Armenian-American, or American-Armenian?

Alan Sagherian
alan.sagherian@lls.edu

I hate New Years Eve. That’s right. The night with no curfew, no rules, when even the earliest sleeper stays awake into the wee hours of the night. But New Years Eve is a time where young Armenian individuals such as myself are often faced with an extremely difficult decision: do I make merry with my friends, or my family? Now this may seem like a trivial point of debate, and one usually easily and quickly settled by a grandparent, parent, or older sibling, but within this question lays one of the quintessential debates of the current generations of Armenians living in the United States, and maybe more specifically California or Los Angeles. That debate centers around young Armenians balancing the society around them that compels them to live and act as Americans, while the nearby confines of the family and the community pulls equally strongly towards living as Armenians.

Since the middle of the eighteenth century the United States has been known as an ever-diversifying country, and today might be known as one of the most diverse countries in the world. Though each different ethnicity adds to the constantly evolving "American" culture, this also has a dangerous consequence for those minorities that wish to retain with a death-like grip as much as of their heritage as possible. This brings us to the crisis facing young Armenians today.

Young Armenians, especially those who were born in the United States or came to this country shortly after birth, have constantly been barraged by the sights and sounds of American culture. These influences vary from political beliefs, which may differ from generally conservative Armenian beliefs, to differences in preference in marriage partners, to even daily nuances like the primary language spoken at home. The seemingly increasing liberal (and perhaps libertine) attitude espoused by Americans in general has definitely rubbed off on me, as well as close friends and acquaintances that I know, and I imagine that to be the case for young Armenians elsewhere as well. What effect this will ultimately have on Armenians in America? Time will tell.
The most interesting aspect of this phenomenon, which I alluded to in my opening paragraph, is the begrudging attitude that Armenian youths sometimes take when it comes to following tradition for the sake of tradition. Why do Armenians continue to seemingly humor parents and grandparents by attending church services they do not want to attend, or going to that New Years party attended by sixty year olds, or only speaking to their bilingual parent in Armenian? As a believer in substance over form, I feel that the more cursory these actions are for youths, the more and more they are pushed away from truly understanding their meanings.

We do not live in war torn Beirut, or communist Armenia, or even Ottoman Armenia, where religion, family and politics separated ‘us’ from ‘them’. In America, that need is not dire, and as a result Armenians will continue to slip further and further away from Armenianisms and more into Americanisms. So the question then begs: should you act as an American while living as an Armenian, or act like an Armenian while living as an American?