As a young girl, junior and international studies major Maggi Little ran aimlessly through farms after school, frightened to death. She listened to her own panting as she wondered where her home was in relation to the field. The massive corn stalks kept her small body out of sight as she continued to run, the plants’ leaves slashing her arms “like paper cuts,” she said.

It wasn’t uncommon for her to smell tear gas — “so much, it stunk” — while arriving at or leaving her classes, she said. The young Kosovar Albanian heard of teachers at nearby schools who were kidnapped in the middle of a lesson, taken away and beaten. She was told not to wear black and red, the colors of the Albanian flag, nor could she wear earrings.

Little and her classmates did not sing the Albanian national anthem. Her teachers were not allowed to teach Albanian history, literature or art. Rather, they were ordered by Serbian police to speak only of Serbian heroes. Lessons were biased and inconsistent — and there was no such thing as a syllabus, Little said.

She never saw any media she understood. She only spoke Albanian, and all television and radio programs were in Serbo-Croatian. Instead, she spent time with family.

“We would sit around and talk about the war that was to come because we had seen it with Bosnia,” Little said. “We knew we were next.”

This was growing up in Dobrcan (now called Miresh), Kosovo in the late 1980s and early 1990s, years before the Kosovo conflict began in the eyes of many Westerners. The village of about 700 homes, located near Gjilan, Kosovo, was under the control of Serbian police. Slobodan Milosevic had recently become the president of Serbia and was forming a movement for Serbia’s unification.

Though Kosovo was about 90 percent Albanian, Milosevic’s plan meant Serbia would maintain the autonomous province. The government’s goal was a peaceful coexistence of all ethnic groups in Kosovo, but it considered some Albanians a threat because of their desire for independence.

War broke out in Kosovo during the mid-1990s, and ethnic cleansing ensued. According to a 1999 U.S. State Department report, at least 6,000 Kosovar Albanians were victims of mass murder, with an unknown number of victims of individual killings and an unknown number of bodies burned or destroyed by Serbian forces throughout the conflict.

In 1999, Little and her family saw the town next to theirs burn to the ground. She, her sister, two younger brothers and their father left immediately, with few possessions, and walked for two days and two nights to Macedonia, where they stayed in a refugee camp for three weeks. Little’s eldest brother had left home to hide from Serbian police who came to villages to take young men away.

They came to the United States because it was the country that could accept them soonest. Little’s eldest brother met up with the family in Seattle one month later.

“We had been uprooted from our hometown,” Little said. “Everything was absolutely unfamiliar to us. But at the same time, we were so grateful and hopeful.”

The debate of Kosovo’s independence can be traced back to the early Middle Ages. Beginning in 1190, Kosovo was the administrative and cultural center of medieval Serbia. But in 1389, when the Serbs were defeated in the Battle of Kosovo Polje, Kosovo became a part of the Ottoman Empire. Gradually, Serbs moved northward to Belgrade, Serbia’s current capital, and Albanians migrated eastward from Albania and settled in Kosovo.

Senior Christine Lindell, an international studies, German and Eastern European languages major who studied abroad in the Balkans as part of a Comparative History of Ideas (CHID) program last spring, said she saw “1389” painted on walls, doors and buildings throughout Belgrade. She said many Serbs consider the Battle of Kosovo Polje Serbia’s “glorious last stand.” They feel Serbs sacrificed themselves for the greater good of Europe when they lost the battle, and, therefore, are entitled to the autonomous province. Many see it as the cradle of their culture and national identity.

When Lindell talked to Serbs about Kosovo, they compared their situation to what Americans might feel like if the original 13 colonies were to secede from the United States.

“It is really difficult for Americans to understand because we have a different concept of history and our place in it,” Lindell said.

In the first Balkan War of 1912, the Albanians were allied with the Ottomans. Though Kosovo was mostly Albanian at the time, Serbs had a mission to avenge their defeat at the Battle of Kosovo Polje. The Albanians lost the war, and Kosovo came under Serbian control.

World War I treaties established Yugoslavia, made up of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia, which included the regions of Kosovo, Macedonia and Vojvodina. Serbian settlers attempted to colonize Kosovo, but many Albanians resisted, and the province remained more than 60 percent Albanian.

In February, Kosovo’s independence was recognized by the United Nations. The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Austria and France were in favor of the recognition, while countries such as Spain and Cyprus, which have experienced separatist unrest, were against it. European Union nations agreed that Kosovo should not set a precedent for other separatists.

Little said she was thrilled to hear about the recognition of Kosovo. She made T-shirts and called her family members who still live in Kosovo. Her uncle told her that everyone there was baking cakes and dancing in the streets.

“I have great hope that Kosovo will work to rebuild itself now that it has independence,” Little said.

But the announcement has caused problems for others. In February, Serbian protesters rioted in the streets and set fire to the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, putting the city on warning status for American travelers. This year’s spring CHID trip to Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia changed some of its plans, which included visiting Belgrade. The UW‘s Office of Risk Management and International Programs and Exchanges decided the situation in Belgrade is too dangerous for the group to travel there, said Emmy Gran, a senior CHID and art history major on the trip.

Before she left, Gran thought she might not be well-received as an American. But throughout the trip, people in the Balkan countries have been warm and welcoming to her and her classmates, she wrote in an e-mail.

“The reason I chose this program is because it’s very controversial,” Gran said. “The situation is changing really rapidly there and that’s what makes it exciting to visit.”

The Little’s lives have also changed since moving to Seattle. A Christian church helped Little and her family settle in Seattle. Since she was raised Muslim, Little was amazed to see Christians reaching out to her. She attended an international school where she quickly learned English, and later she attended Roosevelt High School. This is her first year at the UW after transferring from North Seattle Community College. She said her family in Kosovo appreciates her drive to go to school, which is less common for women in Kosovo.

Little still visits her hometown, where she stays with her grandmother.

“I think hardships will change you one way or another,” she said. “I think for us, it changed our perspective in the sense that family is not a luxury to take for granted.”