Bosnians in Utica: A Community Context

As we park the car and cross the street to the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, we become a part of a colorful group coming through the doors: two Sudanese young men, coming for their English as a second language classes upstairs; an older gentleman originally from Cambodia checking on employment opportunities this week; a Russian woman with two towheaded children under her arms; and several young adults from Somalia, their vividly patterned native clothing mixing with heavy woolens probably insufficient protection against these upstate New York winters. Sights and sounds in the community have changed over the last decade or so, and today, these are a part of the inner city's experiences. This is the process of acculturation at work—two or more groups whose contact experiences result in cultural changes for each—or a transformative process of mutual change (Berry, 2001, p. 616).