Evi Kokalari

Evi Kokalari was born in communist Albania and grew up having no rights to free speech. Twenty members of her family were executed, jailed, and persecuted by the ruthless dictator, Enver Hoxha, to whom the family was related. Upon the fall of the Berlin wall, which signaled the fall of the communist regime and the Soviet block, she migrated to America and joined other members of her extended family that had been left behind once Albania closed its borders in 1945.