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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<\/p>\n

Grabovica, now president of the Bosnian American Community Association, was part of a wave of 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 epicenter of Bosnian American culture will never be as conflicted as tonight, when Bosnia and Herzegovina faces the United States in a Round of 32 match. It\u2019s just the second time that Bosnia has qualified for the tournament since it became an independent country in 1992.<\/p>\n

This will be the first time Bosnia has advanced to the knockout rounds, heightening the delirium among Bosnians from Sarajevo to St. Louis (the largest enclave of Bosnians in the U.S.) to Utica ahead of tonight’s 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. \u201cBosnia 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 Cafe & 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

There will be many viewers with divided allegiances at tonight\u2019s watch party sponsored by the Bosnian American Community Association at the Utica Club Lounge. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are proud Americans, but we are also proud Bosnians and tonight we celebrate both,\u201d said Grabovica, the assocation’s president. \u201cThe U.S. is our home, but Bosnia is our heritage \u2014 and soccer brings us together.\u201d<\/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-25146","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\/25146","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=25146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}