Stevo B

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Major: English & Political Science

Hometown: Sparta, New Jersey

Age: 20

Mother's Home Country: Cyprus
Father's Home Country: Serbia

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"I feel very connected to my family’s culture. Serbs and Greeks share a lot in common, so blending the two cultures at home isn’t too different from experiencing one or the other. I wouldn’t say I “chose it”, but being blasted with culture at home is kind of unavoidable. There’s always Serbian folk music playing in our house, Yiayia’s avgolemono on the stove, Deda’s burek (which I highly recommended) in the oven, and palacinke for breakfast.

I try to speak conversational Serbian with my dad as often as I can, and would like to become fluent one day. I find Greek to be much harder to pick up, especially the Cypriot dialect. I grew up listening to both the Greek and Serbian languages spoken almost daily in our household, was fully immersed in the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith, and observed traditional Serbian and Greek religious and cultural customs.

I’ve found that most students have never met someone with a Serbian background, which is understandable considering the relatively small population of Serbian-Americans in New England. I’ve only ever met two or three other Serbs on campus, but each time was an incredibly heartwarming, given how rare it is to meet one!

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I’ve met numerous second-generation Americans at UConn, each of whom carries with them the culture of their parents with pride, passion, and stories to tell. I’d say it is a fairly common occurrence given the diverse student body at UConn. A few of my closest friends at UConn are second-generation Albanians, Greeks, Bengalis, Italians, and Chinese, just to name a few cultures."

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