What do you remember from your first few days in the United States when you arrived?
I still vividly remember when I arrived the first day because there was a lot of drama and a big crisis surrounding my coming to the States. So I can tell you what I remember from the first days—I just have to give you a little bit of background on how I arrived here. So I graduated from the University of Sarajevo at the School of Electrical Engineering in ’91 and took a job as a teaching and research assistant. And I was very happy there. And I thought I would stay there and build a career at the University as an academic. And then the war broke out [laughs]. So I was kind of oblivious to everything going on around me and very focused on my work, and by the time I realized what was going on I had to accelerate some of those academic plans. So I was invited to come to school in the States, but not until a year later. So this is all happening in the timeframe of ’91 to ’92, and the civil war in Yugoslavia and Bosnia broke out. And, you know, your academic plans don't necessarily [laughs] match with historical events. In some cases, you know, historical events tend to accelerate it. So the professor who was going to host me here in the States and already found the funding and was willing to accept me sent me all the paperwork that was needed to get to the States, somewhere in in the spring of ’92. And fighting was already starting to accelerate as well in Bosnia. And going through all the events that I went through would take us way more time [laughs] than we have for this meeting, but I'll tell you that it was very exciting; the people at the U.S. Embassy didn't really believe in the veracity of the documents that I was presenting because everybody else had some kind of documents. Everybody wanted to just get out of there. And it took multiple visits, multiple phone calls—my professor contacted his representatives in Congress to make appeals to reassure the people at the embassy that I'm for real and those papers are for real and that they should let me get into the country. And that whole process took about six months and a large part of that I basically ended up being homeless. So from a homeless person in Vienna, Austria, Budapest, Belgrade, and all those places to a new immigrant in the States is quite a leap, right? And different people have different experiences arriving based on their background—in my opinion—and I'm pretty sure my experiences could have been very different had I arrived on schedule [laughs] as planned.
So, you hear it as a sort of as a cliché, you know, “I arrived to this country with a suitcase and $200” [laughs]. It's not a cliché; that's literally how I arrived in the States. And my first experiences were mixed. I was in awe of everything. I thought, "Everything looks so amazing." But at the same time, everything looks so different, right? Things smelled different. Things looked different. Things felt different. And there was a mix of excitement and anticipation and at the same time fear for those that I left behind as well as fear for my future and what was going to happen. So when you say you'd like to hear about my first experiences, I can kind of layer it: there is a higher level of how I felt and there's several really interesting anecdotes about how I started fitting into the whole place. To kind of illustrate the feelings that I had, I'll just give you literally the first anecdote I had.
So, I barely spoke English. I took English in high school and college but it's the equivalent of somebody taking Spanish here in high school and being at a level of “¿Dónde está la biblioteca?” [laughs] So that was the level of my English, maybe a little better. Yeah, but those are the questions I could ask. I did not feel very confident but I had a paper with the address of where I needed to go and instructions for how to get from JFK to Port Authority, which, at the time, I couldn't even pronounce those things [laughs] correctly. So I was kind of just going there and hoping for the best. My uncle in Europe helped me get on the plane on the European side. I boarded the plane in Prague, Czechia. And I flew to JFK. And I had that piece of paper with the instructions on how to get to Worcester, Massachusetts from JFK. It was very simple: I was supposed to take a bus from JFK to get to Port Authority and from there find a bus that goes to Worcester, Massachusetts. So it's all simple, but [laughs] you just arrived, you’re tired from the trip, you don't really speak the language. And it wasn't my first flight, but it was probably my second flight [laughs] in my life, the second time leaving my country actually, the second time crossing the border. So I arrived. I don't really remember going through customs much except I do remember the guy said, “Welcome to the U.S.” So that's all I remember of that. Then I walked into Port Authority and there I was, thinking "So what do I do now?" A person of very dark complexion, an African-American person that I had never met before in my life approached me and started talking really fast [laughs]. So I was very confused, a little scared. I watched a lot 80s movies and this looked like a scene from the movies where I get beaten up and my $200 are gone [laughs]. So, you know, I was thinking the worst was going to happen, right? And he grabs my bag, looks at the piece of paper I have and starts talking—I have no idea what he's saying. And he grabbed my bag, starts going and I keep following. He ends up basically bringing me to the bus [laughs]. He read on the piece of paper where I was supposed to go and he carried my bags there. He took me there. This was after the shuttle from JFK to Port Authority. And then I see it says “Worcester, Massachusetts” on the bus and I figured he helped me out here. For the first time, I smiled. And the guy smiles and then he keeps talking—I have no idea what he's saying. So he did this hoping I would give him a small tip, right [laughs]? I have like two $100 bills in my pocket; I’m not taking my money out but I’d like to give him something. I'm like, “I have no money. Nothing.” And he's like, “Well, give me a cigarette.” I did have cigarettes with me, so I gave him a pack of cigarettes [laughs]. So I can tell you there were two very happy people there at that point. He was incredibly happy. He would have been happy with couple of cigarettes, but I gave him a whole pack of cigarettes, right? He was extremely happy. That was a good deal for him. I was extremely happy: the guy helped me find my bus! So that literally was the very first experience I had as I landed—fearing the worst, expecting the worst from one of the first people I ran into and actually being treated really nicely by that same person. In some ways, that very first experience repeated several more times. I had some very bad experiences, some very good, but this one stuck with me as kind of an example of what was to come. You gotta trust people a little, you have to be able to communicate, and also people communicate in different ways, people have different expectations. So, that was one anecdote that I like to tell everybody about my arrival to the States.
Then, the first days I spent at the student dorm were fairly uneventful. I started digging into figuring out learning English as well as engineering subjects. And I did not spend too much time with anybody other than one other visiting graduate student from Germany. And he was incredibly helpful. He spent the next three months with me, and he kind of helped me get around. Because he was also from somewhere else, he knew how to point me in the right direction.
The first days were hot [laughs]. The summer—I believe it was the beginning of August of ’92—on the East Coast was very hot and humid.
You described that there were anecdotes and higher-level thoughts. Do you want to share any of those higher-level thoughts?
I was amazed at how different everything looked from where I grew up. And at the same time, I was amazed how different everything looked from the way I expected it to look [laughs]. Because you watch movies, you watch TV, you see all these things, and as I arrived, it really didn't look like that. Real life is different than movies [laughs]. So those were a couple of things.
The language barrier was also something that was very hard, but I'm not a super shy person. So I didn't care if I made a mistake. Still, to this day, I don't care if I make a mistake. I'll correct myself. I don't mind if somebody else corrects me. I just try really hard not to correct other people because I know not everybody's like me [laughs]. But I found that people were very helpful, way more than I expected. Maybe because I was at the University. I'm just sharing my experience. Everywhere I went, people were very polite—in the grocery stores, restaurants, everywhere. I was shocked that even when crossing the street, people would stop if I came close to the road, which is something I was not used to at all. Now, I'll do the same thing when I drive. But it was something new for me to see that if I approached the road, the person driving the car stopped. I was like, "Why are they stopping? Oh, they're stopping so I can cross the road." So there were a lot of little things that, in the meantime, I’ve probably forgotten but I do remember there were a lot of things. Some of them may have changed—I don't know if people still drive that way around there [laughs]. They did 32 years ago, they definitely did.
Is there anything else that stands out to you from your first week in Worcester?
The distances were large going anywhere; it wasn't as easy to get around without your own car or somebody to drive you. That really does stand out to me. And, believe it or not, I managed to do that for about six years without a car. So that's why my legs are very strong, and I can walk long distances [laughs].
Were there any cultural differences or cultural similarities that you noticed during your first days or first week here?
Yes, everybody always had a smile on their face. I can contrast that to something that I experienced this summer. That question just reminds me of something my sister said to me. This summer, I visited Belgrade. And I stayed at my sister's place. She lives in Canada, but she also bought a place in Belgrade. And she told me there are a lot of expats from Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia—probably millions of people left and some number of them came back, resettled or are coming back to visit in the summertime. And she said, “You people over there now recognize us right away?” I was like, “Why? How?” She said, “Well, you don't see a person just standing there and smiling unless they are from somewhere else.” So I felt the opposite way. I was wondering, “What are all these people smiling about?” So I was not used to seeing anybody smile. You know, you don't smile unless something is funny or you have a reason to smile. I realized quickly that it's a cultural thing. You know, you can smile at a stranger and there's nothing wrong with that.
Those were all the questions I wanted to ask you but is there anything else you'd like to share about your first days or first week in the US?
The first week, I had an incredibly funny, scary, and maybe opinion-forming experience with the police. So my German friend—after maybe three or four days—he invited me to go out to a local place to have a beer after a day of studying. We showed up fairly late, the place was very close to closing time. They had music and beer and whatever. So, we just got a couple of beers. And we stepped outside—it was hot anyway—and we were drinking our beer. And, out of nowhere, out of the shadows, a Massachusetts State Trooper appears and starts screaming at us. And I was like, “I have no idea why he is screaming at me.” But my German friend was arguing back with the cop, trying to tell him “No, it's okay. We already paid for the beers.” But he kept saying “drop the beers” and “step away.” I did not realize how weird alcohol laws are in the States; you can't just have your beer outside. So he was basically enforcing a law that I didn't know at the time, that you can’t leave the premises with an alcoholic beverage [laughs]. Where I grew up, it’s like, "Well, you paid for it, it’s your beer, you can step outside onto the street and drink it." So that experience with that police officer made me really distrustful of people in uniform [laughs] right away because he was not a very friendly person. He tried to intimidate us and he succeeded. He intimidated me but there is a side effect: I don't like seeing people in uniform.
* The contributor of this story has asked that their name be withheld.
