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Notes
While there is no accurate census, most scholars agree that of the 8 to 10 million ethnic Armenians worldwide, about 6 million live outside of Armenia. With estimates ranging from 1.2 and 2.5 million Armenians, Russia is home to the largest Armenian diaspora, followed by North America.
The diaspora’s engagement is illustrated by its presence in Armenia’s economy, with 90% of foreign-funded companies being connected to the diaspora in 2009, and remittances accounting for an estimated 17-20% of Armenia’s gross domestic product (GDP) between 2011 and 2015 according to World Bank data. See Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan, “Development through Diversity: Engaging Armenia’s New and Old Diaspora”, Migration Policy Institute, 23 March 2016. <https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/development-through-diversity-engaging-armenia%E2%80%99s-new-and-old-diaspora>, accessed April 8, 2021. The diaspora’s prominent role in philanthropic projects is another conspicuous manifestation of this trend, as well as its massive humanitarian and financial contribution after the devastating earthquake in 1988.
After maps were redrawn following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the Russian revolution, the first Armenian state – which was created in 1918 and later was integrated to the Soviet Union – was not established on the real homeland of the diaspora which for the most part hailed from historic Western Armenia or present-day eastern Turkey.
Razmik Panossian,"Between Ambivalence and Intrusion: Politics and Identity in Armenia-Diaspora Relations", Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998, 154.
Idem, 160.
For purposes of clarity, scholars now distinguish between the “historic” or “old diaspora”, which originated from “historic Armenia” in the Ottoman Empire and spread after the Armenian genocide, from the “contemporary” or “modern diaspora,” which refers to streams of more recent emigration including Armenians from the former Soviet Union, those who left the Middle East in the 1970s and 1980s in the aftermath of upheavals in countries such as Iran or Lebanon, and current refugees fleeing war-torn Syria and Iraq.
While the 1915 genocide is the cataclysmic starting point for the large-scale and multidirectional displacement of Armenians, and while it ushered in a lasting division of the “primary group” into two distinct bodies, the motherland and the diaspora, the Armenian diasporic experience has a much longer history. As early as the 5th century waves of forced and voluntary migration contributed to the settlement of communities in regions as diverse as Cilicia, Crimea, Poland, Persia, India and Europe.
Certain studies have focused on the trajectories of Armenian diaspora communities on a national scale. For France see Cyril Le Tallec, La Communauté arménienne de France. 1920-1950, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001 and Claire Mouradian and Anouche Kunth, Les Arméniens en France. Du chaos à la reconnaissance, Toulouse: Éditions de l’Attribut, 2010. For the United States see Robert Mirak, Torn Between Two Lands: Armenians in America, 1890 to World War I, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983 and Annie Bakalian, Armenian-Americans: From Being to Feeling Armenian, New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1993. For Ethiopia see Boris Adjemian, La Fanfare Du Négus. Les Arméniens En Éthiopie (19e-20e Siècles), Paris: Éditions EHESS, 2013. For Turkey see Nazli Beyleryan Temir, “Arméniens en Turquie : entre déni ordinaire et pluralité des mémoires”, Études arméniennes contemporaines, 12, 2019, 67-90, 2019. For Canada see Isabel Kaprielian-Churchill, Like Our Mountains: A History of Armenians in Canada, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005. For Iran see Naïri Nahapetian, “République islamique et communautarisme : les Arméniens d’Iran”, Cahiers d’études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turco-iranien, no 24, 1997. For Russia see Tamara A. Galkina, “Les Arméniens à Moscou depuis la dissolution de l’URSS”, Hommes & Migrations, vol. 1265, no 1, 2007, 138-51. For Lebanon see Christine Babikian Assaf, Carla Eddé, Lévon Nordiguian, Vahé Tachjian, Les Arméniens Du Liban. Cent Ans de Présence, Beirut: Presses de l’Université Saint-Joseph, 2017. Other studies have examined Armenian settlements at more micro levels. See James R. Kirkland, “Modernization of Family Values and Norms Among Armenians in Sydney” in Journal of Comparative Family Studies, vol. 15, no 3, 1984, 355-72; Roger Bastide, “Les Arméniens de Valence”, Revue Internationale de Sociologie, no 1-2, January-February 1931, 17-42; Martine Hovanessian, Le lien communautaire. Trois générations d’Arméniens, Paris: Armand Colin, Coll. “L’ancien et le nouveau”, 1992; Boris Adjemian, Les petites Arménies de la vallée du Rhône : Histoire et mémoires des immigrations arméniennes en France, Lyon: Lieux Dits, 2020; Berge Bulbulian, The Fresno Armenians: History of a Diaspora Community, Fresno: The Press at California State University, 2000; Frédéric Bourgade, Les Arméniens de Valence. Une Intégration Réussie, Valence: Les Bonnes Feuilles, 1991; Arpena S. Mesrobian, Like One Family: The Armenians of Syracuse, Ann Arbor, Michigan: Gomidas Institute, 2000; Ulf Björklund, “Armenians of Athens and Istanbul: The Armenian Diaspora and the ‘Transnational’ Nation”, Global Networks 3, 2003, 337-54.
The word “transnation”, which I borrow from Khachig Tölölyan refers to a homeland and its diasporic communities. Khachig Tölölyan, “Elites and Institutions in the Armenian Transnation”, Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, vol. 9, no 1, 2000, 107-36. The concept of an “Armenian transnation” can be likened to the term “Armenian World”, which is increasingly used by scholars and observers of Armenia-diaspora interactions, to refer to the Republic of Armenia and the wide range of diaspora stakeholders and representatives. Rob Kitchin and Mark Boyle, “Diaspora Strategies in Transition States: Prospects and Opportunities for Armenia” (working paper), National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis, 2011.
2015 American Community Survey. While the ancestry question added in the US census in 1980 can be useful for capturing changes in ethnic membership, we are well aware of this tool’s limits in measuring demographic compositions. In practice it is an open-ended question, allowing respondents to report (or not) up to two ancestries.
Robert Mirak, “The Armenians in America”, in Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.), Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, New York: St Martin’s Press, 1997, 389; Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction, New York: Routledge, [1997] 2008, 62; Khachig Tölölyan, “Armenian Diaspora” in Melvin Ember, Carol R. Ember & Ian Skoggard (eds.), Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World, 2 vols. New York: Kluwer/Plenum, 2005, 45.
According to the 2020 American Community Survey, today the Armenian presence is concentrated in California (54%), and to a lesser extent in Massachusetts (6%), New York (6%), New Jersey (3%), Michigan (3%), and Florida (3%). Historically, cities in the Northeastern US (such as Watertown or Worcester in Massachusetts) were a favored destination for Armenian immigrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Robert Mirak, Torn Between Two Lands: Armenians in America, 1890 to World War I. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983.
One illustration of the local influence of Armenian presence is how some Armenian foods, such as lavash bread, have entered the mainstream and become a staple for Californians. Another example is Armenian-owned ethnic businesses whose clientele extends beyond their coethnics, such as the Zankou Chicken restaurant chain well-known by Angelenos, or the supermarket chains Jons and Superking Market.
For a history of California’s Armenian settlements, see Aram Serkis Yeretzian, A History of Armenian Immigration to America with Special Reference to Conditions in Los Angeles (Master’s dissertation), University of Southern California, 1923; Richard Tracy LaPiere, The Armenian Colony in Fresno County, California: A Study in Social Psychology (PhD dissertation), Stanford University, 1930; Charles Mahakian, History of the Armenians in California (PhD dissertation), University of California, 1935; Berge Bulbulian, The Fresno Armenians: History of a Diaspora Community, Fresno: The Press at California State University, 2000; Daniel Fittante, “But Why Glendale? A History of Armenian Immigration to Southern California”, California History, vol. 94, no 3, 2017, 2-19.
As far as the Armenian presence is concerned, Southern California is today the most densely concentrated area and especially the San Fernando Valley (Glendale, Burbank, Calabasas and parts of the city of Los Angeles) and the San Gabriel Valley (Pasadena).
Borrowing this concept from Wei Li (see “Anatomy of a New Ethnic Settlement: The Chinese Ethnoburb in Los Angeles”, Urban Studies, vol. 35, no 3, 1998, 479-501; 2008; Ethnoburb: The New Ethnic Community in Urban America, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008), Daniel Fittante argues that this model in which the urban ethnic settlement replicates features of the “ethnic enclave” applies to Glendale, and helps illuminate the trajectories of San Fernando Valley Armenians. Daniel Fittante, “The Armenians of Glendale: An Ethnoburb in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley”, City & Community, vol. 17, no 4, 2018, 1231-47.
Idem, 1242.
There is an actual “Little Armenia” in Hollywood, in a neighborhood that was once a favored destination for Armenian immigrants in the 1960s and 1970s, but the naming of the district is paradoxical, for it became official only in 2000, when Armenians had already relocated to other surrounding communities, Glendale in particular. Sarah Mekdjian unveils the symbolic, economic, and political stakes at work behind this designation, and suggests that “Little Armenia” is a showcase for Armenian presence amid competition with other ethnic communities. Sarah Mekdjian, “Tension entre centralité et fragmentation : les quartiers arméniens à Los Angeles” in Diversité urbaine, vol. 8, no 1, 2008, 54-61.
Among other services, authors mention the development of parks and playgrounds, affordable housing for senior citizens, and the availability of information in Armenian such as voting materials. Sarah Mekdjian, De l’enclave au kaléidoscope urbain. Los Angeles au prisme de l’immigration arménienne (PhD dissertation), Université Paris Nanterre; Daniel Fittante, “The Armenians of Glendale: An Ethnoburb in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley”, City & Community, vol. 17, no 4, 2018, 1231-47.
Alejandra Reyes-Velarde, “Glendale leaders vote to honor Armenian American community with new street name – Artsakh Street”, Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2018; Lila Seidman, “Artsakh Avenue named in honor of city’s Armenian community,” Los Angeles Times, October 2, 2018. Artsakh is the Armenian name of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated breakaway region in Azerbaijan which self-proclaimed its independence in 1988, sparking continuing tensions in the region, with full-fledged wars (1992-1994 and 2020), sporadic clashes, periods of “frozen conflict”, and currently a humanitarian crisis. After imposing a ten-month blockade, Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive in September 2023, prompting more than 100,000 Armenians to flee.
Arin Mikaelian, “Glendale Unified officially adds day off to commemorate Armenian Genocide,” Los Angeles Times, March 16, 2016.
See the museum’s website: <https://www.armenianamericanmuseum.org/about/>, accessed 1 March 2021. The groundbreaking ceremony for the complex took place in July 2021.
Such as the large gatherings in 2018 before Glendale’s City Hall in support of the anti-government protests taking place in Armenia in April and May 2018; the marches in October 2020 in protest of the Azeri attacks on the Armenians of Artsakh. On a smaller scale, the Americana at Brand, Glendale’s flagship shopping mall, has been the site of controversies on Armenian-related issues.
Just a few weeks after the Velvet Revolution in May 2018, two members of the newly-appointed government from the Ministries of Culture and Diaspora affairs, visited Glendale to connect with their American co-ethnics. See Alejandra Reyes-Velarde, “Armenia begins reconnecting with its diaspora, starting in Glendale”, Los Angeles Times, July 3, 2018 <https://www.latimes.com/socal/glendale-news-press/news/tn-gnp-me-minister-of-culture-20180628-story.html>, accessed February 7, 2021 and Aram Arkun, “New Diaspora Minister Visits US”, The Armenian Mirror-Spectator, August 11, 2018.
Interestingly, Rep. Adam Schiff called Los Angeles a “diaspora capital” during Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s first visit to Los Angeles in 2019. Marian Sahakyan, “Armenia’s Prime Minister Pays a Visit, Promotes Investments and Repatriation”, Los Angeles Times, September 26, 2019. <https://www.latimes.com/socal/glendale-news-press/news/story/2019-09-26/armenias-prime-minister-pays-a-visit-promotes-investments-and-repatriation>, accessed February 7, 2021.
Armenia’s systemic rent-seeking behavior is a well-documented phenomenon which is denounced by many domestic and international NGOs and met with great cynicism and resignation among the local population. Although diasporans are wary and weary of this endemic corruption at all levels of society, for a number of complicated reasons, diaspora’s financial and political support for Armenia has by and large remained pro-regime and has led to a status quo.
As an illustration, 40% of households received remittances in 2013. See Gagik Makaryan and Mihran Galstyan, “Costs and benefits of Labour Mobility between the EU and Eastern Partnership Countries. Country report: Armenia”, Case Network Studies & Analyses, n°461, 2013, 48.
According to the World Bank, the share of remittances accounted for 8.9% of the national GDP in 2020, peaked in 2004 (22%) and fluctuated between 17 and 20% between 2011 and 2015 <https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/migrationremittancesdiasporaissues/brief/migration-remittances-data>, accessed February 5, 2021. Roughly, remittances grew by 20% every year between 1998 and 2003, except in 2000. Bryan Roberts and King Banaian, “Remittances in Armenia: Size, Impacts, And Measures to Enhance Their Contribution to Development”, Working Paper n° 05/01, January 2005, 7.
According to the World Bank, the share of Russia and the USA in remittances sent to Armenia were 63% and 13.8% respectively in 2017, and 70% and 14% in 2020.
The Armenian-populated territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, or Artsakh in Armenian, is a self-declared autonomous republic, that is officially part of Azerbaijan. For Armenians, Karabakh, or Artsakh in Armenian, is a historically Armenian province with Armenian heritage that was unjustly integrated to Azerbaijan in 1921 by Stalin. When the Soviet Union disintegrated, the ethnic Armenians of Karabakh, who constituted a demographic majority, campaigned to secede from Azerbaijan. This claim for self-determination escalated into an outright war between Azerbaijan and Armenia that lasted 6 years until 1994. For three decades, the status of the region remained unsettled because Nagorno-Karabakh had not been recognized as an independent country by other states and because the cease-fire had not led to a formal peace agreement. Due to this protracted diplomatic deadlock, skirmishes sporadically erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan, mounting into a deadly 4-day clash in 2016 and a 44-day all-out war in 2020, often described as one of the most brutal wars of the 21st century. After months of intimidation, a blockade causing serious shortages in food, medical supplies, and energy, along with a military assault in September 2023, the Artsakh officials were forced to surrender and sign a decree stating that the Republic of Artsakh would cease to exist in January 2024. In less than a week, more than 100,000 Armenians, almost the entire population of the enclave, left their homeland fearing ethnic cleansing.
In 2020, the Fund raised $152 million for humanitarian aid for war-torn Karabakh. The data released by the organization shows that donations came from 73 countries and that the US was the largest donor, accounting for more than 45% of the total amount raised. In 2018, the Telethon campaign for the Fund raised $11.1 million internationally. Half of the donations ($5.5 million) were from the US.
Jonathan Kandell, “Kirk Kerkorian, Billionaire Investor in Film Studios and Casinos, Dies at 98,” New York Times, June 16, 2015.
Lawrence Van Gelder, “Alex Manoogian, 95; Perfected Design of Single-Handled Faucet,” New York Times, July 13, 1996.
The AGBU was created in Cairo in 1906. It is now headquartered in New York City. Today, the AGBU has chapters in 31 countries and 74 cities around the world. It operates 47 Community Centers located in the US, Europe, the Near East, South America and Australia, administers 25 schools, and finances educational, cultural and humanitarian programs that benefit hundreds of thousands of Armenians around the world each year <https://agbu.org/>, accessed February 5, 2021.
See Heather S. Gregg, “Divided They Conquer: The Success of Armenian Ethnic Lobbies in the United States”, The Rose Mary Rogers Working Paper Series, Inter-University Committee on International Migration, August 2002.; David C. King & Miles Pomper, “Congress and the Contingent Influence of Diaspora Lobbies: U.S. Foreign Policy toward Armenia”, Journal of Armenian Studies, 2004; Julien Zarifian, “La Politique étrangère américaine en Arménie : Naviguer à vue dans les eaux russes et s’affirmer dans une région stratégique”, Hérodote N°129, “Stratégies Américaines Aux Marches de La Russie”, 2008. < https://www.herodote.org/spip.php?article337>, accessed March 8, 2021.
In 2006, Zbigniew Brzenzinski, President Carter’s former national security advisor, placed it among America’s top three most influential ethnic lobbies: “In my public life, I have dealt with a number of [lobbies]. I would rank the Israeli-American, Cuban-American, and Armenian-American lobbies as the most effective in their assertiveness”, cited in “The Lobby,” David Remnick, New Yorker, August 27, 2007.
In 2020, Armenia was granted a total economic assistance package worth $43 million. However, the average amount of assistance over the past 20 years has been more than $91 million, with peak years in the first decade of the 2000s. See US aid website: <https://explorer.usaid.gov/reports>, accessed February 5, 2021.
Julien Zarifian,“La Politique étrangère américaine en Arménie : Naviguer à vue dans les eaux russes et s’affirmer dans une région stratégique”, Hérodote N°129, 2008 <https://www.herodote.org/spip.php?article337>, accessed March 8, 2021.
Carey Goldberg, “Armenian office has an American accent,” Los Angeles Times, September 29, 1992. Among the appointees were Matthew Der Manuelian, Gerard Libaridian, Vartan Oskanian, and Sebuh Tashjian.
Razmik Panossian, “Between Ambivalence and Intrusion: Politics and Identity in Armenia-Diaspora Relations”, op. cit., 165.
Several scholars have argued that while Armenian Americans have been enlisted at the highest levels of the government, since independence there has been a continued expectation in the executive for the diaspora to stay out of politics and limit its involvement to humanitarian and economic assistance. Some have interpreted the appointment of diasporans as a pragmatic strategy to attract talent rather than develop ties with diaspora.
In the history of the Armenian transnation, the word “repatriation” has referred to the migration of diasporans settling in Armenia. Whether they were born inside or outside “historic Armenia”, they have been called “repatriates,” though more often than not they were not returning to their actual country of origin.
Mark Arax, “The Riddle of Monte”, Los Angeles Times, October 9, 1993.
During my fieldwork, I met three young children named after him, two in California and one in Armenia. One of them was called Avo, his nom de guerre.
In Armenia and the transnation, Charles Aznavour is “more than a legendary singer.” After the 1988 earthquake he created a non-profit to provide aid and relief in Armenia, and donated the profits from a song to raise funds for the country’s reconstruction. In 1995 he was made UNESCO’s ambassador and permanent delegate for Armenia. In 2004 he was named a “National hero.” When he died in 2018, a day of national mourning was declared in Armenia. “Aznavour: A Legend in the Worlds of Art and Humanity Dies,” Armenian Mirror Spectator, October 2, 2018.
Strangely enough, according to Marc Mamigonian, the most oft-cited passage found on numerous plaques and monuments, as well as in the prefaces to countless publications, is a misquotation <https://www.creativearmenia.org/the-misquotation-of-william-saroyan>, accessed February 5, 2021.
In November 2020, the band released two new songs to increase public awareness about the ongoing conflict in Karabakh, and raised $600,000 in two weeks for aid in the region. Kory Grow, “Serj Tankian Doc ‘Truth to Power’ Will Focus on System of a Down Singer’s Activism”, Rolling Stone, December 16, 2020. <https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/serj-tankian-truth-to-power-doc-1104395/>, accessed February 15, 2021.
Rachel Lee Harris, “The Kardashians Show Support for Armenia”, New York Times, April 13, 2015.
Razmik Panossian, “The ‘Drunkenness’ of Statehood”, Études arméniennes contemporaines 3, 2014, 119-126.
Razmik Panossian, “Between Ambivalence and Intrusion: Politics and Identity in Armenia-Diaspora Relations”, op.cit.,154.
In Armenian, Hay Heghapokhagan Dashnaktsutiun is often referred to using its shorter version of Dashnak (or alternatively Tashnag/Dashnag).
The delegation was headed by Boghos Nubar Pasha, a prominent Armenian Egyptian, who had been appointed by the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Benjamin F. Alexander, “Contested Memories, Divided Diaspora: Armenian Americans, the Thousand-Day Republic, and the Polarized Response to an Archbishop’s Murder”, Journal of American Ethnic History, vol. 27, no 1, 2007, 36-37.
One of the most striking incidents took place at the Chicago World Fair, when the archbishop refused to speak until the tricolor Armenian flag was removed. For Dashnak members the flag represented the short-lived Armenian Republic and the struggle against the Soviets, whereas for non-Dashnaks it was seen as an anti-Soviet statement that would create problems and irritate Yerevan and Etchmiadzin, the center of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Panossian, “Between Ambivalence and Intrusion: Politics and Identity in Armenia-Diaspora Relations”, op. cit., 186.
Benjamin F. Alexander, “The American Armenians’ Cold War”, in Ieva Zake (ed.), Anti-Communist Minorities in the U.S.: Political Activism of Ethnic Refugees, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 67-86.
Razmik Panossian, “The ‘Drunkenness’ of Statehood”, op. cit., 119-126.
In the words of Anny Bakalian: “Thus, the Armenian church is united on religious doctrine, but it is administered by two separate bodies”. Bakalian, Armenian-Americans: From Being to Feeling Armenian, New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1993, 97.
Several Dashnak-leaning American-born Armenian respondents I interviewed told me that the first time they met or befriended a non-Dashnak was in university. Until then, they had remained within the confines of the Dashnak universe, with a “Dashnak Church” and its auxiliary organizations (youth programs, summer camps, social activities, etc.).
Although the term is a translation for the Armenian words often used to describe the phenomenon, the idea of “repatriation” is inaccurate, since most of the so-called “returnees” were not from the region. According to Razmik Panossian, 90 to 95% originated from Western Armenian, i.e. present-day Eastern Turkey. Razmik Panossian, “Between Ambivalence and Intrusion: Politics and Identity in Armenia-Diaspora Relations”, Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, University of Toronto Press, Vol. 7, No2, Fall 1998, 156.
Hazel Antaramian-Hofman, “From James Dean to Stalin. The Tragedy of the Armenian Repatriation”, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa, 2012, <https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Areas/Armenia/From-James-Dean-to-Stalin-the-tragedy-of-the-Armenian-repatriation-121168>, accessed May 20, 2019.
Several million dollars were collected in the USA, according to Maike Lehmann. Maike Lehmann, “A Different Kind of Brothers: Exclusion and Partial Integration After Repatriation to a Soviet ‘Homeland’”, Ab Imperio, 2012, 185.
In 1921, crippled by the repercussions of the genocide and wars, as well as the famine devastating the Soviet Union, the newly Sovietized Armenian state created the Committee to Aid Armenia (in Armenian Hayastani Oknutian Gomideh/Komiteh), an organization seeking to encourage and channel diaspora aid. Operating with local branches in the primary diaspora outposts, HOG or HOK became the primary agent of the diaspora-Armenian relationship until its dissolution in 1937. The funds it raised allowed for the construction of agricultural, industrial and transportation infrastructure, as well as the creation of cities. One of its chief objectives was the “relocation” of diaspora Armenians to create an ethnically homogeneous country and consolidate its borders. It was also and especially a large-scale instrument of Soviet propaganda under the cover of patriotism. Claire Mouradian, “L’Arménie Soviétique et La Diaspora” in Les Temps Modernes, no 504-505–506, “Arménie-diaspora. Mémoire et modernité”, September 1988, 281; Taline Ter Minassian, “Erevan, ‘ville promise’. Le rapatriement des Arméniens de la diaspora, 1921-1948”, Diasporas. Histoire et sociétés, Terres promises, terres rêvées, n°1, 2002, 71-87.
Alternatively called the nergaghtsi or nerkaghtsi (“in-migrants”/ “returnees”).
Joanne Laycock, “Belongings: People and Possessions in the Armenian Repatriations 1945-49”, Kritika: Exploration in Russian and Eurasian History, vol.18, no 3, 2017, 511-37.
In January 1948, the committee in charge of repatriation reported a total of 86,364 returnees, of which 32,238 came from Lebanon or Syria, 20,997 from Iran, 18,215 from Greece, 5,260 from France, and only 151 from the US.
According to Susan Pattie, up to one fifth of the repatriates were sent to Siberia. Susan Pattie, “From the Centers to the Periphery: ‘Repatriation’ to an Armenian Homeland in the Twentieth Century” in Fran Markowitz and Anders H. Stefansson (eds.), Homecomings: Unsettling Paths of Return, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004, 109-124.
The New York Times, for instance, covered the departures of the convoys, the denaturalization of the departees, and their subsequent efforts to return to the US.
See Hovhannes Mugrditchian, To Armenians With Love. The Memoirs of a Patriot, Florida: Paul Martin, 1997; Sonia Meghreblian, An Armenian Odyssey, London: Gomidas Institute, 2012; Tom Mooradian, The Repatriate. Love, Basketball, and the KGB, Seattle: Moreradiant Publishing, 2017. While these accounts have not attracted a wide readership, they have been popular in the Armenian diaspora. Since they were written after the “repatriates” left Soviet Armenia, these testimonies are usually very critical of Soviet life and display deep resentment.
For an overview on Soviet emigration, see Sidney Heitman, “Jewish, German, and Armenian Emigration from the USSR: Parallels and Differences” in Robert O. Freedman (ed.), Soviet Jewry in the 1980s: The Politics of Anti-Semitism and Emigration and the Dynamics of Resettlement, Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1989, 115-38; Anatoli Vichneksi and Jeanne Zayontchovskaia, “L’Émigration de l’ex-Union soviétique: Prémices et Inconnues”, Revue Européenne Des Migrations Internationales, L’Europe de l’Est, la Communauté européenne et les migrations, vol. 8, no 1, 1992, 41-65.
While analysts distinguish between different stages of diaspora-state dynamics based on each presidency, with varying phases of rapprochement and disjuncture, Kristin Cavoukian notes that the post-Soviet Armenian government made continuous efforts to centralize presidential power, which has inevitably involved both harnessing diaspora and keeping it at bay. Kristin Cavoukian, Identity Gerrymandering: How the Armenian State Constructs and Controls “Its” Diaspora (PhD dissertation), University of Toronto, 2016, 80.
Vicken Cheterian, “Histoire, mémoire et relations internationales : la diaspora arménienne et les relations arméno-turques”, Relations internationales, vol. 141, no 1, 2010, 32. Translation mine.
The 1995 Constitution banned dual citizenship.
Salpi Ghazarian, “A Man and a State. A Conversation with the President”, Armenian International Magazine, March 1994, 32.
“An Interview with President Ter Petrossian”, Armenian International Magazine, January-February 1997, 30.
Razmik Panossian, “Between Ambivalence and Intrusion: Politics and Identity in Armenia-Diaspora Relations”, op. cit., 171.
In 1998, 2002, and 2006. For a presentation and analysis of the first two conferences and their impact, see Razmik Panossian, “Courting a Diaspora: Armenia-Diaspora Relations since 1998”, in Østergaard-Nielsen E. (eds.) International Migration and Sending Countries, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Dual citizenship was legalized in 2007, but dual citizens have restricted political rights.
Tomás R Jiménez, Replenished ethnicity: Mexican Americans, immigration, and identity, Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2010.
David W. Haines, Safe Haven. A History of Refugees in America, Sterling, Virginia: Kumarian Press, 2010, 37.
It is not uncommon to find immigrants who have lived long periods of time in various countries prior to coming to the US, which explains why they sometimes consider having multiple homelands.
Rogers Brubaker, Rogers. “Ethnicity without Groups”, European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie, vol. 43, no 2, August 2002, 163-189 <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003975602001066>, accessed March 29, 2019
Comaroff and Comaroff, Ethnicity, Inc., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 56.
For my doctoral research, my ethnographic immersion ran over the course of three years and included three stays totaling almost nine months. During this period, I visited Armenian schools, language classes, churches, media outlets, cemeteries, elderly homes, cultural and recreational centers. I relied on participant observation: I hired an Armenian babysitter and frequented an Armenian preschool on a daily basis; I shopped at Armenian stores as often as possible, I participated in social gatherings, joined private groups on Facebook, and attended family events. However, my exposure to Armenian Americans in general and California Armenians specifically dates back to more than thirty-five years. Most of my relatives—all of whom of Armenian descent—reside in California. Since my childhood I have regularly spent time in California in stays ranging from a few weeks to one year. I have therefore spent extensive time with and among California Armenians. This experience has offered me a unique vantage point of insider and outsider, which has eased, accelerated and enriched my research.
I interviewed both native-born and foreign-born residents. To analyze the trajectories of immigrants from different regions, I targeted respondents from Armenia and Iran, the two primary sending nations, as well as a third group of sundry national origins including countries as diverse as Argentina, Azerbaijan, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Russia, Sweden, Syria, and Turkey. The date of arrival was an additional variable for my sample, with interviewees settling between the 1940s and the 2000s. Parenthood was another key criterion because it allowed me to collect information on the transmission of ethnic heritage over the course of at least two generations.
For example, Hayastantsis, Parskhahay, Lipanatsis, Bolsahay respectively refer to the Armenians from Armenia, Iran, Lebanon and Istanbul. Interestingly, members of the second generation, though born in the US, can be associated with the origins of their immigrant parents.
For instance, Armenians who arrived in the post-World War II era as Displaced People are called “DPs,” as are their descendants. Similarly, diaspora Armenians who “returned” to Soviet Armenia in the 1940s and eventually settled in Armenia are still referred to as Hayrenadarts (“returnees”). Finally, mentions of the pre-genocide background and the ancestors’ hometowns (like Hajin or Marash) are not uncommon.
Anahide Ter Minassian, Histoires croisées, Marseille: Éditions Parenthèses, 1997; Khachig Tölölyan,“Elites and Institutions in the Armenian Transnation”, Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, vol. 9, no 1, 2000, 107-36.
Many of the established organizations have gender-separated activities or branches. The churches, for example, have distinct cultural clubs, such as Ladies’ Society or Men’s Forum. Some organizations are exclusively operated by men or women. The Armenian Relief Society, formerly known as the Armenian Red Cross and the Daughters of Armenia, is a large scale social and humanitarian structure that has been female managed since 1910.
Among the foreign-born population, which accounts for 61% of California Armenians, the main groups are Armenians from Armenia (41%), followed by Armenians from Iran (29.9%) and Armenians from Lebanon (7%), according to the 2015 American Community Survey.
Such as the Union of Iranian Armenians, the Iraqi Armenian Family Association of Los Angeles, or the Organization of Istanbul Armenians.
The information provided refers to the interviewees’ gender, age, country of origin, and date(s) of immigration to the US.
Sossie Kasbarian, “The Myth and Reality of ‘Return’ – Diaspora in the ‘Homeland’”, Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 2009, 358-381.
According to Tsypylma Darieva, these forms of “return” allow Armenian Americans to connect with the “sacred” or “ancestral homeland,” as well as to acquire a sense of cosmopolitan incorporation, as they act on global issues such as development and democracy. She calls this phenomenon “diasporic cosmopolitanism”. Tsypylma Darieva, “Rethinking homecoming: diasporic cosmopolitanism in post-Soviet Armenia”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2011, 492.
The residential complex Vahakni, built by the Armenian American real estate tycoon Vahakn Hovnannian, resembles the gated communities of suburban America, and is an emblematic example of the “American paradise with view onto the Ararat,” to borrow an expression from Taline Ter Minassian. Taline Ter Minassian, Erevan, la Construction d’une capitale à l’époque soviétique, Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2007, 246.
“Les voyages d’Armen Aroyan, l’archéologue du génocide” in Laure Marchand & Guillaume Perrier, La Turquie et le Fantôme arménien, Arles: Actes Sud, 2013, 45.
Etymologically patriarchy is a social organization controlled by fathers, while viriarchy refers to a system in which men hold the power.
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