A Rust Belt comeback story, divided over whether to root for US
Why this matters: political developments that affect policy direction and public trust.
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. “I thought I came to another war zone when I came here,” 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. “Utica was pretty bad back then.” 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 — and its messy aftermath — that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia. Exact figures are tough to pin down, but it’s believed that about 6,000 Bosnians now live in Utica — or nearly 10 percent of the total population. 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’s just the second time that Bosnia has qualified for the tournament since it became an independent country in 1992. 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. “Seeing this national team progress to the World Cup is definitely something amazing,” 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. “Bosnia is still struggling politically, socially. There are still so many problems that are still affecting the country.” The arrival of the Bosnians in Utica has been followed by waves of other immigrants — most notably a large influx of Karen refugees originally from Burma — that have h