This site highlights an ongoing project concerning the Armenian diaspora communities worldwide. It represents a small percentage of the catalogued material. For each country/region, there is a brief history, a map selected randomly, and 10 entries also selected randomly.
Quick background:
From the mid-19th century up to 1915, a large number of Armenians migrated to the U.S. from the Ottoman Empire. They were predominantly young men who considered themselves temporary guest workers. Their remittances were essential for the survival of their families. Those who changed their plans and decided to stay usually sought picture brides or went back home to get married and returned to the US with their spouses. The economic factor was not, however, the only reason for migration. At the time, the American protestant missionaries operating in the Ottoman Empire encouraged Armenian families to migrate to the U.S. on the grounds that they would be able to practice their faith in a safe environment. The missionaries were largely funded by American industrialists looking for cheap immigrant workforce. After the Genocide of 1915-1918, however, the demographic profile of the Armenian immigrants and refugees changed radically; the Genocide survivors were mostly women and children.
Armenian communities in the U.S. (in Armenian: Amerikahay) were formed mainly in three regions: The Northeast (New Jersey, New York, and New England), the West coast (California) and the industrial belt of the Midwest (Michigan and Illinois). The economic dynamism of the region at the time of migration and the presence of kin were among factors determining the initial place of settlement. Worcester and Watertown in Massachusetts, thanks to their factories, and Fresno in California, with its fields, were the early centers of Armenian immigration. In Canada, Armenians settled mainly in Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto region, Ontario.
Map:
Armenians in Greater Boston, 2012. The early immigrants who arrived in the 1890s settled in central Boston. Along with immigrants from Syria, Greece, and China, Armenians settled in the South Cove neighborhood then known as “the Orient of Boston” (now Chinatown). At the time, an Armenian entrepreneur named Moses Gulesian helped resettle hundreds of refugees near his cornice factory in the South End. The move to Watertown and other western and northern suburbs where important employers were located took place in the 1910s. In Watertown, in addition to churches and schools, cultural and sports organizations were founded, several Armenian magazines started to appear, the national headquarters of Armenian political forces were opened, and even an Armenian museum was established. The wave of newcomers from different parts of the world constantly revitalized the Watertown community throughout the 20th century.
1.
Armenian Pilgrim Orchestra, 1912, photographer unknown, the Armenian Studies Program at Fresno State University collection. Among the first Armenians to settle in Fresno in the 1880s were many Protestants, specifically of the Congregational Church. They established the Pilgrim Armenian Congregational Church in 1901. Fresno is the only Armenian agricultural community in North America. Seropian brothers were the first Armenians to settle there in 1881. By the outbreak of the First World War, an estimated 10,000 Armenians resided in Fresno; making up about 25 percent of its population.
2.
The first group of “Georgetown Boys,” 1923, official photograph, the Armenian Relief Association of Canada official photo. The “Georgetown Boys” were a group of genocide orphans brought over and raised on a farm in Georgetown, Ontario, and cared for by the Association. The initiative, also known as “Canada's Noble Experiment,” transferred a total of 109 boys and 40 girls, mostly from the Armenian orphanage in Corfu, Greece, 1923-1928. The kids were taught English and farming skills (the boys) or housekeeping skills (the girls), and then dispersed among Ontario farmers either as foster children or as contracted workers.
Men in an Outrigger Canoe Headed for Shore, 1929, Arman Tatevos Manoukian, oil on canvas, private collection. Born in Constantinople/Istanbul in 1904, Manoukian immigrated to the U.S. in 1920. He studied design in New York and then enlisted in the Marine Corps. Manoukian served in Hawaii, and fell in love with the island and its people. He was discharged in 1927 but decided to stay on the island. He continued to paint until 1931 when he committed suicide. He left only 31 works mainly depicting Hawaiian theme with vivid, expressive color harmonies.
4.
Three Genocide survivors who entered the U.S. through Angel Island, San Francisco, 1919, private collection. From Western Armenia, the Ottoman Empire, they fled eastward to Russia and reached Vladivostok via the Trans-Siberian Railway. From Vladivostok they traveled by ship to Kobe, Japan, and then by ship to Honolulu, and ultimately to Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. Noyemzar Manoukian (first from left) had been married to a seminarian named Hakop Israelian whom he lost, together with her three children, in April 1915 when Ottoman authorities deported the Armenians of Yerznka (now Erzincan). She eventually settled in Fresno, California, and in 1923 married Nazareth Kaltakian, a migrant worker who had lost his wife and two children in August 1915 when the campaign of slaughter had reached Yozgat, his native town east of Angora/Ankara.
Poster of The Song of Songs, 1933, a film directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Born in Tbilisi, R. Mamoulian (1897-1987) moved to the U.S. in 1923 and directed one of the earliest talkies in 1929 (Applause). He then directed the first Technicolor film in 1935 (Becky Sharp). Overall, Mamoulian directed 16 films until 1957 when he was targeted in Hollywood blacklisting of the 1950s. Mamoulian also staged more than 60 dramatic and musical plays in Broadway, including the inaugural performance of George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess in 1935.
Ben Agajanian, 1955, Bowman football card. Nicknamed "The Nameless Wonder," Benjamin Agajanian (1919–2018) was a second generation Armenian-American born in Santa Ana, California. Agajanian played professionally in the National Football League 1945-1959, then in the newly formed American Football League 1960-1964. American football is the most popular sport in the U.S. It is a team sport that is played mainly in North America. For non-Americans, therefore, playing and succeeding in professional American football is extremely challenging and rather unusual.
7.
Students share Thanksgiving dinner at AGBU Alex and Marie Manoogian School, 2013, official school photo. Thanksgiving is a non-denominational American holiday that has no equivalent in the Armenian holiday calendar but is celebrated by Armenian-American communities. Founded in 1963 and based in Detroit area, Michigan, Manoogian School has been rated favorably in national rankings. This has attracted a certain number of non-Armenian students to the school who, nevertheless, follow the same instruction program, including Armenian cultural immersion, daily 1-hour of Armenian language training, Armenian song and dance classes, etc.
8.
The emblem of the Fire Department of Armenia in Wisconsin. It is believed that the little town, organized in 1858, was named by a group of Armenian immigrants who lived across the Wisconsin River. If true, it is unclear what happened to them in the following years; whether they migrated elsewhere or simply mixed with the other immigrant groups. In any case, no sign of Armenian presence, i.e. church, cemetery, etc., can be found in the area and none of the town’s current 700 inhabitants report Armenian ancestry.
9.
Cover of The Corner Grocery Store, 1979, Raffi. Raffi Cavoukian (born 1948) is a Canadian singer, lyricist, music producer and author. He was ten years old when his family emigrated from Egypt to Canada. His brother Onnig Cavoukian, known as Cavouk, became a celebrated portrait photographer in Toronto, like his father used to be in Alexandria, Egypt. Raffi, however, became a musician and specialized in songs for children. Raffi’s songs usually included small, simple, folk instrumentations featuring his vocal and guitar work, and were popular during the 1970s-1990s. He considered himself a “children's troubadour.” He has recorded 22 albums since his 1976 debut.
A group of Armenian-American men and women serving in the Glendale Police Department, California, at an appreciation dinner organized by the local Armenian community in 2018. Since the early 1980s, Glendale has the most densely concentrated Armenian community in North America. It used to be an upper-middle class, white, conservative residential city. Initially a few upper class Armenian families moved there in the 1960s and the 1970s. The mass movement of Armenians, people and businesses alike, took place in the following two decades. They came in distinct waves and in response to different political crises in the world; the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), the Iranian Revolution (1979), the facilitation of emigration from the USSR (1974), the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991), the deportation from Azerbaijan (1990-2), the Iraq invasion (2003), etc. Soon they were joined by those who had immigrated earlier from Egypt, Jerusalem, Ethiopia, Eastern Europe and Greece, and had settled in other parts of the U.S., including other towns within the Greater Los Angeles.
