"Where are you from?"
As the question leaves their lips and their eyes peer at me for a response, I hesitate.
Every. Single. Time.
My mind quickly begins to shuffle through numerous possible answers. Do I tell them I am from Bosnia-my native land, where I was brought into this earth on? Do I tell them I am from St. Louis, the city I have called "home" since migrating to the States in 1998 as a refugee? Some would say the honest answer could be either or even both. To me, they both feel like a lie.
Being an immigrant is hard. Being a child immigrant is even harder. Stuck in between two different cultures, like the dust that gets stuck in between tiles, I constantly feel like I don't belong, like I have no home. I am too Bosnian for America; yet, I am too American for Bosnia.
Wherever I am, I am an imposter.
Here, no matter how well I speak the language, or understand the values and traditions, I am always considered different. Privileged enough, unlike some of my other refugee counterparts, I have pale, white skin, long blonde hair, and bright green eyes. These features help me blend into the crowd and fit in, at least as long as I don't speak up. The minute my name leaves my mouth, or a certain word gives away my Bosnian accent, I get the "oh where are you from?"
Then, I hesitate.
Sometimes, I have played dumb, and said St. Louis, knowing very well that my "v" just sounded like a "w". I know what they want, but I won't give them the satisfaction of confirming their suspicion. Confirming that they successfully picked up on the fact that I am not like them. It's even more than just that: sometimes I am simply not willing to lay out my entire life for someone who won't matter after this conversation. Just like they won't matter to me, I won't matter to them. That fact somehow never stops them from wanting to ask a million questions seeping with judgment about my life.
I don't want them to know because it is easier to just blend in.
Other times, I find myself eagerly saying Bosnia because I want them to know that I am proud of where I come from. I want them to know that I am different. I want them to know my struggles. To know that I jumped through numerous hoops, along with my family, and every other Bosnian family to get to where I am. I want them to educate themselves on my experiences as a refugee. I want them to learn about the beauty of my country, and to learn about the blood smeared on its name in history books, at least the ones that even bother to mention us.
I want them to know because I don't want us to be among the hidden.
Whichever response I choose, one thing always remains: the feeling that I don't belong. I have lived here for the majority of my life, and now I have built my own family here. It is the country that provided refuge when we so desperately needed it, it is the country that provided a safe space when we didn't have one, and it is the country that provided opportunity when others forced it out of our hands. As thankful as we are-and believe me, we truly are-none of this was by choice. It was out of sheer need, desperation, and fear. It was the decision that we had to make in order to survive, and one that split our hearts in two.
We moved thousands of miles across the ocean into a world that differed much from ours. The language, the behaviors, the holidays, all the way down to the food-everything was different. I knew from a young age that my childhood and the remainder of my life would be very different than of those around me. While we sat in class making cardstock Christmas trees, the other kids discussed their plans and their long list of toys for Santa. Me? I sat there with nothing to share because in my house, Christmas was nothing but another day. While they all ran towards the pizza that was being served in the school cafeteria, I had to delicately decline because it was covered in pork. I settled for a yogurt and a juice, and felt my stomach grumble down to my shoes.
Other kids spent their days playing outside and having fun. I spent it translating for my parents, praying that I understood everything because these were legal documents that had to be right. While they packed their overnight bags for a fun sleepover, I never even got the invite. I was too weird. Not that it mattered, because my parents trusted no one, and would have quickly said no. I can't blame them. How do you trust anyone when those you considered friends turned their backs on you and tried to wipe you off of the face of this earth? You don't.
Once we got into a regular routine here in the States, we started spending the vast majority of our summers back "home" in Bosnia. It didn't take long for me to realize that while I felt like I was returning to where I belong, those living there felt like I was nothing but a traitor stopping by for some fun. A traitor, because we didn't stay while our country burned to the ground. A traitor, because we didn't come back once the fire was out to help clean up the ashes. A traitor, because we called a new place "home".
They are wrong, but they are right.
No, we never came back and yes, we settled halfway across the world. But we are not traitors. We didn't choose one over the other, we chose life over death. We chose the chance of normalcy over the unknown future that now waited back in our broken country. But, none of this will ever matter to them. I didn't fit in because I was too American every time I complained about the 100-degree weather and no air conditioning. I was too American because the constant use of the English language made me at times freeze up and forget a Bosnian word for something common. I was too American because I listened to Eminem versus Edo Maajka. Whichever way you looked at it, I was too American.
I was a foreigner in my own country, on my own land, and in my own house.
The older I got the more I realized that I will never fit in. No matter how much I stay true to my Bosnian roots, my every day American life tries to yank those roots out of the ground. At the same time, no matter how much strength pulls at those roots, they never fully budge.
I am stuck in a constant state of limbo between the two.
That's why I also know I can never go back. I don't think I would ever be able to adapt, not after this many years away. They are right: I am too Americanized. At the same time, when I hear what Americans-sometimes even those I once considered friends-think about immigrants, refugees, Muslims, and specifically Bosnians, I know I can never, and will never count myself as one of them. I will never hold so much pride in being American that I will knowingly turn my head away from my own people or those with a similar story. They are right: I am too Bosnian.
So,I continue to float. I float between the spaces of the two because that is the only place that I truly belong. I float between the spaces because I have no real home.
Luckily, I don't float alone.
In those spaces there are hundreds, thousands more like me, all struggling to uphold the same delicate balance that I am. This is why we are naturally drawn to each other. This is why we crowded into Bosnian bars the size of our bathroom on top of each other. This is why no matter how much we dislike a person within our own community we will always back each other up when someone outside of it tries to come for us. This is why we need to always support and uplift each other. We are all lost in the in between together, constantly trying to belong.
What we lack in home, we make up for in heart.
So the next time you want to ask me where I am from, instead ask me what is in my heart. For it is in my heart that I carry memories of my motherland alongside of my new land. It is in my heart that I feel the love, and the peace. It is what is in my heart that feels like home.
My heart is always with me. My heart is my home.
-A