The press and the young generation in the 1930s

Special Issue: 90 — Informing, Connecting, Inspiring
The Armenian Weekly, October 2024

In the 1930s, the Armenian political parties in the United States were determined to keep the American-born young generation connected to their Armenian identity and to the work of the respective partisan organizations. Two of those parties, the Tashnags and the Ramgavars, launched English-language newspapers — Hairenik Weekly and the Armenian Mirror, respectively — to ensure that the youth were part of the conversation. (The Mirror merged into the Mirror-Spectator at the end of the decade.) Through editorials, the party leaders attempted to advise and instruct teenagers and young adults about how to navigate the dual identity of being Armenian and American. Young readers talked back to their elders, as well as to each other, making the Armenian American press a virtual village square, and making their conversations easy for later generations of historians to eavesdrop on. (The Armenian Progressive League also published an English-language weekly, but that paper was heavy on pro-Soviet politics and Marxist theory rather than items specific to Armenian life.)