IT IS 6 p.m., and in the tiny room of an East Oakland community center,
Ismet Sesic is keeping a culture alive.
"Linija, linija!" he calls out, trying to line up 20 exuberant kids. Then
he hits the button of the CD player. Music fills the air, and feet start
moving.
"These are 600-year-old dances," Mirijas Velic, one of the fathers,
whispered in my ear. "They're traditional."
A world away from war-ravaged Bosnia, these children are learning dances
from a homeland that they know only in memory.
"I left the music box my grandfather gave me," said Indira Golubovic, 12.
"Before he died in the war, he told me to keep it forever."
About 3,500 Bosnian refugees made the Bay Area their home after fleeing
their country in the mid- to late 1990s. An estimated 140,000 Bosnians live
in the United States.
In the Bay Area, the largest settlement is in Santa Clara County, but a
newer community of Bosnians has taken root in the East Bay.
Although most are Muslim, they are a highly secularized population. As
many as a third are in interfaith or interethnic marriages, which made them
targets in ethnic hostilities that still plague their country.
ALTHOUGH SOME ARE still struggling, many Bosnian refugees have done
remarkably well, finding blue-collar jobs suited to their skilled-laborer
backgrounds. Fifteen families in Oakland have even bought homes.
But as they forge new lives in America, their need for community is
reflected in the phenomenal success of Sesic's weekly dance classes, which
started with seven children five months ago and now draws 60 to 80
youngsters.
"We hate to miss class," said Adisa Grosic, 11. "It's where we get to see
all our friends."
Bosnian dance is fast-paced and hypnotic, with fleet-footed dancers
linking hands and twirling scarfs. For months now, the youngsters have been
practicing the Sota and the Bosna, two romantic dances of love and
flirtation.
The classes started in December in the Bosnian Community Room, founded by
two nonprofit organizations that saw the need for community building in a
population that remains divided by its wartime experiences. Refugee
Transitions, of San Francisco and Oakland, helps immigrants become self-
sufficient by teaching them English and life skills. The International
Rescue Committee sponsored most of the Bosnians refugees.
The room, in a community center on East 14th Street, offers an
after-school program for youth and social services. The room also is a
gathering place for war widows.
"We go to the room and have cake and coffee, and we talk," said Vukitsa
Skrapic, rescue committee liaison for 32 war widows and their 60 children.
ATIFA KAPIC, 38, arrived in Oakland three years ago with her four
children. Kapic's husband, Izet, was killed and their home burned down
during the war.
"I had no house, no husband, nobody to help me," said Kapic, who also
lost two brothers, her father and father-in-law.
Others are also scarred.
Samir Golubovic, 20, lost his dad at age 13 in the war.
"It made me grow up fast," he said. "But look around you, everyone lost
somebody, family, friends, neighbors."
On Saturday, he joined the colorfully dressed dancers at the first
performance of the troop in Oakland.
Above the dancers on the stage was a large banner that proclaimed,
"SEVDAH, " which means dreams.
"These are modest people," said Zelmira Zivny of the committee. "They
don't expect miracles. That's why they're doing so well."
