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Personal Journey

A Day Without an Armenian

BY ARTIN SOOKASIAN

As I walked into my video rental store the other day, the provocative title of an independent film caught my eye. I immediately rented the film, “A Day Without a Mexican,” instead of “The Bourne Supremacy,” my original choice. I had no idea what I was in for.

“A Day Without a Mexican” is a comedy about the sudden, mysterious disappearance of all Chicanos from California in a single day. Besides being funny and entertaining, it’s a remarkable presentation of the contributions of Chicanos to our state, not to mention a sobering realization of just how empty and dysfunctional California would be without its Chicano population.

The night I saw the film, I found myself wondering how I would react if I woke up in the morning to find that every Chicano had disappeared. Somewhat disoriented by the thought, I asked myself if such a thing was at all possible, and if so, how the world would react to it. But then I realized that things like that had happened many times in the past.

As an Armenian American, I grew up listening to stories about the disappearance of my ancestors from their homeland in what is Eastern Turkey today. I am referring to the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman government in 1915. According to UCLA History Professor Richard Hovannisian, the wholesale massacre and deportation of Armenians in many towns and villages took at most a couple of days.

Lately, I have often sat in my room and imagined myself in the streets of the destroyed ancient Armenian capital of Van, walking in its markets, watching my ancestors work and socialize just as they had done for centuries. But then I sadly realize that I’m in my home in Glendale, California, and that in the ancient lands of my ancestors every day is truly “A Day Without an Armenian.”

If an Armenian merchant happened to be on a business trip at the time, he would have returned to his hometown and witnessed something similar to what I saw in “A Day Without a Mexican.” Aghast, he would have wondered about the sudden absence of children from the alleys, the elderly from their doorsteps, couples from the streets and the smell of fresh fruit from the market. The merchant would have stood there and thought he was in a horrible nightmare.

The Ottoman government annihilated 1.5 million innocent people, almost wiping out a rich and ancient culture dating back to the 6th century B.C. I wondered how such an atrocity could have gone unpunished by world powers like the United States. It was therefore heartening that on April 24, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger officially recognized that date as the Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide. What a shame that even though 37 American states now officially recognize the genocide, our nation’s leaders still refuse to condemn the Turkish government for its barbaric actions.

But the fight goes on. This article is partly an appeal to our nation’s future leaders, some of whom will doubtless come from UCLA, to pressure Ankara to apologize to the world for its horrible actions and its immoral denial of it for the past 90 years.

Sookasian is a fourth-year political science student.