Life as a Serbian-American

             citizen, born in Chicago on the 28th of May, 1993. Although I am born in the United States, however, upon reflecting on my own race and identity I do not consider myself an American by race; I feel that where you are born does not correlate to who you are, but rather where you are from. In other words, your family defines who you are. Being born in the U.S. absolutely correlates to my identity and the people I interact with for the most part, but it does not alter who I am. I was born into the Serbian race, both on my father's and mother's side. It's no secret that there are crossroads, being Serbian by ethnicity and Serbo-American by identity. The Serbian race alone has a history of confusion and allegiance behind it. Safe to say, the same goes for my identity.
             To stay precise, in order to completely understand the following analysis, I am a Serbian male born and living in America: Serbian by race/ethnicity (Caucasian), Serbo-American by identity. But who I am, or who anyone else is for that matter, isn't something that can be picked and chosen. It is something that is brought unto you; or, for lack of a better word, imposed. And the ones who do the imposing are the ones who brought you into the world; they are your parents. Family is where identity starts. Family is where race starts. Family is where everything starts. Our families teach us and tell us who we are, and what we believe in. And each generation is taught by our ancestors, and so on. With that said, I am Serbian, and I am an orthodox Christian. Without family, we have no race or identity. We are empty, a blank page. .
             As stated above, the Serbs as an ethnic group have had a long and confusing history. We are a Slavic nation native to the Balkans (southeast Europe). In a broader sense, we are Balkan by ethnicity. But even though there are a lot of similarities between the different countries that make up the Balkans, history has separated us and changed our identities.