“My parents are both 100% Bosnian. They grew up there, and my sister was born there; they moved to Houston in 2005. Ironically, they had come here on their honeymoon in 2000.

My dad had been working for KBR for a couple years, and the company was like, ‘We want you to come to Houston for a year, and then you would go back to Bosnia.’

Then, they never moved back, so my parents have been here for 21 years now. I was born in 2007, so that was two years after they came.

My parents prioritize education because a lot of my family didn’t get to go to college. My grandma stopped going to school after fourth grade, and both my parents were the first people in their families to get a college degree.

It’s more common now, but at the time, it was not very common to go to college. Especially because of the Yugoslav Wars, a lot of people ended up dropping out or having their degree delayed. Even my mom’s degree got delayed.

The wars started after dictator Josip Broz Tito died. The whole country started splitting up into smaller countries, and Serbia started attacking Bosnia. My dad, even though he had already served when he turned 18, was forced to join the army for the war.

My mom was still in college at this point, but no one had power for months. No one had any form of transportation. Since she wasn’t able to go to school or do her work, her degree was delayed by two years.

My parents lost so much during the wars. They cherish everything so much more because of it.

There was a huge ethnic cleansing of Muslims during the war, so my parents are definitely more reserved in their faith. We don’t really talk about it because they could have been killed for openly practicing Islam in front of Serbian nationalists.

While I haven’t met many Bosnians or had a sense of cultural community during high school, one experience that made me feel closer to my culture was during the World Cup qualifiers.

When Bosnia beat Italy and officially qualified for the World Cup this year, it was such a beautiful moment. Everyone in Bosnia was out on the streets all night celebrating because this is their second time ever qualifying for the World Cup.

My family immediately bought tickets to one of the games. It was just a very beautiful moment, and it made me feel so proud to be Bosnian.

I think I’ve only met one person in my grade that’s also Bosnian that’s not a family friend, but he doesn’t even go to this school. But when I do meet someone who’s Bosnian, it’s really fun because that cultural connection is so important to me. No one else knows the experiences and the culture, so I can never really relate with people.

For example, my parents would get strict about how often I could see my friends when I was younger, and my American friends didn’t really understand that.

This might sound ungrateful, but when you’re in such a small country so often and you’ve grown up in such a huge city like Houston, visiting becomes kind of redundant. A lot of my family has moved away, and I don’t really know kids my age over there, so I just do the same thing every single day; it becomes very boring.

One thing that was important to me in high school was finding a strong circle of friends. Even if it’s only a few people, friends are very much quality over quantity — you need a support system that will be there for you every step of the way.

I have my Bosnian family friends that I talk to a lot, and they understand my culture, but they don’t go to Bellaire. Find a group of people that support you and are there for you, just like my best friends did for me.”