Voices from the Diaspora: “Where are you from? No, where are you really from?" - 2

 The quotes below are from “Where are you from? No, where are you really from?" (p 23-36), by Sophia Armen in “We Are All Armenian - voices from the Diaspora” book edited by Aram Mrjoian, who claims, “My name, yes, is Armenian. My heritage, yes, is Armenian, But I don’t speak the language. I don’t attend the church. I’ve never spent much time in Armenian communities. I’ve never traveled back to the land of my ancestors.  I am still constantly learning the basics of diasporan Armenian culture, feeling simultaneously distant from and near to this part of who I am.” But Aram Mrjoian edited one of the most captivating books I am reading.

 

IX

“And here we are, sharp and lodged. Because the Armenian diaspora from genocide lives across the world like shattered glass, it’s a community you cannot reassemble into what it was. So we have to make it into something else, something more beautiful - a mosaic of sorts, with its pieces. But this is difficult because when the oppressor pretends that everything is fine, there’s no ability to move forward or to develop a future Armenian identity that can encapsulate all of us. Because if we have to stay rooted in what has not been recognized, we will be unable to dream Armenian identity beyond the past, beyond loss.

When you take someone’s identity // you take the air out their lungs.” (P.34)

 

X

“When I submit an essay on the genocide to a prominent leftist, anti-imperialist publication, they ask me to take out all of the political analysis and leave in the portion about the suffering of my family. They want a story, a prepackaged tableau with none of the teeth. We will take the victimhood but none of the analysis. We want the trope, but no action steps.

I refuse. And a pull the piece.” (p.34)

 

XI

“Self-love does not exist without community love. And it definitely does not cost $9.99 nor it is packaged by Dove. Each morning, I wake up and choose to love this hair, this nose, these arms, this belly, these eyes. I have been young and have not. And I have been young and peered out between masses of matte black hair, and I have said yes to the day.

On the internet, the men in our community, when you step out of place – which can mean anything from threatening their power explicitly or threatening their power by just existing – let you know something specific: you are ugly. Your nose, your skin, your arm hair, from playground preteens to Mari Manougian³. It doesn’t matter how many scholarly essays I write about the history of Armenian women fedayis. They let us know. In patriarchy this is a promise, a threat, and a reminder: you are small.

I show up everyday as I am. I roll out of bed (no shame to any other routine), and I say I am here. Deal with it.” (p.35)

 

3. Mari Manougian is an Armenian American politician who represents the Fortieth District in the Michigan House of Representatives. Online, when Manougian spoke on an issue of national politics, young Armenian men critical of her began circulating pictures of her arm hair. (p.36)