by Paul Witte
A bit of a background of what I am talking about. As I was doing research for the history of the population growth for Fargo, North Dakota. I stumbled upon something interesting. In the year 1990 out of the entire immigrant population 36% were Bosnian with the next closest being Vietnam at 15% and Somalia at 7%. That is an incredibly huge jump from the second place of 15% to 36%. When looking at the year 2000 I also noticed the same pattern but less with Bosnia at 17% and Canada at 11% then India at 8%. After being perplexed by these numbers of large amounts of Bosnians in the Fargo area I started digging.
Here is what happened. Back in 1995 in Srebrenica, Bosnia the Bosnian Serb Army systematically slaughtered more then 8,000 Bosnians. One of the worst massacres in the countries history. When Bosnian went to the UN all they did was send 400 unarmed Dutch “Peace Keepers” who couldn’t do anything to stop the genocide.
Now the United States saw what was happening and instead of intervening we opened our doors to the people of Bosnia. More specifically the Midwest opened our doors to them. Thousands of Bosnian immigrants made there way to the Midwest with a large chunk ending up in North Dakota. Many making their new homes right here in the Fargo-Moorhead area.
What does this mean for Fargo now? Well the Bosnians have slowly been leaving, either going else where wanting to explore the world or finding work else where. But a large majority stayed, just because of the open arms of the Midwest and North Dakota as a whole. Because of these large groups of immigrants moving into Fargo the growth and economy has been blossoming. Even if this tragic event happened in 1995 the effects are still being felt to this day because of the immigrations of Bosnians to the United States through Fargo and the rest of North Dakota.
People talk about refugees and immigrants being a menace to society in the news. When looking at the numbers of what really is going on they are doing nothing but boosting the Fargo economy. With the added diversity, culture, mindset, and ideas brought from overseas, new shops, restaurants, and even nonprofits are popping up all over town because of these people being given a second chance at life and not having to face the tyrannical enemies back home.
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