THE ARMENIAN WEEKLY

Monday, December 02, 2013

Recent Articles from the Armenian Weekly... AYF Participates in First BDP Youth Congress in Diyarbakir Homenetmen Boston Celebrates 40 Years Bourj Hammoud: Fiction as Restoration Project Astvatsaturian Turcotte Speaks at Hovnanian School A Thanksgiving Day Always Remembered Armenian Americans Reflect on JFK’s Assassination Search Armenian Weekly AYF Participates in First BDP Youth Congress in Diyarbakir DIYARBAKIR, Turkey—On Saturday, November 30, an AYF (ARF-Dashnaktsutyun Youth Organization) delegation comprised of Sarkis Degirmenjian and Rupen Janbazian from Armenia, participated in the first youth congress of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). The congress was organized by the Youth Assembly of the BDP and was held in Diyarbakir’s Seyrantepe Sport Hall. The invitation was extended to the AYF as well as all other member youth organizations of the International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY). The AYF in Diyarbakir The conference was attended by over 30,000 BDP members and supporters, as well as several representatives of socialist youth organizations from around the world. The representatives of the AYF addressed the crowd, outlining their view on a number of regional and international issues faced by both the Armenian and Kurdish people. The speech, which was delivered first in Armenian and then in Turkish, focused on the shared history of the two... Read More »      • Email to a friend • Article Search • Homenetmen Boston Celebrates 40 Years On Sat., Nov. 9, Homenetmen Boston celebrated its 40th anniversary with hundreds of supporters at an elegant gala that featured dining, dancing, and a shared cause, at the Burlington Sheraton. The Boston chapter’s story dates back to 1973, and many in the room that night were original members of the pioneer Eastern Region chapter. Engrained with the DNA of the motto “Partsatserr, Partsatsour,” Homenetmen Boston has grown and kept the spirit alive even 40 years later—with the longstanding partnership of the Boston community, with loyal members who worked hours on and off the fields, the parents who attended, and those who are with us today and those who are not. Homenetmen Boston is encouraged and motivated to serve the Boston community and be a catalyst in raising the Armenian youth in the region. A scene from the celebration After the cocktail hour, the evening’s festivities began with the singing of the American national anthem by Alique Khatchikian, the “Mer... Read More »      • Email to a friend • Article Search • Bourj Hammoud: Fiction as Restoration Project My working method as a novelist has become clearer to me with each new book. Like a bird building a nest, I collect scraps and fragments of stories from people who have lived through a particular historical moment. A memory is encoded into narrative, and the narrative is anchored in a specific place and time. The historical moments that fire my imagination are, for better or worse, times of collective upheaval and violence—the Armenian Genocide, World War II, and now the Beirut Civil War. I’m also always interested in the marginal detail, the outsider’s voice, and the version of the story that calls into question the prevailing narrative. While I love writing, I love the research even more. And the part of the research that is completely engaging is hearing from people their individual accounts, and then placing those personal and idiosyncratic stories within a broader historical context. Right now I’m taken with the character and the characters of Bourj Hammoud. Like a bird... Read More »      • Email to a friend • Article Search • Astvatsaturian Turcotte Speaks at Hovnanian School NEW MILFORD, N.J.—The Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society of New Jersey and the Hovnanian School invited Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte to present her book, Nowhere, a Story of Exile, on Oct. 10 at the Hovnanian School. A scene from the book presentation Ani Tchaglasian gave opening remarks, thanking Mrs. Garmirian and the Hovnanian School Board for helping to organize the joint event with Hamazkayin. She then introduced Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte to tell her story to the audience. Astvatsaturian Turcotte was born in 1978 in the seaside city of Baku, in the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan. By 1988, she was a 10-year-old girl with goals and dreams, just like any other young girl. Unfortunately, however, her childhood was lost after the start of the pogroms against the Armenians. Her aspirations and dreams were swept away and destroyed as the majority Muslim-Azeri population used terror to drive the minority Christian Armenians out of the country. Her family was... Read More »      • Email to a friend • Article Search • A Thanksgiving Day Always Remembered Except for sleep, my parents never closed their luncheonette. They opened every day at 6 a.m. and seldom closed before 10 p.m. Except for sleep, my parents never closed their luncheonette. They opened every day at 6 a.m. and seldom closed before 10 p.m. As genocide survivors, they realized how much the Promised Land had promised them. Long hours. Hard work. Plenty of gratitude. Not much of a social life. A week’s hiatus come summer was as rare as a turkey with longevity. Vacations were pretty much out of the question, much less a Sunday breather. It wasn’t all about the money. Dad, especially, remained loyal to his clientele. If he closed, where would his customers eat? He kept their welfare at heart and hand. Mother balked at his stubborn ways. But in the end, it was the man of the house who usually got his way. With Thanksgiving on its way, what to do? Would he shut his doors and relax at home with family, or remain open and turn his establishment into a catered... Read More »      • Email to a friend • Article Search • Armenian Americans Reflect on JFK’s Assassination On the day President John F. Kennedy was gunned down, I was sitting inside a construction trailer at Boston’s Prudential Center, shuffling some papers around at my desk. I had been working as an office clerk, deciding what to do with the rest of my working life, when a bulletin came over my radio: “President John F. Kennedy has been shot in a Dallas motorcade.” There was no one inside my cubicle I could turn to for solace. I ran outdoors like the town crier and yelled over to anybody I could see. “The president’s been shot! Somebody tried to kill JFK!” The date was Nov. 22, 1963—a day of infamy. Before long, news of his death filtered over the airwaves, paralyzing an entire universe. Who among us—Armenian or otherwise—was not affected by the young president’s assassination, whether you were a Democrat, Republican, or non-partisan? Former ANC director Harry Derderian, of Farmington Hills, Mich., was a student at Boston University the day a sniper’s bullet found... Read More »      • Email to a friend • Article Search •