Finding Power in the Language of Love

a timely reflection of an Armenian-American

Growing up, my family's go-to restaurant for special events and celebrations was a little Turkish spot in a strip mall a couple towns over. I don’t know how we originally came across it, but Pita House became one of my favorite family activities, and is now a cherished memory of my childhood. It was one of those spaces that transports you to a different world, making you forget that through the wall behind you there’s a nail salon operating next door, and on the other side they’re slinging pizzas for takeaway by the slice. A classic New York experience.

The food was unbelievable — always we ordered a plate of the creamiest hummus and a large shepherd’s salad to share, and I stuffed my endless pit of a 10-year-old’s stomach with warm, soft pitas smothered in hummus and this perfectly spiced cucumber and tomato salad. The lamb gyro dinners we ordered were enough to feed two or three, so we shared them along with the turkey orzo soup starters. Everything was fresh, wholesome, and absolutely delicious. To finish the meal, I developed a custom of giving a back massage to everyone at the table. It may have seemed strange, to watch a young girl go around and act as a masseuse for her five family members, but at Pita House no one judged; it was as comfortable as our own living room back at home. We grew to know the owner, a kind Turkish man named whose dedication to his work was shown in his constant presence at the restaurant. We also befriended the servers and bussers, one of which would give me impromptu belly dancing lessons if we were among the last customers for the night (which we often were). When the bill came around, we would play the guessing game. I never won. I was always amazed to hear the total, which was around $100. In my mind, incapable yet of understanding the cost to feed a family of six regularly, this was outrageous. My family could not afford this, it was extravagance and luxury! I sat quietly in fear about the financial burden these dear dinners would put on us, and made sure my gratitude was expressed to whoever was paying the bill. Looking back, my heart is warmed even more-so by this fact. This restaurant welcomed us with quality food and gave us these precious, cherished memories for less than I could imagine now. The experience was priceless.

Looking back, I see that the warming of my heart also opened me up intellectually in such expansive ways.

My family is Armenian. My sisters and I are a blend of many ethnicities, actually less than a quarter Armenian left in our genetic pool if we believe that these genes are divided and expressed equally among successive generations. But the Armenian presence has always been strong with us in our dark eyes and thick brows, the last name we carry, the foods brought to family functions, and our longing for a culture that felt difficult to find for many years. This difficulty is a direct result of Armenian genocide carried out by the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century, when a million Armenians were killed in mass massacres after being forced out of their land, and thousands more fled the country in fear. The legend I learned as a child was that my great-great uncle, brother of my great grandparents, was an accomplished Armenian violinist, and was offered a timely invitation to play for the royalty in Egypt. This was how my ancestors escaped, this is how our lineage has continued and I am here today.

So this Armenian family walks into a Turkish restaurant — sounds like the setup for a punchline of a joke (Side note: while this type of joke may seem common in American standup, where cultural insensitivity has long been excused in the name of comedy, the content here would never be referenced in my country. The Armenian genocide was briefly mentioned in passing during my advanced world history course in high school, but most schools do not include it in the curriculum at all, focusing only on Western European conflict of the World Wars, and most Americans have little to no knowledge of this historical atrocity. The Turkish government continues to deny the genocide and has influenced the government of Azerbaijan, which is actively continuing the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in the territory of Nagorno-Karabahk. This denial has also been seen in many elected representatives of the United States and in Israel, who provide 60% of the weapons used by Azerbaijan to kill and displace Armenians this year in Nagorno-Karabakh. End of side note). Hypothetical jokes aside, we walk in and we sit down. We are fed and we eat and we are grateful. We come back. We are welcomed again and again and find ourselves deeply connected to this place and the food and the people there. One time, we get to talking with the owner and reach the fact that we are Armenian. Always the young quiet observer, I look to his face for signs of hate toward us — a fear-based assumption from the limited information I have about Turkish people, certainly biased from my upbringing in a family of survivors of the Armenian Genocide. I only find a mild trace of surprise, followed by an expression of deeper gratitude for our patronage. I ask my mom about this conversation now and she recalls the same, followed by his affirmations of the power of love and hate, and how we can and must choose the language of love.

End of story. No punchline follows to continue the stigma of a deep hatred between Armenians and Turks. We do not hold hate in our hearts towards any people. Our willingness to keep our hearts open to all, regardless of ethnicity and history, carves the way for a cultural bridge between two historically divided groups of people. And we move forward with more love in our hearts, more understanding and a greater capacity for compassion and healing. This is an incredibly complex sentiment that I am so grateful to have experienced and learned at such a young and formative age.

My relationship to the country I call home is complex. I have an endless supply of qualms and condemnations about the United States of America — a nation formed by the genocide of indigenous peoples and founded on the backs of the enslaved — but that’s a story for another piece. I’ve learned that the most patriotic way to be an active citizen here is to try to see it in it’s fullest potential and find parts of our existence that align with that potential. Naivety aside, I use my own experience (still through a lens of my white privilege) to see that this country can be a place where people are free to start anew. It can be a blank page for those seeking freedom from an oppressive culture to learn objective truths, and act in accordance with those truths to right the wrongs of history. In a nation almost completely comprised of immigrants (save the resilient indigenous survivors of the genocide of Native Americans by the founders of said “great” nation), we must accept that the only way to truly thrive is to adapt. We must all be able to imagine a nation where we accept the cultural backgrounds of our neighbors in reciprocity and love. Only through understanding and compassion can we overcome the horrors of our past, accepting the truths of history with the human understanding that we have every power to ensure they do not happen again. It can be shameful to admit these truths; but the earlier we accept this shame, the earlier we end the collective suffering of all affected. We can build something new here, where we are and have been living so physically separated from the cultures that we came from. And that new existence, a collective understanding of the harmony required to live in a way that uplifts everyones, free of hate and fueled by love, is possible.

Numbers become unfathomable in the wake of hate. For those inflicting the violence — the human souls corrupted by fear and hate so deeply that they commit, support, or deny genocide — I like to believe that their learned fear and hate brings a sort of blindness to the immense pain they inflict. For those who observe the violence, unaffected directly by it, I believe there is a natural incapability of our human forms to fully process such unspeakable acts of inhumanity. But for the victims of the violence, I believe the magnitude of these horrors translates to a deep heaviness we carry, through generations and across borders. While humans at large cannot digest these numbers into comprehensible forms of grief, I believe so strongly that the pain and capacity for empathy that we hold is directly correlated to them. These atrocities we accept become responsibilities for us to educate others, to show those with the privilege to turn away that it is still their responsibility to put a stop to them.

We cannot forget. We must hold on to the sick truth that humans are capable of such horrific acts of inhumanity so that we can recognize the warning signs of those trying to repeat history. A denial of genocide is continued genocide. But we also cannot live in this repetition of fear and hatred in the wake of tragedy. In this age of incredible access to information, we have all of the tools that we could ever need to know the truths, truths that are often intentionally complex, convoluted, and overlooked. There is no denying the facts of history when we have the access to reputable sources at our fingertips. Yet we are so caught up in the stories we are told through the historically untrustworthy media, stories that intentionally incite the most powerful emotions inside of us — stories that make us feel scared, angry, and in despair.

Why can we not be equally interested in the stories that bring us sentiments of hope, that empower us and challenge us to learn more, understand more, imagine more, and love more?

It’s imperative right now that we recognize our power to shape the world we live in. We must stop the repetition of horrors by recognizing our place in them. We must open our minds to accept difficult truths, be highly vigilant of the information we ingest, and maintain our humanity in the way we process and respond to such inhumanity in the world. We must challenge ourselves to be brave in the wake of fear, and confident in our dreams for a different world, a world that will never exist unless we act to create it. We must avoid the perpetuation of hate at all costs, fighting always with the power of truth through the language of love. It is the only way.