{"id":213,"date":"2014-01-21T03:15:59","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T03:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/?p=213"},"modified":"2014-01-21T03:15:59","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T03:15:59","slug":"episode-6-elvis-budimlic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/episode-6-elvis-budimlic\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 6 – Elvis Budimlic"},"content":{"rendered":"

City of Residence:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rochester, MN<\/p>\n

Occupation:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Computer Scientist<\/p>\n

Excerpt:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“My interviewer\u2014I think his name was Jim\u2014he asked me, how about United States?\u00a0Because I already spoke some English and I said fine, and he asked me which part of\u00a0the country\u2014and I didn\u2019t know United States that well\u2014I just said I don\u2019t want to\u00a0go to a big city because I had enough violence and killing and all that. And the image\u00a0we got from the movies over there in Bosnia is big cities equals big crime, and so I\u00a0said I don\u2019t want to go to a big city. And at that time, Rochester, Minnesota, was I\u00a0think voted number one in Money Magazine, and he had that magazine and he said,\u00a0how about Rochester, Minnesota? And that\u2019s how it worked out.<\/p>\n

My sponsors, who were the sisters of Assisi Heights\u2014it\u2019s a monastery here in\u00a0Rochester. It\u2019s sort of like a nursing home for elderly sisters. And they helped me a\u00a0lot. I owe a lot to them. Especially in the, you know, the emotional side, they were\u00a0really there for me.<\/p>\n

Being Muslim in Minnesota, I think it\u2019s pretty easy to be a Muslim in Minnesota\u2014in\u00a0America in general\u2014because Muslims don\u2019t need much to be Muslims. It\u2019s verypersonal and private religion. I think Islam works. It\u2019s\u2014it gives you structure in life,\u00a0and structure is good, for most people, anyway. And in this country, basically then,\u00a0you set your own pace, right? I mean, you do things your way, you pray whenever\u00a0you need to pray, and I did that for a long time, I mean, and my employers would\u00a0accommodate, so. I think it\u2019s\u2014it\u2019s easy to be Muslim in Minnesota, it\u2019s just you have\u00a0to make your personal resolve with God.<\/p>\n

The American people\u2014probably know Muslims and see them every day, and maybe\u00a0even work with them, they just don\u2019t know it. And that\u2019s the way it should be. The\u00a0religion isn\u2019t the only thing that defines people, I mean, that\u2019s one of the things. So,\u00a0I\u2019m really hopeful that this will pass, and I\u2019m actually quite convinced, and it\u2019ll work\u00a0out just fine.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Podcast Preview:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\"Play\"<\/a><\/object>\n<\/div>\n

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Podcast (full length):<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\"Play\"<\/a><\/object>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

City of Residence: Rochester, MN Occupation: Computer Scientist Excerpt: “My interviewer\u2014I think his name was Jim\u2014he asked me, how about United States?\u00a0Because I already spoke some English and I said fine, and he asked me which part of\u00a0the country\u2014and I didn\u2019t know United States that well\u2014I just said I don\u2019t want to\u00a0go to a big …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ep","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}