From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Albanians/Robert Austin
Given their diverse regional and religious affiliations, it is not surprising that Albanian immigrants to Canada have shown a tendency towards group segregation, with Muslims, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox living in separate communities. In addition, politics in the homeland have served to divide Albanians in Canada. For example, many migrants from Yugoslav lands, concerned for family still in Kosovo, have been reluctant to become closely associated with their co-nationals from Albania: such associations, it is felt, could be interpreted by the Yugoslav secret police as evidence of irredentist activity. Recently, however, such divisions seem to have dissipated somewhat.
Politics, for the most part a male domain, is an obsession for many Albanians and surpasses religion as a divisive factor in the community. While there is a general distaste for Albanian and Yugoslav Communists, the community is plagued by political differences that often reflect the lines drawn in the civil war of 1939–45. The Legality Movement, which operated in exile during the years of Communist rule but returned to Albania in 1993, supports the re-establishment of the monarchy with Zog’s son, Leka, as king. Its influence is limited to older Albanians, those who fled during or immediately after World War II, and its Canadian membership likely does not exceed fifty. For many years, the chairman of the Legality Movement’s National Assembly, which oversaw the entire organization, was Hysen Prishtina. An Albanian who had arrived in Canada in 1968, Prishtina was, until his death in 1991, one of the Toronto community’s most noted and respected patriots. The Balli Kombetar also has some support in Canada. Yet it, too, is an organization of older Albanians who are fighting the battles of the past. An infusion of new and younger members does not seem probable either for it or for the Legality Movement.
During the inter-war years, the Boston-based Pan-Albanian Federation of America, or Vatra (the Hearth), maintained a branch in Toronto. Founded in 1912, Vatra was the most influential organization of Albanians abroad and played a key role in supporting, through funds raised in North America, the progressive forces grouped around Bishop Fan Noli. Its activities in Canada were limited, however, and it no longer has a presence in Toronto.
Issues relating to Kosovo and Macedonia have been the main focus of Albanians from the former Yugoslavia. Among politically active Albanians, the struggle in the Balkans is of particular importance and hostility towards both Serbs and Macedonians is commonplace. Regardless of their political loyalties, Albanians support the creation of an ethnic or Greater Albania which would encompass Albanian-dominated lands in Kosovo and elsewhere. Yet they also disagree about who should run the new state.
Since the commitment to religion runs deep among Moslem Albanians, the mosque is the focal point of political and cultural life. Bajram celebrations often draw hundreds of Albanians, who gather in banquet halls to talk politics, listen to traditional folk music, dance, and hear speeches. In addition, Flag Day or Albanian Independence Day is celebrated every 28 November. For a long time, Toronto Albanians, reflecting the political factionalism that was characteristic of their community, had held two or three different flag-day celebrations. Only recently have successful efforts been made to create a unified celebration.
Albanians have, throughout the years, set up a number of organizations. In Toronto these have included an Arberesh association (no longer in existence), the Albanian Muslim Society of Toronto, and the Albanian-Canadian Community Association. The latter, officially founded in 1991 although it had been operating informally for years prior to that date, has been especially important in promoting non-religious, non-political community functions such as sporting events, flag day, and a drama club. Recently, steps have been taken to purchase property to open a community centre. The Muslim Society, founded in 1954, serves the needs of Toronto-area Muslim Albanians and organizes twice-yearly bajrams. The Albanian community in Toronto originally established itself in the area of Keele Street and Dundas Street West, and much of its community activity is still centred there. Although frequented primarily by older or unemployed members of the community, three coffee shops in the region, not far from the mosque, are often used as informal gathering places. Outside the Toronto area, Albanians in Kitchener, London, Peterborough, and Hamilton have also organized informal community groups.
The American-Albanian National Organization (AANO), a non-political, non-religious group founded over forty-five years ago in the United States, now has ten chapters in North America, including one in Toronto that is a decade old. The Toronto chapter has some fifty members, mostly second- or third-generation Albanians. AANO holds an annual convention, with a different chapter acting as host each year; to date, the Toronto chapter has hosted the convention twice. Aside from the convention, AANO offers scholarships to students of Albanian origin in Canada and the United States. The Toronto group organizes picnics and sporting events.
As a community of primarily first-generation immigrants, the Albanians lack the economic clout of other groups. While many have been successful in small business, particularly the restaurant industry, the majority remain labourers. Economic weaknesses aside, the peculiar nature of Albanian communism – with its unremitting Stalinism and isolationism – bred tremendous suspicion of outside influences; many Albanians were convinced (and many still are) that their community had been infiltrated by the Communist secret police. The collapse of communism, which was met with an almost universal sense of relief and excitement, has lessened tensions considerably. The greatest single benefit has been that Albanian-Canadians can finally return home to renew old family ties as well as attempt to bring family members into Canada as new immigrants. At the same time, the end of the old regime in Albania and the ongoing struggle in the former Yugoslavia is leading to efforts to establish community-wide organizations, none of which have yet come to fruition.
The economic crisis in the homeland, along with the plight of Albanians in the former Yugoslavia, served to galvanize the Albanian community in Canada. Attempts are now being made to pressure the Canadian government to play a more active role in both these regions. In the spring of 1992 members of the Albanian community in Ontario formed the Canadian Albanian Relief Effort, a non-profit registered charitable organization. It has an elected board of directors, both males and females, that draws on the community as a whole, with members coming from Albania, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, and Kosovo as well as from among the Canadian-born. Besides providing humanitarian assistance, the organization seeks to foster Albanian culture within Canada and publishes a quarterly newsletter that describes relief efforts and promotes community functions. Fundraising events, such as golf days and car washes, are routine. More important, the group has sought to strengthen ties between Canadian Albanians and the Albanian government and has recruited Albanian politicians and diplomats for speaking engagements in Canada. Lastly, it has endeavoured to promote stronger links with other Albanian communities, particularly those in the United States.
Despite all its work and some successes, even this organization has faced difficulties in overcoming factional strife. After raising a reasonable amount of money through community appeals, the board of directors had trouble allocating the funds in a way that would satisfy the organization’s diverse interests. The result has been that many of its superb projects remain on the drawing-board.
While the Canadian Albanian Relief Effort seeks to provide aid in the short term, plans were laid in the summer of 1993 to establish a Canada-Albania Chamber of Commerce (CACC), the goal of which was to promote trade and investment activity between Canada and Albania. As it happened, however, this organization never came into being.
