About 10 years ago, 9,000 Bosnian refugees arrived in Syracuse and Utica.
Dzenan Selimovic, a refugee from Bosnia, has been a Syracuse police officer for five years. He's with his wife Barbara, who is eight months pregnant with the couple's first child, at their home in North Syracuse. Selimovic said he left Bosnia in 1993 during the war. He lived in refugee camps in Germany until 1998, when he came to Syracuse.North Syracuse, NY -- Dzenan Selimovic’s first job in the United States was as a dishwasher at a local nursing home.
“I didn’t even speak English, but it was a job,” said Selimovic, who was 20 years old when he came to the United States as a Bosnian refugee in 1998. “My parents raised us to work hard and be proud of what you do.”
Today, Selimovic, 32, is a Syracuse police officer and owns his own home in North Syracuse with his wife Barbara, who is eight months pregnant with the couple’s first child.
Edin Omerovic was 5 years old when the Bosnian war uprooted his family. He moved to Syracuse with his parents and brothers in 2000 at the age of 12. This fall, he will be a senior at the State University of New York at Oswego and he hopes to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
“I never questioned if I was going to go college,” Omerovic said. “I knew I had to get my education.”
Selimovic and Omerovic’s stories are not unique to the Bosnian refugee community living in Central New York. More than 3,000 Bosnians settled in the Syracuse area in the late 1990s and early 2000s; another 6,000 settled in nearby Utica. They were escaping war and ethnic cleansing following the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Today this community is thriving, with many owning their own homes and earning college degrees, said Stephanie Horton of the Syracuse City School District’s Refugee Assistance Program.
“Overall they’ve been a really successful community,” Horton said. “I’ve seen people who have really thrived here. The kids are doing well in school and they are going off to college.”
Edin Omerovic, 21, of East Syracuse, left Bosnia with his family when he was 5 years old. He came to Syracuse at 12 years old. He is currently in college at SUNY Oswego for public justice. He wants to join the FBI.Horton said Bosnians have adapted well in Central New York
“They came here with skills and education and they wanted to work,” Horton said. “And fortunately the economy was good and the jobs were available.”
Horton said the Bosnian refugee community hasn’t needed assistance in recent years. Many Bosnians learned English, joined the workforce and became United States citizens, she said.
“The Bosnian community has truly taken root in this community,” Horton said.
Omerovic, who is now 21, graduated from Nottingham High School and attended Onondaga Community College before going to SUNY Oswego to study public justice. His older brother graduated from LeMoyne College and his younger brother also attends SUNY Oswego.
“I’m friends with everyone,” he said. “I don’t think about being different or other people being different, so I have a very diverse group of friends.”
Omerovic said he thinks it’s easy for him to blend into the CNY community, but he said he remembers where he comes from.
“Before the war my family was successful in Bosnia,” Omerovic said. “My parents had good jobs and were doing well. That changed with the war.”
From 1992 to 1995, ethnic Serbs, Muslims and Croats struggled for control, after the larger Yugoslav state disintegrated. About 90 percent of the Bosnian community in the Syracuse area are survivors of the genocide that occurred during the Bosnian war. Many lived in refugee camps for years before coming to the United States.
As a young child, Omerovic said he remembers his family being forced to leave their home. They had to move around a lot during the war to escape the fighting and to stay safe, he said.
Selimovic, the police officer, said his family left Bosnia in 1993 during the war. His family lived in refugee camps in Germany until 1998. That year, the family learned it could move back to Bosnia or come to the United States.
“If we went to Bosnia we would have been refugees in our country and by being refugees in America we at least knew that we wouldn’t have to live in war anymore,” Selimovic said.
Selimovic’s family made the decision to come to Syracuse. He came with his parents and brother.
“All I could say in English was ‘I love you,’ ‘good morning’ and ‘goodbye,’ when we arrived in Syracuse,” Selimovic said.
The former InterReligious Council refugee program, which is now the Center for New Americans Refugee Resettlement Program at Interfaith Works, helped set up his family, and many other Bosnian families, at the Vincent Apartments on Smith Lane in Syracuse.
Selimovic worked as a case manager with Catholic Charities for six years before joining the Syracuse Police Department. He worked as a community service officer and became a police officer in 2007. Selimovic still works as an interpreter and volunteers to help refugees who are settling here.
“Bosnians seem to be able to adapt themselves easily in this culture,” Selimovic said. “They try to do their best for their families. They take pride in owning something and taking care of their family.”
Selimovic, who became a United States citizen in 2005, said he considers himself an American citizen from Bosnian.
“I still have the accent and I still have family there so it is kind of a double culture,” he said. “But I’m proud to be an American citizen.”
--Contact Sarah Moses at smoses@syracuse.com or 470-2298.