Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Sammy Linebaugh ReportingBosnia's capitol city, Sarajevo, hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1984. Now, more than 20 years later, thousands who once called Bosnia home live here--refugees of a war that forced hundreds of thousands to flee the country.
Tonight, part two of the story about a Bosnian family who lives here, and like many, is torn between two cities. The Delic family recently opened a restaurant here in Salt Lake, a dream they've had for more than a decade when the young newlyweds fled a city under siege, leaving behind their parents, siblings, friends--the only life they'd ever known.
Adis and Sidanja Delic had planned a summer wedding. But that June of 1993 the Bosnian city of Mostar was no place for celebration.
Sidanja Delic, Fled Bosnia in 1993: "Everywhere was snipers and bombs and I was so scared."
Adis Delic: "You didn't have so much time to think what to do."
No wedding dress or pictures, the young couple exchanged vows then sneaked across the smoldering city and fled to the border. The newlyweds had become refugees.
Sidanja Delic: "We decide, choose America and start again, new life."
That 'new life' now centers around two young sons, and their recently opened restaurant called Cafe on Main. The couple worked two jobs for years, saving up to open a place featuring authentic Bosnian food
Dean Smith, Cafe on Main Customer: "It beats the heck out of any restaurant hamburger you can find."
Mladin Maric, American Bosnia-Hercegovina Assoc.: "To achieve something like that, I think is something else."
Mladin Maric heads the Bosnian-American Association here in Utah. He says the Delic family faces the same tough choices of thousands of other refugees living here in Utah: make America home for good, or return to the former Yugoslavia.
Sidanja Delic: "All my friends, family, that is hard. That is hard part. Don't make me cry."
Mladin Maric: "Do most want to stay, or would most like to go back to Bosnia? Most want to stay. They feel free. They feel about to make a living. They come from a system where they were taken care of from birth to death by the state."
Adis Delic: "You cannot forget the place where you born; my childhood, everything is there."
But here, there is opportunity he says that only a developed democracy can offer. And with a growing restaurant and their two boys settled here.
Alen Delic, Son: "Usually at school I just speak English, and at home English and Bosnian."
The Delic family plans to stay.
Sidanja Delic: "Maybe 10, 15 years, maybe more. I'll be back for now, we're going to make future for our family."
A future that 'bridges' the best of two worlds. And maybe someday, two places separated by thousands of miles can both seem like home.
The Delic family is fortunate. Their parents have joined them here in Utah and some of their siblings. In fact, they're all in the family restaurant together. That of course, is the toughest part for many refugees, the separation from family, cousins, those lifelong friends who in some cases haven't been seen since the war.
