Unlike the U.S., where everyone has an ethnic identity but is more or less American, ethnic identity in the Balkans (the region) means everything. Each of the countries that made up Yugoslavia had multiple ethnic groups living within it. It is most important to note that there were ethnic Serbs and ethnic Albanians living harmoniously within the many states of Yugoslavia.
But when I say “Serbs” and “Albanians” from now on, you need to understand that I'm not talking about a person who was necessarily born in Serbia or in Albania (which wasn’t even a part of Yugoslavia). It means somebody who is ethnically Serb or ethnically Albanian. There are a lot of ethnic Albanians in the countries that made up Yugoslavia. It’s like being Hispanic, white or black in the U.S. However, in the Balkans (again, that's the region that Yugoslavia was in), ethnic identity held much greater significance.
While a Hispanic person in Texas would say “I’m American,” a Serb born in Croatia would likely say “I’m a Serb from Croatia” and an Albanian born in Serbia would certainly say “I’m an Albanian from Serbia” (not "I’m Serbian").
You with me still?! GREAT.
In the early 1990s, Milosevic, the President of Serbia (an ethnic Serb) took power and began this push for a greater Serbia. Similar to the process in WWII Germany, the country started slowly stripping Albanians of basic rights, for example by segregating schools.
And then the war began. And the genocide.
