Mirjana: One Girl's Journey

Mirjana was a carefree child when the Serbs invaded Croatia in 1991. "I never dreamed that war could happen to me", she says. Among her terrible memories was living in a cold cellar during bombardments and watching her mother suffer from cancer with no medicine to ease her pain. Distant relatives in the US offered Mirjana refuge in California. Although she was unhappy to leave her family behind in the war, she accepted the offer. She loved her new family, but struggled with the strange language, the loneliness and the culture shock of being in a large American high school. Depressed and bulimic, Mirjana decided to return to Croatia. Mirjana was happy to be reunited with her family. However, she saw that there was no future for her in war torn Croatia. She returned to California with a new appreciation of the opportunities that life in America afforded her. Happier and more confident, Mirjana had found a new mission to educate fellow students about the war.