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Lalai Manjikian

Lalai Manjikian

Dr. Lalai Manjikian is a humanities professor at Vanier College in Montreal. Her teaching and research interests are in the areas of immigration and refugee studies, media representations of migration, migrant narratives and diaspora studies. She is the author of Collective Memory and Home in the Diaspora: The Armenian Community in Montreal (2008). Lalai’s articles have been published in a number of newspapers and journals including The Armenian Weekly, Horizon Weekly, 100 Lives (The Aurora Prize), the Montreal Gazette, and Refuge. A former Birthright Armenia participant (2005), over the years, Lalai has been active in volunteering both within the Armenian community in Montreal and the local community at large, namely engaged in immigrant and refugee integration. She previously served as a qualitative researcher on the Armenian Diaspora Survey in Montreal. Lalai also serves as a board member for the Foundation for Genocide Education. She holds a PhD in Communication Studies from McGill University (2013).

11 Comments

  1. Dear Lalai,
    Thank you, it’s very touchy, impressive and learning subject.
    God bless you, your Dear family and your mission.
    You have different feeling and love towards human being.
    When love is missing than the devil taking place.
    Respectfully,
    Bedros Zerdelian

  2. Dear Lalai,
    I was terribly touched by your expression
    of love for your ‘Nene” and Kessab. You have
    Described just what so many of us have
    Experienced with our sheltering and encouraging families. “Nene” and you are
    Living examples of our village and familial
    Past, combined with our New World sensibilities. You came from a tree with deep
    Loving roots. I hope Kessab will always be a
    Part of you. I hope Armenians will return and
    Believe in their lands, and they will never experience the slaughter house again. I pray
    For peace.
    Julie Barsoumian

  3. A few years ago I enjoyed another trip to Syria from Jordan, where I worked as an American archaeologist. I asked our guide, a professor friend of mine whether I might leave the group to visit Kessab, where my former husband’s family originated. In his 90’s Grandpa Sam Giragosian had talked about Kessab time and time again. I was wished a safe trip. and I set off in an SUV driven by the son-in-law of our Syrian guide. I searched for a church where Sam had been pastor. One churchyard was locked, so I went to the adjacent house. Two elderly women greeted me and told me a Giragosian family lived next door! I was welcomed into the Giragosian home. My host did not know Sam, but he opened a book next to his telephone and showed me the name of my former husband and the names of our three children! I was amazed that in this small village in Syria I would find the names of my children! I took photos of the Giragosians and the village to share with relatives back in the States. What a fabulous memory I have of that day in Kessab. May all the Kessab families find peaceful lives today and in the future.

  4. I am a physician and public health practitioner from Armenia, a decent of Kessabtzis-my grandparents and parents moved to Soviet Armenia from Kessab in 1947- but hence, I feel the deep connection with Kessab from the stories of my grandparents and parents and always had been cherishing the dream that one day I will visit our home…It is so much difficult to express what I feel now- almost a feeling similar to what we all feel about 1915. Thanks for a beautiful and touching article, Lalai.

  5. Lalai you write with such eloquence. You have documented your Nene’s life so beautifully! Thank you for sharing this heartwarming story with us all.

  6. Dear Lalai,
    Part one,Part two,2 beautiful articles. Written with eloquence, love and soul. Subtle humor, sensitivity .You touched our hearts with your unique way of expression and filled us,Kessabtzis or not, with Hope and Faith.
    Thank you,looking forward for your next articles!!!

  7. Lalai,
    I just wrote a poem about what is happening in Kesaab, and I want to use your childhood picture to illustrate it.
    Thank you for writing this.

    Poem below:

    Don´t show me
    the coffins of children
    with that deafening
    orchestral scoring

    My sadness
    doesn´t need a soundtrack

    What do you want from me
    masters of montage
    and emotional chord
    strikes

    Don´t let me hear
    the Armenian tongue
    of my school days
    from the mouths of children
    displaced
    bombed
    their lives
    forever raped

    the familiar words
    Vah
    Tbrodz
    A sound,
    deadly,
    Are you afraid of the bullets? The filmmaker says
    But you still go to school
    Nods from the two girls

    in my tongue
    in my words
    that I have
    forgotten
    though they live inside me

    Syria
    my grandmother´s cradle
    before she sailed on
    the Atlantic

    My flesh and blood
    The people with the names
    I do not know

    The churches
    that turned to rubble heaps
    The prayer
    we used to sing at school
    it makes me cry
    though I am not religious
    and our god
    is not mine

    The prayer
    Lord in Heaven
    protect us
    bring your kingdom to us

    Our Kingdom lost
    and April is coming

    It will be
    a hundred year soon

    A hundred years
    and nothing has changed

    Someone´s grandmother
    in Syria
    has been born
    and her mother
    is smuggling her
    right now
    to save her life
    and cross oceans perchance

    so that I
    can have
    my blissful life

    in a quiet place
    somewhere

    Syria
    Syria
    Syria of my heart

    hurt over the scar
    the pillaging
    childslaughtering
    the Deathland
    over the Genocide

  8. Chère Lalai
    Vous m’avez tellement émue surtout de ce qu’arrive à notre cher Kessab, à ses habitants, il faut que le monde entier lise, sache qu’il y a un peuple qui ne demandait qu’à vivre avec sérénité dans son pays natal, ils sont persécutés, harrassés. Merci Lalai de votre histoire je souhaite que vous puissiez continuer à écrire, merci à vos parents de vous avoir mise au monde et de vous avoir élevée dans la norme des valeurs humaines.
    Sossy Piloyan

  9. Than you for writing this article, you make me proud as a Manjikian. I also visited kalil nene back in 2007, in kaladouran. She was in good health then. God rest her soul.

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