[dropcap size=big]I[/dropcap] am writing to you now from Yerevan, Armenia, as a die-hard Angelena and as a passionate daughter of Armenian refugees and genocide survivors. I want to tell you about the month I’ve had and how I am continuously reminded about the importance of building cross-cultural solidarities, no matter where you are in the world.
Of Armenia
As an Angelena of the Armenian diaspora, I exist “in-between” two places that I cherish and call home: Los Angeles and Yerevan. Born in Los Angeles, my love for my city runs deep, but the love I have for Yerevan is something else. Every summer, I peel away from L.A. so that I can exist in Armenia temporarily. For a few months, I get to live in the part of the world I was meant to live in. My flesh and bones know it, too. The food, the energy, the water, the breeze, the land, the people, the mundane things of every day resonate with me. Its drawn borders don’t even include my maternal or paternal ancestral homelands, yet I feel deeply at home in Armenia.
On my maternal side, I am a first-generation daughter of twice-displaced Armenian refugees, once from our homeland in Jugha, Nakhchavan (now occupied by Azerbaijan, a land I can never visit because of my Armenian last name) and again from our host-country, Iran. On my paternal side, I come from Armenian genocide survivors who, as children, escaped massacres and deportations from their indigenous lands of Shabinkarahisar and Antep. Turkey currently occupies both.