ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - On Friday, members of St. Louis' Bosnian community will commemorate Bosnian independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
That vote for independence triggered a war that left tens of thousands of people dead and displaced more than 2 million people, with thousands of refugees making their way to St. Louis and now calling it home. St. Louis, which houses an estimated 60,000-70,000 Bosnians in the area, has the largest Bosnian community outside of Bosnia.
"This is a community that mostly arrived as refugees during the mid 1990s. They've been here for about 30 years now, which means that the original community has also grown," said Fontbonne University Director of Bosnian Studies Adna Karamehic-Oates. "It's also a very evolving community where the people that originally arrived are now much older. And then you have children in high schools right now of Bosnian heritage."
Karamehic-Oates discusses many of those Bosnian refugees have had the challenges of trying to maintain their heritage with their children and grandchildren.
"We have a lot of members of the community that speak Bosnian at home, but are also integrating English into their language at home in order to be able to communicate more easily with their children. Children are also growing up with a different language than is spoken at home," said Maramehic-Oates. "So that is one way that the community is trying to maintain its culture."
Maramehic-Oates says a big way those Bosnian refugees and their children have been able to maintain their roots through numerous way like community groups and celebrating other Bosnian Holidays. But one way has been quite effective at maintaining the community's roots and connecting those refugees with the younger generation: soccer.
"Soccer is actually very popular. So we were very excited as a community to have St. Louis City FC start a team in this wonderful city," said Maramehic-Oates. "On March 1st, Affton High school, one of our area high schools that we work with, they're hosting a soccer match to celebrate Bosnian Independence Day."
Affton High School has had strong ties to the Bosnian Community. Alongside a friendly soccer match against Bayless High School, both schools have been collaborating with Maramehic-Oates' office at Fontbonne University to have a Bosnian Studies course in their curriculum.
"South County is the area of St. Louis where a lot of the Bosnian community lives, and so those are high schools that also have high numbers of Bosnian American students," said Maramehic-Oates. "So the teachers and the administrations in those high schools recognize that it would be really valuable for their school and for their community to have a Bosnian American studies course as part of their curriculum."
Maramehic-Oates says that the class not only has attracted Bosnian students but also American students too.
"The American students want to learn about their Bosnian American friends and the Bosnian Americans want to learn about their past," said Maramehic-Oates. "So it's actually a very interesting mix and the center supports these courses and advising them on the curriculum, coming to speak to them. They come to the center at Fontbonne University to see the collections and so on. So we have this mutual support relationship."
