A smile spread across my face as I looked around and let the loud ruckus of 200 Serbians shouting, laughing and clinking glasses surround me. “Šta radiš brate!” “Jao samo hoću Pljeskavicu!” “Bre skloni se!” I’ve never felt so at home.
Growing up, I had the traditional childhood of someone from an immigrant family: we ate different food at my house, spoke a different language and took pride in watching our athletes win big championships. But we also got funny glances walking down the street, which happens when you’re different in a Southern town. I never had a problem growing up as an American-Serbian. In fact, I was proud to hold that title, but I never felt I had that connection to my Serbian side unless I was in Serbia, laughing with my family or roaming the streets of Belgrade with my friends. A part of me always felt like a fish out of water.
This year, though, I went to the Serbian Food Festival in Cambridge and finally got to see what a Serbian community feels like in the U.S. I got to speak my other language proudly with other people who weren’t my parents or my brother. I got to clap along to the traditional Serbian music while younger kids wearing traditional Serbian clothes danced on the stage. I got to eat the foods like paprikaš, sarma and kupus that I normally can only get when I’m back home in my mother’s kitchen. I finally got to be my full self.
That feeling is indescribable. It’s almost like the feeling you get when you wake up on Christmas as a child with fresh snow outside and the scent of pancakes and hot chocolate wafting up to your room. It’s the feeling you get when you come home after a long trip and are finally able to relax and let out that breath you’ve been holding in while traveling for sixteen hours. It feels like finally letting go.
Being around the Serbian community in Boston, I never felt so free. I got to be my unapologetically loud Balkan self, and I finally didn’t feel like a Serb out of water.