I Am from Bosnia, and America
Why the 2026 World Cup is so much more than just a game to us
When Bosnia and Herzegovina beat Italy in a World Cup-qualifying match back in March, the whole world was shocked. Italy is one of only 8 countries that have ever won the World Cup (they won it 4 times!), and they lost to us? They don’t get to go to the World Cup this time, we do?!?
It was like having that weird kid in high school whose name no one knows (or at least can’t pronounce) crowned the Homecoming King over the star quarterback.
The world scratched their head, then quickly tried to locate us on the map (one American ABC TV reporter still failing to do so), while we deliriously chanted from the rooftops “I am from Bosnia, take me to America!” A refrain one of Bosnia’s cult bands - Dubioza Kolektiv - wrote 15 years ago, in a funny song about a Bosnian whose dream is to go to America, only to be disillusioned by the cost America demands of such dreamers.
[The band has since re-released the song, with brand new, World Cup-related lyrics, looking to capture their newfound fans (listen here). Good for them. I hope it brings them worldwide fame, which they more than deserve. And also - how very American of them! ;)]
The crowd was not thinking of that original song. The refrain was perfect for that moment of magic, transporting our little underdog team to the biggest football stage in the world. Against all odds, real and figurative.
But to me, who is from Bosnia and was taken to America as a child, that original song about the disillusionment of the American Dream felt eerily appropriate, chanted by the Bosnian Diaspora that showed up in tens of thousands to every game so far.
None of us, who came to America 30+ years ago, were meant to be here. We were meant to be dead, our country divvied up, our history erased. That was our enemies’ plan. The fact that we escaped was a problem they tried to remedy by erasing us from every paper and acre of our ancestral land they managed to conquer and keep back home. And over here, our trauma did the rest.
Our new countrymen didn’t ask how we were doing, assuming we must be only too happy and grateful to be alive and here. And we didn’t share, having a cultural aversion to therapy. Instead, we focused on blending into the American melting pot as best we could, focusing on the American Dream every Hollywood film told us was ours for the taking, now that we were Americans. All we had to do was jump, and the net would appear.
So our parents jumped in, headfirst, only to discover that their hard-earned diplomas meant nothing since their English wasn’t perfect, leaving them with two options: redo their education in the American school system, or take a job that requires none. Some opted for the former. Most succumbed to the latter.
On top of that, they were deeply traumatised, for the war we survived was brutal, to put it mildly. It shattered not only our sense of safety and community, but also our identity, for by the time it ended, the Bosnia we knew in our bones was no more. What was left in its place was a land divided, with hard-core nationalists in charge, whose only goal was to line their pockets at the expense of us all.
Over here, we clung to each other, trying to hold onto what made us us, but this land is vast, and it’s so easy to get lost in its wildness. Especially while working three jobs just to feed your kids, while actively ignoring your wartime trauma demons.
So when your kids told you they were ashamed to speak Bosnian because their American friends made fun of their accents, you accepted it. For you too were ashamed of it, in a way. Or at least, of the criminal pit that the post-war Bosnia became.
Besides, most Americans you met assumed you were one of them, especially once your English got better. You were educated, Caucasian, and if your name was difficult to pronounce, you Americanized it. Mehmed became Mike. Dženeta - Jenny.
You even celebrated Christmas now because, again, your kids were ashamed to go to school post-Christmas and tell their friends they didn’t get any presents. Your own Eid celebrations hidden from public view, lest they accuse you of being a terrorist.
No wonder the kids, both those of us who came here before we grew up, and those who were born here to Bosnians since, felt unmoored.
We watched our parents pine for a country long gone, like it was the mythical Avalon. Yet every time they’d go visit the Bosnia that is there now, they’d come back depressed, their dormant PTSD triggered anew. Leaving us to lift them up, however we could.
For many of us, the answer was overachievement. We put all our focus on our education, showing our parents that we can pick up the torch that the war made them put down.
We amassed diplomas and awards and promotions and money - all the things our parents lost - and presented them like a gift that says “please stop crying, see, you got it all back.” Not understanding, not realising, that what they wanted most of all was their pre-war life back. Their heart’s ease, their eyes’ laugh, their soul’s innocence. All of which, once gone, are gone for good.
We couldn’t understand that because we rarely saw them relaxed and happy. Maybe only after a few bottles of wine, at an impromptu house party with their Bosnian peers, one of whom would inevitably bring a guitar and lead them into an old song that made them cry and laugh and fill the room with joy, and transport them back to that Avalon of a country, even for a brief moment.
Perhaps the kids who didn’t choose overachievement were more intuitive. Perhaps they saw what the A-students couldn’t. That the American Dream is a sham. A fantasy sold to us by the system that thrives on that false promise, demanding we sacrifice our true selves in order to keep it afloat.
So instead they turned to each other. For who better to understand your half-identity than others just like you?
Seeing our parents alive only when they were with each other, these kids attempted to do the same.
They rebelled against the system, forgetting that was the privilege of Rich White Americans, which we were only passing as.
So instead of outwitting their parents and their overachieving siblings, as they thought they were doing, they fell through the cracks and suffered the consequences. Some survived. Many, like my brother Tarik, did not.
[This is the main theme of my next film, For Buraz, which, yes, I am gonna ask you to follow here (IG) and here (FB) the shameless American that I am. ;)]
I think of Tarik as I watch the whole stadium stand up and sing one of those old Bosnian ballads our parents cried to at those Diaspora parties. He was 8 when we landed in Florida as war refugees in 1994. My mom, me, and him, our dad still in Bosnia, doing his best to survive, and save as many people as he could while at it.
The same age as Džeko, the famed captain of the Bosnian football team, Tarik worshipped him growing up. To him, Džeko was proof that even a child of war could become a star, so there was a chance for him yet. He would have loved being at these games now, wearing his #11 jersey and shouting from the rooftops, “I am from Bosnia!”, together with the rest of us.
Because, it turns out, even after all those years of trying to blend into the American melting pot, deep down, deep within our soul, the old Bosnia continued to thrive.
In shadows, in silence, in tears we shed when no one was watching.
And the moment the call was sounded, it stirred, like the Sleeping Beauty woken from her slumber, still very much alive.
As is the case in every good story, that call came from the least expected place. A football team, full of kids born into this struggle, in places far away from their parents’ homes, but raised to believe Bosnia to be their true Home nonetheless.
Captained by Džeko, a fellow child war-survivor.
And coached by a true son of old Bosnia, who spent his entire life working towards this dream.
As we face our adopted countrymen next, we hope none of you will hold it against us when we sing and dance in the streets if when we win.
For this is not about being American. We are, and we’re immensely grateful to this country for taking us in.
This is about us being Bosnian, too.
Our song is that of survivors who shouldn’t have survived. Of winners who win against all odds. Of the underdogs in every battle we ever faced, in war and peace alike, who refuse to back down no matter what.
“I am from Bosnia!” we chant, not just for the game, but for Bosnia we once knew, that Avalon of our parents' dreams, that land of ancient kings and queens and fairies and dragons, which is where our team gets its Zmajevi (bos. dragons) name.
And, most of all, we chant for our friends and family members who didn’t make it, who perished in the wartime horrors we somehow managed to live through. To show them that, even after everything, we still stand. Tall, proud, and defiant.
For them.
For us.
For Bosnia.
