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Sanja Drobnjak and her family sought refuge from civil war in Croatia.
Marlene Shahata, her mother and her brother are among Christians who left Egypt to get away from religious discrimination.
Tin Win and his family fled the repressive military regime in Myanmar (formerly Burma) in Southeast Asia.
They all eventually landed in America, mastered English and are excelling in the American education system. The teenagers were in the top five of this year's graduating class at Akron's North High School -- Sanja was valedictorian.
College is the next step in their journey. All have received scholarships and grants to pay for tuition. Tin and Sanja will be the first in their families to go on to higher education.
``I think I may be the first to graduate from high school,'' said Tin, 19.
International Institute of Akron employees helped resettle the three students and their families. Institute officials say it is not unusual for refugee children to flourish in the United States -- even those such as Tin, Sanja and Marlene who came here as middle schoolers, not as younger children.
Nevertheless, institute officials are reveling in the success of the North High graduates, saying they are role models for other newcomers.
``They're really good examples of immigrants,'' said Goran Debelnogich, resettlement services coordinator for the institute.
``They have the inner strength and will to succeed to overcome all the barriers that American kids don't have,'' Debelnogich said.
``I always tell refugees, `This is not impossible,' '' he said. `` `Your kids will have a very different life, and very quickly they can be good students.' ''
Tin Win
Tin recalls being utterly lost in class in his early days at Akron's Riedinger Middle School -- where he and Marlene were in the same English-as-a-second-language (ESL) class.
``I remember crying because I didn't know what to do with my homework,'' Tin said. ``When I first came here, all I knew was `yes' and `no' and the alphabet.''
Tin and his parents are among the many Mon, a Myanmar ethnic group whose people sought refuge in Thailand before coming to the United States. Tin arrived just 10 days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The family -- who had been farmers -- settled south of downtown Akron in the neighborhood around Riedinger that also has attracted immigrants from the Southeast Asian nation of Laos and other countries.
Tin was 13. He said his youth and lack of English shielded him from the post-9/11 anxiety that gripped the country.
In his early days in the United States, Tin was amazed at the variety of things he found in shops. The store at the refugee camp south of Bangkok, Thailand, had limited offerings.
``I liked the fact they have more kinds of candy here,'' he said, giggling.
Tin ``was a character -- he always had a smile'' at North High, said senior class Principal Gini Rasnick.
Tin -- who ranked No. 3 in North's 2007 class -- said he adapted quickly. He gives credit to the ESL program as well as to parents who ``gave me a lot of inspiration to have a better life than them.''
Being around other ESL students was a big help. ``They have to go through the same thing we do,'' he said.
Tin, who is working part time at a coin-operated laundry, will attend Kent State University in the fall and plans to study architecture. His father -- a carpenter and factory worker who recently died from cancer -- passed along a desire to make things.
Marlene Shahata
``It was scary,'' Marlene recalled of her journey from Egypt to the United States in 2002, when she was 13.
Everybody on the airplane seemed to be speaking English, said Marlene, now 18. Although she had studied English for several years at a private school in Alexandria, Egypt, she said her English ``wasn't really good. I was lost a little bit.''
Her anxiety was mixed with anticipation of seeing her mother, who had left Egypt 3 ½ years earlier.
Marlene's mother, Wafaa Botros, had left Marlene and Marlene's brother, Mina, with their father while she settled here. Marlene's mother supports the family by working as an assistant teacher at a preschool.
Marlene said that in Egypt, ``with religion, everybody's always fighting.''
Her first months at Riedinger were tough, she said. ``With the Arabic language, you read from right to left. It's totally different letters.''
But overall, school in Egypt was more challenging, the private school teachers more demanding, she said.
Ranking No. 5 in North's 2007 class is an achievement, but it's also ``just a step on the way,'' she said. ``The bigger step is college, getting a job and having a future.''
Her mother has been supportive and also more rigid than most American parents Marlene knows.
``It's much more strict'' in Egypt, she said. Her mother's parenting style, she said, ``was better for me... It made me who I am.''
She plans to study ``something with science and math'' at the University of Akron, where she will be a freshman this fall.
Math ``doesn't change from one country to another,'' she said.
Sanja Drobnjak
``I was a little nostalgic at first,'' said Sanja, who lives with her family in Akron's North Hill neighborhood, where the International Institute has resettled many Eastern European and Asian immigrants.
``The first year (2001) was rough. But I've met people here, kind of started over... everything is building up.''
Sanja, who arrived while in middle school, said the transition would have been more difficult if she were older.
``I had time to sort of assimilate into the culture,'' said Sanja, now 18.
Sanja found comfort at local gatherings of Serbians. Sanja's family fled from Croatia to neighboring Serbia when she was 6.
Yet Sanja points to the diversity of students at North when asked about what she liked at the school. ``Where I came from, it was Serbians,'' she said. ``I think (diversity) has been very positive for me. You become very much more open-minded and tolerant and perceptive of differences.''
Schools here ``are a lot nicer -- a lot more grand,'' she said. In Serbia, she said, ``you didn't have the resources that you do here, like technology.''
Sanja -- the class valedictorian -- said she doesn't like to ``praise myself'' because plenty of other students do well, and ``other people are facing challenges.'' She excelled at North while working two jobs that totaled about 25 hours a week. She is a waitress and an office assistant at a property management company.
Rasnick, the senior principal, recalled that Sanja was ``very serious'' but ``always had a smile.''
Sanja will attend UA in the fall. She said she might study business.
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