By Anna Lieggi
I am one of over 7 million Armenians living in the diaspora.
Growing up, my journey connecting with my Armenian heritage was different than most people I’ve spoken to. My mother and her family immigrated from Soviet Armenia to the US, where she married my Italian father, making me half-Armenian and half-Italian. I was fortunate to experience both cultures through food, cultural events, and hearing the languages around me. However, I never learned Armenian and was not exposed to an Armenian community beyond my family. Since my family did not participate in Armenian organizations or belong to an Armenian church, I had few Armenian friends. As a result, my knowledge of Armenian culture was limited to my immediate family and my relatives in Armenia.
This changed somewhat when I began attending UC Berkeley and interacted with members of the Armenian Students’ Association (ASA). However, I still lacked the close connections I craved. Therefore, this summer, I decided to connect more deeply with my Armenian heritage by applying to the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Leo Sarkisian Internship (LSI) program. My passion for legislative work and human rights pushed me to learn as much as possible during my time in Washington, DC. During these six weeks, working with the ANCA has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to further the Armenian Cause and the tireless work involved. ANCA has done a lot of the grunt work for the Armenian Cause, making things we take for granted possible, such as Armenian Genocide recognition as part of our path to justice, and support for Armenia and Artsakh.
My intern class had 11 people from across the US and Canada, introducing me to Armenians from diverse backgrounds. I was able to talk to and create connections with Armenians who had families from all around the world, each with varying experiences. However, we were all united through a similar desire to help the Armenian community, by working towards obtaining justice for our ancestors and the Armenians in Artsakh.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Despite this shared desire, there is a problem of division in the Armenian community, more broadly, on a wide range of issues. This issue is not merely a divide between those who are politically active and those who are not, or those who belong to one political party or another. While I cannot speak on all of the various Armenian communities and the level of divisions that exist, I have experienced and witnessed some level of exclusionary behavior that ultimately has had the effect of pushing people away from the Armenian community.
Whether it was backhanded comments about how I am only half Armenian, or how I don’t speak Armenian, the idea was that I was somehow disappointing the Armenian community. In speaking to other mixed Armenians, or Armenians who grew up in areas that were not predominantly Armenian, they shared similar experiences. This superiority complex that some Armenians take up and use to compare themselves to each other pushes away Armenians who are passionate about the Cause. Comments about bloodlines being impure, purposefully speaking Armenian in an attempt to exclude people, and invalidating the experiences of those who did not grow up surrounded by other Armenians are just some of the things that I have noticed over the years. This exclusionary mindset is outdated and has no place in the 21st century, yet Armenian communities have been slow to remedy it.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the issues of division in our community. Whether it’s taking classes to be more aware of other lived experiences outside of the Armenian experience or simply using common sense when speaking to people, there are many ways to address this problem. Before passing judgment on others, we need to take a moment and pause. As ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian explained in his 2012 essay, “Armenians by birth, by choice, by citizenship, by spirit, by partnership…or by accident. We’re all Armenians.”
Today, many Armenians are of mixed heritage or live in diverse communities, and alienating them only weakens our already fragile existence. In our community, we must be united and active, embracing each other with open arms, and working to engage other Armenians. Because if we are not helping each other, who will help us?
Anna Lieggi was born in Orange County, CA, and currently attends UC Berkeley. There, she studies Political Science and Global Studies, with a concentration in Europe and Russia and Peace and Conflict. In her free time, she is a member of the Armenian Students’ Association and UC Berkeley Model UN. Anna is an alumnus of the 2024 ANCA Leo Sarkisian Internship program.
