Anthony Zurcher / North America reporter
The desolate landscape is a study in shades of red. Fine dust covers the ground. In the distance, dark mountains rise on the horizon. Except for the pale sky, it could be a scene from the surface of Mars. Arthur Charchian stands in the middle of this barren wasteland and explains that, but for fate’s mercy, his ancestors could have died here. Except “here” isn’t the desert of Deir ez-Zor, in what is now eastern Syria, the place where hundreds thousands of Armenians perished while fleeing their ancestral homeland a century ago. Mr Charchian is in a room at the centre of a temporary exhibit on Armenian history at the Brand Museum in Glendale, California – a memorial to a bitter chapter in the history of a people.
The exhibit, which first opened in Mexico City, is called Armenia: An Open Wound. It traces the history of Armenian culture from what they consider their golden age in the 1st Century BC through the great diaspora – when the Armenian people scattered across the globe after being forced from their homes by the Ottoman Empire Turks during World War One.
They settled in nearby parts of the Middle East, in Europe, in New York and as far away as Glendale, a Los Angeles suburb nestled in the Verdugo Mountains, home to the largest Armenian population in the Western world.
There are currently more than 200,000 Armenians living in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, and the city of Glendale – with a population that is roughly 30% Armenian – is its beating heart.
A trickle to a wave
Armenians first started arriving in California early in the 20th Century, as a direct result of the unrest in their homeland. They largely worked in the fertile agricultural valley in central California.
A few settled in Glendale. Friends and relatives followed. They founded a church. They opened shops and restaurants that offered the tastes and products of their homeland – including the ubiquitous small cups of thick, dark coffee and sweet, nut-filled pastries.
It’s a pattern that has played out time and again in immigrant communities across the US.
What began as a trickle turned into a series of waves – a result of the war and economic disruption in areas the Armenians had subsequently settled. They fled the Iranian revolution in the 1970s, the Lebanese Civil War in the 1980s, the break-up of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, the Iraq War in the 2000s and, in the past few years, the Syrian civil war.
HULTON ARCHIVEThe Armenian community in Los Angeles is a patchwork of immigrants with different reasons for their arrival, different national experiences, all in different stages of assimilation into the American culture.
It includes the Kardashian clan of reality television fame and Tigrana Zakaryan, who is helping to build support for a proposed Armenian American Museum in Glendale; former California Governor George Deukmejian and Ardy Kassakhian, a Glendale city clerk running for a seat in the California legislature.
The experience of Deir ez-Zor unites them, however. It casts a shadow over the Armenian people to this day, and it influences and educates their politics, even in Glendale.
History in a word
Mr Charchian, Mr Zakaryan and other members of Glendale’s Armenian community sit in the Brand Museum on a sweltering day in June and explain there is a word that describes what happened to their ancestors in the Deir ez-Zor desert.
Genocide. The wilful attempted eradication of their people at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. They pledge they will not forget – or forgive – until the modern-day Turkish nation acknowledges their suffering, accepts responsibility and makes amends.
GETTY IMAGES“For me, it’s very important because my father’s family was all killed in the genocide, so I never knew my grandparents; never knew my aunt and uncle,” says Zaven Kazazian, who runs a consulting company. “When we are in the United States, we are all Americans. We will do everything for this country. But that does not mean we will ever forget the genocide.”
Armenians – in Glendale and around the world – have laboured for decades to convince other nations to use the “genocide” label and apply international pressure on the Turkish government. In June, the German parliament offered such recognition. So far, the United States – wary of upsetting relations with a key Middle East ally – has not. Turkish officials, while acknowledging that many Armenians died, assert that the casualties were the result of armed conflict during a time of political instability and not a systematic attempt at ethnic cleansing.
A wall near the end of the exhibit displays a quote from Barack Obama while he was running for president in 2008.
“I am firmly convinced that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, personal opinion or simply a point of view,” it reads. “On the contrary, it is a widely documented fact supported by overwhelming historical evidence. The facts are undoubtedly true … As president I will acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.”
As Mr Charchian and the others are quick to point out, that’s a promise Mr Obama hasn’t kept. Neither has his 2008 Democratic primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, who made similar pledges and served as Mr Obama’s secretary of state.
GETTY IMAGESIt has left Armenians in the US wary of political promises and was part of the reason why the western branch of the Armenian National Committee of America endorsed Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders over Mrs Clinton in California’s Democratic 7 June presidential primary.
“We were angry because we believed that Obama was a message of hope, of change,” says Berdj Karapetian, head of a Glendale-based healthcare company and chair of the Armenian American Museum that is to be built in Glendale sometime in the coming years.
“It’s very difficult when I try to explain to my son, who is 13, that the president is not willing to articulate the word genocide.”
‘Baffling’ connections
The conflict over genocide recognition isn’t just a national issue for the Armenians in Glendale, however. It also spills into local politics. Charchian, who works as a lawyer and chairs a business committee with the Southern California Armenian Democrats, says he’s considered running for public office but has decided – at least for now – to stay out.
The reason, Mr Charchian says, is that Armenians seeking political office in the Los Angeles area have faced a torrent of negative advertisements funded at a level other candidates haven’t faced.
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