Bosnian Woman Seeks Job, Finds Love

By Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Amra Topic found someone she could relate to, someone who understood how difficult life was.

After she fled her native Bosnia and arrived in Sioux Falls, S.D., she was looking for a job, safety and a better life.

What she wasn’t looking for was love. But that’s one of the first things she found.

As Amra began adjusting to her new life in the United States she met a man named Srdjan at an English language class at the Lutheran Social Services refugee and immigrant program. Srdjan was also a Bosnian refugee.

Amra and her family left Bosnia eight years ago, four days before her 28th birthday, to escape the civil war. The place she called home had become full of guns, hatred and death.

When they arrived in the United States from Croatia, where they had been for a year after Bosnia, Amra was not only in an unfamiliar country, she had only three months worth of English.

“I had to start from scratch,” she said. “I had to learn the language and the system of this country. I had to make something of my life here.”

Her first job was at the Circle of Hope day care as a teacher’s assistant. She took the job, she said, because it was a great way for her to not only to practice her English but also to continue learning. After a year, Amra became a teacher at the day care and taught for three years.

Amra went on to work three part-time jobs, all at once. She worked at Wells Fargo Bank as an operations clerk, the Lutheran Social Services as a Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian interpreter at an outreach clinic as a nurse.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Amra said. “I like working part-time jobs.”

When Srdjan, her then boyfriend, now husband, wanted to go back to school in Wisconsin, Amra went with him and by the time she came back to South Dakota, they were married and Amra had become a mother.

“I wanted to have a child,” Amra said. “It was my time to be a mom.”

But it didn’t take Amra long to get back to work and get back to helping people. She now works part time as a Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian interpreter for the state of South Dakota making house calls with nurses.

She also works for the Women’s Health Outreach, helping women get the medical attention they need.

“It is what I like to do,” Amra said.

Amra finds connection to home, Bosnia, through Bosnian pop music, drinking Turkish coffee and keeping in touch with family.

But her family at home, her husband and daughter, are her main priorities.

“I’m focused on my family,” Amra said.