A Home of Armenian Relics Becomes a Space to Heal From Trauma

Matt Stromberg

Step inside the storefront at 117 North Artsakh Avenue in Glendale, California, and you’ll find a quaint domestic setting. A dining table and chairs, set up for a meal, occupy the center of the room, while a jacket and hat rest on a coat rack to the left of the door, as if the occupant has just returned home. To the right, family portraits hang on the wall above a comfy-looking couch and coffee table. The only thing indicating that this is not, in fact, an actual family’s living space is that every object in the room, including wine glasses, lamps, and pillows, is painstakingly covered with over 100 pounds of lavash, an Armenian flatbread. It is a symbol of the food, the rituals, the traditions that figuratively bind Armenians together, wherever they live, across generations and oceans.

Valley View: An Armenian Diasporic Account in Lieu of a Glendale Biennial Review

Mashinka Firunts Hakopian

 

1.

“NO” WAS THE only word my grandmother, Lida Khatchatrian, knew in English. She declined to learn any others. The only relation she wanted to the English language was one of radical unintelligibility. After immigrating at 70, my grandmother launched a 16-year performance of linguistic refusal. It was staged for a private audience of émigré intimates. No recordings were made.

We relocated from Yerevan to Glendale in 1991, like so many. By 2017, approximately 40 percent of the city’s residents were of Armenian descent, marking it as the largest diasporic population of Armenians in the West. In Glendale, it was still possible to live in Armenian dialects. On East Acacia Avenue, we gathered with neighbors to hear the Soviet Socialist Republic collapsing at the end of a long-distance telephone call we could not afford.

I am telling you this because I recognize that there are no views outside of embodied viewers and historically contingent practices of looking.

When I was 15, we moved to a street in the Glendale foothills from which you could see the mountains. It was called Valley View.

Intersections: Armenians sign on to help homeland

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.

An Armenian Christmas Surprise

Jon Morgenstern

 



Dear Diary,
Last week I was at J.F.K., shivering my way into a taxi, en route to Park Slope. Relieved to be heading home, I decided not to plug in my headphones and talk to Carl, the driver, instead.
I gave him my address. We talked about the weather. He asked where I was from. Somehow we got around to my parents living in Los Angeles.
Carl: “No kidding. I used to live out there. There’s a big Armenian population over in Glendale.”
Me: “Wait, you’re Armenian? I’m Armenian. Well, 25 percent. My mom’s last name is Tutelian.” (Armenian names typically end in “ian.”)
Carl: “My man!” He thrust his hand in my direction for a shake. “Bakalian, that’s my name.”
The conversation immediately steered toward all things Armenian, especially food. I mentioned that I loved lahmajun, a thin-crusted “Armenian pizza” with minced lamb and spices. Carl moaned, “Ahhhh, lahmaJUN! When was the last time you had some good lahmajun?”
“Not for a long while,” I said.
“Well you’re not going find it in Brooklyn,” Carl declared. “Massis in Sunnyside is it. I can bring you some.”
Me: “Seriously?”
Carl: “Yeah, seriously!”
Fast forward five days. My phone rings.
“Come down and meet me on the corner,” said the voice. “I’m in a hurry.”
I sprinted down and rushed over to Carl’s car. The trunk is open. He pulled out two dozen lahmajun and handed them to me.
“This is my Armenian Christmas gift to you,” he said. “I gotta run.”
I could barely utter “thank you” before he got in his car and drove away. Merry Christmas, Carl.

"The New York Times," December 25, 2013