Immigrant Stories: Intro

My name is ajola and this is the very first chapter of Immigrant stories. I will be telling stories of me and my family, on how they immigrated and what we have experienced as an Immigrant family. If you have any stories to this topic, I would love to read them! 

My actual name isnt ajola, I actually have a very german name. My family was obsessed with this weird german show, and there was a girl with my actual birthname, anyways apparently I was called after her. My actual birthname was gonna be „xhemilje“, which I find quite beautiful, but its hard to pronounce, if youre  not familiar with the albanian alphabet and its pronouncing. I am using „ajola“ as an online name to identify myself and also hide from friends and relative, and its also a pretty name. 

I could be a typical german girl, I was born and raised in germany, with even a german passport. My sister was born in germany, although with a yugoslavian passport, very weird. The generational Immigration began in the 1970s tho, when a train from germany arrived at prizren (city in 🇽🇰), because germany had a problem finding workers. And albanians needed money and they were permanently in danger because of serbians. My grandpa took the chance and went off to germany to work. He worked in factories and constructions.. Most of the money he made, he sent to my relatives to kosovo. He then decided to buy a little house in a village, so he could bring his children to germany. My dad was 16 when he came to germany, 1992. He tried finishing school and started to work very early. He changed his jobs a lot and had a passion for driving the bicycle. Later his sisters came (1996) and they had a bad experience at first. My fam was very broke in germany, and my aunts were bullied because they didnt have many modern clothes and couldnt speak the language. They were bullied, spitted on, a lot of fights et cetera. Immigrants like them were called „kanacken“, a term which was used against people (specially guestworkers) from southeastern europe/middle eastern/arab heritage and so on. My dad planned to stay in germany, but visited kosovo often because he was about to marry my mother.

My mother grew up in a little village in the gjakova highlands, very oldschool on a farm with little money and clothes and a passion for sports, but strict parents. I dont want to tell much about her life, she probably wouldnt like it. My mother flew away and went to germany in the year 1999. She was 23 years old. She flew one day after the Reçak massacre. It was very hard for her to get here and to stay here, anxiety was big, but she did it, and were all very proud of that. 

We all have a love hate relationship with germany, if you understand. But thats for another chapter. Thanks for reading 💟

Ajola//22.01.2023