Writer with Armenian roots creates home in Detroit

March 31, 2017 By administrator

An oil painting of a snow-capped mountain hangs in the middle of the wall in Liana Aghajanian’s living room, just one of many pieces that connects the writer to her Armenian roots.

The mountain, Mount Ararat, is in Turkey but for Armenians, it is an essential component to a long and complicated history.

“That’s a common picture you’d find in an Armenian home,” says Aghajanian, 31, a freelance journalist.

No wonder why it figures so prominently in Aghajanian’s decor. Born in Tehran but raised in Los Angeles, the Armenian writer now calls Detroit home after arriving here in one of the most unusual ways: She won a house through a program called Write A House, a writing-residency that gives homes in Detroit to low-income writers.

Aghajanian beat out roughly 220 writers in 2015 to win her small one-bedroom, one-bath bungalow in what’s known as Detroit’s Banglatown neighborhood (named after its large Bangladeshi community) near Hamtramck. After two years in the house, the deed will be officially transferred to her.

Write A House, a nonprofit started in 2013 to help rebuild Detroit while also boosting the arts and teaching job skills, recently awarded its third house to writer Anne Elizabeth Moore and plans to give a fourth to Detroit poet Nandi Comer (see box for details) when her house in the city’s North End is finished. Each house has been bought and renovated through more than $200,000 donations.

Since arriving in Detroit in February of 2016, Aghajanian has been busy on a range of fronts: writing, exploring Detroit and turning her 1,100-square-foot house into a home. Near the oil painting in the living room is a picture of a famous Armenian wrestler, a Soviet propaganda poster and a custom painting from Armenia of one of Metro Detroit’s most famous, if not notorious, Armenians: Dr. Jack Kevorkian.

“He’s Detroit and with my background, it was the perfect combination,” says Aghajanian, whose home also will be featured in a new book “Detroit: The Dream is Now” (Abrams, $40) about unique homes and businesses in the city due out April 11.

When Aghajanian applied for Write A House, she’d never been to Detroit. Still, she was intrigued by the city.

“I had read things and I knew instinctively that there was more to it than I was reading about,” says Aghajanian, who has traveled all over the world for writing assignments. “In my mind I always thought, ‘I really need to go to Detroit, I really want to go to Detroit to see what’s going on there.’ I don’t think I would’ve applied had it been in another city maybe.”

Her fun, eclectic decor — which includes everything from old beaded coasters to the poster of the wrestler — reflects years of sifting through her favorite flea markets.

“I’ve lived overseas, I had an apartment in L.A., (but) this is the first time I’ve had this many possessions and the ability to do this stuff,” says Aghajanian. “It’s great. (In the past) I’d buy something at a flea market and not have a place to put it. It’d be in storage.”

Aghajanian says the decision to weave her Armenian ancestry throughout her decor is, in its own way, a way of exploring that past, including the Armenian genocide a century ago.

For decades, Armenians were displaced and “because of all that displacement, there’s so much in our history that we just don’t know,” Aghajanian says. “It was a physical genocide but in a lot of ways it was cultural, too. That’s why you see a lot of things in here that have to do with it because my process has been to find my way back to that or explore that because I don’t know enough.”

Still, the decor isn’t heavy. The small house was completely gutted and a wall was torn down between the living room and kitchen to make it more open. Unique lights selected by Detroit interior designer Patrick Thompson, who served as a consultant on the project, light up the entire space.

Aghajanian works at a large IKEA desk just beyond her living room that looks into her kitchen. Nearby, on a set of nesting coffee tables, also from IKEA, sit three ceramic cacti, which pay homage to her California roots.

“Growing up in southern California, the environment is different and you don’t realize how much that impacts you until you leave,” says Aghajanian. “I’ve been craving going to the desert so I’m hoping I can incorporate some of that” in the decor.

Throughout the house are fun, whimsical accents: A Soviet-era taxi sign, a paper sun lantern from Berlin and a textile with a map of Detroit from Belle Isle. The house came with some furniture when she arrived, but it wasn’t really Aghajanian’s style.

“I honestly didn’t know what look I was going for until I got here,” she says. “I collected things as I went along. It wasn’t immediate. It was every weekend or whenever I got a chance. It’s only felt this complete recently. It’s been a yearlong process of doing it slowly.”

Outside, she fenced her backyard and hopes to do some gardening this year when the weather warms up.

“I’ve never had that chance to garden,” she says.

Finding her place in Detroit, meanwhile, is an ongoing process. She’s found some Detroit landmarks she loves, including Sister Pie and Eastern Market.

When she moved to the city last winter, Aghajanian admits it was an adjustment. From seeing Detroit’s abandoned buildings to experiencing the terrain — so different from California — she says in some ways the city reminded her of places she’s covered during her career, places “in transition.”

“It’s a very complicated city. Detroit is like the story of America in so many ways in one city,” she says. “As a writer, it’s the perfect place because there are so many stories. There is always something new to discover.”

mfeighan@detroitnews.com

(313) 223-4686

Twitter: @mfeighan

Write A House

When it launched in 2013, Write A House’s unique mission — creating a writing residency that awarded free houses to low-income writers willing to relocate to Detroit — sparked media attention across the globe. Hundreds of applications poured in.

Since then, the nonprofit has raised more than $200,000. It’s bought five homes – two from the Wayne County foreclosure auction and three from Detroit Land Bank Authority – and awarded three to writers. It’s now fundraising to restore its fourth house which will be given to a local writer, Detroit poet Nandi Comer.

Director Sarah Cox, co-founder along with advertising executive Toby Barlow, says the core mission of Write A Mission has always been three-pronged: to support writers, community development and job creation.

“I think that matters,” Cox says. “To really have an artists’ community, you can’t just give writers money and say, ‘Go make art.’ You can, but if you want community development, you need a community to revitalize and to come back. And for that to happen, you need jobs, and you need houses, and you need the arts.”

But Write A House continues to evolve. In September, the nonprofit’s board announced that starting with its 2017 application cycle, which hasn’t started yet, it would still give houses to writers to live in rent-free, but they would no longer transfer the deed at the end of the two-year residency.

Cox says the narrative that no one wants to live in Detroit has changed in the last five years.

Now, “we’re fighting a narrative of real estate speculation, house flipping, gentrification, and fear that artists may be priced out,” wrote Cox in her email.

“We want people to stay and be invested,” said Cox in a phone interview this week.

Starting with the next winner, “once a writer decides to leave or passes away, we will fill it with a new writer and Write A House will not give up ownership of the home,” said Cox in an email to Write A House supporters.

Detroit ARS Hosts ‘Walk Armenia’

July 8, 2015 By administrator

The walkers carried banners that read, ‘ARS Walk Armenia’ and ‘100th Anniversary of the Genocide,

The Detroit Armenian Relief Society (ARS) Mid Council, with five ARS sister chapters “Maro,” “Shakeh,” “Sybille,” “Tzolig,” and “Zabel,” organized “Walk Armenia” on June 7.

The walk took place on 13 Mile and Woodward, Royal Oak, beginning at 2 p.m., and ending at 5 p.m. It started with a blessing by clergymen and the singing of the Armenian anthem. At the end, sandwiches, drinks, and snacks were distributed to the walkers.

More than 200 children, teenagers, and adults walked under a clear sky, brought together for one mission: to walk for help. The walkers carried banners that read, “ARS Walk Armenia” and “100th Anniversary of the Genocide,” and distributed flyers about the mission of the ARS, St. Jude’s Children Cancer Research Center, and the film “Women of 1915,” drawing great interest from bystanders.

The proceeds from the walk will be donated to the ARS Eastern Region, St. Jude’s Children Cancer Research Center, “Women of 1915,” and to Syrian-Armenian relief efforts.

The ARS Mid Council and Walk Armenia Committee would like to thank the supporters of this walk—the sponsors, the walkers, the pledge donors, and the City of Royal Oak—who made it a very successful event.

Report: The Armenian Weekly

Detroit area Armenians mark 100 years since genocide

March 29, 2015 By administrator

Charles E. Ramirez, The Detroit News

This photo was taken shortly afterward. (Photo: Library of Congress, Library of Congress)

Richard Norsigian (co-chair of the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee of Greater Detroit), stands next to a memorial that contains the remains of a genocide victim at St. John Armenian Church in Southfield. Norsigian’s grandparents were killed in the genocide 100 years ago. (Photo: David Guralnick, The Detroit News)

Southfield — In the small town where Richard Norsigian’s father was born more than a century ago, there were 84 people with the same surname.

But not long afterward, only a handful of those Norsigians remained as the Turkish government began exterminating Armenians or exiling them to other parts of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, he said.

“After the genocide, there were only eight,” Norsigian said. “Fortunately, my father was sent to the United States when he was 16. But his entire family in Armenia was either killed or taken.”

Norsigian is one of the thousands of Metro Detroiters with ties to Armenia who are preparing to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the Armenian genocide in Turkey on April 24.

Experts estimate 1.5 million people died in the genocide, which began April 24, 1915, and continued for eight years.

Armenian community leaders and groups in Metro Detroit have organized events — including discussions with Armenian filmmakers, Armenian classical music concerts and a special church service — to honor those who lost their lives in the holocaust.

“Armenians have been holding memorials for many, many years,” said Ara Sanjian, an associate professor of history and director of the Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. “But because it’s the 100th anniversary, they are on a much grander scale all over the world, including Metro Detroit.”

The only Armenian research center attached to an American university, the center was established to document the Armenian genocide and current Armenian issues.

It’s estimated more than 447,000 people in the United States are of Armenian descent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. More than 17,000 make their home in Michigan and nearly 11,000 live in Metro Detroit, according to the census bureau.

Metro Detroit’s Armenian community is the fourth-largest Armenian population in the U.S., behind those in Los Angeles, New York and Boston. Most of Metro Detroit’s Armenian community is concentrated in Oakland County.

Armenia is a mountainous Eurasian country that shares borders with Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Iran.

From the 1500s to 1800s, the Ottoman and Persian empires took turns conquering and ruling Armenia. By the middle of the 19th century, Russia took Armenia’s eastern half and left the other under Ottoman, or Turkish, rule.

The Turkish campaign against the Armenians started with the arrest and execution of 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in what is now Istanbul.

Able-bodied men were massacred or died in labor camps. Women, children, the elderly and the infirm were sent on death marches through the Syrian desert.

However, the Turkish government has not publicly admitted the genocide occurred.

And despite the passing of a century, the mass killing still resonates with descendants of the victims.

“The fact that 100 years later you still have to explain and prove that what happened to your ancestors was a premeditated crime on a massive scale really incurs a lot of pain for all Armenians,” Sanjian said. “It’s also painful for Armenians that those who used violence have gotten away with it.”

Armenians are optimistic Turkey will take responsibility for the genocide someday, Sanjian said. The attitudes of many individual Turks about it have changed over the past 20 years, he said.

However, a bigger concern is whether or not Armenians will be able to hold on to their identity.

“Our group identity, our unique culture is under threat because of assimilation under the conditions of exile,” he said. “Ultimately, Armenians — outside the Republic of Armenia — consist of small groups that are scattered all around the world.”

In Metro Detroit, a number of Armenian community groups and churches have planned special events to honor the genocide’s victims.

The culmination is a special church service on April 24 at St. Mary’s Antiochian Orthodox Basilica in Livonia.

Clergy from various faiths will participate, including Archbishop Allen Vigneron, head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit.

“It’s a commemoration to the memory of the victims,” said Norsigian, who is co-chair of the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee of Greater Detroit. “It’s also to raise awareness about the genocide.”

Robert Kachadourian, a member of the committee, agreed.

“It’s an awareness that should be promulgated so the Armenian genocide is never forgotten,” he said.

Like Norsigian, Kachadourian’s father survived the genocide, but most of his family was killed. His father wrote about his experience, Kachadourian said.

“He was 12 years old when it happened and he lost 55 members of his family,” said Kachadourian, a media consultant and local TV show host. “After that, he was in servitude — I call it slavery — for nine years before finally escaping and making his way to Dearborn.”

The Armenian genocide also had a profound impact on Hayg Oshagan and his family.

“My grandfather was one of Armenia’s leading writers and he was supposed to be rounded up,” said Oshagan, a Wayne State University professor and a leader in Metro Detroit’s Armenian community. “He escaped because someone, we don’t know who, warned him the day before.”

“All of us have these stories about how our families made their way out of death,” he said. “The events for the anniversary are an affirmation of our survival. Even though we’re spread across the world, we are here and we’ll continue to be here.”

cramirez@detroitnews.com

(313) 222-2058

Memorial events in Metro Detroit

■10:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m. April 13 — “Beautiful Ravage: Aurora Mardiganian’s Odyssey from the Armenian Genocide to Hollywood” at Wayne State University’s Alumni House, 441 Gilmour Hall. The event features a discussion with Armenian-American film director, screenwriter and photojournalist Eric Nazarian, and an Armenian classical music concert by violinist Nuné Melikian. For information, call (248) 761-9215 or email lnercessian@hotmail.com.

■7 p.m. April 18 — “We Remember — We Demand” at Edsel Ford High School, 20601 Rotunda Drive, Dearborn. Speakers at the event are award-winning journalist and writer Robert Fisk and Armenia-American actor, playwright, monologuist and novelist Eric Bogosian.

■7:30 p.m. April 24 — An ecumenical service at St. Mary’s Antiochian Orthodox Basilica, 18100 Merriman, Livonia. Clergy from various faiths will attend and Archbishop Allen Vigneron will be the principal homilist. The event will also feature Armenian church choirs.

Detroit to commemorate 99th anniversary of Armenian Genocide

April 9, 2014 By administrator

April 9, 2014 – 14:46 AMT

As the 99th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey approaches, churches across Metro Detroit are preparing to memorialize those who were lost and those who suffered. Parishioners from four Metro Detroit churches will hold a commemoration ceremony at 7 p.m. April 24 at St. Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church in Dearborn, The Detroit News reported.

The commemoration will capture stories of the hardships, like those in the life of the Genocide survivor Ramela Carman. Carman was just a baby in 1915, when the Turkish government began exterminating Armenians or exiling them to other parts of the Ottoman Empire. Her father was a skilled tradesman who had to flee for his life, leaving his family behind and disguising himself as a Turk in order to survive.

“My father, for a long time, we know he’s someplace but we don’t know where he is,” said Carman, who turns 100 today and taught herself English after moving to Michigan in 1960. “

Later on, Carman’s family was reunited, but her father died of kidney failure soon after, forcing Carman to starting working at age 12.

Carman says she has never forgotten the Genocide and the impact on her life. “My father’s brothers, my mother’s brothers, all gone. My family, all gone. Still I don’t believe it. This is Armenian life.”

The commemoration ceremony will include a requiem service and parishioners will go outside to light candles near a monument for the martyrs, said the Rev. Hrant Kevorkian, pastor of St. Sarkis.

“The importance of the Genocide is that it’s related to each of us,” Kevorkian said of the Armenian population in Metro Detroit. “One way or another, the reason we are here today is because of the Genocide and being pushed off our land and moving around the world.”