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Albanians have immigrated to the United States for nearly one hundred years. Early in the 1900s, Albanians immigrated to increase their economic position or were refugees from the civil wars in Albania between 1904 and 1914. They settled primarily in the Boston area, and became merchants of fruit stores, grocery stores and restaurants. The immigration of Albanians was halted in 1939 because of World War II; then, Communist forces overtook Albania in 1944. Immigration to the United States did not resume until the late 1980s, when the Communist government collapsed.

With the fall of the Communist government, there was a tremendous amount of conflict in the area. Kosovo was a province of Serbia, and both were initially a part of the original Yugoslavia. Serbia claimed Kosovo as sacred ground to Christian Serbs, as it holds many ancient monasteries and a famous battlefield. Serbian troops have fought Kosovo's Albania...