Rose Dosti

The extraordinary life of a Los Angeles Times columnist dedicating her retirement to teaching journalism in her native Albania and telling the story of the Albanian communist political prisoners.

Rose Dosti is still amazed by the courage it took her magnificent parents Aliko and Farfuri Rushit to leap from the Southern Highlands of ancient Albania into the heart of New York City, during a storm of challenges caused by the 1929 Depression, and to raise two daughters with care and opportunities, always grateful for having the good sense to come to America.

Their love of America matched their loyalty to their broken homeland, from which they had been cut off by fifty years during Communist rule. It was not unusual for Albanian immigrants in New York to gather on tenement rooftops to visit, mourn, laugh, cry, sing, and dance. Hard work, honor, and integrity were embraced.