In April of 1992, war began in Bosnia. Sarajevo, site of the 1984 Winter Olympics, and, we were told, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, became a city under siege. For all of the people of Bosnia, life shifted in unimaginable ways in a matter of hours, days, or weeks. An immediate exodus began from Bosnia, and people who had never anticipated leaving their country became refugees, dependent upon a world system of resettlement for displaced persons. This book relates the experiences of a hundred Bosnian families who came to Utica, a town in upstate New York. Bosnians in Utica came here as refugees - ginning in 1993, having ?ed from the wars of succession in the former Yugoslavia. Our study evolved over several years as a result of our interests in the war in Bosnia and the massive ?ow of refugees that it precipitated. We began work on the project in the late 1990s as we set out to learn about the war and to explore refugee experiences of displacement, transit, and resettlement. Our intent is to portray the experience of Bosnian refugees in one American city and to capture, in their words, in as much detail as possible their adjustment to a new community and a new culture.

Bosnian Refugees in Chicago: Gender, Performance, and Post-War Economies studies refugee migration through the experiences of survivors of the 1990s wars in former Yugoslavia as they rebuild home, family, and social lives in the wake of their displacement. Ana Croegaert explores post-1970s Yugoslav-era socialism, American neoliberal capitalism, and anti-Muslim geopolitics to examine women’s varied perspectives on their postwar lives in the United States. Based on more than a decade of fieldwork, Croegaert takes readers into staged performances, coffee rituals, protests, memorials, homes, and non-governmental organizations to shine a light on the pressures women contend with in their efforts to make a living and to narrate their wartime injuries. Ultimately, Croegaert argues that refugee women insist on understanding their wartime losses as simultaneously social and material, a form of personhood she labels “injured life.” At a time of mass displacement and heated political debates concerning refugees, Croegaert provides an engaging portrait of a lively and diverse group of women whose opinions on citizenship and belonging are needed now more than ever.

In this book, I have written about some aspects of the war which, I believe, the world must know and remember as a memorial of tragic years. The book begins with my life as a teen. What I have written here is the true story of tragedy and achievements. I never thought that one day I would leave my homeland and move to America and proudly call Iowa my home.

The tragedy of war does not end when the soldiers put down their guns. Among the after-effects, the dislocation and relocation of civilians often loom large. The aftermath of the Bosnian conflicts has left many refugees needing to establish new lives, often in radically different cultures. In Uprooted and Unwanted, Barbara Franz offers a cogent look at how these refugees have fared in two representative cities—Vienna and New York City. Between 1991 and 2001, some 30,000 Bosnian refugees settled in Austria, and 120,000 found their way to the United States. Franz focuses on the strategies, skills, and informal networks used by Bosnian refugees, particularly women, to adapt to official policies and administrative practices in their host societies. Her analysis concludes that historically inaccurate ideas on how to deal with displaced persons have led to policies in both Europe and North America that have adversely affected those whose lives have been devastated by war.

The first Bosnians settled in Chicagoland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, joining other immigrants seeking better opportunities and better lives. As the former Yugoslavia continued to find its identity as a nation over the last century, the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina sought stability and new beginnings in the city of Chicago--many intending to return to their homeland. Today as many as 70,000 Bosnians and their descendants live in the Chicago area, representing different faiths, backgrounds, and motivations for making America their new home. Bosnian Americans of Chicagoland examines the journey of this group, its legacy, and its traditions and customs that have lasted since the first immigrants arrived a century ago.

Roots and Routes is a poignant study of the social integration and identity formation of female refugee youth. Grounded in the practical experiences of adolescent Bosnian refugees living in New York City, the book gives voice to these youths' experiences as they develop a sense of self in their newly adopted homes. Jacqueline Mosselson explores the tensions of affiliation that this process of identity formation generates as the refugees seek to understand ties that bind them to their past, their homeland, and their cultural and geographical roots. Of central concern is the way the identities of refugee youth are affected by new understandings of cultural capital and social expectations. Mosselson's work draws on the theoretical literature of cultural studies and critical psychology to call into question long-held beliefs about the ways refugees «adapt» to the United States. In this powerful and moving book, the female refugee informants speak back to, and reflect on, the constraints as well as the possibilities of their transition, migration, and exile from their homelands.

This book is a first attempt to analytically study and discuss the Bosnian community of Rochester. It is focused on the lives and experiences of a sample of 100 Bosnian families living in Rochester, most of whom have successfully adjusted to a new environment, while facing many religious, cultural, and linguistic challenges. According to the testimony of many Bosnian refugees residing in Rochester, New York, as refugees and newcomers to the city, they faced many challenges including: the language barrier, cultural differences, isolation, fear of being different and not accepted, fear of losing their ethnic and religious identity, prejudice, discrimination, and uncertainty of the future for their children. They also had to overcome inhumane treatment, deportation, grieving, trauma, revenge, forced labor, rape, destruction of cultural and religious monuments, illegal detention, starvation, loss of family members and more. The majority of the participants in this research are Bosnian refugees who fled Bosnia as teenagers or young adults. As such, they were old enough to have formed personal connections to their home culture, religion and language, yet young enough to master and adapt to the systems of an American life. This group must shoulder the burden of fostering solidarity, trust, cultural and religious appreciation among Bosnians in America while simultaneously having to prove their loyalty to their families and their home country. All of this while still facing personal challenges with their older parents, who live either in Bosnia or with them in Rochester. In addition, they face challenges with their own children, who have no memories of living in Bosnia and do not see their religion, language and culture through their parents' lens.

""A story of one little girl and her missing father"" -Allen Pizzey CBS News. A diary of an 11 year old war survivor in Bosnia, striving for a better future for her family. Translating to all the journalists from Bosnian to English for money so that she can collect enough of various currencies for her father once he is released from a concentration camp.