Bosnian Refugees
Natalie says for children of mixed marriages their heritage became a "noose" around their necks.
Below are stories and images of Bosnian refugees. Your task is to read each story and view the images. When you have completed your analysis of their hardships, make connections with your group members using the attached form. When you have completed your comparison to Ha and her family's hardships submit your paper to me, via the Common Share Folder. When I receive your submission it will be displayed on the SmartBoard and used for class discussion and synthesis at the end of the lesson.
Natalie's Story
"Bosnian refugee Natalie, 40, has painful memories of the war. Not just of witnessing the destruction and grief around her, but also, as a child of a Bosnian Serb father and Croatian mother, of suffering discrimination due to her mixed heritage. Natalie first moved to Serbia and then to Croatia, where she earned a law degree. Around the same time, the United States began accepting refugees from the former Yugoslavia who had mixed heritage. The authorities realized, she says, "that we had nowhere to go". Natalie's brother, who is three years younger than her, had moved to the state of Washington the year before. Natalie flew to Seattle to live with him."When you come somewhere, even if you just go for work, even more if you are [a] refugee, you are in some kind of state of shock, it's almost like a culture shock -- which, actually, it is. It lasts approximately four to five years, and every single immigrant in [the] U.S., from doctor to cab driver, will tell you the same thing -- it takes fiver years to adapt," Natalie explains.
"And that's exactly how it is. The first year is usually amazing. The second year you become a little bit delusional -- [it's like] you are not sure what's happening around you. The third year you are depressed. The fourth year you are getting out of depression. And the fifth year you become an American."
Sanja's Story
"Unlike immigrants, refugees who come to the United States usually are not drawn here primarily by the opportunities this country offers. Rather, they are fleeing war or persecution or other conditions of danger and deprivation. Sanja Mehmedinovic is a dark-haired, blue-eyed woman in her early forties. She came to the United States with her husband, a writer, and thirteen-year-old son in 1996, after surviving almost four years of war in her native Sarajevo.
"Where I lived in the beginning of the war was the zone first attacked, and we had to leave our apartment through a mine field with my nine-year-old son and my old mother. And be internally displaced people in my own city for three and a half years, moving from here to there and escaping from grenades. Beside hunger, freezing, and feeling of loneliness, it’s very hard when you see that everything is falling apart. Your life is falling apart, your friends and family are being killed or are leaving, and it’s like the whole world is falling apart that you lived in for a long time. All that was very hard for me.”
Ms. Mehmedinovic says that by late 1995 the family was in pretty bad physical and psychological shape. Her son, whose hair at age thirteen was turning gray, had had only intermittent schooling in the past four years. He wanted to go to America. In Sanja Mehmedinovic's words, "the boy deserved a chance," so the family decided to leave Bosnia and apply for refugee status. They were accepted by the United States, and the resettlement agency that was assigned their case - the International Rescue Committee sent them to the hot desert city of Phoenix, Arizona. Sanja Mehmedinovic says that she feels the decision her son encouraged her to make, to leave Bosnia for America, was a good one.
Works Cited: Natalie's Story: Brooks, Courtney. "Coming To America: A Bosnian Refugee Empowered."RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. N.p., Mar. 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2014.
Natalie says for children of mixed marriages their heritage became a "noose" around their necks.
Below are stories and images of Bosnian refugees. Your task is to read each story and view the images. When you have completed your analysis of their hardships, make connections with your group members using the attached form. When you have completed your comparison to Ha and her family's hardships submit your paper to me, via the Common Share Folder. When I receive your submission it will be displayed on the SmartBoard and used for class discussion and synthesis at the end of the lesson.
Natalie's Story
"Bosnian refugee Natalie, 40, has painful memories of the war. Not just of witnessing the destruction and grief around her, but also, as a child of a Bosnian Serb father and Croatian mother, of suffering discrimination due to her mixed heritage. Natalie first moved to Serbia and then to Croatia, where she earned a law degree. Around the same time, the United States began accepting refugees from the former Yugoslavia who had mixed heritage. The authorities realized, she says, "that we had nowhere to go". Natalie's brother, who is three years younger than her, had moved to the state of Washington the year before. Natalie flew to Seattle to live with him."When you come somewhere, even if you just go for work, even more if you are [a] refugee, you are in some kind of state of shock, it's almost like a culture shock -- which, actually, it is. It lasts approximately four to five years, and every single immigrant in [the] U.S., from doctor to cab driver, will tell you the same thing -- it takes fiver years to adapt," Natalie explains.
"And that's exactly how it is. The first year is usually amazing. The second year you become a little bit delusional -- [it's like] you are not sure what's happening around you. The third year you are depressed. The fourth year you are getting out of depression. And the fifth year you become an American."
Sanja's Story
"Unlike immigrants, refugees who come to the United States usually are not drawn here primarily by the opportunities this country offers. Rather, they are fleeing war or persecution or other conditions of danger and deprivation. Sanja Mehmedinovic is a dark-haired, blue-eyed woman in her early forties. She came to the United States with her husband, a writer, and thirteen-year-old son in 1996, after surviving almost four years of war in her native Sarajevo.
"Where I lived in the beginning of the war was the zone first attacked, and we had to leave our apartment through a mine field with my nine-year-old son and my old mother. And be internally displaced people in my own city for three and a half years, moving from here to there and escaping from grenades. Beside hunger, freezing, and feeling of loneliness, it’s very hard when you see that everything is falling apart. Your life is falling apart, your friends and family are being killed or are leaving, and it’s like the whole world is falling apart that you lived in for a long time. All that was very hard for me.”
Ms. Mehmedinovic says that by late 1995 the family was in pretty bad physical and psychological shape. Her son, whose hair at age thirteen was turning gray, had had only intermittent schooling in the past four years. He wanted to go to America. In Sanja Mehmedinovic's words, "the boy deserved a chance," so the family decided to leave Bosnia and apply for refugee status. They were accepted by the United States, and the resettlement agency that was assigned their case - the International Rescue Committee sent them to the hot desert city of Phoenix, Arizona. Sanja Mehmedinovic says that she feels the decision her son encouraged her to make, to leave Bosnia for America, was a good one.
Works Cited: Natalie's Story: Brooks, Courtney. "Coming To America: A Bosnian Refugee Empowered."RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. N.p., Mar. 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2014.