Finding a place to belong
Dario Lipovac can relate to the refugees who show up at YMCA International Services looking for help with housing and paperwork. After all, Lipovac was a refugee himself. He grew up in the former Yugoslavia and came of age during the Bosnian War. He was half-Serb, half-Croatian at a time when the region was breaking apart along ethnic lines.
The collapse of Yugoslavia, starting in 1991, sparked the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II. Around 140,000 died and 4 million were displaced, according to the International Center for Transitional Justice, a nonprofit that helps countries recover from war.
The conflict was marred by war crimes, including a three-plus-year siege of the city of Sarajevo and massacres in the Bosnian towns of Srebrenica and Žepa in 1995, when Lipovac was 21.
Bosnia had been “a pretty great place to grow up,” he said. But in the 1990s, it descended into chaos. The Yugoslav army occupied Lipovac’s hometown. An armed man chased his grandmother fromher home.
Lipovac, along with his parents, escaped to Croatia in 1995, crossing the Saba River on small boats. They stayed in Croatia about two years, stuck in what Lipovac described as “limbo.” Lipovac got work at a bar and restaurant, but his mother — an ethnic Serb — struggled to become a legal resident.
Lipovac’s family applied for refugee status in 1997 through the International Catholic Migration Commission, a nonprofit that works with the U.S. State Department. Three months later, they got the news: They were leaving for Houston in less than a week.
Lipovac said goodbye to his girlfriend and friends. “In a way, it’s easier to be kicked out of your house because you have no choice,” he said.
In Houston, Lipovac soon started working with refugee-aid groups, including the Alliance for Multicultural Community Services.
Now 44, Lipovac works as the senior program director at YMCA International Services, a division of the YMCA that helps resettle refugees and provides teaching, employment help and other aid. Last year, the nonprofit resettled 1,840 refugees in the Houston region and gave legal assistance to over 18,000 immigrants, according to YMCA statistics.
A tall and gregarious man with short-cropped and gelled black hair, Lipovac wears a lot of hats. He sorts through data and submits reports to government agencies. He helps out with emergencies — such as the other day, when he went to court to support a mentally ill Burmese refugee who had resisted arrest.
“There’s never a normal day,” Lipovac said. On a recent Thursday morning, he was getting ready to race at the annual YMCA Dragon Boat Team Challenge in The Woodlands. He was excited about the race, but his real sporting passion is soccer.
“If you’re going to write about me, you’ve got to write about soccer,” he said, showing off a jersey he’d decorated with the name Modrić, after Croatian player Luka Modrić. “Soccer is my religion.”
YMCA International Services is run out of a deceptively large office in a strip mall in west Houston. Immigrants streamed in and out of a waiting room, where a wall was recently repainted with “Hello” in dozens of languages. Down a hall, an ESL class was discussing car insurance. Its location, near Westpark Drive and the Southwest Freeway, is fitting: It’s in the middle of one of the most diverse parts of the city.
The next day, Lipovac attended Triumph of the Human Spirit, an art show put on by the YMCA to showcase pieces from immigrant and refugee artists in Houston.
The event was held at St. John’s School. A few dozen people attended, sipping wine and bidding on art. Dominick Lee, a head chef at the restaurant Poitín, had prepared dishes to reflect the backgrounds of the different artists, including Syrian-style hummus, Eritrean chicken curry, Cubansandwich sliders and an Afghan lentil dish.
The art was mostly modern but otherwise varied. Zineb Sjahsam, an immigrant from Algeria, described her style as “something between realism and impressionism.”
One painting showed a woman riding a bucking horse. She had recently attended RodeoHouston and was inspired to see female riders. “I love that, in Texas, not only men have this occupation,” she said.
Mohammed Baro, a refugee of Syria and Iraq, had painted a series of bright, colorful works inspired by Houston. Baro didn’t speak much English, but his son, Taher, said Mohammed “usually doesn’t use a lot of color.”
Though some of Mohammed’s previous pieces depicted tragedy and despair, he wanted to convey hope with this series, Taher said. He added: “People say, ‘Your paintings are very nice — and very sad.’ ”
According to Lipovac, 724 refugees have arrived in Houston this year through YMCA and four other aid groups — a huge drop from last year, when there were 2,391 arrivals. He attributes this to President Donald Trump’s negative views on refugees and immigrants, as well as executive orders that have complicated the legal status for many.
Last year, the White House killed a Department of Health and Human Services study showing refugees have added $63 billion to the U.S. economy in the past decade.
“There’s a lot of negativity around refugees,” Lipovac said. But he sees positivity, too. In 2015, after Gov. Greg Abbott said he would ban Syrian refugees from coming to Texas, a man emailed Lipovac to tell him he’d just donated $250. “Governor Abbott does NOT speak for all Texans,” the man wrote.
Lipovac is particularly optimistic about Houston. Houston is the most diverse big city in the United States, according to the Kinder Institute at Rice University, and Lipovac argues that diversity helps all ethnic groups feel welcome.
At the YMCA, he’s seen refugees — including himself — become productive residents. A Vietnamese refugee became a YMCA case manager. An Afghan refugee opened a restaurant.
“People feel like they belong immediately,” he said. “It’s very hard to be isolated in Houston.” He attributed that to a support network including Houston Welcomes Refugees, which mentors new arrivals.
“That’s how resettlement should be,” Lipovac said. “Everyone plays a role.”