Iraqi woman, 111, becomes second oldest person to become US citizen… and credits her health to drinking tea
By Daily Mail Reporter
At 111, Warina Zaya Bashou is the second oldest person to be granted citizenship to the United States.
She has lived in the country since 2003, but doesn’t speak English.
Her cousin translated the citizenship news into her native language of Chaldean.
Ms Bashou took the oath of citizenship Friday at her Sterling Heights home, north of Detroit.
The radio station says Ms Bashou was surrounded by about a dozen beaming relatives and friends during the ceremony.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Marilu Cabrera says Ms Bashou was born in 1900 and is the second-oldest person on record to be naturalized
The oldest person was a 117-year-old Turkish woman who was naturalised in 1997.
Ms Bashou credits her longevity to drinking green tea. She also said that avoiding the doctor was helpful.
A family affair: Family friends Pam Shammami, left, and Steve Shammami, right, interpret during her ceremony to become a United States citizen
She has been in the United States nine years and said through an interpreter that becoming a citizen is something she wanted to do for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren to remember her by.
She will celebrate her 112th birthday in July.
When she was born, Iran still had kings and William McKinley was the president of the United States.
Official: Ms Bashou, who was born in 1900 in Iraq, shows of her United States certificate of naturalization
Chaldeans are an indigenous people of Iraq. Most of them practice Catholicism and speak a modified version of Aramaic.
Many, the paper said, have been forced to flee because of religious and ethnic persecution.