Social worker Juliana Nikolla-Llukes, 40, and her husband Niko, 45, an architect, live with their children Jon, 4, Zana, 7, and Andre, 9, in Winterthur, Canton of Zurich.
My parents were 20 years old when they moved from the former Yugoslavia to Switzerland in the 1980s. My father had studied in Kosovo and thought he could continue his studies here. But that wasn't possible, so he worked in a factory – and later my mother did too. Soon my parents were stuck in a daily routine of shift work and looking after three children.
The life my parents led was not what they had imagined. They were homesick. As a child, I sensed this deep melancholy. There was always talk that we might return to Kosovo one day. For me, this meant that I subconsciously didn't want to put down too many roots in Switzerland and didn't form any deep relationships.
Are we Albanians or Swiss? There is no simple answer to that question. I suggested to my nine-year-old son that he should say he is from Winterthur. He likes that idea.
Because I knew how important my parents' country of origin was to them, I didn't dare say that my home was here in Switzerland. I was caught in a conflict of loyalty. I want to spare my children this. I want to convey to them that they don't have to choose. They can love both Switzerland and Kosovo. Are we Albanians or Swiss? There is no easy answer to that question. I suggested to my nine-year-old son that he say he is from Winterthur. He likes that idea.
Don't be so hard on yourself
When I was a child, we only spoke Albanian at home. If my brothers or I said a word in German, we had to give up a franc from our pocket money. When we became parents ourselves, it was a big issue for Niko and me which language we wanted to speak with our children.
I realised that Albanian is part of my identity, but that I don't speak the language perfectly. I decided not to be so hard on myself. Today, we sometimes speak Albanian, sometimes Swiss German, and sometimes a mixture of both. I don't know certain words in Albanian, such as pine cone or woodpecker, so I just say them in German. We have developed our own family culture.
That's the beauty of it: I can decide for myself which aspects of Kosovar culture I want to embrace and which I don't. For example, I enjoy cooking dishes from my parents' homeland. Bean stew, for example, which is very tasty!
