more similarities we have, the easier it's going to be I always thought that and then when we have kids is just going to be that much easier when we have we're on the same page our parents can communicate easily. But then my sister she's married to an American guy. So she, she was very Americanized she, with me personally, like I always like love my Bosnian roots. And I just always got along with like my Bosnian friends. I have maybe two or three American friends that are on the same level as my Bosnian friends. It's like I like probably have five really close Bosnian friends and like two, three really close American friends. But I see I view them on the same level, like we just built such a great bond where I don't care. You know, if they're American or whatever, but the same thing with them. They don't care like what I am, we just became great friends.

 33:31 SL 

Did you feel like, like, growing up, have you felt this kind of like, pull and tug between your identity as like Bosnian and American?-

 33:41 MA 

Not really. Not really. I mean, like, look at America, like, everybody's from somewhere.

 33:48 SL 

So in a way, it felt like you fit in just like everybody else?

 33:52 MA 

I mean, I felt like I did. Like, obviously, there was like, Carlisle I don't know, some people say it's very, like, conservative. And I mean, people did judge us, man, there was a lot of times where like people would be, “ah you don't pay taxes, you're Bosnian”. It's like, what do you mean? Like, we live here, like, if I own this house, I got to pay property tax. If I weren't there, they're gonna take taxes for me, too. It's not. But I think a lot of people that we grew up with, they didn't understand how we just came here. And then it's like, “I live on the same street as you”. Or “you have a better car than me”. And like, “I grew up here, like my parents. Like, we're, you know, I was born here and my parents were born here. It's like, how do you already have more than me?” So they're only like, logical reasoning was like, ah, “there has to be something they're getting all these benefits from the country, you know, or they're not paying taxes. That's why they can get ahead”. But in reality, like our parents, like worked their asses off. They're all hard workers. They all put their kids first like they like that’s one thing with like, the Bosnian culture is like, family is huge. Like our parents like already. I mean, I know my parents in law, my friend's parents like they're, they will do anything for their kids, literally, like they’ll get them, get them a car or whatever, even if they have to work crazy overtime versus the American way. It's kind of like, are you going to work for your car, you're going to at least a lot of people that I grew up with there was it seemed like there was like animosity, and, of some sort. And I don't know, there was definitely like, hate towards us from certain people. But then other people loved us too. It was kind of like 50/50 but and with me, I grew up here. So like me talking to you, you probably wouldn't even be able to tell that I’m Bosnian. I have no accent. But say some people that have a strong accent. Or you can tell they're from somewhere, I'm sure they get even more discrimination or racism towards them. Especially around here. Like some of the more country folks don't really. They're not too fond of immigrants, or

 36:10 SL 

So you were talking earlier about how your father was a math professor? And then what did he What was his occupation when he came to the United States?

 36:21 MA 

(laugh) I mean, in DC, he was a dishwasher. So he went from like, I mean, he's, he's like a country boy. So it's, I mean, I don't know, it's, it's unbelievable, like, his sisters like he has. He's the only boy among sisters, one only like finished fourth grade. The others may be finished eighth grade, max. And over there. It's like if you’re from the country, you're just like, like, we need you to work. There's no school like, especially as a girl, like you're gonna get married somewhere to some other family anyway, so least you can do is like know how to cook. It was very old school mentality. And for him to make it out and like to finish because he went from like the country he went to Sarajevo, graduated from there, it was a huge accomplishment. It was like, unheard of at the time, really, it's almost like becoming like, I don't know, this might be like, crazy to say, but like a billionaire or something right now from, it's like, pretty much like one in a million type of chance. So amongst the Bosnian community, like he's very well respected, like people, like know him, and they respect that. But he always tells me, like, do what you want to do. He always wanted to be an architect. And his dad really pushed him to be a math professor. And he's like, look at me now. Like, had I become an architect what I wanted to be, maybe I could be an architect here. Because here, he can't teach math. It's like people in the United States, usually aren't very good at math. And then there's a huge language barrier. And it's like, it's gonna be that much more difficult for him to teach that course. So he never really wanted to do that. But he's like, if I was an architect, I could work by myself, do my drawings make, you know, start a business or whatever, and kind of carry over. So that's why he always let me do what I wanted to do. He never like pushed me or he never told me I had to do something in life. Because he just didn't want like to say anything. Because it's like, he's like, look at me. I worked my whole life to become this. And just like that, as soon as I get it, I’m a dishwasher, you know, it's like, you worked your whole life for something. And then just like that, you're nothing again.

 38:30 SL

Yeah, that must have been.

 38:31 MA

Yeah It's tough. It sucks.

 38:32 SL

Yeah.

 38:33 MA

So you like, basically just do what you want to do. Don't do what other people want you to do, because you never know where your life's gonna go.

 38:44 SL

Alright, so if there's something that like, so we expect that, students, researchers might be looking at this and you know, a few years, few decades, what would you want like a viewer to leave with? About like, who you are your identity or story?

 39:04 MA

Me? Or Bosnians in general?

 39:07 SL 

Either. Like, it could be about you could be Bosnians because you know, you have your own story.

 39:14 MA

I mean, number one thing I think is we we all came here like we're we're good people. Number one. We're very hard workers. We want to make the United States better. So we're not here, you know, we're not here to like, do bad things. Like I believe Bosnians as a whole are doing a lot of good for the America, like just in general in the United States. But especially here in the Carlisle area, like we have business owners, we have lawyersnow, doctors, dentists, and that's only going to get better and better over time. But I just I just want people to like learn, like educate themselves and see like who we are. And like what we bring to the table. We're not just losers or something like, we came he...,we, we came here like the earliest was like me and like ‘98 ‘95. And in less than 20 years, like, a lot of us have accomplished a lot of things. So I don’t know just learn and educate yourself and just kind of get to know what Bosnians are all about and what the war kind of did and, just know the truth, basically like it's hard. It's hard to it's hard to know like, what what's truth anymore, man. You see, like now with Ukraine. It's like, just same things happening again, man. It's like people are just innocent people are just getting killed for no reason. And that's literally what happened in Bosnia, and it's like, it's terrible.

 40:57 SL 

On that note, well thank you so much for this interview. Thank you so much for your time. It is now 12:11 in the afternoon. Thank you so much for participating in this project. And it's been great speaking with you.