Building Armenian America

III.1Closed Doors and New Roots

The Immigration Act of 1924 imposed national-origins quotas that sharply limited immigration from southern and eastern Europe and Asia.^[1] Nationalities with few people in the U.S. in 1890 received tiny quotas, with a minimum of just 100 admissions a year.^[2] For Armenians, this meant only a few hundred places at most each year, and it made it very hard for families divided by the genocide to reunite.^[1,2] The communities already in America grew instead from within. A 1923 University of Southern California study counted 2,500–3,000 Armenians in Los Angeles. In 1924, twenty young Armenians founded the Varoujan Club there to organize cultural life, and the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) established a local presence.^[3]

In Fresno, the children of immigrants were becoming Americans. William Saroyan, born in Fresno in 1908 to parents from Bitlis, broke through in 1934 with The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze. In it and in the books that followed, he made the immigrant life of the San Joaquin Valley part of American literature.^[4] Read his profile.

III.2Heroes in Exile: Andranik, Nzhdeh, Tehlirian and Dro

America became home, or a final refuge, for several legendary figures of the Armenian liberation struggle:

• General Andranik Ozanian settled in Fresno in 1922 and died in California in 1927. He was buried first at Fresno's Ararat Cemetery before his remains were moved to Paris and, in 2000, to Yerevan.^[5]
• Garegin Nzhdeh came to the United States in 1933. He addressed Armenian communities across the country and in Boston founded the Tseghakron youth movement, which later became the Armenian Youth Federation.^[6]
• Soghomon Tehlirian, acquitted by a Berlin jury in 1921 for killing Talaat Pasha, lived in Cleveland in the mid-1920s. He later settled in San Francisco, where he worked as a postal clerk under the name Saro Melikian, and he was buried at Fresno's Ararat Cemetery in 1960.^[7]
• General Drastamat Kanayan (Dro), victor of the 1918 Battle of Bash Abaran, spent his last years between Beirut and Boston and died in Boston in 1956.^[8,9]

Their presence tied the Armenian American community directly to the struggles of the First Republic and helped shape its political organizations for generations. See the full profiles.

III.3World War II and the Displaced Persons

Armenian Americans served in large numbers during World War II. William Saroyan served in the U.S. Army^[4], and San Francisco restaurateur George Mardikian served as food consultant to the Army's Quartermaster General from 1942 to 1954, helping to improve military rations.^[10]

After the war, Mardikian and his colleagues founded the American National Committee to Aid Homeless Armenians (ANCHA) to rescue Armenian displaced persons stranded in Europe.^[10,11] Aided by the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, 4,739 Armenians migrated to the United States between 1944 and 1952.^[1] Mardikian received the Medal of Freedom from President Truman for his service.^[11]

III.41965 and the Making of Modern Armenian America

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished national-origins quotas and opened the door to large-scale Armenian immigration from Soviet Armenia, Turkey, Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East.^[1] Southern California was transformed. About 9,500 Armenians arrived in 1979–1980 alone, most settling in Hollywood. The 1980 census counted 52,400 Armenians in Los Angeles, and by 1990 the region was home to 115,000, or 37% of all Armenian Americans.^[3]

Later arrivals were driven by events across the Middle East and the Caucasus. The Lebanese Civil War (from 1975), the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the 1988 Spitak earthquake and the collapse of the Soviet Union each brought new waves of Armenian immigrants, mainly to Southern California.^[1,3] As a result, today's community includes descendants of genocide survivors as well as Armenians from Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, the former Soviet Union and the Republic of Armenia.^[1]

Institutions followed. Ferrahian School opened in Encino in 1964 as the first Armenian day school in the United States, and the Armenian Genocide Martyrs Monument in Montebello opened in 1968.^[3] Armenian Americans also entered public office: George Deukmejian was elected to the California Assembly in 1962 and served as California's 35th governor from 1983 to 1991.^[12]

III.5The Long Campaign for Recognition

As survivors aged, Armenian Americans pressed Washington to formally acknowledge the genocide. In 1951, the U.S. government itself cited the Armenian massacres as an example of genocide in a written statement to the International Court of Justice.^[13] Organized lobbying began in the 1970s, led by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) and the Armenian Assembly of America.^[13]

• 1975House Joint Resolution 148 designates April 24 as a national day of remembrance, naming victims of Armenian ancestry.^[13]
• Apr 22, 1981President Ronald Reagan publicly describes the Armenian massacres as genocide.^[13,1]
• 1984House Joint Resolution 247 uses the word “genocide.”^[1]
• 1996A further House resolution uses the word “genocide.”^[1]
• Oct 29 & Dec 12, 2019The House (405–11) and then the Senate (unanimously) pass resolutions recognizing the Armenian Genocide (H.Res. 296 / S.Res. 150).^[14]
• Apr 24, 2021President Joe Biden becomes the first U.S. president to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide.^[14,1]

These final victories are described in more detail in Chapter V.

III.6The 1988 Earthquake: A Turning Point

On December 7, 1988, a catastrophic earthquake struck northern Soviet Armenia. Mikhail Gorbachev formally asked the United States for humanitarian help, the first such request since the late 1940s.^[15] Washington sent eight official planeloads of relief and a C-141 Starlifter, along with doctors, rescue teams and search dogs. Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca organized a fund drive, and Armand Hammer flew in medical supplies and $1 million in relief funds.^[15] Armenian Americans in Chicago alone raised $800,000 and donated about 20,000 pounds of supplies.^[15]

Kirk Kerkorian created the Lincy Foundation in 1989. Over 22 years it gave more than $1 billion to charitable causes, including more than $200 million for roads, schools, housing and cultural institutions in Armenia.^[16,17] The United Armenian Fund, launched with Kerkorian's support, delivered some $700 million in relief supplies on 158 airlifts over the next 25 years.^[18] In 1990, Armenians erected the Armenian Earthquake monument in Washington, D.C., to thank the American people.^[15]