By AP
STERLING HEIGHTS, MI –
An Iraqi native from southeast Michigan has become a U.S. citizen at age 111.
WWJ-AM reports that Warina Zaya Bashou took the oath of citizenship Friday at her Sterling Heights home, north of Detroit.
The radio station says Bashou was surrounded by about a dozen relatives and friends during the ceremony.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Marilu Cabrera says Bashou was born in 1900 and is the second-oldest person on record to be naturalized.
Bashou credits her longevity to drinking green tea.
Bashou has been in the United States nine years. She 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 turns 112 in July.