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  • Armenian Youth Mix Activism, Rememberance During Commemorations Of 1

    ARMENIAN YOUTH MIX ACTIVISM, REMEMBERANCE DURING COMMEMORATIONS OF 1915 GENOCIDE

    89.3 KPCC
    http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2012/04/30/5858/armenian-youth-mix-activism-and-rememberance-durin/
    April 30 2012

    In a recent evening inside Glendale High School's auditorium high
    school student Angela Pachanian rehearsed a poem of suffering and
    sadness by Paruyr Sevak, Armenia's best-known poet of the genocide.

    Below her, in the auditorium's first few rows, a group of nine and
    ten year old Armenian American children run through a melodious song.

    Their choirmaster said it's a nationalistic Armenian song about going
    to war, defending and saving the mother country.

    The Armenian clubs at four Glendale high schools organized the
    remembrance, with help from school district officials. The event's
    title, "Our Traditions Keep Us Alive," hints at how tightly the
    genocide is interwoven with Armenian identity.

    "I clearly remember how when my parents would try to teach me about
    what exactly happened," Crescenta Valley High junior Sevag Alexanian,
    as for most of these students, the genocide is among his earliest
    memories, "how my great grandparents were affected by this, how
    we're lucky that we're still here today because my great grandfather
    survived and just pretty much how we're the youth and we're going to
    be the ones getting the word out when we grow older, as a kid that
    was always embedded in us."

    The Armenian Genocide has been part of the California public education
    curriculum for 25 years. But Alexanian said his high school history
    teacher glossed over it.

    He, like many other young Armenian Americans, learned outside of
    school to fervently argue for the recognition of the 1915 series
    of events as "genocide." There's a consensus among historians that
    the Ottomans targeted Armenians for extermination, but the current
    Turkish government denies it. The U.S. government has not formally
    recognized the Armenian Genocide.

    Glendale Unified school board member Greg Krikorian said recognition
    is one reason to hold this cultural event.

    "We're sending a message that we want, not only recognition of the
    Armenian genocide, we want our homeland back, our territory back. The
    Turkish government today is destroying our churches, destroying
    our history. The Armenians for the past 97 years have given back to
    America and this is one way our students are expressing their views
    and values of the Armenian Genocide," he said.

    The zealous activism learned by young Armenian Americans from their
    elders is justified, says Glendale Community College professor Levon
    Marshalian.

    "It's more painful when someone's history is not acknowledged and
    denied. It's as if, how would Americans feel if someone would be
    saying, no there was no attack on Pearl Harbor, in fact America
    surprised, dropped a surprise bomb on Tokyo first," Marshalian said.

    Many high school and college students exercised their activism last
    week by taking part in Armenian Genocide protests and marches.

    They're not the only ones remembering genocides. In the last few weeks,
    thousands of people in Southern California have held events to remember
    the Holocaust during World War II and the Cambodian genocide in the
    1970s. These genocides scattered refugees in diasporas far and wide.

    In a darkened auditorium at Glendale Community College, the remembrance
    of the Armenian Genocide took a somber tone. The campus Armenian club
    screened Suzanne Khardalian's film "Grandma's Tattoos."

    The film focuses on the trauma of the genocide survivors and how that
    trickled down to the filmmaker's generation.

    After the film, student Chantalle Parsakhian said its portrayal of
    the genocide's destruction is very different from what she learned
    at home and at Armenian private school. She's worried young Armenian
    Americans are losing touch with this side of the genocide.

    "I feel it's just another day for them to not go to school because,
    and the passion for justice has kind of dwindled, that's what really
    is upsetting," she said.

    Parsakhian left along a walkway where the campus Armenian club had
    set up documents and photos detailing the extent of the deaths. On
    the other side, on an easel, was a wreath in the shape of the Armenian
    flag with "Never Again" printed on a ribbon.

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