Reclaiming home and heritage

Editor’s note: This editorial appeared in the Armenian Weekly’s June 2026 magazine, “Reclaiming Home and Heritage,” which explores how the Armenian community maintains its heritage and culture following genocide and displacement. The issue was edited by Weekly magazine editor Pauline Getzoyan. What exactly is home? Is it a dwelling, an emotion, a heritage? Merriam Webster defines home as “one’s place of residence,” “the social unit formed by a family living together,” “a familiar setting” and “a place of origin.” These are, of course, appropriate representations of home. There also is the old adage, “Home is where the heart is.” Perhaps this is the most accurate definition of home, particularly given the numbers of refugees and unhoused people around the globe. The Armenian community certainly understands the loss of home as a homeland, or “place of origin.” I am the granddaughter of Armenian Genocide survivors who arrived in the United States looking for refuge. They gratefully claimed this country as home after the trauma of genocide and years of rebuilding and creating their lives and families here. My husband Ara and his family came to the United States to escape the Lebanese Civil War, also seeking a safe haven and a new beginning. In both instances, our families sought to reclaim home and maintain their culture in the U.S., which represented hope and freedom. To this day, we remain thankful to this country for providing the opportunity for a fresh start and a home in which to celebrate and preserve our Armenian heritage. Each contributor to this magazine offers a way in which the Armenian community has reclaimed home and heritage after genocide and displacement. Some discuss finding home through pilgrimage to Western Armenia while others expound on the meaning of repatriation to the Republic of Armenia, including those expelled from Artsakh. Still others express reclamation through education, literature, music, photographs and media — plus a heartfelt call for genocide prevention. A common theme throughout is the desire to keep home close to heart and to maintain a strong connection to culture and heritage wherever one dwells. In Rhode Island… Twenty-nine years ago, the Armenian Historical Association of Rhode Island (AHARI) was organized to be a part of the planned Heritage Harbor Museum and Library in the state. Heritage Harbor was meant to include artifacts and stories from all of the ethnic groups in Rhode Island to illustrate their lives in the state. While the Heritage Harbor was not to be, AHARI soldiered on with its mission to share the story of Armenian immigrants, both past and present, and how they have contributed to RI history. AHARI is a nonprofit, nonsectarian and nonpolitical organization with about 30 representatives from various cultural, political and religious groups from the community serving as board members, in addition to 12 unaffiliated elected members. On May 13, 2017, AHARI opened and held its first eclectic exhibition consisting of donations and collections from members of the community. Since then, AHARI created its current permanent exhibit, entitled “Rhode Island Armenians: Rediscovering the Past and Looking to the Future.” This exhibit was designed and curated in collaboration with Hayk Demoyan, Ph.D. and his wife and graphic designer Lucine Matevosian and serves as the foundation for student and community group field trips to AHARI’s Providence location throughout the year. The AHARI Board also wanted to preserve RI Armenian history, and their initial thought was to scan documents from organizations that were more than 100 years old. But when funding for those endeavors was not readily available, AHARI began interviewing and filming testimonies from locals to document the Armenian community’s history in the state. Unfortunately, there were no Armenian Genocide survivors living (or able to participate) when the interviews began. As the scope of the project expanded, AHARI sent a mailing to the community in July 2021 announcing the “Armenian Chronicles” initiative. The mailing included a questionnaire with proposed topics of discussion during the interviews. Through funding from the Harbor Foundation, AHARI was able to purchase film and lighting equipment, and volunteers began recording the interviews, the first of which was completed in December 2021 (AHARI May 2026 newsletter - It Takes a Village). Over the past five years, and through the challenges of a pandemic, AHARI has recorded dozens of multi-generational interviews with the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Genocide survivors. Additionally, there are interviews with refugees and family members who survived the pogroms against Armenians in Azerbaijan in the late 1980s and early 1990s. “We wanted to do a film, but we didn’t know what. We decided to do family histories. We kept changing our minds about what we wanted to do with the film,” said AHARI executive director Martha Jamgochian in an interview with the Weekly. “At first we thought it’ll be about how people came here. But then we decided to wait and see what we learned in the interviews, because there might be some things that we just don't know about or haven't thought about. During phase one, we did 50 interviews, mainly with individuals, but also some families. In the end, we did about 60 interviews, but those others were done in the second phase.” The questionnaire that was sent to those being interviewed included a variety of questions that were meant to be standardized but were adjusted as necessary during the conversations. The AHARI Board felt strongly that the film should reflect Armenian history pre-Genocide, then the Genocide, and also that “we didn't just drop out of the sky in the 1800s. We've been around for a long time,” Jamgochian said. They decided that “the film has to go on to the fact that we survived and we’re thriving, and look at what we’re doing, in spite of everything.” Thanks to grants from the RI Council for the Humanities (RICH), AHARI progressed from a 15-minute teaser for the film to the final 26-minute version, specifically produced to meet PBS requirements for a 30-minute documentary and to encourage classroom use. Many people were involved in the process, too many to enumerate here — AHARI acknowledges everyone both in the film and in their May 2026 newsletter. One of the goals for the “Chronicles” film, in addition to preserving RI Armenian community history, is to use it for educational purposes. Rhode Island has a highly diverse population with more than 100 nationalities represented in a state with a population of 1.11 million people, including about 7,500 Armenians and many immigrants. Given these statistics, the AHARI Board decided to make the film available for classroom use believing that it would resonate with an equally diverse student population. To achieve this plan, they contacted Esther Kalajian and me, as co-chairs of the RI branch of The Genocide Education Project, to organize pilot screenings of the film for schools, classes and community groups to gather feedback through guided discussions. These initial screenings were very well-received and led to thoughtful and engaged discussions with the students and their teachers. Students of all backgrounds were attentive and expressed areas of deep connection in the film, particularly with the snippets from interviews with the great-grandchildren of Genocide survivors. Using the feedback from these pilot screenings, along with state standards, Kalajian and I are developing an educator’s guide for the film. One notable comment came from a student who said, “My grandfather traveled here from Portugal. I’m so grateful that I have his stories from that time and to know that I have a place where I can go where I belong [Portugal].” She went on to say that it was very sad to know that many Armenians don’t have their “homes” to which to return (referring to Western Armenia and Artsakh). At the Armenian community premiere of the documentary, the responses were overwhelmingly positive and filled with gratitude. Again, the comments centered on the film’s importance in preserving Armenian culture and history and also the memories and stories of those who found refuge in this state whose motto is “Hope.” AHARI’s synopsis of the project, submitted to RICH, stated, “Most Armenians have a story to tell. We want to give voice to these experiences for our community and the greater Rhode Island community and to connect to other established and more recent immigrant groups to build bridges and improve understanding.” Responses like the aforementioned student’s, as well as the community participation in the post-premiere discussion, demonstrate the AHARI Board’s success in achieving their stated goals. Jamgochian says that AHARI continues interviewing people to this day. It is the organization’s way of reclaiming home, through personal recollections and testimonies, and maintaining our heritage and culture after genocide and displacement. Community initiatives like AHARI’s Armenian Chronicles and the Armenians of Whitinsville Project, featured in the March 2026 magazine, are the living, breathing history of the Armenian American experience and serve as a glimpse into the ways in which our unique American diasporan communities recreated and reclaimed home away from home — and preserved Armenian culture and heritage while building a new life.

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Pauline Getzoyan

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