New citizen looks forward to building her future

For 7-year-old Dajana Bajric, divorce was worse than war.

But memories of both color her childhood. Growing up in Bosnia, she remembers watching MTV, eating cookies and drinking juice by herself while her dad was at work, her mom sneaking home late at night. She remembers a bomb falling on the church next to her school, running as part of a panicked mass out the front doors, tripping and losing her tooth.

“It was an awful day and one of the sides of the school was completely ruined and all the windows were shattered,” she wrote in an essay. “Luckily it was time for us to move.”

Before the war reached their city, Bajric and her father left Bosnia. That was 11 years ago.

On Tuesday she was one of 40 new citizens welcomed in Spokane – men and women from India, Mexico, Nepal, Ukraine, the Philippines, Israel, Taiwan, Colombia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Vietnam, Canada, El Salvador, Argentina, Honduras and Bosnia. Throughout the nation, about 16,000 new Americans will be sworn in between now and the Fourth of July.

In the past year, more than 640,000 people have become U.S. citizens.

For the Bajrics, it was time to go. Though she was young, Dajana learned that her mother was cheating on her father. She remembers when “the evil in my mother came out. My mom made sure that my dad was sent to some sort of concentration camp.”

Dajana’s dad, Enver, said he dug canals and built bunkers for three months, and that he was so skinny and dirty when he returned that his daughter didn’t recognize him.

When she left Bosnia, Dajana took a yellow teddy bear and a doll her grandmother had brought her from Canada. She and her father stayed with a relative in Germany for five years before coming to the United States as refugees.

“I remember a long flight and a long stop in Chicago,” she said. After getting settled in a South Hill apartment, she started sixth grade, began learning English and started her new life.

“I had a friend, Betsy, I followed around everywhere,” she remembered. “She taught me a lot.”

Dajana likes Spokane, she said, because it’s “not too big and not too small.” She has great memories of her time at Lewis and Clark High School, from which she graduated this spring.

Dajana Bajric said it was important for her to become a citizen so she can travel outside the country. She wants to visit her friends in Germany.

“And just in case someone decides to kick out everyone who’s not a citizen,” she added.

Her dad joined her at Tuesday’s naturalization ceremony at the federal courthouse. He went through the same ceremony last month.

“I’m happy. I feel great,” said Enver Bajric. “You can build a future here.”

The group recited an oath, said the Pledge of Allegiance, and after 15 minutes, it was official.

“It felt like a big graduation, but a lot shorter,” Dajana Bajric said. “I don’t feel any different – just glad for the opportunities this will give me.”

Afterward, there was no plan to celebrate.

“I’ll probably just go home and do laundry and watch TV,” she said. Wednesday, she knew, is a work day. She works during the day for Hollister-Stier Laboratories, and alternates night shifts between Abercrombie and Fitch and Figaro’s pizza.

“I’m trying to make lots of money and save it for school,” she said.

Since watching TV’s many reality makeover shows, she is interested in plastic surgery, and plans to go to Eastern Washington University.

“I don’t want to go far away from home,” she said.