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POTPURI






Ich Albaner. Ich Arbeit.
Me Albanian. Me Work.


Adelina Ismaili
︎english

My dad is a storyteller. One of the most passionate that I know of.

I grew up listening to his stories from his childhood and his experiences as a young adult deciding  to leave his home country to seek a new chance for his future. I received bits and pieces of these  stories throughout my life, always enjoying them thoroughly. It was essential to me to hear these  stories and continue telling them. This is why I decided to sit down with my dad and ask him  specifically about his migration experiences. The following text is a summary of that conversation,  telling the story of a young, determined man who set a goal of 11,000 francs and, in differen





My dad (left) and his friend dancing the valle (traditional Albanian dance) in their apartment in Lenzerheide, 1993

In 1981, at the age of 17, Qashif Ismaili first visited Switzerland with his brother during a summer  break. What left a lasting impression on him was the inclusion of four official languages on the 10  franc note, symbolizing true democracy to him. This stood out to him as the four languages were  equal, unlike in Yugoslav Macedonia, where he felt unable to freely express his Albanian language 

and identity. In 1982, he visited Switzerland again during summer break, this time on his own. The  train journey from Kumanovo, Macedonia led him to Chur in Switzerland. Now 18 and of age, he  went straight to the immigration office with his passport and student papers. In broken German he  expressed to an officer „Ich Albaner. Ich Arbeit.“ („Me Albanian. Me work.“) Immediately he found  a place to work for 2.5 months during the summer. When Qashif returned home to Kumanovo,  his father informed him that it would be his last trip to Switzerland; there was no need to go there 

until he finished his military training. In 1987, after completing military training close to Belgrade,  he packed a small bag and returned to Switzerland, turning what started as a temporary stay in  1982, with a goal of 11,000 francs, into a second permanent home for himself and his family.

When asked about the reasons for his migration, my dad primarily mentions political aspects. He  felt restricted in expressing his Albanian identity in Yugoslavia and was disappointed by ongoing  politics of the Yugoslav regime. He describes it as feeling like the black sheep. Given the chance  to leave the political situation of that time, he took it. Secondly the economic factor also played a 

role, as the difficulty in finding jobs and securing financial stability for his family led him to seek  work outside his home country. Switzerland's demand for workers in the 80s and the promise of  greater freedom made my dad decide to stay.

One of the most impactful memories of his migration experience was in 1988 during a health  check-up. Every seasonal worker needed to occasionally get a check-up before starting a job.  Qashif remembers being in line with a friend at the station in Buchs (St. Gallen). 

When it was the  friend's turn, they found that he had a problem with his lungs, and without any further comment,  he could not stay in Switzerland, even though he had a yearly work visa. With the small amount of  German that Qashif knew, he got involved and asked the workers from the check-up to repeat the  test again.
After some hesitation, they did a second round, and all the analyses luckily came out  okay. This experience left an uncomfortable feeling for my dad, as he felt like the seasonal  workers were not treated like humans and could be thrown out of the country in the blink of an  eye.

One of many positive memories comes from 1987 when Qashif overslept during a work day. While  profusely apologizing to his boss, he was met with a lot of understanding. „That could happen to  anybody. Why did you come? You could have slept more“, the boss had said. This small moment  had left an impact on my dad because he did not expect it at all.

After working various jobs in Switzerland, Qashif's preferred sector of work was in gastronomy.  One aspect he particularly likes to emphasize is showcasing Albanian hospitality. "As soon as my  boss saw my Albanian hospitality and how guests liked my work, he had no other choice than  letting me work as a server." This is how he went from washing dishes to becoming a server in his  first years in Switzerland. Now, more than 30 years after, Qashif still works in gastronomy,  attributing that to the hospitality that "runs through Albanian blood.“ 

What had been a challenge, especially in a job that is very much based on communication, was  the language barrier. Qashif describes it as being thrown into the cold water and being forced to  learn it by confrontation. Over the years, it had become easier and easier to learn German, but  this did not always come without difficulties. My dad describes a situation from 1982 and his boss  at his first job in Switzerland. In the first-ever conversation between him and his boss, the  employer had used a German insult that Qashif did not understand. "I thought he was greeting  me. I noticed that the wife and his daughter were feeling bad, and I realized that he was not  greeting me but saying something different." 

When asking coworkers what that word meant, he  had found out about the strong insult. At one of his last days on the job, Qashif went to his  employer and said the insult back to him but in Albanian. When the boss looked puzzled and  asked about the meaning, Qashif responded: "The same exact thing that you told me on my first  day." Realizing the impact of his words, the employer apologized to Qashif for the incident.

Nowadays, words hurt more, my dad would say. When I asked him what he meant by that and  how it connected to his migration experience, he again mentioned the language barrier. When he  first came to Switzerland, he did not feel like a black sheep like back in Macedonia. But over the  years, the more he understood the language, the more he also heard the negative words. "Back  then I did not understand the language so well, so the bad things went into one ear and out the  other. Now it feels like I only have one ear. Now it gets stuck and it hurts." He sometimes feels  more like the black sheep now than in the beginning. My dad expresses that all the work from his  time as a guest worker does not seem to be appreciated or simply gets forgotten. He feels like  people do not fully accept the Albanian community as part of Swiss society. As a new Swiss  citizen, he sees both sides now, Qashif says. The hardships of migrating to Switzerland even  though the country relies on new workers and also the fear of Swiss society that feels like  something is being taken away from them. "But there is no taking away because people work for  what they get."

"Do you have anything you would like to share with the new generation?" I ask my dad to close  off our conversation. "Study and work. And no one will bother you. You have to feel proud of  yourselves and what you got. You don’t owe anybody anything because you are equal. But you  have all the doors and ways open for yourselves." An advice that I had heard repeatedly  throughout my life, but this time my dad expanded it with this visual description:  "You have the highway while we had a canal."






My dad (left) with his childhood best friend (middle) and coworker (right) in the hotel’s kitchen, 1990

Potpuri është një platformë e pavarur botuese dhe iniciativë bashkëpunuese e fokusuar në metodologjitë eksperimentale të kërkimit, gazetarisë investigative dhe prodhimit. Fokusi i procesit të punës së Potpurit është nxitja e metodologjive kolektive në praktikat e botimit për prodhimin e gazetave fizike. Kolektivi Potpuri është i bazuar ndërmjet Kosovës dhe Zvicrës, aktiviteti ynë kërkon tema dhe urgjenca të përbashkëta sociale si ringjallja e shtypit të shkruar në Kosovë, mungesa e hapësirave institucionale reflektuese për diasporën shqiptare në Zvicër, politikat dhe dukuritë sociale nën përvojat migratore, dhe më e rëndësishmja sigurimi i një hapësire mikpritëse për shprehjet e zërave të padëgjuar brenda mjediseve komerciale.
Potpuri is an independent publishing platform and collaborative initiative focused on experimental methodologies of research, investigative journalism and production. The focus of the work-process of Potpuri is the fostering of collective methodologies in publishing practices for the production of physical newspapers. Potpuri collective is based between Kosovo and Switzerland, our activity seeks for common social themes and urgencies such as the revival of printed press in Kosovo, the absence of reflective institutional spaces for the Albanian diaspora in Switzerland, the politics and social phenomena under migratory experiences, and most importantly providing a welcoming space for expressions of voices unheard within commercial settings.
Potpuri ist eine unabhängige Veröffentlichungsplattform und Initiative, die sich auf experimentelle Forschungsmethoden, investigativen Journalismus und Produktion konzentriert. Der Schwerpunkt des Arbeitsprozesses von Potpuri liegt in der Förderung kollektiver Methoden der Verlagspraxis für die Produktion von Zeitungen. Das Potpuri-Kollektiv arbeitet im Kosovo und der Schweiz. Unsere Themen und Dringlichkeiten wie der Wiederbelebung der gedruckten Presse im Kosovo reichen von dem Fehlen reflektierender institutioneller Räume für die albanische Diaspora in der Schweiz und den sozialen Phänomenen der Migrationserfahrungen. Ein Raum für Ausdruck von Stimmen, die in kommerziellen Umgebungen häufig ungehört bleiben.