Armo Overboard: From Uncharted Territory to an Armenian Community

By Matevos Nazarian
Mattnazarian@gmail.com

A writer, model, contractor, mechanic, plumber, boxer, businessman, salesmen, student, and comic are all sitting outside a coffee house. Now this is not the beginning of a joke, but a riddle. In what cosmos, state, or nation can all these different types of men, which have virtually nothing in common, sit for hours a night, three nights a week, and talk as if they have everything in common? If you don’t feel like figuring out the riddle, I’ll tell you the answer. All of us sitting at that coffee shop are Armenian, and that fact alone is the only thing we need to bring us together.

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but my primary upbringing was in Sedona, Arizona. I dubbed Sedona “the whitest place in America.” It’s a small town consisting mostly of rich elderly people. Everything in town closes at 9 p.m. and the police patrol the streets like some Gestapo troop; so of course, any attempt at an underage party is inevitably busted. If you wish to hang out at a mall, go to a club, or find something fun to do as any ordinary high school student, a minimum two hour long drive to Phoenix is required.

My immediate family and I were the only Armenians in Sedona; thus, any friends I had were completely American. While Armenians in other cities were attending weddings and baptisms on weekends, mine turned into drinking beer in whatever empty parking lot my friends and I could find. On Sunday mornings, when all Armenians were heading to church, I was usually nursing a hangover.

When I reached my senior year of high school, after attending 12 years of Sedona public schools, I wasn’t much of what you would call an ideal “Armenian youth.” Furthermore, I was forgetting how to speak, read, and write Armenian. When I speak Armenian, it doesn’t sound pleasant to the ear when paired with my thick American accent. Growing up as an Armenian in a white town did have its perks though. I used the foreignness of being Armenian to entice girls at my school into thinking I was something exotic, and by the end of my four years of high school, I was either known as “Armenian Chocolate” or “The Big Armenian” (I am 6’8” and 300lbs).

To sum it up, I became the average first generation adolescent who was slowly forgetting where he came from. All my friends at school knew me as the Armenian, yet Armenians viewed me as a rather tall completely Americanized Armenian. I was unhappy about this, and like most people my age, I was always struggling to find my identity.

As soon as I received my diploma from Sedona Red Rock High, I jumped into my old ’89 coup and drove to Phoenix. I had grown tired of small town life and was craving to be a part of the Armenian community in Phoenix. I was more than happy to be thrown into uncharted territory.

My first day in Phoenix, I met up with an Armenian named Mgrdich and he took me to a coffee shop that all of his Armenian friends regularly hung out at. In time, his friends also became my friends. Names such as Varouj, Yervant, Sevag, and Andranik filled the contacts’ list in my cell phone that used to contain names like Michael, John, and Chris. I started to speak, eat, listen, and love everything Armenian. Slowly, the void I had always felt in my life was finally beginning to be filled. Although I didn’t grow up in similar circumstances as they did, they still accepted me because at my core, I was proud to be Armenian.

Entrenching myself within the Armenian community for two years has shown me what the true meaning of being an Armenian is. It’s not all dinner dances and backgammon. Brandy and a couple of cigarettes solve any disagreement. The new friends I’ve made are now turning into life-long friends.

In essence, to be Armenian is wonderful. As long as his forefathers come from a certain region of the world, a small-town boy from Arizona who used to feel lost and confused could always find friends and family to make him feel at ease, and at home.