A video posted online of a woman receiving social assistance in America has sparked strong reactions under the suspicion that she could be the iconic singer, Parashqevi Simaku.
Parashqevi Simaku’s life has been far from the eyes of the media and the public for years, after leaving Albania immediately after the fall of communism.
But before reaching this point… she was a star in the 80s in Albania, who stood out for her brilliant voice, iconic beauty and sensual photos that she took while breaking the taboos of that time.
After performing several songs in her repertoire and also winning awards at the Song Festival, her dreams turned to America, the land of opportunities as she described it.
In an interview she gave a year after emigrating to the US, she told journalist Alfred Kanini about the difficulties she faced, but also her ambition to enter the music market there.
“I was very attached to television, I have very good memories,” she said.
Asked why she left Albania, she said: It is a very difficult question for me, but I can say that the conditions were created, not that I wanted to, but still I try, it is not that I am changing. I left as an Albanian and here I am again Albanian. I am very calm that now I am in a free world, I am free… first of all I am free as an Albanian, but this place here is very opportune where you can try if you can do something. But everything I can do in the future, I want to do only as an artist, as an Albanian.
“I work hard, it is difficult! I keep and
Simaku also talked about the difficulties she faced in New York, she had to work hard, study and help her family economically. During the interview, she often said that she was alone and that life was very difficult and she was forced to sing in Albanian restaurants to raise money, even though she did not like that environment at all. She said that she had gone to America with other goals for her career.
“It is very difficult because my relatives know, I live alone and I have no close people here. I work, I have been singing in Albanian restaurants for so long, folk music and light music… I had never entered this business, because I do not like singing in restaurants, but I am forced because many things here have to start with “A”…. Artists have to try Hollywood, it is one thing to dream of going and it is another to do it. It is very difficult for a girl alone from the city of Kavaja, to live in the middle of New York where you sit down and get up in a second, something that I am not prepared for, because the place where we grew up in isolation, we do not know many practical aspects of life and I encounter many difficulties.
I came here with another idea, I thought of doing a show for Albanians, to present values, because from the situation in the country, including Kosovo, art has been forgotten and has been put too much behind politics… I try, it’s hard, I sing patriotic songs because they are loved here.
With this job that I have been doing these days, that I have been singing, I have done a little bit of economics, I can say very little because I also support my family, because I am very close to my parents’ family… I also go to school to learn the language. I have to work hard”, she said.
