>> My name is Camden Anich.
I'm from the Museum of History and Holocaust Education.
It is April 2nd, 2024,
and I'm here with Adriana [inaudible].
>> [inaudible]
Thank you so much.
What I'd like to start with is,
can you state your full name for us?
>> My name is Adriana [inaudible].
>> Fantastic. And when and where were you born?
>> I was born in Mostar in 1980.
>> What are your parents' names?
>> [inaudible]
>> And do you
have any siblings? If so what are their names?
>> Yes. [inaudible] are my brother and sister.
My sister is five years
older and my brother is about two years younger.
>> Can you tell me a little bit of what
your parents did for a living as you were growing up?
>> My dad was a professor of law and a lawyer.
Had his own law company.
And my mom managed a bank.
She finished her master's in
economics and managed one of the branches.
>> So would you say they're more
affluent in Mostar at the time?
>> Yes.
>> So what was it like for you growing up in Mostar?
>> Oh, my God. I loved that.
It was carefree.
It was just amazing to be able to freely go anywhere,
spend my childhood outside most of the time.
And it was a sense of a community.
We were very patriotic as well towards the country.
And family-oriented, community-oriented,
like your neighbors were
watching out for you when you were outside,
which can be bad and good because if you get in trouble,
they're allowed to also yell at you or
making sure that your parents knew about it.
But it was very worry-free.
So I loved it.
>> So when did you grow to notice,
were there any tensions, ethnic tensions,
racial tensions, religious tensions,
anything like that that you noticed growing up?
And if so, when did you start to realize that?
>> You see, I have not ever
been taught to distinguish
between any religions or anything.
We had predominantly three major religions
that were celebrated and acknowledged,
but in per se,
I did not know what you were or another person were,
I was not brought up that way to think
that way we were good and bad people.
That's how we were taught to look at one another.
But did I know there are different religions?
Yes, were they all respected?
Yes. And did we celebrate it all together?
Yes. So particularly, I did not notice
any tension or anything like that until the war started.
>> Great. So going off of that,
what do you remember of
the beginning of Yugoslavia breaking apart,
and also what do you remember of when
the fighting actually broke out?
>> I was 12 in sixth grade.
So in politics, I didn't get involved much, of course,
my parents and they were
not very religious nor towards the politics.
They were in the middle people.
So we were brought up just to,
like I said, family-oriented, education-oriented.
My parents were making sure that we know the value of
education and family and values towards those subjects.
However, when the war started, I was 12,
and I was taken aback,
like what is happening right now.
What does this mean?
We lived together, and
all of a sudden, we're breaking apart.
And to me, as a 12-year-old was
like I could not even to this day,
I cannot see how that can happen just overnight.
>> So it felt like it came out of nowhere?
>> Yes.
>> Did your parents ever offer
an explanation either during the time or maybe later on?
>> You see, at that time,
it was adults and kids were not supposed to be mixing,
like this is what it is,
and we're not going in-depth,
they're not going to sit you down and
have this in-depth conversation.
This is what it is. It's survival mode,
which as kids, we would always try to listen in on
what was going on so we realized that it is.
Most of it turned out to be like all politics, basically,
which they wanted us to believe which as a person,
I don't think, it was
more of religion and this and that.
They turned it out to be as much. I don't know.
At that 12-year-old cannot figure out why he's not
or she's not my friend anymore
because I'm this and they're that,
which we lived together this whole time.
>> Did you ever feel forced to pick a side?
>> No. Again, goes back to how I was
raised and what happened later on during the war.
I was never forced to pick a side.
Where I lived was almost like
the section where it
divided my city into. So that was hard.
I had family coming from
any religion and as well as friends on sides.
So I don't know, especially at that age, how do you pick?
>> Sure. So as you mentioned being 12 years old,
how did you notice your life change
once fighting did break out?
>> Well, first of all, the first day I was at school,
and they said, we're dismissed
early because the war is about to begin.
You see airplanes flying over the school,
and I was like, really, no way.
So ran home.
That's the first time that I heard
the explosions and actually,
the whole side of my building from detonation,
the windows were shattered and this and that.
So that was my first initial scare.
This is true. This is happening.
So once all of us gathered home, my mom from work,
dad, my sister, everybody,
and that's when we came to realization,
we sat down and they're like,
well, the war is happening,
the division of Yugoslavia and this and that,
and that's when I realized like, why?
Can we just divide this up and peacefully,
and they're like, no, not really.
Everybody wants different piece of land,
which they can't agree on how to divide Yugoslavia.
So that's what stuck in my mind.
But that night, when we went to bed, it got worse.
So we had to all of a
sudden in the middle of the night now pack up and go to
the basement to make sure we're safe
from whatever was happening outside,
which at that time was the air strikes.
>> Do you happen to remember the dates?
>> Beginning of April in '92.
I can't remember exact,
somewhere between 6th and 12th.
>> So what was schooling life for you going forward?
You go home the first day,
are you going to continue schooling?
How did you change as a result?
>> It was April 3rd.
The schooling, of course,
changed from that day on to
probably going into I was sixth grade.
So that was April,
I was almost in a school year.
They told us we all passed and like,
but later on my school was destroyed,
so there's no any kind
of paperwork or anything like that.
My seventh grade, later on,
I spent half of it
in atomic bomb shelter under my building.
They had us kids and kids from
surrounding areas come to that and
they were teaching us there until they got flooded.
After that while we went to another school,
but it was usually how it was that day,
where was there a lot of shooting,
a lot of bombings or was it common for us to go.
So my seventh grade basically was here and there,
how it depends on the situation around at that time.
>> In the topic of war of the wear ever come
up in the school at all, how was it?
>> It was hard because like I said,
I was at that dividing section where there
were kids from different sides
and different religions and we as kids,
I don't think you felt that there
in some of the teachers,
you could feel some.
>> Sure. What about hanging out with friends?
How did that change as a result of the conflict?
>> At 12 years old,
you find it as an adventure until it hits home,
until something bad happens.
So we were all nice and great and we would
actually meet up in garages
under the building because I was
actually living in one of the newer buildings that
had garages under the buildings that had basements
and commercial like stores under it.
So we were making,
we're trying to figure out how to just hang out,
make Mays, play cards, this and that.
So part of that hanging out was just
like any other time until you
hear a siren or anything like that.
Okay, you got to go now.
So that kind of reality hits.
Your playing just like nothing's happening carefree,
and all of a sudden you hear a sniper
or a siren that you indicates that oh,
fun is over, now you got to go to the basement.
>> Sure. So you had mentioned really
your first introduction to
the war was the air strikes that happened,
obviously, the war progresses,
and what was it like as
it started to get harder under siege and so on?
>> You see, in my city,
it was very hard because it was most I think
the city was mostly mixed in and it was very
much so equally divided among the religions.
And once the first initial start
of the war was as being like,
Bombarded from the back like from
the outside a little we were in a valley,
my city is in the valley from the outside.
However, later on it turned out to be more of
a soldiers fighting within
the buildings and inside the city.
So it turned into more of a I don't know,
what would you call it like
foot soldiers instead of just being
airstrike or from the mountains on a side.
So it got to be more,
I believe more violent.
>> Differ clarity contexts.
There are three religious groups
that are fighting against each other.
And then there's also the breakup of
Yugoslavia happening at the same time.
So just for clarity,
what are those three religious groups? [OVERLAPPING].
>> You had in Bosnia and Herzegovina in
particular not the majority,
but you had three religion.
There were Orthodox,
Greek Orthodox, Muslim and Catholics.
So those three were there living and they were
similar predominantly a little more of the Muslims.
However, we were all there in percentage.
So Bosnia was the one,
I think that was most hit with the war because of
the such close proximity to the religious percentage.
And then you had the Serbia and Croatia.
Serbia is orthodox mostly the orthodox
and Croatia is mostly the Catholics.
And of course,
they wanted to Bosnia has a coast and all this.
So they wanted to divide it
up between Croatia and Serbia,
which, borders with them.
So when Yugoslavia fell apart,
it was like which president
would want what piece of what country and divided up.
>> Sure. You had mentioned when we had spoke before
that your father was on a sniper's list
can you tell me a little bit more about that?
>> Yeah. We realized that several times,
like I said, we're in a valley,
and there's also buildings.
My city has a lot of buildings,
and some of the abandoned tall buildings
or one of the floors were often,
a sniper was in there.
So my my dad being
that he was one of the influential people.
He knew a lot of people,
and he was a professor,
a lawyer, and stuff like that.
And so I believe that he was targeted for that.
I don't know, for other reasons
because they a lot of doctors,
professors, lawyer, a lot of influential people,
educated people were usually targeted.
And several times we
got a sniper hit through our apartment in
the building and later on that we found out that they did
find a couple of lists and one of them was my dad.
>> So you also mentioned that you
were chased by soldiers.
Can you tell me a little bit more about that as well?
>> You see, the fighting inside the city,
if they were locals,
they often agreed to cease fire and even hang out.
It was just unbelievable
and because they grew up together.
However, when the support from the armies
came from other cities
or countries like Croatia or Serbia,
they tended to not care
about civilians or anything like that.
So they learned that
I am different religion than they are,
and they several times
threatened me that if they do catch me,
they will rape me or hurt me, and things like that,
which several times, if I would see them,
I would try to sneak
through one of those common places under
the buildings that were commercial like
stores and stuff abandoned at this point.
>> Did you ever see
any other locals caught by the soldiers?
>> Yes. The whole building had seven entrances,
and there were like I said,
different religions and mixed religions.
So when the soldiers
would come through in the middle of the night,
they would do a suite.
And your whole family,
if you're not the religion that they were,
they will sweep the whole buildings and take you and
usually tell you to go
across to the side that you belong to.
And either you lived or you
didn't because sometimes you
had to swim across the river.
And they would shoot at you and sometimes
they would just shoot you and you would disappear.
So I had several friends from my building they were,
but they did survive,
but they would have to swim across the river.
>> Were these predominantly Bosnian Serbian soldiers,
were these Serbian Croatians,
a mixture of them?
>> So in the beginning,
the Bosnia was in war with Serbia,
but I am from Herzegovina apart,
which did not hold as many Serbians and as many,
and it was not close to the Serbian border.
It was bordering Croatia.
So it was more Croatian Army.
>> Speaking of which,
I know that later on the most ridge was destroyed.
Can you tell me about that iconic lame mark?
>> Yes. It was destroyed in November 1993, I believe.
And it was just as far
as anyone from my city if you ask them,
it represents our city.
And it was a heartfelt destruction, like,
everybody was in first of all,
and then just devastated.
I just represented for so many years.
I believe it was built in 1566.
So for about 500 years, it represented,
and we had annual diving competition
that everybody was looking forward to every year,
and the sense of community for that
everybody will come under that bridge and watch them die.
And so it was like the heart of the city was taken down,
and that was also felt like the two sides of my city,
which were divided by the river were now divided
for real because the iconic structure was gone.
>> You mentioned other things,
like abandoned buildings during this time,
how did your neighborhood change?
You talked about how you had neighbors
that were looking out for you.
You had all this stuff when you were growing up.
How did your neighborhood change
as things were progressing?
>> Well, besides buildings being
destroyed, I don't even know.
I think RPGs went into directly to
my sister and I's room, and, like,
the whole thing was destroyed
even though the French balcony,
we had fell down,
and we had to repair that afterwards,
the electricity, lack of electricity or water.
And then there was one of the bombs that went
into the electrical unit.
For the whole building, we had not
had so just part of the destruction.
But I think what was most to me,
as I recall, different, was the neighbors.
Like I said, actually,
my floor had all three religions and that
lived for years together and grew up did the holidays,
and all of a sudden, they either don't know you.
They don't want to know you or they're asking for
you to leave because it's just how it is.
So to me, that was just the mind boggling
even now at this age.
Why? How do you change this opinion,
and how this hatred comes in and just overnight?
>> So was there
a point in time when you were able to understand or
differentiate between the conflict that was
playing out versus the genocide?
That was starting to unfold.
>> You see genocide didn't come to my mind at
all until later on when Srebrenza happened.
I think that's what hit us all.
Yes, there were casualties.
Yes, in numbers and every side had casualties.
And that to me, also just awful,
like, there were revenges,
which I don't think it's right at any point.
Like if this side does this,
this side goes after a revenge.
So to me, that's
part of why I want to speak up is I believe
this generational curse of
passing on the hatred toward other religions,
other people from other countries needs to stop because
nobody is perfect and everybody does it for some reason,
out of hatred, beginning,
revenge, anything like that.
But like I said,
I'm sorry. I lost track of my.
We were so I don't know.
I just until step it's a hit,
I don't think genocide was I was just a war,
yes casualties, but then that was
something that that was awful.
>> Sure. And when you for
clarification, when you mentioned Sent,
you're talking about the enclave in Bosnia,
where was predominantly Bosi men
who were murdered by reinforces.
>> But it was mostly men.
But there were others,
including children and everything,
and my friend actually sent me a video.
She went this past year during the anniversary.
And just is just horrible.
Is this um Deathly silence
that is in these graves that are commemorating.
But there were 8,372 victims that were fined sound.
They put three dots because they have not
found a lot of them yet,
which is that's just heartbreaking.
But in that day to lose that many,
and I think just it is I don't know what to call it.
At that time, I didn't realize until later on,
I was starting to do some
studying of my own and learning that it is genocide.
It is ethnic cleansing,
but a lot of politicians or they didn't
acknowledge it even to this day,
I don't think it was acknowledged as genocide.
>> You had mentioned also when we
spoke before that your uncle and
your father's friend were sent to
a concentration camp. Can you elaborate on that?
>> Yeah. It was my uncle and my ex-husband,
my father-in-law, his dad.
They were there close to a year or a little over a year.
And they were just sent to concentration camps.
Like I said, they were doing
sweeps through the buildings,
and if you're not the religion,
they were you were sent into concentration camp.
>> Did that camp have a name at all or was it just some?
>> There were two in my city.
And oh, now you got me.
Now, I can't recall that.
So but yeah, there were two
and they actually were both in the same one.
At that time, I did not know my father-in-law,
but my uncle was in there.
And depending on the time or who were the guards again,
if they were a local people that knew you.
It was my city is it is a city,
but it's mostly people knew each other from
either work or marriage-related or
family or events that were happening over the years.
It was a tight-knit community.
But my uncle, for example,
was he was not treated too bad.
He was just malnourished when he
got home and he did not, of course,
have lots to eat,
and he was asked to
dig rose for the front and stuff like that.
But my father-in-law was in, like,
put in 21 days in what do you call
that he was alone in this Solitary Solitary confinement.
Yes. And for 21 days,
and he was asked to go dig rose too,
but at the places where they were actually fighting,
so you don't know if you're going to get hit by
anything and things like that.
>> Why the different treatment?
Don't necessarily know, I didn't ask too much of that.
It's depending on whose section you were in.
Again, if you were local or you knew somebody.
My uncle was a salesperson
that actually was not from Mostar,
then moved to Mostar and got married to my aunt.
He's from further upper Bosnia.
But he was a salesperson, so he knew a lot.
And so I'm not sure,
never asked him, hey,
I was glad at
that moment that he
was not as mistreated as some of the others,
but a lot of other things happened that we heard
about and a lot of people went missing from there.
I guess he was lucky.
>> Sure. What did you know about
the international response at
the time from other nations,
the UN, so on?
>> As a kid, I was initially very excited.
They would come in.
We had United Nations come in with the tanks, however,
I was disappointed later
that they would bring
different treats for us and this and that,
but then I would realize, hey,
again, there are two different sides.
Just like I said in any side in this war,
there were casualties from all sides.
And I feel very
bad for all of the families losing their loved ones.
And same thing here,
UN in some places,
really helped, and in
some places, were very disappointed.
In the beginning, they would bring us treats,
and as kids, we loved that.
But then as soon as the siren started,
they would retreat, and I was like, well,
you're leaving us here to get killed,
which there were incidents where they wouldn't leave.
There were some men and
women there like, oh, this is not right,
and they tried to get the kids out or
a family that was wounded or something like that.
But to me, as my experience,
I didn't see a lot of effect in my city.
Again, they would have to retreat.
They said they cannot interfere.
They can just observe
or bring in supplies or something like helping that way.
Again, as a 12-year-old,
maybe I missed some of the things
of why things were happening that way.
But as a kid, I was disappointed,
you're bringing me a chocolate,
but I might just die after
you're leaving me here instead of protecting me.
>> Sure. So we're going to
fast-forward for just a moment before
we talk about your story of immigration.
How do you feel the court cases in
the Hague and the International Tribunal later on?
Do you feel like they've been effective in
addressing what happened in
Bosnia, Herzegovina or [OVERLAPPING]?
>> That's a very touchy subject.
And that's like this people's opinions.
I don't know. I have not done enough research.
And throughout the years,
I followed a couple of
cases where the bigger cases, however,
there were so many places
that it wasn't just the cleansing,
just the casualties happening and this and that.
They had initial people.
They were in charge of taking that command and saying,
yes, this whole village needs to be wiped out.
So they never got charged there never and,
it's hard for people later on to see them,
like those women and say, oh,
I know this guy was in charge of killing hundreds,
but never got reprimanded for that because it was war.
So Hague, I think they did okay.
Jobs with some of the bigger people, influential people,
but there are many other ones that
actually were not reprimanded or there was
a case that he served I believe 10 or 15 years and then
he was let out and making
a statement that he would do it over again.
He would kill as many as he did because he
doesn't believe it was wrong or anything like that.
So how effective is it depends,
I guess from case to case.
>> So talking about immigration,
you had mentioned early on that you had left
Bosnia first time for, I believe was Croatia.
Can you tell me a little bit
about that and when that happened?
>> Well, initially, when the war
started, we were airstrikes.
The RPGs were surrounded.
However, my dad,
after a couple of months,
he was like, it's not getting any better.
How about you guys go?
I'm worried about your safety.
So we loaded this bus,
and I think I thought that was it,
that was the end of my life.
Because like I said, we're in
a valley and to get out of a city,
you have to go through the climb up and go to Croatia.
So that was the longest trip in my life because you
were on a palm of
the hand and you can get hit from any side,
which happened a lot of times.
The buses were hit,
and all the people in it would be casualties.
But fortunately, we made it,
and we went to Croatia where we had friends,
and we stayed with them for a while.
And then that was awful
too because we all wanted to go back.
We didn't know where our family is, where our dad is.
I was like, I would rather die in
my country together with everybody else
than be here waiting for
anticipation of what's going to happen.
But at that time, you don't have much to say.
You do what he said to do.
>> Your friends in Croatia,
do they have opinions
on the conflict that was breaking up?
>> You see, if you were any kind of a good human,
you would not think that's right at any point.
So the friends that we had,
the family we had,
we all thought none of
the sides were right
or that this should be happening at any moment,
and it's just, at the point the killing is points.
And of course, if you lived in Yugoslavia,
it was, I believe
really well put together and people were happy.
If you interview now older people
in that generations before mine,
probably, until that age,
they would all say they were very satisfied,
they were all really happy with education,
with healthcare, with jobs.
And that comes to that point,
I cannot have an opinion on somebody and think
somebody else is bad because the people who took us out
and who protected us in Croatia,
there were not the same religion I was.
They were just friends of my dad for a long time.
They were like family.
We vacation together and this and that.
And that throughout the whole war,
you would see a good and bad out of people.
You would see the bad, but also the good.
They didn't care what you are.
They didn't care. You were their friend.
You were their family member.
You were their neighbor.
So you could see that.
>> So what was the journey back to Bosnia
like after that first initial trip to Croatia?
>> So we were there. We spent a couple of months.
And like I said, Serbians
did not have a lot of interest in
Herzegovina, so it stopped.
The war stopped.
Let's go back. The conflict stopped.
And so we did.
We went back and we fixed whatever needed to fix at home.
We felt like this is
it but then the conflict started with Croatia.
So there we go all over again.
>> And so what was that next process like?
>> That was even more devastating for me
because of being so close to Croatia.
Loving Croatia as a country.
And that's where I spent every vacation in my life.
I just, again,
as 12-year-old, 13-year-old couldn't think, why?
We were so great.
We were great neighbors.
We were great friends.
We were just in common,
everything in common from language to culture.
>> And did you happen to lose connection with
those friends and so on that we living in
Croatia, or did you maintain those?
>> No. And I still to this day do.
Let's say 80% of
the people had the same mentality as I am.
This was ridiculous. It should never happened.
And after so many years,
we're back in that country.
When I visit, I was like,
what was the point of it?
You're all living together again.
They're marrying each other again.
It's just sad.
The hatred is quickly spread and how
the work can happen just like that
to even the most peaceful country that I thought it was.
>> Can you tell us a little bit about
your joining to the United States
and what that process was like for you?
>> At that age, we had to first go to Croatia.
You have to get to the country to apply,
that is not your country of origin.
So when again,
for the second time,
in 1994, we went to Croatia,
my dad was like, I don't know.
We either stay and die and it's just like there
were months and months that we didn't have food or water,
he didn't have a job anymore,
when is this going to stop?
And then even when it stops,
the economy is not going to be looking
good for a while. What do I do?
So I guess like everybody else,
for the better of his kids,
he's like, we're going to be going
to whatever country takes us.
But we went to Croatia and applied to leave.
He actually always said
he always wanted to go to New Zealand.
But at that time,
I don't think New Zealand was taking
as many refugees and stuff like that.
So United States,
we had a friend that lived
in New York for years and years,
which he's Croatian, and he was like,
let me send you a guarantee letter.
So he was one of the also
guaranteed for our family to, yes,
if anything happens, I will make sure
they're provided for in case.
So again,
we're looking at people who
don't care about that difference.
As kids, we were not involved,
we actually just sat outside and I would say,
hey, what they ask you?
So they would ask, why
would you want to leave your country?
Why is it that you are afraid for
your life and the safety of your family?
So you had to give those reasons,
why would you want to leave.
So after initial two,
three interviews, we had to do
the medical exam and then we had to wait.
And because we had
the guarantee letter also from our friend,
we were able to go to United States.
They said they will take you as refugees,
you will get a green card after a certain time as well,
I think it was called I94 back then.
It was a cardboard little paper with your picture.
So the process wasn't as bad.
Later on, it turned out as more
of a lengthy process, I think,
because as many people wanted to
go and a situation calmed down,
I think it was harder to get out unless you had family.
My sister actually went with
her husband to Denmark where she had my nephew,
and then there was
a paper you could fill out to connect the families.
So I'm not sure,
I forgot what it was initially called.
It took her a year as a process,
but she was able to join us in
the United States to get the family back together.
>> What were your thoughts upon learning that
United States was the place
that you're going to wind up going?
What did you have in mind?
>> [LAUGHTER] When you think about United States,
I used to watch MTVs,
watched Beverly Hills, everything.
So that's where I got a little bit of my language from.
Plus in my country,
you take another language in fourth grade.
So mine was English, thankfully.
But I thought of Beverly Hills and this fancy things,
and here I am landing in Syracuse, New York.
I was like, where am I?
[LAUGHTER]
This is not it.
But it was hard.
Leaving everything, not knowing where I'm going,
not knowing the language even though I had
a little bit of it in the background,
from the songs, from the shows,
but it was very hard.
And to watch my parents go through
the struggle of going from what
they were to the regular laborers.
For them it was just,
mentality was not there.
It was like my mom had to sew,
my dad had to work at the conveyor belt, monitoring.
Their morale went down severely.
My dad spoke five languages,
wrote five books at a doctorate.
And then this is, you see standing there.
But slowly but surely they climbed up the ladder.
But it was hard watching them for me.
I started working at age 14 right
away because we didn't have money for anything.
And so I started working at
the bakery to help them out so
they wouldn't have to work so hard.
>> When you came over,
were you greeted with a community?
Obviously, United States,
is a place where many [inaudible] come.
Did you find other refugees
or people that you were able to bond with,
or did you find yourself alone?
>> I don't know if they were strategically
placed in bunches so
you can gather in and be a community.
We ended up, even
though our friend was in New York City,
they were like, okay, but the communities are based here.
So we ended up in Utica, New York,
which now has one of the largest communities of Bosnian,
along with, I believe St. Louis.
And there's other ones like Clarkston,
and Chicago has a lot of Serbians.
So their community were
stationed throughout the United States,
even though now after 30 years,
I believe they're all over.
But Utica, New York
had a refugee immigration little office,
and we were greeted by somebody that actually
my dad knew from the same city that we were,
and he was like a representative, a slash translator.
So when it came time for
appointments or anything like
that, they will pick you up,
take you and all that trying to help you out,
take you to classes for English and so on.
>> So what was school and life in the United States?
>> Well, I started off in 9th grade.
And to me, if it wasn't for my ESOL teacher,
I think it would be a lot more disappointed.
That was just amazing.
She was just amazing.
I had a lot of blocks, which I think that was really
useful because they placed us in,
she taught at social study science
but she was ESOL certified.
So we spend majority day with her,
and I think because she was so animated
and she tried so hard that I
actually tested out within three, four months.
And she continued pushing
and I got the region's diploma
in New York and presidential award,
but I think it was because of her.
She encouraged us as immigrants,
and we were all there from Poland, China, everywhere.
So she kept us as a little, you can do this,
and she really encouraged us to make sure that we push.
>> So would you say that
your family tried to assimilate into the United States,
or did they try to preserve the best they could
their own heritage coming from Bosnia [inaudible]?
>> My parents definitely
were keeping their traditions and everything
besides learning new language and keeping up
maybe adopting some new holidays like Thanksgiving.
They mostly stayed true to that.
But they were in their 40s when they came,
which I also kept a lot of heritage.
I think I kept 90%.
I loved making 90% of it.
My cuisine is from my country.
The holidays, again, like I said,
I love Thanksgiving and
some new ones like St. Patrick's and this and that.
So you adopt to those,
you love any holiday, but to celebrate.
However, I do like to keep my culture going through
a lot of things and I like to visit
with my kids a lot to know where you're coming from,
where your roots are from, and this and that.
So it's harder with them when it comes to language,
because I believe my language is a little
more challenging than English and they're like, mom.
But when they do visit,
they try their best and they do speak it
and they're very accepting of the cultures,
and that's what I try to do in a classroom too because I
work in a very diverse school.
I try to make sure that we do have
international days and I am part of international clubs.
So you do know and should always go back to
your roots and respect and try to keep
up with some of that because that just makes you richer.
>> And what are your children's age?
>> Maya is my oldest, she's 19,
Nyla is 17, and Ares is 10.
>> Wow. So you had mentioned
before this idea of having two homes,
and you've spoken to it a little bit.
Can you tell me what that is like having these two homes?
>> You see, I was 14,
when you come here, and your parents
and family and community are Bosnian,
and you grew up in that culture element.
But then you have friends and new family, not by blood,
but just, I worked at the school for
20 years so my coworkers are like my family.
We've been together for so long.
So it is hard.
When I go home where I'm from,
I tell them, I was like,
I'm flying home in three weeks.
So they're like, okay.
So it's like you're torn because here,
of course, I've been here for almost 30 years.
Well, actually, this July it will be 30 years.
Wow. So this is my home.
This is where my kids grew up in.
But my soul, it belongs there.
I grew up there, and it's just,
I have roots there.
And every time I go,
I feel like I belong.
So it's hard.
>> Do you ever see yourself moving back?
>> I think that fear and me is always there.
I don't see myself going there per se.
I visit as much as I can,
almost every year or every two years?
Love the Croatian Coast.
My name is Adriana.
My dad named me after the Adriatic Sea.
So just that's where
I would love to settle maybe when I retire,
but however, I don't know.
It's hard because you can see still in some of the parts,
there's still a little bit of tension.
A lot of lives were lost.
>> Can you speak to your joining
moving to the State of Georgia, what that was like?
>> From New York?
>> Yeah. How did you come here to [inaudible]?
>> My father hated winter,
[LAUGHTER] and so do I. I love snow for three days,
somewhere in a cabin looking at it, and that's it.
However, when we first came,
we came in July,
so this July will be 30 years.
>> Of what year?
>> Ninety-four. And it was all nice
and peachy until that end of November hit,
where you had feet and feet of
snow and it lasted to April.
My dad was like I cannot drive in this.
I can't walk in this.
I cannot pay like this.
So he got in contact with
some friends that he knew from back home here,
and they were like, we have a community here too.
There are better-paying jobs in South and this and that.
And the tax properties are less,
houses are less, and then taxes are less.
And they were like, we're moving.
So again, I'm like, no.
At that time, I was 16,
my senior year because I doubled up in my high school.
So I was 16 when I graduated high school.
So I was like, no,
I'm not doing that and they're like,
no, yeah, we are going.
So last three months of my senior year I spent here
at Central Linn High School not knowing anybody,
but the thing is
that I guess everything happens for a reason.
My person to show me high school
and walk me through my day was
somebody who played handball and
went to school with me in my country in my city.
So that was like, oh, my gosh,
so I guess it is meant to be.
So the look on my face when I saw her walk through,
was like, oh, my God.
So that made it easy.
They made it easier.
I was devastated to be moving again, starting again,
and so made it easy and I was happy to be out of winter.
>> Sure.
>> Living here in the United States,
did you ever come across any discrimination
being a refugee being from Bosnia and Herzegovina at all?
>> I think that happens all the time to all of
us being different religion, color.
Either you're a female or male,
you get discriminated at some point,
which is I cannot understand that.
We all bleed the same. We're all the same.
I don't understand if I'm not bothering you.
However, yes, in New York State and here,
I have seen and noticed throughout
the years and in discrimination
and just by calling your name,
if you correct them, they're like, well,
you're here now, so we're going to call you this.
I was like, okay, thanks.
So it was hard from anything like that to teachers.
But I didn't have a lot of those,
maybe one or two in high school.
And then kids in high school,
there were some, but like I said,
I was hanging out mostly with ESOL population and
stayed out of this and played
volleyball just to keep myself occupied.
I tried to stay away from that.
But now I tend to seem to be allergic to that.
Because when they do it in my classroom or in school,
I see myself reacting to that,
like, no, we're not doing this.
Try to teach them the empathy and the,
hello, they're here for a reason.
Why? And that's why I couldn't
understand when they would say, go back to your country.
I would. Like how many times I
got home and cried, I would.
I didn't want to come here. I loved it.
So you got to understand that something
made these people up and leave and come here.
And they're working these jobs long hours
and having a hard time.
So for you, just to add to that,
it's not right, but we have to.
>> When we talked about you potentially moving home,
you mentioned this fear and so on.
And as current events go on,
there's this notion that maybe
continuing conflicts will break out in the region.
Do you have hope that the region will see
an everlasting peace or are you fearful that
conflict is just going to wind up breaking out again?
>> There are two sides of me to that.
I hope and pray
that we learned some lessons that it's not worth
it and that the countries in
21st century should not be in conflict like that.
There should be always we're better than this.
However, I do have fear because it did happen before.
It happened many times. You had
World War I, World War II,
then all these other wars,
including Yugoslavia, Ukraine, this and that.
So you cannot say for sure,
it's not going to happen. Do I have fears?
Yes. But I'm hoping
that as other countries as the world in 21st century,
we should not be going through these things.
>> So as we had mentioned before,
students often view these video clips.
And my question for you is,
what are you hoping students and
others take away from your story,
your family's story, especially
considering your background in education?
>> This is what I do in my classroom too.
I tell my kids, yes,
I'm going to teach you Science, Social Studies,
Math, Language Arts,
to read, to this and that, social skills.
When you leave my class,
I want you to be a better person.
So learning about Holocaust,
genocide in Srebrenica,
all the wars, anything,
just like anything that happens in this world,
we need to take a lesson from it
and be a better person at the end of the day.
I hope this would break
the generational curse of hatred
and semitism, anything like that.
So I tell my kids you got to carry this.
This has to stop somewhere.
Racism, any inequality,
anything like that, this needs to
stop and it begins with you.
Like me, I went through war and I
experienced hatred from different people,
but do I hate different religions?
Do I hate different people? No, I don't.
Because I took away
this is something I'm going to be and I'm trying to
teach my students and
influence them in life be a better person,
just cut it off now.
Because if you take this and learn a lesson,
and you tell your kids,
your friends, your family,
hey, this shouldn't be happening,
this should be me and I'm going to choose
to stand against it and this and that,
then maybe we can break this.
But if we continue, oh, my God,
he did this, so I'm going to do this,
or I'm going to hate this religion
because this is what is that,
it's never going to stop.
This world will not be a better place.
So this is what I'm trying to teach my kids.
And when I teach different things like World War,
Holocaust, anything, I
always stop and I say, reflect on this.
How can we make sure as
generations go on that this does not happen?
>> And do you feel like
you've made a difference with that?
>> When I go back,
I visit middle schools every year
with my fifth grade to see how they do,
and I see generations that already moved on.
And I say, hey, what do you miss the most?
Our talks and how you made me a better person?
Of course, I'm not going to touch everybody,
but even if 10 out of 25 do change
because I made that speech
or I made sure that I sat down and told this is inhumane.
It's not just this happens.
This many Jews were killed,
or this many Muslims were killed,
or Serbians or Croatians.
It's not going to make a difference.
It's just a number to them,
they're 10, they're 11.
But if I sit down and give them,
I often include some of my experiences,
and they're sitting there in awe.
And I was like,
I was your age, basically.
And so they always remember that.
They always say that that made them
more empathetic and see people as just,
I said, divide them up to good and bad and those bad,
try to help by doing some kind things to them.
>> Absolutely. Well, is there
anything else that you would like to mention,
discuss, or something that we
missed I didn't ask about that you'd like to add?
>> I don't think so.
I can go on and write books and books about every
minute that I spent through war, through coming,
through migration here and just living through it,
and even now going through
some struggles as somebody who came 30 years ago,
but just hoping that
the students and whoever watches this or comes in
contact with anybody that has
similar stories that they do take a listen
because there's a lot to learn
and hopefully benefits somebody.
>> Great job. Thank you so much.
We appreciate you agreeing to this interview.
>> Thank you.
>> You're welcome.