Liana Aghajanian
"The dispersion of any people from their original homeland"
is the dictionary definition of diaspora, but it doesn't do much to
capture the complexity, challenges, nuance and difficulty of what it
means to function outside of the place you originally came from.
When
you're involuntarily dispersed across the world, forcibly losing
culture, you sometimes spend a lifetime trying to get it back. Sometimes
there is success, but you often end up with more questions. You try to
find your grounding, but end up permanently stuck in limbo.
It is not easy being part of a diaspora, no matter your
background. Things feel fragmented — your identity, your loyalty, your
language and family.
Armenians have been part of the American
fabric for centuries, having contributed to society in ways that are
often unseen — from medical advancements, law, art, entertainment and
politics. These contributions are often ignored or unknown, but
important. They offer a complex, three-dimensional glimpse of our legacy
in this country.
Our story does not begin, nor end with
Glendale, a place so synonymous with Armenian identity that even a hotel
owner in the disputed territory of Abkhazia had told me he had heard of
the city as the place to be for Armenian Americans.
But
while Armenian Americans have adapted, assimilated and absorbed their
American identity as much as their Armenian one, this involuntary
displacement, sometimes two or three times over several decades, has
added immense challenges to our experience.
Not only are
we separated by dialect, food, class and political affiliation, we carry
another country in the back of our minds, that for many, feels like a
conundrum, even alien: Armenia.
We have projected much on to this young republic — barely
25 years independent, a piece of land where many were cut off for so
long, a small country the size of Rhode Island coated in the sweet,
sticky paste of blind nostalgia.
But in the last few
years, access to real-time information has given Armenians in the United
States and across the world a glimpse into a country that cannot and
should not be neatly contained into a postcard, should not be confined
to black tufa-stone souvenir key chains or bottles of brandy.
We
have come to find out that Armenia is a real place, as real of a place
as America. A place that has problems — from poverty to domestic
violence to corruption and human rights violations. A place where
Syrian-Armenian refugees have relocated to and faced challenges, but
also shown resilience in the face of extraordinary hardship. A place
that has more pressing concerns than just genocide recognition.
This realization has created an atmosphere of potential unity, an atmosphere that defies the very definition of diaspora.
A
letter published in the New York Times on Friday [October 28, 2016] confirmed this. As the
Armenian General Benevolent Union, one of the oldest nonprofit
organizations in the United States celebrated its 110th anniversary, a
group of signatories linked to the "IDeA Foundation of Armenia," a
charitable organization dedicated to socioeconomic development have
called on worldwide Armenians to use their collective energy as an
opportunity to "pivot toward a future of prosperity, to transform the
post-Soviet Armenian Republic into a vibrant, modern secure, peaceful
and progressive homeland for a global nation."
The group
includes French-Armenian singer Charles Aznavour, Carnegie Corp.
President Vartan Gregorian, London-based Lord Ara Darzi, one of the
leading surgeons in the world and Edward Peter Djerejian, a former U.S.
diplomat who served in eight administrations — from John F. Kennedy to
Bill Clinton.
Collectively, it calls for a pooling of
resources, commercial investment, innovation, expertise and active
involvement dedicated to the advancement of Armenia.
Except
for Salpi Ghazarian, head of USC's Institute of Armenian Studies and
whose commendable involvement in and outside of Armenia is vast,
noticeably absent from the group of 23 signatories are women.
As
Armenia and segments of its diaspora struggle with gender-equality
issues and a growing cohort of feminist activists fight for legislative
changes in the country, the equal representation of women in a letter as
meaningful as this is not just important, but absolutely necessary.
They, too, need to be included at the forefront of this fight.
Despite
these shortcomings, this message feels unprecedented, surprising even —
a chance, as the letter says, to not just have survived genocide, but
to "reconstitute and thrive."
"Diaspora" is a loaded
word. It tends to simplify and group people together who often only have
their heritage and nothing else as a connection.
Caring
about a country 7,000 miles away isn't a requirement, it's a choice, a
choice that should be embraced wholeheartedly, not just when it feels
convenient, a choice that embraces both beauty and blemishes and works
to heal the latter. For a scattered diaspora, it's a choice whose timing
has never felt so right.
"Glendale News-Press," October 28, 2016
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