Bosnian Immigrants Continued........


     After nearly six years of struggles and hardships, a door opened for the Fazlovics — immigration to the United States. In March 1998, three years after war-torn Bosnia accounted for nearly 250,000 deaths, the Fazlovics received visas to enter the United States in just four months. With the option of choosing nearly any destination in America, the family settled for Fargo.
     "They asked where we wanted to go, any city in the United States,” Tatjana said. “My husband has family here, a cousin. They already had been here, so we decided to come here so it would be easier for us to have somebody.”
     After a brief stop in Chicago, the Fazlovics landed in Fargo and its cold, harsh climate wasn’t welcomed with open arms.
      “It’s so cold … now I know I made a mistake,” Tatjana said jokingly of her family’s decision to live in Fargo. “But I was excited because I expected to have a new life, to start working to give something to my kids.”
    Tatjana began working for the first time in nearly six years that spring, taking a job as a housekeeper at a local hotel. She later took a position with Swanson Health Products in Fargo for three years before the Fazlovics opened the Balkan Food Grocery Store in February 2002. In early 2002, Jasmin landed a job at DMI in Fargo as a welder. Tatjana manages the couple’s store during the weekday hours, but the majority of business occurs on weekends, she said.
      “A lot of [Bosnians] live here,” said Jasmin, who plays defense on a Bosnian soccer team that has enjoyed success in Fargo-Moorhead community leagues. “There’s about 3,000 [Bosnians] who live here in the Fargo-Moorhead area. I know almost everybody here and everybody likes it here.”
       Despite their gratitude toward the Fargo-Moorhead community, the Fazlovics still haven’t buried hopes of returning to their family-oriented, beautiful homeland of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
       It’s been nearly five years since the Fazlovics have visited their homeland as a family. Although the civil war between Serbs, Catholics and Muslims has been over since the late 1990s, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s economy is still recovering. Tatjana voiced her desire to return to Brcko, but Jasmin said it wasn’t time to leave Fargo. Both have plans of returning to their homeland sometime in the near future.
    “We had a great life before,” Tatjana said.
    “It’s the place where we grew up,” Jasmin said. “Some people come here with whole families. My father is in Bosnia. In five years here, I haven’t been back home.”

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