The other’ story

I was six years old when we arrived in Sweden with my family - as refugees from Kosovo. I remember our journey in detail: my parents hastily packed our belongings, we took a first bus to the Czech Republic, to Poland and we finally took a boat to Sweden. It was really windy.

“So yes, I had phases in my life when I felt like I didn’t belong, but I never let these limit me.”

As a child, I did not fathom the gravity of the situation and thus felt sad to leave my relatives behind. We lived in tents at first until the government gave us an apartment. We lived in a segregated area but that actually felt homely, because that meant even though I was a minority, I still belonged to a community.

Later on, as a teenager, people would refer to me as ‘the immigrant girl’, probably because I have an Albanian name. I’m not saying any of these people had racist motives; they simply assumed I was not a Swede because ethnically speaking, I aren’t one. And I didn’t mind being different. But once, I went to a party after school and this guy started insulting my Albanian friends, so I stood up to him. He grabbed my neck and yelled “you immigrant whore, get the hell out of Sweden!” until his own friends pulled him away. At that point I thought: Oh, it is not that beautiful to be 'the other' after all.

So yes, I had phases in my life when I felt like I didn’t belong, but I never let these limit me.

/ Blerta is a former advisor of the European Parliament and now a renowned politician in Goteborg, Sweden, where she grew up. /

Photos and story by Soundous Boualam