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The girl next door

In a quiet suburb right outside of Seattle, Washington, there is a modest house on a cul-de-sac with a charming backyard.

In this house with a charming backyard, there is a wrinkled picture in a photo album that sits on the desk of the home’s patriarch. Two tiny hands have been traced in pen on the back of the picture. The handprints belong to the blue-eyed baby girl and her elder brother depicted in the photo.

Emina and Kenan at the refugee camp.

Emina and Kenan at the refugee camp.

The photo was taken in 1992 in a Slovenian refugee camp.

It’s early 2001, and the blue-eyed girl, her elder brother, and their younger brother run around the charming backyard of that house on the cul-de-sac — getting dirty and playing make believe before they are called in for dinner. After dinner, these siblings pile into their parents’ bed and read stories from the Qur’an before saying their prayers and drifting off to sleep.

The night is quiet, but the house is loud with memories of a life before America.

The Bosnian War broke out in April of 1992. It began as a result of the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Conflicts between Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats ensued. A resurgence of ethnic nationalism in Yugoslavia during the 1980s exacerbated growing political tensions between those who wanted Bosnian independence and others who wanted to annex Bosnian territory for the expansion of Serbia and Croatia. The war resulted in the loss of thousands of innocent lives; a brutal systematic ethnic cleansing campaign that attempted to exterminate Bosnian Muslims. A genocide.

As the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo came under siege that year, a pregnant woman and her 2-year-old son boarded one of the last buses to Slovenia. Seven days later, the woman would give birth to a blue-eyed, blonde-haired daughter. She named her Emina.

Emina at the refugee camp

Emina at the refugee camp.

Emina would spend the next two-and-a-half years of her life in a refugee camp with her mother and elder brother Kenan while their father stayed behind in Bosnia to protect both of their extended families and their home country.

Emina’s mother and father were rarely able to communicate, but worry was futile, hunger was inevitable, and emotions were a luxury. So, the tiny family of three would walk. They’d spend their days walking through the camp’s adjacent fields, and as Emina’s mother looked up at the sky, it would fill her with hope. She would find comfort in the fact that despite the distance, she and her loved ones all shared the same sky and the sun would always rise the next day. She would look at her children and have hope that they would be able to stay tucked away from the war and one day be reunited with their babo.

When Emina was 8 months old, someone at the refugee camp had a camera. Though correspondence was a challenge, Emina’s mother was able to send her husband a letter with Emina’s and Kenan’s photograph enclosed. Emina’s father would pull out that photograph anytime he felt hopeless, and pray, pray that he would see another sunrise.

Though miles apart, Emina’s mother and Emina’s father both wished only for the sun to rise again.

Against the odds of war and circumstance, the family reunited in 1994 and decided to apply for refugee status. The family of four left everything they had behind to make a new home in the United States with the help of sponsors from a church congregation in Washington. Though grateful for the opportunity to start a new life in America, it would be several years of struggle before the family was able to save enough money for a down payment on the house on a cul-de-sac with a charming backyard.

The first photo the family took together after being reunited.

The first photo the family took together after being reunited.

As one of the first Bosnian refugee families in the Seattle area, their new neighborhood became a learning ground on cultural and religious differences, the importance of community, and the power of friendship. Their neighborhood became their new village and America became their home.

America also brought them another beacon of light when they welcomed a third baby — Ibro —and became a family of five.

Emina balanced speaking Bosnian at home and English at school. She made friends with Christian classmates and became their first Muslim friend, all of them bonding over being “women of faith.” Her family would receive festive treats from neighbors during the Christmas holidays and in return, Emina would take over a plate of Bosnian baklava during Ramadan.

Each time she returns home, Emina, now married and living on the east coast, makes sure to see all of the people in her community who made her family’s journey possible. People from the church who sponsored Emina’s family during their relocation to America quickly became extended family and remain some of their closest loved ones. Without them, her family’s American dream would cease to be.

Emina with her parents, brothers and husband Omar.

Emina with her parents, brothers and husband Omar.

The year she was born, Emina’s parents were struck by hardships they could never have anticipated, but they will be the first to tell you how lucky they are and that their lives turned out “more beautiful than they could have ever imagined.” And despite the circumstances of the war that forced them to leave their homeland, they taught their children that everybody is human and deserves to be treated with love and kindness. But they also taught them to speak out against injustice. Both are lessons Emina holds onto today as the American government enacts policies that threaten refugee and immigrant communities, because as she says, “love and kindness will always be our greatest source of hope.”

But she does not live without fear. Although Emina is aware of her “white privilege” due to her outward appearance, she is still a Muslim woman living in a country that repeatedly stereotypes and marginalizes the religious community from which she comes.

Emina during her most recent trip to Bosnia.

Emina during her most recent trip to Bosnia.

Emina is a naturalized citizen, and yet she wonders if she would be here if the Bosnian War occurred today. Would her story be the same? Would she be turned away from America’s safe borders? Would she be alive? Or would she be a memory, written as part of a historical tragedy?

Remarkable as it may be, Emina’s backstory is only a microcosm of her overall experience as a human being. She is not “just” a refugee, or “just” a Muslim, or “just” an immigrant. She is also a woman, a nurse, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a friend and an American. Her overarching human experience is the sum of all of her singularly distinguishable identities, but it is in the reflection of her spirit that you truly come to understand that none of these identities is possible without the others.

She embodies what it means to be human because she is an aggregate of multiple facets.

After a recent journey to Mecca and Medina, Emina was profoundly affected by what she describes as an “overwhelming feeling of love and diversity.”

“There were thousands of people from all of the world [there]; thousands of different cultures, languages and nationalities from all walks of life gathered together, all with the same purpose and our faith binding us together,” she said about her spiritual pilgrimage. “[Almost] everyone was dressed in plain white cloth — men and women, elderly and children, all standing next to each other and praying side by side. It was a humbling reminder that we are all created equal in the view of God.”

Emina during her most recent trip to Bosnia.

Emina during her most recent trip to Bosnia.

The blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl from the weathered and worn photograph in 1992 is now a woman. She no longer occupies the house on the cul-de-sac with the charming backyard where her parents still live, but she is the still the Girl Next Door. She is you. She is me. She is her.

She is.

Latisha is currently working on her first novel, an anthology of short stories and essays. She thinks that snail mail is underrated and does her best to keep it alive. You can view more of her personal and professional work at latishacatch.com.

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