25. BOMB THREAT

ONE DAY in March 2018, Mersiha was surprised when a school administrator she barely knew stopped her in the hall and said abruptly, “You Bosnian?”

“Yes.”

“How do you feel?” the woman said. “You and your people—what are you thinking about it?”

Mersiha felt a chill; she knew exactly what the woman was referring to: The day before, Fahrudin Omerovic, a 23-year-old Utica College student, who said he was armed, called in multiple threats to the college. For six hours, the school was in lockdown. When Mr. Omerovic, a Bosnian-American, was arrested at his home, no weapon was found.

“What does that have to do with me?” Mersiha said, trying to stay calm. “I’m not his mother or his sister.” Then she walked away.

After that, the woman ducked when she saw Mersiha. But every chance she could, Mersiha said cordially, “Good morning.”

Months later, she was still fuming. “My blood pressure went through the roof,” she said about the incident. It pained her that an educated person—whom she thought should know better—would speak so divisively.

“I don’t go around saying an Italian, or a Pole, did that,” Mersiha said. “Whoever makes a threat should be punished—even if it’s my own son.”

Over the years, Mersiha has had barbed comments tossed at her. But since President Trump was elected, things have gotten worse: “People think they can say anything: ‘Go back to your friggin’ home.’ ”

Mersiha has been in the United States 24 years. But when she is introduced to someone, she explained, it’s never, “Where do you live? Where do you work? Where do you go to school?”

It’s: “How long have you been here?”

“I know I have an accent!” Mersiha said. “I can’t do anything about it. Maybe I’ll put a sticker right here,” she pointed to her chest. “I’m Bosnian, Muslim.”

“I’ve been here long enough,” she added, shaking her head. “Don’t ask me!”

Like many immigrants and refugees, Mersiha feels suspended between two worlds. When she and her family visit Bosnia during the summer, they are not seen as true Bosnians.

“They call us ‘the diaspora,’ ” she said, meaning those who fled after the war. “They think for us, it’s easy. We come back with money.”

She wants to tell them, “Do you know how much we have to save for one trip? Would we do that if we didn’t miss this country?”

They have no idea of our longing, she said. “We are so tied to the past. It’s like a hole inside us.”

Skyping helps—but it is also painful.

Azra, Mersiha’s 24-year-old niece, who lives in Sarajevo and was studying to be a social worker, has bone cancer. “She’s a fighter—and very angry,” Mersiha said. She had her left leg amputated at 17; a tumor is now on her right leg. She postponed her wedding because of her illness, but recently told Mersiha as they skyped, “Why didn’t I get married before I got sick?”

“When you beat this crap, we’re going to have a huge wedding,” Mersiha told her, trying not to cry. “Any cake you want! We’re going to dance all night!”

“You just have to keep sending positive thoughts,” Mersiha said, discouraged.

She knows Bosnians think ‘the diaspora’ do not understand what they go through.

“But we don’t understand things in America either,” she said. “Where do we belong? Where’s our place?”

“Nowhere!” Mersiha said, laughing and shaking her head. “I’m a refugee, and always will be.”