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Overview
The descendant of survivors of the Armenian genocide, Arlene Avakian was raised in America where she could live free. But even with that freedom, she found herself a prisoner of both her family and society, denying her heritage along with her true sexuality.
After marriage and motherhood, Arlene found herself exploring the growing women’s lib movement of the 1970s, coming to embrace the strength of her grandmother—known as the Lion Woman—and realizing her full potential and personhood.
Inspired by her passionate feminism and strengthened by a loving lesbian relationship, Avakian recollects and re-examines her personal history and the story of her courageous grandmother, revealing a legacy of radical politics, fierce independence, and a powerful affirmation of ethnic identity in this “extremely readable and often painfully honest book” (Library Journal).
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781558619364 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Feminist Press at CUNY, The |
| Publication date: | 12/06/2018 |
| Series: | Cross-Cultural Memoir Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 296 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
It was Easter Sunday, 1954, and my family and I were coming out of church. I had on the new clothes I had made for the occasion and high heels. I wore lipstick but no other makeup. My legs were shaved, but my eyebrows remained untweezed.
The church, the Holy Cross Armenian Apostolic Church, on 187th Street between Audubon and St. Nicholas avenues in Manhattan, was just around the corner from the Presbyterian church where my cousin Susan was probably standing at that very moment waiting to shake hands with the minister, as was the custom in "regular" churches. In our church the congregation had no such opportunity, since the priest who officiated at the three-hour, highly ritualistic ceremony — conducted in ancient Armenian — merely disappeared behind the ornate altar after the service.
My time in church hadn't inspired me, nor did I feel any particular relationship to the God whose resurrection it celebrated. The point of going to church on Easter Sunday was to try to become an American. Regular church attendance is as common among Armenians as it is with other groups, but my parents rarely went to church. The only time they went with any regularity was on Palm Sunday because, as my mother reminded us every year, she liked to have the palms that were given out to the congregation in the house for the year. Palm Sunday and the dry fronds that for me bore no resemblance to any living plant were fine, but going to church on Palm Sunday was not enough. As I understood it, real Americans went to church every Sunday or, at the very least, every Christmas and Easter.
Years earlier, in an attempt to be the best kind of American, I had tried regular church attendance. Since I was about nine or ten years old at the time, this meant going to Sunday school. For a few Sundays I walked to church with my grandmother, who did attend regularly, though the practice did not seem to make her any less "old country." The class consisted of coloring pictures of Bible scenes for what seemed an eternity. Then we were marched into the old, dark, incense-laden church for the last half hour of the long service.
The Sunday school classes always came into the church at the point in the service when the choir sang the "Lord's Prayer." I was glad that this hymn, which I considered a universal Christian song, was sung in our church, but our version would never have been recognized by an American. The meaning remained the same, but the prayer, of course, was sung in Armenian to a melody that sounded nothing like what Americans knew as the "Lord's Prayer."
Not only was this hymn wrong, but everything about the church was. The ancient Armenian language used for church services sounded as if it might be understood, but it was unintelligible to me. That our priest used an even stranger form of a language, peculiar enough as it was, was not the only thing about church that bothered me. The altar was adorned not with pictures of a sweet Jesus surrounded by little children or his apostles but with two paintings that horrified me, though my eyes were drawn back to them repeatedly during the service. In the middle of the altar was a picture of the crucifixion with blood dripping from Christ's hands and side. The other painting was a bust of Christ with more blood from the thorns cutting into his forehead. The emphasis was clearly on his suffering rather than his glory.
The priest, too, looked like nothing I had seen in magazines or books. The black suit or the simple black cloak of the American minister was replaced by an ornate brocade cape worn over a black gown. A huge gold cross, jewelled and filigreed, hung on his chest. At various points during the service a brocade curtain was drawn across part of the altar and the priest disappeared behind it, emerging after a few minutes carrying a scepter and wearing a high, brocaded, brimless hat. The one good thing about our priest was that he was clean shaven and had short hair. Sometimes on special occasions — and these were usually times when the whole family went to church — the archbishop presided. His flowing white hair and long white beard, which reached down to his chest, made him look like some familiar depictions of God, but nothing at all like what priests were supposed to look like. Even the pope didn't look like our archbishop.
I could have endured Sunday school, despite the fact that it was boring and my classmates and the teacher were disturbingly Armenian looking, if it had not culminated in our being marched into that church with that priest to the strains of that "Lord's Prayer." It soon became clear to me that the road to becoming an American, at least as I had defined it in 1949, did not lie in attending this church. That approach seemed hopeless. The whole experience made me feel more Armenian and less American.
Why couldn't we go to the "regular" church around the corner? My cousin went there and she was as Armenian as we were. My mother told me it was not our church but where "they" went. I recognized her use of they. It meant "wrong." But that church looked like heaven to me. Although I had never been inside, I knew it had to be different from our church. For one thing, it wasn't called the Holy Cross American Apostolic Church. It was an American church that had Presbyterian in its name. I didn't know what that meant, but I had heard of it. What was really important was that Americans went there, and it was of some Christian denomination. I knew it was important to be Christian — certainly, to be American meant to be Christian.
Before my short Sunday school experiment, I had longed to be Catholic. Catholics, it seemed to me, had a lot going for them. Two of my favorite movies, The Bells of St. Mary's and Father Flannigan's Boy's Town had big stars in them, and they were about Catholics. And not only were Catholics recognized as Americans, but they were treated specially. Every Thursday afternoon our school lost half of its students: Catholic kids were actually allowed to leave school for catechism. Not only did they get to leave school, but it was clear that the teachers did not do anything important while they were gone. For me, however, becoming a Catholic was out of the question. Most of the Catholics in my neighborhood were Irish, and my mother was very clear about the fact that they, like Presbyterians, were wrong. They had too many children and were lazy, dirty, and stupid — nothing like the characters played by Bing Crosby, Ingrid Bergman, and Pat O'Brien. There was also, according to my mother, something wrong with their religion itself, but she was not clear on that point. I knew I could not pursue my dream because being Catholic was something you and your family were, not something you became.
By 1954 my admiration for Catholicism had faded, but my attempts to become American had become more intense. If attending church regularly was not going to work, there was one last thing to try. I could convince my parents to go to church on holidays — American holidays. Christmas presented a major problem since Armenians, different as always, celebrate Christmas on the sixth of January. Going to church on December 25 would be fruitless, and, besides, we were pretty American around Christmas. We always had a big tree and presents. Christmas dinner was at the home of my father's brother, Uncle Alex, and his wife, Aunty Goharik, whose large fieldstone and frame house in Westchester County was filled with many relatives, who brought presents to put under the tree. Best of all, Aunty Goharik always made a turkey for dinner. Of course, we also had stuffed grape leaves, rice pilaf, and Armenian pastries for dessert, but the highlight of the dinner, at least for me, was Uncle Alex carving the turkey — very American.
Easter, on the other hand, presented a perfect opportunity to make use of church. Amazingly, Armenian Easter fell on the same day as "regular" Easter. (My Greek friends were not so lucky since the orthodox church followed a different calendar. I was surprised that they did not seem to be bothered by this difference.) I began to plan early because there was a lot to get done. The first thing, to get my parents to agree to go to church, went fairly easily, though they were surprised at my request, since my only interest in church had been a few weeks of Sunday school and my request for a Bible that Christmas. Every real American had a Bible.
The second part, getting our clothes, proved to be very difficult. Americans did not go to church on Easter wearing any old clothes. They went to church in Easter outfits. Yes, my mother explained, we would go to church if I wanted to, even though it would make the preparations for the Easter dinner more difficult, but new clothes were out of the question. I argued that Easter outfits were an American institution; wasn't that clear from the Easter Parade that happened every year right here in New York City on Fifth Avenue in front of not just a church but Saint Patrick's Cathedral (more evidence of Catholic power)? It was to no avail. I tried again with the fact that big stars, Judy Garland and Fred Astaire, had marched in front of this very cathedral in the movie Easter Parade, but as I spoke I knew it was a lame argument; my mother hardly ever went to the movies and had no interest in big stars. What was an institution for me, and obviously for the rest of America, the movies, was to my mother only ostentatious display. It was something "they" did, not us.
What we did for Easter was to get palms from church and make them into little crosses that we wore on our coats. We also ate special foods. While we did not observe Lent with meatless dishes as other Armenians did, we never ate meat on the Friday before Easter. The meal began with the traditional egg fights. A bowl of dyed hard-boiled eggs sat in the middle of the table. Some of the eggs were the familiar pale yellows, purples, blues, pinks and oranges; dyed with egg coloring we bought at the grocery story like everyone else. Others were a deep reddish-brown, dyed by boiling them with onionskins my mother got from the greengrocer who saved them for the Armenians and Greeks in the neighborhood. We all would choose an egg and test it for its strength by tapping it on our front teeth. We would then go around the table tapping each other's eggs. The egg that broke all the others was the champion, and we saved it until the next round. The eggs were eaten wrapped in soft lavash, a very thin bread, with fresh dill, scallions, and parsley. When everyone had finished their eggs, those who wanted a second helping could also have another try at beating the champion egg. This time the winning egg would be saved for the Easter meal, which also began with an egg fight.
The most important thing about Easter, though, was Easter dinner. Weeks before, my grandmother would begin to bake her specialty, khata, a buttery, flaky pastry. No one in the family made khata like my grandmother, so she made them not only for our dinner but also for family members who would not be with us for Easter. Days before the feast she would prepare the course coming after the eggs, either artichokes or stuffed mussels. Both dishes took enormous amounts of time to prepare. The mussels had to be cleaned and opened. They were then stuffed with many pounds of finely chopped onions that had been cooked slowly with rice, pine nuts, and currants. Once the mussels were stuffed they were cooked in a mixture of lemon and olive oil. My grandmother made enough so that each of us could have four or five. The mussels were never eaten with a fork or spoon but by using one half of the shells to scoop out the delectable stuffing. While the artichokes were not quite as time-consuming, it seemed to me that my grandmother sat at the kitchen table for hours trimming dozens of artichokes, reaching into the cactuslike vegetables to scoop out the chokes, and then cooking them with potatoes and small white onions in olive oil and lemon.
The day before Easter my mother would begin to prepare her specialty, Persian pilaf. This dish was never made with rice that we bought at the store, but rice from Persia, kept in big jars and used only on special occasions. My uncles, who had an Oriental rug importing business, made arrangements with their suppliers to send us rice with each shipment of rugs. We didn't get our rice in an ordinary way, but wrapped in bales of rugs. My mother also made leg of lamb — we always had lamb on Easter — and spinach and eggs. All our energy went into the preparation of food for Easter, none of it into what we would wear.
Even if I had to accept the fact that my mother and father were going to church on Easter in their old clothes, that didn't mean I couldn't have a new outfit. Choosing clothes I wanted had been a battle for the last few years. I wanted lots of the clothes my friends wore — what my mother called "cheap." She bought me a few "good" clothes from Best and Company, Lord and Taylor, or B. Altman. These shopping trips downtown had been fun when I was younger, but they became increasingly frustrating as I approached my teens. I didn't want "timeless classics"; I wanted what was in style right now. In desperation, I took up sewing and made skirts out of yards and yards of cheap cotton, and I saved my allowance and babysitting money for see-through blouses with puffy sleeves and little black ties at the throat. I was prepared to make my Easter outfit. Luckily, I had won the stockings and high heels argument the previous year and was making headway on makeup. Unlike some of my cousins, I was allowed to shave my legs and wear lipstick, but wearing other makeup and tweezing my eyebrows would have to wait "until I was older."
I was reasonably satisfied with how I looked on that Easter Sunday in 1954. Yet, as I stood on the steps of the church surrounded by people who were praising the resurrection of Christ in Armenian, few of whom looked as if they had given much thought to their Easter outfits, I realized that these people would never look or act like people in Life magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, or on the silver screen. America was around the corner in the Presbyterian church, and going to the Holy Cross Armenian Apostolic Church was not the way to get there.
As if reading my thoughts, a young man in his twenties approached me. He asked my name, and, when I replied with a name that had the characteristic "ian" at the end, he responded that I certainly didn't look Armenian. He went on to explain that I was too tall, too narrow in the hips, too light, and I didn't have a big enough nose or enough hair to look like a real Armenian. His comments were meant as a compliment, and I took them as such: they made my day. It was possible to come from these people and "pass." And it was clear, too, that I was not the only Armenian who put a premium on looking American.
CHAPTER 2I consciously began my campaign to become an American toward the end of my elementary school years, but the process of assimilation had actually been started by my parents when I was born and named Arlene Voski. According to Armenian tradition, the first female child should be named after the father's mother. My parents decided that, since I was born in America and would probably live in this country all my life, they would give me an American first name and use my grandmother's for my middle name. My parents were following the lead of older family members who had emigrated to the United States. My father's Uncle Mesrop and his wife, Aunty Manoush, renamed their children when they emigrated from Persia. There was precedent too for American names in my mother's family. Uncle George's name had been Americanized when he came here as a young child, and he and my aunt, my mother's sister, had named their three sons George, Howard, and Edmond.
While my first name was Arlene, the emphasis, it seemed to me, was on my middle name, Voski. Arlene was the name they had given me to face the world, but Voski was who I was to my family and in the neighborhood. The language of the streets, like that of our house and family, was usually Armenian. We lived in the center of the Armenian community in New York City, Washington Heights. As a very young child, my journey into the world centered around shopping with my mother. In the 1940s in New York City there were no supermarkets, not even for Americans. Shopping for food was done in small, specialized stores. We made frequent trips to the Greek bakery for round, fluffy loaves of pideh or rolls. If we wanted rye or pumpernickel bread, we went to the Jewish bakery. Fish came from the fish market, where live fish swam in the big tank in the window; we got vegetables and fruits from the greengrocer, the same one who saved the onionskins for my mother at Easter time. For a special treat we went to the Jewish delicatessen for cold cuts, hotdogs, sauerkraut, and pickles. Once a week we went to Zarifian Brothers, the grocery store where my mother bought meat, canned goods, and staples.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Lion Woman's Legacy"
by .
Copyright © 1992 Arlene Voski Avakian.
Excerpted by permission of Feminist Press.
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