My artifact is a picture of my dad as a baby and his grandfather. I picked this picture because the most important thing to me is family. My dad has always been my best friend and his grandfather was known to be such an amazing man as well. In Albanian, my home country, most people from my town knew my great grandfather or have heard about him. He fought in the war against Serbia and helped many, many Albanians from Kosovo escape and survive. He built a house in Albania for my dad specifically because he always loved my dad the most. He is the one who picked my name before I was even born. He told my dad that whenever he had a daughter he wanted him to name her Sabrie. He had helped a woman named Sabrie escape Bosnia in the war and for some reason she had left a mark on him. He always talked about how she was such an amazing and strong woman, so he suggested that my father name his first daughter, Sabrie. In this picture my dad was only about a year old and my great grandfather had been in his late 50s. My dad was sitting on his lap while he was dressed in the traditional Albanian clothing. My father always wanted my brothers and I to grow up knowing our roots. I grew up in an extremely Albanian household. My great grandfather raised my grandfather that way which is where my dad got it from. If it wasn’t for my great grandfather my family would not be the way it is today. In my opinion he is the only reason my family is as close and traditional as they are.

– Sabrie Lamaj

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