Although I grew up in suburban Los Angeles, I’ve always had a confused outlook on “home” and what that meant to me. Both my parents lived in downtown Sarajevo until my mother was wounded by a grenade in 1994 during the Bosnian War, which forced them to flee to the Los Angeles area for treatment. So although I was raised in Los Angeles, I’ve always searched for more understanding of Bosnian culture and people, a community that isn’t very prevalent in Los Angeles.

 

For the most part my only interactions with Bosnia are times I’ve visited to see my grandparents and cousins, and even from my limited time there many years after it ended, I could see the impact this war had on the community not only physically but culturally as well.

 

As I grew older, tourism began to become more prominent in Sarajevo, as more and more people came to see the historical phenomenon that this city was. Sarajevo has consistently been on the crossroads of history dating back to the Ottoman empire, and admittedly it is extremely interesting and beautiful. I do recommend Bosnia as an incredible place to visit as a tourist. However, it’s so easy as a tourist to overlook the cultural impact of these historical phenomena.

 

For the people living there, these phenomena are not just a sight to see, they are home, and they are identity. The  invasion of the Ottoman Empire, then the Austro-Hungarian, and most recently the Bosnian war, a gruesome genocide of the Bosnian people committed by the Serbian peoples, have all had damaging effects on Bosnian culture and the people’s understanding of identity.

 

This work is an exploration of the impact of the Bosnian war and ethnic conflict on Bosnian culture to this day, told through the lens of a Bosnian- American and the stories I was told from my family’s connection to it. It also touches on this idea of tourism, not as a message against tourism as a whole, only against ignorance.

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Thank you for reading.

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                                                                                With love,

                                                                                        Adi Jahic