Gender, Genocide,

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Gender, Genocide, and Ethnicity: The Legacies of Older Armenian American Mothers Margaret M. Manoogian, Alexis J. Walker and Leslie N. Richards Journal of Family Issues 2007; 28; 567 DOI: 10.1177/0192513X06297605 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jfi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/567

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Gender, Genocide, and Ethnicity

Journal of Family Issues Volume 28 Number 4 April 2007 567-589 © 2007 Sage Publications 10.1177/0192513X06297605 http://jfi.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

The Legacies of Older Armenian American Mothers Margaret M. Manoogian Ohio University, Athens

Alexis J. Walker Leslie N. Richards Oregon State University, Corvallis

Women use legacies to help family members articulate family identity, learn family history, and provide succeeding generations with information about family culture. Using feminist standpoint theory and the life-course perspective, this qualitative study examined the intergenerational transmissions that 30 older Armenian American mothers received and transmitted to succeeding generations within the sociohistorical experience of genocide. Mothers passed on legacies that included family stories, rituals/activities, and possessions. Because of multiple losses during the Armenian Genocide, they emphasized legacies that symbolized connection to family, underscored family cohesion, and accentuated ethnic identity. Tensions were evident as well because women’s sense of responsibility for legacies clashed with their limited cultural knowledge, few inherited possessions, and the inevitable assimilation of their children and grandchildren into the dominant U.S. culture. Keywords: families; gender; genocide; intergenerational relationships; legacies; Armenians

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eminists acknowledge that reflexive insights provide a framework for informing scholarly activities (Allen, 2000) by illuminating how we identify, analyze, and communicate the complexities of lived experiences (Naples, 2003). I, the first author, was born into a family that embraced three

Authors’ Note: Work on this project was supported by grants from the University Club Foundation, Portland, OR; the Jo Anne L. Petersen Program in Family Gerontology, Oregon State University; and the Armenian General Benevolent Union. The views presented in this article reflect the perspective of the authors and not the funding agencies. 567 Downloaded from http://jfi.sagepub.com at Alicante Universidad on March 29, 2007 © 2007 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

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cultures: the Armenian roots of my father, the German roots of my mother, and the American roots of a recently adopted homeland. The granddaughter of genocide survivors, I witnessed how the Armenian Genocide is interpreted across generations. At an early age, I developed a strong curiosity about my Armenian roots, nurtured by my father’s ethnic pride, and motivated by my lack of information regarding family experiences in the “Old Country.” Because of my grandmother’s early death, my residence outside of an Armenian-identified community, and my inability to speak the language of my grandfather, I knew more about the larger Armenian cultural experience of genocide than about my own family story. Until the early part of the 20th century, Armenians lived as an ethnic minority population within the Ottoman Empire in the northeast area of Asia Minor. As the Ottoman Empire declined, Armenians, through political action and nationalistic ideals, expressed dissatisfaction with domestic reforms. Resulting tensions led to massacres and forced deportations of almost all Armenians. Women, children, and older men were led on marches across the Syrian Desert resulting in deaths from exposure and starvation. Numerous women took their lives; those who did not were at great risk for both rape and abduction. Although initially conscripted into the military, younger men subsequently were killed. Between 1894 and 1896, massacres initiated by the Turkish government killed an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 individuals; more massacres followed in 1909 (Adalian, 1991). Acknowledged as the first genocide of the 20th century, an estimated 1 to 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives during this period, and survivors fled to other countries (Adalian, 1991). Armenians settled in the diaspora as far ranging as the Middle East, Eastern Europe, France, and North America. All Armenians who came to the United States during the early part of the 20th century were in some way affected by these historical events. My family story varies little from those of other Armenian Americans. My grandfather was able to flee his home country as a young man only after many failed attempts, imprisonment, and the death of his entire family. My grandmother escaped but her father was killed and her mother and sister were forced to march. Her mother, my great grandmother, died en route. Her sister, my great aunt, eventually made it to France but was forever separated from her family, who had resettled in the United States. My grandfather never communicated his experiences to my father. Rather, my father pieced together his story from others who had accompanied my grandfather and from overheard adult conversations. My father communicated our family story of genocide, with obvious pain, only once, when I was a young woman. It is now my family story of genocide, critical both to my ethnic identity and to the Armenian cultural memory of genocide. Downloaded from http://jfi.sagepub.com at Alicante Universidad on March 29, 2007 © 2007 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

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Without an Armenian mother and grandmother, I lost opportunities to feel connected to the Armenian culture and to my Armenian kin. As a feminist family scientist, I know that women nurture ethnic identification among men and children by creating family experiences that build kin connections (di Leonardo, 1984). Because of their culture’s emphasis on women’s duty and on strong family ties, Armenian American women feel responsible to create connections between family and ethnicity (Bakalian, 1993). Many postgenocide women and men have indelible memories of their Armenian grandmothers (Bakalian, 1993). I do not. Instead, I heard family stories from, received cherished objects from, and spent hours with my German grandmother, learning of my ancestors and significant family events. In part to discover my own past, my dissertation research, codirected by my two coauthors, focused on understanding material and symbolic legacies (i.e., possessions, stories, and rituals), received from and passed on by older Armenian American mothers who experienced genocide as part of their cultural biography. Our work was informed by complementary theoretical perspectives. Feminist standpoint theory (see Hartsook, 1983, 1997; Smith, 1987), influenced by Marxist historical materialism, underscores how knowledge and worldviews of racial and ethnic groups emerge from their location within hierarchical power structures; that is, positions occupied in society provide advantages as well as restrictions (Harding, 1997). Feminist-standpoint theorists emphasize that women have privileged vantage points to understand patriarchal institutions and ideologies. A standpoint theoretical lens has relevance for examining ethnic experiences. For Armenian Americans, the common history of genocide transcends individual lives. Their subsequent forced immigration circumscribed cultural practices, which often were silenced in new homelands. Furthermore, the Armenian Genocide has yet to be officially acknowledged by the Turkish government, which was responsible for the atrocities (Totten, 2005). Subordinated within a dominant milieu, ethnic groups such as Armenian Americans may find strength within their collective voice, shared history, and social location (Collins, 1997). Today, that strength is reflected in Armenian Americans’ seeking to have their tragedies recognized. Although all Armenian Americans were disempowered through genocide and relocation, the distinct experience of women underscores how ethnic group members may interpret similar experiences in different ways. Prior to the Genocide, Armenian women had active familial roles, yet held little power outside of families (Bakalian, 1993). Power and authority centered on men, with an emphasis on collective leadership to ensure safety, cooperation, and family welfare (see Bakalian, 1993). After the Genocide, women, Downloaded from http://jfi.sagepub.com at Alicante Universidad on March 29, 2007 © 2007 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

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who frequently outsurvived men, were under great strain to maintain family solidarity. A focus on women offers a vantage point for understanding how long-standing inequalities grounded in intersecting oppressions of ethnicity, gender, and class (Collins, 1990, 1997) may encourage group solidarity via intergenerational transmissions, that is, sharing of family possessions and stories as well as values, norms, and roles. Feeling responsible for both family survival and ethnic identity may have influenced women regarding what, when, and with whom to share. With its emphasis on temporal themes, the life-course perspective also provides a foundation for understanding family legacies (Elder, 1994). It highlights individual change and normative expectations that occur across the life span and calls attention to the linked lives of family members who interact within shifting social and cultural contexts (Bengtson & Allen, 1993). Experiences across the life course influence both the motivation for and outcomes of generative acts (Erikson, 1950). Thus, efforts to understand behaviors and expectations must acknowledge the multiple influences of individual developmental change, family interactions and transitions over time, and the broader sociohistorical context that transforms as families extend across generations. The life-course perspective directs attention to the common historical experience of the Armenian Genocide undergirding how Armenian American women adapted, resisted, and/or shaped transmissions in the years that followed.

Intergenerational Transmissions: Gender, Power, and Genocide Intergenerational transmissions, both material and symbolic, such as family stories, cherished possessions, and rituals, communicate family history, educate succeeding generations about family culture, and shape individual and family identities (Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton, 1981; Pratt & Fiese, 2004). Even when grounded in common experiences such as war or abuse, the substance of these transmissions may be specific to a particular family. As feminist researchers, we chose to move women’s experiences to the forefront: “What a culture remembers and what it chooses to forget are intricately bound up with issues of power and hegemony, and thus with gender” (Hirsch & Smith, 2002, p. 6). For instance, as food memories in the stories and rituals of Middle Eastern exiles evolved from gendered historical experiences (Bardenstein, 2002), so did those of Armenian Americans (Bakalian, 1993).

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Family stories, a generative form of intergenerational transmission (Kotre, 1984), communicate family history, information about intergenerational relationships, and family meanings (Fiese & Pratt, 2004). They express family identity, underscore family culture, and encourage family cohesion (McAdams, 2004; Pratt & Fiese, 2004). Women seem to ascribe a meaning system to stories (Fivush, Bohanek, Robertson, & Duke, 2004) and relate them more often to daughters than to sons. Women use family stories to maintain connections in their roles as mothers and grandmothers (Fiese & Pratt, 2004). Similarly, possessions suggest family history or continuity and connection to previous generations (Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton, 1981). Women emphasize possessions with clear linkages to family and pass them on within traditional paradigms of gender and culture. For example, valued possessions, such as cooking implements and textiles, mirror gendered patterns of family work (Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton). Witness how Krieger (1996) described the inheritance of her family’s silver: From these conversations with my mother, I learned that, more than for its use in eating, and more than because of its value as a precious metal, family silver is a big deal because it provides lessons in cleaning, sibling rivalry, childrearing, and proper behavior. It links the generations and makes people come home to claim it. (p. 69)

The symbolic inheritance of nonmonetary items that represent past generations allows women to counteract their exclusion from the benefits of financial resources (Rosenfeld, 1974). This “symbolic estate” is preserved and passed on to others through women’s work (Gillis, 1997). Family rituals “shape and express family relationships, articulate the boundaries of who is in and who is out, heal losses, reconcile conflicts, manifest identity, give voice to deeply held beliefs, and celebrate” (ImberBlack, 2002, p. 445). Through family rituals, ethnic groups express a collective identity grounded in history and culture (Fiese et al., 2002). As kinkeepers, women ensure that family rituals are maintained. Women engage in family care, organize gatherings, develop and maintain kin ties, and remember and record family histories (di Leonardo, 1987; Rosenthal, 1985). Women may use kinkeeping to exercise power within their own and in other households (di Leonardo, 1987), reflecting both their roles as mothers (Rosenthal, 1985) and their potential need to depend on others in times of economic vulnerability (Rossi & Rossi, 1990). Intergenerational transmissions may be particularly salient in the context of genocide (Kay, 1998). Following exile and in new cultural contexts,

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legacies become a means for subsequent generations to experience symbolic ethnicity; that is, voluntary ethnic affiliation that assimilated family members pursue intentionally (Bakalian, 1993). As a consequence of genocide, Armenian Americans have few material connections. Instead, family stories reflecting themes of unity, strength, and endurance preserve and enhance ethnic memory (Chaitin, 2002). Not all family members, though, are able to revisit their past (Kay, 1998). Through a “conspiracy of silence,” perhaps to ensure a more hopeful future (Bar-on et al., 1998; Kay, 1998), some individuals become “intergenerational buffers,” preventing painful legacies from reaching future generations (Kotre & Kotre, 1998). Gender may play a role in such circumstances. In the aftermath of ethnic violence in Bosnia, for instance, women emphasized remembering past events rather than seeking strategies to forget them as men did (Jenkins, 1997). Evidence regarding gendered patterns of intergenerational transmissions, combined with my personal experiences of family legacies shaped by sociohistorical contexts, provided the impetus for this study. The Armenian Genocide is a critical and painful example of divergent social locations of ethnic groups in regard to power. I sought to understand how the experience of genocide threatens family and cultural survival, shapes subsequent efforts to maintain family continuity, and influences intergenerational transmissions that women receive and plan to pass on to others. Using feminist standpoint theory and the life-course framework, the research questions that guided this exploratory study included (a) How do older Armenian American mothers transmit family meanings, ethnic history, and ethnic identities to family members? and (b) to what extent does the Armenian Genocide influence older Armenian American mothers’ activities regarding these transmissions?

Method Our analysis was primarily inductive, in that themes emerged from the data, but also deductive, informed by the theoretical perspectives, related literature, and experiences of the researchers (Berg, 2001; Miles & Huberman, 1994). We conceptualized participants as active partners interacting and developing connections with the first author (Cook & Fonow, 1986).

Sample Determining the sample involved (a) access to and entry into a population of interest; (b) the availability of certain people, organizations, and

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structures; and (c) potential to build rapport with participants. Women in this sample were recruited from the San Francisco Bay Area, which was both familiar to me (the first author) and included a defined Armenian American community. Because of the cohesiveness and thick boundaries of the Armenian American community in California, purposive sampling methods were implemented (Berg, 2001). Armenian American informants were identified who had ongoing connection to other Armenian American women in the area. I targeted Armenian churches and community events for recruiting older women because churches are typically the center of activity for Armenian communities (Bakalian, 1993). Over the course of one month, I participated in activities including church services, an all-day cooking function, dinner preparation for a church fundraiser, and a large athletic event. Participants invited into the study were (a) older Armenian American women with living adult children, (b) members of the oldest living generation in their families, (c) within two generations of immigration to the United States, and (d) able to speak English. The sample totaled 30 selfidentified Armenian American women. The sample size allowed for saturation, whereby the same themes were repeated, with no new themes emerging among participants (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Women were between 59 and 91 years old with an average age of 76. Most (n = 18) were married. Unmarried women were either widowed (n = 8) or divorced (n = 4). All participants had adult children and 26 were grandmothers. Nineteen women were born in the United States. Of the remaining 11 women, 3 were first generation immigrants born in Turkey, and 8 were born in other countries. In all, 27 women were within one generation of immigration to the United States. All women had parents who were forced to leave their homelands.

Data Collection Interviews took place in participants’ homes and lasted 1.5 to 3.5 hr. Participants were asked to complete a demographic profile, followed by a semistructured interview. They were first asked to describe their family’s history, which lasted between 20 and 90 min. Next, women were asked about valued possessions and symbolic objects both received from and intended for succeeding generations. Questions also focused on other types of legacies, including those that may be considered painful or negative, and the ways in which Armenian culture is shared across generations. In appreciation for their participation, small donations were made on behalf of each woman to The Armenian Tree Project, an organization that helps support

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economic activities in Armenia. As part of this donation, each woman had a tree planted in her honor.

Research Reflexivity I anticipated tension between me, the researcher, and the Armenian American women participants. Historically anchored to the loss of family members and homeland, Armenian Americans preserve the culture by discouraging intermarriage and advocating language acquisition among younger generations. I am the product of an intermarriage, I have married a nonArmenian, and I speak little Armenian. At the same time, I wondered if my Armenian heritage and name would encourage comfort and disclosure. During interviews, my identification as both an insider and outsider was fluid, and my relationship with each participant was negotiated through the interview experience (Naples, 2003). In a few instances, my legitimate membership in the Armenian American ethnic community was questioned. At one church gathering, I overheard older women discussing whether I was an “odar” (non-Armenian) or “Hye” (Armenian). Most were curious about my family history and I was questioned extensively about both my Armenian and my German heritage. Some households contained books devoted to Armenian World War II heroes and athletes. One such book described my uncle’s participation in World War II; another described my involvement in athletics. These books provided credibility for me and fostered trust in many women. A few expressed disappointment that my mother was not Armenian and that my Armenian language skills were limited. Because the interviews were deeply emotional, I processed them verbally and in writing with a trusted listener who was not Armenian but who had knowledge of the culture and community. I also discussed my field experiences with my coauthors. They asked key questions that helped me to understand what I was hearing and to negotiate my relationships with this community of Armenian American women.

Data Analysis Data included participant profiles, interview transcripts, and field notes. I transcribed the interviews and used Winmax, a computerized qualitative analysis software program, to manage the data. Coding followed the strategy suggested by Lofland and Lofland (1995). First, interviews and field notes were transcribed, reviewed repeatedly, and coded into broad themes. Six themes were identified: legacies, gender, family history, vehicles of

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intergenerational transmissions, issues related to genocide, and family characteristics. A more focused coding strategy followed with 32 subcategories developed. Subcodes within the general theme of legacies were used to identify transmissions that occurred across generations, ways in which transmissions exhibited continuity over time, how participants motivated certain types of transmissions, and how and why transmissions were withheld or disrupted. Finally, typologizing, a form of diagramming (Lofland & Lofland, 1995), was used to understand how the nature and representation of genocide experiences, the emphasis on cultural identity, and the outcomes of future transmissions were linked. The intersecting influences of gender, ethnicity, age, immigration status, class, and religion also emerged during this phase of analysis. Because of my ethnicity and our sense of responsibility to the women, we worked to ensure rigor in this study. Treating participants with respect was critical. We did not use multiple raters to code the transcripts (see Morse, 1998) primarily because I conducted the interviews and had intimate cultural knowledge. The other researchers, however, were actively involved in the analytic process. After the analysis was completed, the data were shared in a large public forum with Armenian Americans to affirm their accuracy and validity (Morse).

Results The women in this study were family bridges, receiving legacies from previous generations and passing them on to their children and grandchildren. In our findings, we first acknowledge the overarching influence of the Armenian Genocide on participant family experiences and generational continuity. Second, we identify the intergenerational transmissions of stories, rituals/activities, and possessions that women received from and hoped to pass on to their families, symbolic or material, intended or not. Finally, we highlight the intergenerational patterns and tensions that emerged for women as they attempted to pass on certain legacies within a changing sociohistorical context and in the shadow of genocide.

“It’s a Wonder That She Survived”: Families Shaped by Genocide The Armenian Genocide as a shared ethnic event influenced all forms of intergenerational transmissions. Genocide experiences were shaped into family stories that were passed to succeeding generations. The meanings of

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these stories differed, however, depending on whether family members were killed, whether and with whom these stories were shared, and the methods by which family members learned the stories. Although interview questions did not specifically focus on genocide and family loss, most women described these experiences at the beginning of their interviews. In all, 24 of 30 women reported the loss of family members in the Genocide. They shared stories of women’s trauma and survival punctuated by painful emotion. For instance, Eva described her mother’s forced march into the desert: Before she was married during the 1890s, she went through that Turkish Genocide in Adana. They were killing, burning, and killing. She survived that. There was another rage. And then around 1915, after she was married, her husband was taken. And with a child, she was in the desert. . . . She was on the march, day and night, through rain, through the mud, living in tents. It’s a wonder that she survived.

Hasmik outlined her mother’s survival as an orphan and her subsequent forced participation on a desert march: My mother lost all of her family. Mother didn’t have one person, not one person! She was all by herself with some older ladies. They had a march. I don’t know where from or to but mother was the only one in the family left.

Hasmik continued, mourning the loss of women in her family, “I don’t know no one. No grandmothers, no aunts, no one! We didn’t have any survivors that were women during the massacre, only my mother.” The Armenian Genocide as the overarching cultural narrative. The retelling of genocide experiences became a critical legacy that defined family and ethnic group beliefs and identity (Fiese & Pratt, 2004), provided cultural and family cohesiveness (Pratt & Fiese, 2004), and celebrated survival and ethnic resilience (McAdams, 2004). Not all women were knowledgeable about specific genocide experiences. Of the 24 women who lost family members during the Genocide, only 10 reported hearing detailed descriptions from parents and grandmothers. Some parents shared stories frequently, using them as a way to memorialize lost family members and to create a cultural awareness of suffering among Armenians. Other parents emphasized moral perspectives they wanted children to understand, a pattern seen elsewhere (Fivush et al., 2004; Norris, Kuiack, & Pratt, 2004). Participants appeared to hear stories more from women than from men.

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Like others, Arlene reported that her father was reticent about sharing his experiences during the Genocide. “The only story I knew was from my maternal grandmother’s side.” As Bar-on et al. (1998) noted regarding the Holocaust, family members engage in sensitive negotiation of whether, and how, to share genocide experiences. Nine women reported that parents were silent, typically explaining, “They just didn’t want us to know what they went through.” A few women believed their parents were silent because of a conscious choice to focus on life in new countries. As explained by Lois, “We all have our Holocaust, you know. And I know my parents would say . . . they thought it was not germane for living right now.” Another reason for the silence was the loss of grandparents during the Genocide (Norris et al., 2004). Women who reported having and living in close proximity to grandparents, particularly grandmothers, were more likely to hear genocide stories. Sofia, who was cared for by her grandmother while her mother worked, heard stories frequently, leaving her “haunted” since childhood. If not told directly, the women learned parents’ stories in other ways. Four women recalled the nighttime terrors experienced by their mothers. Eva shared this memory: You know what she did when I was really young? I guess, I had to have been seven or eight to know. My mother would wake up with like a nightmare and shock-like. . . . I would hear, she would wake up in the middle of the night, like screaming.

Three women described the physical reminders of the Genocide, such as the scars on a mother’s back or a father’s legs. Others learned parents’ stories during social events. Rose explained: Now when we were growing up that’s all the folks would talk about. They would all, had just recently come to that area, and the trials and tribulations. You know that’s all they would talk about. Where did you end up? How did you get here? Which town are you from? Which orphanage did you end up with? Which roads did you take? You know, they went through a lot and we grew up listening to that . . . we would overhear it mostly.

Six women, who reported no family experiences of loss, grew up in close proximity to other Armenian Americans, and, as is typical (Collins, 1997), they heard about collective ethnic experiences of genocide from family friends. Those who lived in more isolated families were less likely to hear these messages.

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As Wang (2004) discovered, if women heard stories directly as children, they were able to recount more details about relatives and family circumstances in the “Old Country.” They portrayed both a broad and an intimate understanding of the Genocide and about their family experiences. Women who were not told stories of the Genocide had other losses. When stories were not shared, grandparents were not usually discussed and family memories were not mentioned. Because women emphasize legacies with strong family ties (Dittmar, 1992) and invest energy in kin connections (Rosenthal, 1985), participants frequently expressed their sadness and frustration regarding the lack of knowledge they received from parents. As Madeline noted, “To my dying day, I am very sorry that I didn’t push harder.” The Genocide shattered the ability of most family members to pass cherished possessions to subsequent generations. Of the 30 women, 21 identified one to three valued items passed down in families. Only 2 women identified more than three items, and 7 women could not identify any valued possession, another casualty of genocide. Items that were identified typically had little monetary value. When asked to explain their lack of valued possessions, most women replied as Sofia did: Well, my parents were not able to bring anything to this country. They came with the clothes on their back, so there’s nothing of physical attachment to the Old Country. What they brought was their spirit. But as far as an object, no. There’s nothing I can pass on.

Relocation influenced the type and number of items brought to new homes. Seda explained that her most valued family possession was simply too heavy: “We had a Bible. It was a very big Bible. We couldn’t bring it. We gave it to a church.” As is typical, the few possessions identified were cherished for their symbolic connections to family members, usually parents (Dittmar, 1992). For instance, one woman valued liquor glasses used when entertaining Armenian friends. These glasses were a reminder of her mother and her mother’s family work in an Armenian household. Similarly, Lily identified one of her few cherished possessions as a remnant from a “little piece of a shawl” that her grandmother had made prior to the Genocide.

Intergenerational Transmissions: Stories, Rituals, and Possessions The family and cultural experience of the genocide shaped the legacies women wanted to share with their families. Twenty-six women expressed

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the importance of keeping future generations strongly connected to their Armenian roots. Ellen described her responsibilities as a woman to pass on legacies by stating, “We always call Armenia our motherland. We don’t say fatherland!” She noted this motivated her in “carrying out certain things that were important.” Women’s responsibility to share legacies with others. Women underscored their personal responsibility as ethnic mothers to pass on stories as cultural legacies, highlighting certain family members and family solidarity, suggesting the strong affiliative themes prevalent in the stories that women tell compared to men (Fivush et al., 2004). Women wanted to convey both the magnitude of family members’ suffering and their resilience. Most women wanted family members to understand that their relatives persevered and “did not give up.” Stories such as these, epochal in nature, appear to encourage family well-being and hope for the future (McAdams, 2004). Sonia said, “I don’t want them to forget the Genocide. I want them to know the history of each parent and each grandparent.” Another woman, Sofia, explained: I want them to remember that they have a heritage. A true heritage of people who were strong, who were sometimes beaten down but survived. They were survivors. And that, if they could survive under the conditions under which they had to live in amongst the Turks and other people who came through Armenia, marauding hordes of people and subjugating them. If the Armenians could survive all that, they can survive! So that’s, I hope, they get that sense.

Genocide stories also demonstrated how mothers were critical agents in their attempts to ensure the survival of Armenians as an ethnic population. Hasmik stressed she had inherited from her parents a thorough understanding of the sacrifices and struggles that Armenians had endured, and she hoped that her family members would know this as well. She emphasized, “We are Armenian! We will fight for our heritage, we will fight to help everybody. We will survive!” Women felt their Armenian voices should serve as public reminders of the horrors of genocide. Women’s work promoting intergenerational transmissions. As expected, family rituals represented another form of intergenerational transmission. Women recognized rituals as a means to experience family connections and ties to Armenian culture. Nearly all the women described family gatherings, religious participation, cooking, and service to others, suggesting the importance of mothers’ and grandmothers’ family labor in nurturing ethnic identity and cross-generation family connections (Treas & Mazumdar,

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2004). Twenty-six women grew up in ethnic communities in which Armenians sought out opportunities to socialize. At these gatherings, Armenian women and men felt comfortable with others who spoke a common language, enjoyed the same cuisine and music, and survived to make a new Armenian life together in an adopted country. Eva described these gatherings: “Always . . . food and tradition and uncles and aunts were always around and talking and loving. Everybody, was you know, we would call everybody Auntie, even though they weren’t related.” Women emphasized getting their own children involved in Armenianfocused activities when they were young. As Louise pointed out, “If anything Armenian came along that we knew about, I made sure that they were aware of it and involved in it.” Anoush emphasized that “you want to push Armenian language and Armenian heritage and all that stuff because of that [the Genocide].” In general, the women facilitated a variety of activities as opportunities for children to stay connected to their culture, a common emphasis among ethnic mothers (Collins, 1994). Jasmine felt that one of her own legacies was the family gatherings she now regularly organized: I really noticed this in the Armenian families and I thought we overdid it, but I mean, it’s surprising how the family unit is no longer what it used to be even in America . . . so that is one thing I try to keep going. I mean it’s such an ingrown thing to us. I don’t even think of it as doing anything special because that’s the way we Armenians live, that’s our life to be together.

Early Christian roots are a source of ethnic pride for Armenians. Many women described church as a critical part of childhood and an important family legacy. Churches preserved religious traditions, perpetuated cultural practices, and encouraged connection to other Armenians. Women highlighted attending Sunday school, going as a family to church, and participating in social hours. They noted their parents’ strong Christian beliefs and the importance of their faith as a bond that connected the generations. Ellen related, “They talked about their Christian experience, their belief in God helping them through all their, you know, hard times. So I got that.” Reflecting the patriarchal imperative of mothers as moral guardians (Ruddick, 1989), Ana said that the most important factor was when “the mother is with God and raises them [the children] up [within the faith].” Interestingly, two women described parents who were not “believers” themselves but who encouraged their children to attend church. Both women felt that these parents were unable to believe because of their genocide experiences, yet they valued the church for its connections to other

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Armenians. Not surprisingly, the six women who attended non-Armenian churches as youth (because of availability or family preference) appeared the least identified with their ethnicity. Immigrant children who live in multiethnic neighborhoods, attend nonethnic churches, and value activities of the dominant culture are likely to discard rituals and activities that were specific to their parents (Pleck, 2000). Almost every woman talked about cooking. The work of feeding families is “transmitted through activities that link women across generations” (DeVault, 1991, p. 106). Women valued both preparing and eating Armenian food. Taught to cook by grandmothers and mothers, they recalled messages about gender and identity. Anahit remembered these times with her grandmother: I used to hang around grandmother when she was cooking. I was watching her and helping her in making dolma. And she finishes it [no filling left over]. All my life when I am making dolma, nothing was left behind as if I had measured. Every squash, she had filled it. Every leaf and then it is all finished. It is as if I had measured. And believe it or not, I never forgot that! Now when I make it, I think of Grandma, about what she used to say all the time, all her interesting stories.

Most Armenian children know their families were helped by others (Miller & Miller, 1992). Because of this interdependence, the emphasis on serving others emerged frequently in interviews. Women noted the importance of assisting others as modeled by parents, particularly mothers. Jacqueline shared the most valued legacy she received: The fact that my family stretched out to people, like at church, bringing home visitors that came to church and didn’t have a relative. My mother would bring them home for dinner. My mother brought all of them home.

Because the Genocide threatened family survival, kinkeeping was both a family need and a cultural necessity. Anoush, one of 19 women who specifically identified kinkeeping tasks, said, I do feel a responsibility of keeping the families together. Like I make sure that everybody knows where the center is. They have to come here for certain occasions and yes, absolutely, even if there is a problem in the family, I try to solve it to make sure that the family stays together.

Sonia also explained how important it was for her to encourage her children to go to church, to congregate for birthdays and holidays, and to

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keep family members, regardless of ethnicity, involved in Armenian-focused activities. We have a lot of spouses that are American. When we get together, there is that Armenian feeling. You know, they realize that this is an Armenian family, there’s no pressure. But you know, you feel it. From the food, from the way we talk, and everything else . . . now that our parents are gone, we’re still doing it.

Partly because of the lack of material legacies, women worked hard to establish a permanent Armenian presence in communities. For example, Azniv strived to ensure that Armenian churches were established and available to family members, and Diane, whose family helped found a church, recognized it as one of her most valued legacies: When they first were starting a church here about 30 years ago, I got a little bit involved. My husband didn’t get too involved. So I started going back and forth and they bought property where it is now. It was a house. So when they fixed the house . . . we were there for a quite a few years. And so I got involved there. And then my husband was involved with it, too. So then we started building the church.

Other women described monuments and statues memorializing Armenian family members in churches, cemeteries, or cultural centers. A few noted their sponsorship of new Armenian immigrants to the United States. Seen as an extension of their role as mothers, 6 women taught Armenian language lessons to children and adults. Some were instrumental in establishing Armenian language schools for children. Preparing Armenian food at churches was a way to raise money to aid churches and 26 of the 30 women engaged in these efforts. As expected, women with more financial resources were likely to describe how they gave money to support Armenian communities. Women with fewer financial resources gave to Armenian communities and churches largely through donations of personal time.

Emerging Tensions in Passing on Legacies Women demonstrated their position in the intergenerational process of transmission between Old World and New World family experiences. Where they were situated in the life course—growing older, having grandchildren, and feeling responsible for facilitating family connections— compelled them to think about legacies now more than they had in the past.

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Their personal and Armenian cultural emphasis on motherhood motivated their focus on legacies and generativity toward future generations. Ellen explained: Well now I’m the matriarch of the family. That’s how I looked at it. And I guess that makes it, at least for me, who happens to be the responsible type, that you know, I have to carry out certain things here that are important to me.

As Rosenthal (1985) has noted, the type, recipient, and process of intergenerational transmission is shaped by gender. Although these Armenian women passed legacies on to both adult children and grandchildren, as their mothers had done for them, women designated daughters to take on the role of kinkeeper. Anoush described why she chose to share family heirlooms with her daughter: I think I will feel closer to my daughter because she is my daughter and it is not somebody else’s daughter coming into the family. I have this closeness. She is close to her dad and she is close to me. Our son is very close to us too but not like our daughter.

Similarly, Madeline noted that she would give her most precious heirlooms to her daughter rather than to her son, because “I think they have more meaning to my daughter than to my son.” In many cases, mothers expected their daughters and granddaughters to value legacies more than their sons or grandsons. Without future generations of women or when daughters-in-law were not Armenian, some women felt that certain legacies would remain unshared. Women tend to share legacies centered on household labor (Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton, 1981). Skills that participants learned from their mothers and grandmothers were delineated as important to pass on to kin. Jasmine emphasized this with her granddaughter: I am trying to be for her a really good role model, “Good Gran,” the real old country grandmother type that should be like when she comes over, I teach her how we make pilaf and sarma and I teach her to cook. When she was young, we’d start baking at a very young age. So then, that gradually led up to other dishes and things that she likes to do. So we cook together and I show her how to clean things or mend things or knit things. You know that type of stuff.

They sentimentalized the time spent learning these skills from mothers, grandmothers, and aunts—experiences they wanted to recreate with their

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own grandchildren. Some women, however, expressed tension when describing their responsibilities for cultural and family legacies. They felt hurt that daughters and granddaughters did not value these activities. Others wished “if I only had a daughter” to whom they could teach needlework and cooking. Lack of time and changing roles for women also were implicated as reasons that adult children and grandchildren were unable to receive legacies, although some women hinted that these excuses might have masked a lack of appreciation for them. These descriptions also illustrated intergenerational changes in work patterns and in family leisure time. One of the oldest women in the sample, Alice, felt a great sense of loss that she could not pass her cooking expertise on to her family members: “They all say that they want me to teach them how to make the grape leaves but somehow or another, they haven’t had the time.” Assimilation and intermarriage also determine whether and how legacies are passed on (Alba, 1990). Because the majority of women were not raised in the Armenian homeland, their ability to pass on legacies was shaped by their own assimilation. Women identified as Armenian, but they also were influenced by the dominant cultures they encountered in the diaspora. Ellen was influenced by her parents’ values in this regard: I always remember my father, who was not born here, but who always told me you should create your environment so that you mix easily in the larger community and your own ethnic community. And you freely go back and forth. You are not jarred going from one to the other. And that’s how it’s been for me.

Other women commented on how, in opposition to parental wishes, they tried to assimilate in hopes of fitting in with the dominant culture. Louise stressed her periodic resentment of her mother’s strong ethnic identity and the subsequent tension she felt between American and Armenian cultures: “Even though I resented [my mother] for some things, I guess. I don’t know. You got those damn mixed feelings!” Many women felt that their ability to speak the language and to replicate certain cultural activities was limited, which compounded their difficulties. Diane shared how she attempted to start a family tradition of speaking Armenian during dinner. Because of family pressure, she soon abandoned this plan. “He’d [her husband] kind of made fun of the way I talked, and of course, our younger son, he always made fun of everything. He was just a type of kid that you know, laughed at things. I gave it up.” Women also expressed how they missed parents and grandparents who could more completely share their

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legacies with future generations. Carol talked of her mother’s death and how her presence would have made a difference: “I sometimes felt that I could offer them more and also, it would have helped if my mother was alive . . . because I am too Americanized and so it kind of washed out.” Women born in the United States were apt to be reconciled to the fact that their children were more American than Armenian. They acknowledged that, ultimately, their adult children and grandchildren would choose whether to accept family and cultural legacies. In some cases, they felt their efforts would have little meaning to future generations. Children’s intermarriage was seen as a particular impediment. Although most of the women self-identified strongly with the Armenian culture, the children of only 5 of the 30 women married only Armenians. More prevalent were reports of all children marrying non-Armenians (n = 15), or, within the same family, some children marrying Armenians and some marrying nonArmenians (n = 10). When children married non-Armenians, ethnic family legacies were in jeopardy. One woman felt disinclined to share ethnically linked legacies: “I can’t pass these on to my daughters-in-law because they are all odars [non-Armenians], you see.” For some, intermarriages presented another way that their attempts to pass on ethnic legacies were thwarted.

Discussion and Conclusion Guided by our theoretical framework, we observed how gender and a shared ethnic history influence family legacies across generations. Underscoring the lack of power experienced by Armenians as an ethnic group and the family losses they experienced, the Armenian Genocide heightened commitment among these older ethnic mothers to maintain family cohesion and ethnic identity for future generations (Collins, 1994, 1997) and continues to influence families across time (Bakalian, 1993; Totten, 2005). In addition to the pain and trauma experienced in families during the Armenian Genocide, these women have been required to overcome the silence that occurs when family members are lost, when authorities do not acknowledge genocide atrocities, and when parents and other kin are unable to share their personal experiences. Keeping family members close is crucial to these women. Whereas many women within dominant cultures undertake kinkeeping responsibilities, these Armenian women, gently motivated by age but sharply propelled by their ethnic family experiences, worked hard to create legacies that were enduring.

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Their efforts were fueled by love for their families, responsibility to parents’ memories, and commitment to ethnic survival. Within the patriarchal context of culture and families, women were expected to preserve, create, and pass on legacies. Should they forgo such activities, they risked family and cultural disapproval and denial of their own sense of duty and commitment to their ethnic identities. Nevertheless, a small group of women rejected or felt unable to perform these responsibilities, defining themselves primarily as Americans rather than Armenians. Expressing regret and guilt, these women also indicated some relief in not having to preserve a culture with such a painful heritage. Their ethnic ambivalence may have limited their ability to share legacies but also freed them to define legacies for themselves. Indicative of their life-course location, these women expressed concern for future generations, wanting to be remembered as caring mothers who emphasized the importance of Armenian family life (Bakalian, 1993). Clearly, they valued their cultural heritage and felt responsible for sharing their family legacies with others. At times, however, they were uncertain as to how to negotiate their efforts within a changing sociohistorical context. These women were aware of the passage of time and the increasing distance from the Genocide and their ethnic roots—a distance magnified by their own and their children’s assimilation into the dominant culture. These changes were accentuated by the loss of storytellers, the destruction of cherished family possessions, and the pain that prevented many family members from sharing survival experiences. Interviews provided opportunities for women to share their legacies with a fictive ethnic “daughter” and also encouraged my own cultural awareness. As Cook and Fonow (1986) suggested, we were active partners throughout the research process. The family experiences I heard compel me to interact with, write about, and become more active in Armenian circles, an outcome feminist researchers would support. Although painful to hear, the stories of genocide and family legacies had a surprising outcome for me. I felt accepted and culturally acknowledged within a community of women who, in the past, perhaps because of the early death of my own Armenian grandmother, had felt distant and judgmental. This connection helped me to break my silence and to counteract my feelings of invisibility as a second generation Armenian American woman, resulting in my resolve to share my Armenian legacies with my daughter and my son. By recording these women’s experiences, listening to their words, and discovering themes in their stories, I am linked with them, forever, through our collective ethnic legacies.

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