Grassroots Archives

ANCA-WR Grassroots Conference 2017 Pasadena California October 6-7th

October 6, 2017 by administrator

ANCA-WR Grassroots Conference

The dynamic 2 day ANCA-WR biennial Grassroots Conference is the fourth in a groundbreaking series of informative and inspirational lectures, workshops and seminars which brings together artists, academics, legal experts, and political officials with hundreds of activists from all over the world to explore issues related to the Armenian Cause and to develop and promote new avenues of leadership and civic engagement.

Past ANCA Grassroots Conferences included hands-on workshops on grassroots organizing, social media, fundraising, messaging and building political capital and panel discussions on such topics as film & arts; homeland-diaspora; western Armenia and transnational justice.

This year’s conference, to be held October 6-7th, at the Pasadena Convention Center, will explore the issues and challenges facing the Armenian Nation post the Genocide Centennial and will bring together world-renowned experts in the fields of academia, politics, grassroots activism and the arts to begin a dialogue that will allow our community to collectively address the critical issues impacting Armenians around the world.

ANCA Organizing Grassroots Advocacy Supporting Bipartisan Appeal – anca.org/genocide

February 13, 2017 by administrator

WASHINGTON, DC – The leadership of the Congressional Armenian Caucus today called on their U.S. House colleagues to join with them in a bipartisan request that President Donald Trump honestly and accurately commemorate the Armenian Genocide, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

“Visit anca.org/genocide to add your voice to the Congressional Armenian Caucus in calling upon President Trump to reject Turkey’s gag-rule against an honest American remembrance of the Armenian Genocide,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “This is a vital moment. At the start of this new and disruptive era, we have an opportunity to help America break bad habits that have, for far too long, held America hostage to the irrational dictates of foreign governments. So, please, take action today and then encourage your friends and family to join you in asking their U.S. Representatives to co-sign this Congressional letter.”

In a “Dear Colleague” letter to U.S. Representatives, Armenian Caucus Co-Chairs Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Jackie Speier (D-CA), David Trott (R-MI) and David Valadao (R-CA) as well as Vice-Chairs Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) explained “there is no debate that an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were massacred in the first genocide of the 20th century. The United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, documented the Genocide and raised significant funds to help the Armenian people in its aftermath.” Their letter went on to state that “A Presidential recognition would pay tribute to the lives lost, the perseverance and determination of those who survived, and to the many Americans of Armenian descent who have strengthened our country to this day.”

In their letter addressed to President Trump, Members of Congress will note that Presidential action on this matter would be an extension of previous affirmation by the executive and legislative branches of government, including “President Reagan, who recognized the Armenian Genocide in 1981, and the Eisenhower Administration, which did the same in a 1951 submission to the International Court of Justice. The House of Representatives has also commemorated the Armenian Genocide, through HJR148 in 1975 and HJR247 in 1984.”

The letter also highlights the historic levels of U.S. assistance provided through the Congressionally chartered Near East Foundation, “which raised $116 million (over $2.5 billion in 2017 dollars) to aid the victims of the Ottoman Empire’s mass murder of millions of Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Greeks, Pontians, Syriacs, and other persecuted peoples. The generosity of the American people saved countless lives and helped to ensure the continued survival of the Armenian culture.” The letter concludes by urging President Trump to “appropriately mark April 24th as a day of American remembrance of the Armenian Genocide.”

The ANCA has launched a nationwide online letter writing and calling campaign urging Members of Congress to co-sign the Armenian Caucus letter to President Trump. To learn more and take action, visit anca.org/genocide.

ACTION ALERT: ANCA Launches Grassroots Campaign to Protect Garo Paylan

May 7, 2016 by administrator

WASHINGTON—Citizens concerned about the safety of Garo Paylan, a member of the Turkish Parliament who has come under violent attack due to his Armenian identity and the free expression of his views, can now call upon the State Department, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch to speak out in his defense, using the Armenian National Committee of America’s dedicated portal: www.anca.org/Paylan.

Videos of attacks on Mr. Paylan, in the Turkish Parliament and Constitutional Commission, have gone viral, and have been featured on major media outlets.With one click, advocates can write to Tom Malinowski, State Department Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; Ken Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch; and Margaret Huang, Interim Executive Director of Amnesty International – USA. In their letters addressed to these three officials, supporters of Garo Paylan’s safety call for “public alarms” to be raised over the escalating threats and acts of violence directed against him. The letters specifically call for a forthright condemnation of those who seek to intimidate and incite hatred against Paylan.

Earlier this week, the ANCA called upon U.S. Ambassador to Turkey John Bass to publicly voice official U.S. concern regarding the safety of Garo Paylan. In the May 3rd letter, ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian compared Paylan’s persecution to that of noted Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was gunned down in broad daylight in 2007. “Prior to his [Dink’s] cold-blooded murder, the ANCA had called for an open expression of U.S. concern for his safety. Sadly, none was forthcoming. The only public words raised in his defense were those eulogizing him after his death,” noted Hamparian.

Hamparian, Tufankjian, Von Blum to Lead Alternative Activism Panel at Grassroots

October 17, 2015 by administrator

ANCA-WR Grassroots

2015 ANCA-WR Grassroots Conference guest speakers will discuss the genesis of community activism given the changing climate of outreach through art, education, social media and other modern avenues on October 24, 2015 at the Alternative Activism panel.ANCA-WR-Grassroots-Alternative-Activism-Panel

Beginning at 4:00 p.m., the panel will feature Scout Tufankjian, photographer and author of the New York Times and LA Times bestseller, Yes We Can: Barack Obama’s History-Making Presidential Campaign, and There is Only the Earth: Images from the Armenian Diaspora Project; Professor Paul Von Blum, a senior lecturer of the Holocaust, the African American struggle, and the Armenian Genocide at UCLA; and Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of America. Former Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of Los Angeles and expert in mass communication and democratic movements, Dr. Lucig H. Danielian will moderate the panel.

New York based photographer Scout Tufankjian is best known for her work documenting the Barack Obama campaigns. Tufankjian has spent the bulk of her career working in the Middle East covering the second intifada from Gaza and the Arab Spring in Egypt. After publishing her book on the 2007-2008 Obama campaign, Yes We Can: Barack Obama’s History-Making Presidential Campaign, Tufankjian returned to the Obama campaign trail in the summer of 2012. As a photographer for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, Tufankjian took an image of the President and the First Lady hugging that shattered all social media records at the time.

Tufankjian’s newest book, There is Only the Earth: Images from the Armenian Diaspora Project, is the culmination of six years documenting Armenian communities in over 20 different countries.

Paul Von Blum has been a civil rights activist for more than 50 years first as a student and now as a scholar and professor. Von Blum received Distinguished Teaching Awards at both Berkeley and UCLA. Prior to teaching at UCLA in 1980, Von Blum taught at the University of California at Berkeley for 11 years. He has authored several books and many articles on art, politics, history, and education as it pertains to genocide studies, struggles of African Americans, and civil rights, and is an expert in agitational communication. His newest book, Civil Rights For Beginners, will be out in early January, 2016. Von Blum also writes regularly for Tikkun, the Journal of Pan African Studies, and Truthdig.

Aram Hamparian is the Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of America. Hamparian serves as the organization’s primary national representative to the Administration, Congress, and the Washington foreign policy community. Prior to his work at the ANCA, he was an active member of the New Jersey chapter of the ANCA. He works day to day on a broad range of legislative, policy, research, political, campaign, media, coalition, and community-related concerns along with the ANCA’s national staff, and in coordination with regional ANCA offices and a network of more than 50 local chapters.

“The Alternative Activism panel will challenge our imagination to awaken our inner activist. Our participants will walk away from this panel with a set of new outreach tools that will be artistic, educational, and tech-savvy,” said ANCA-WR Grassroots committee co-chairman Ara Khachatourian.

The esteemed moderator of the panel, Dr. Lucig H. Danielian, supervised the first assessment of human rights education at all levels and institutions in Armenia. She has conducted dozens of sponsored research projects in Armenia and is an expert in survey and polling research and applying quantitative and qualitative research methods under difficult conditions. Dr. Danielian earned her Ph.D in Communications from the University of Texas at Austin and was a faculty member at the University at Albany, State University of New York, where she received a University Faculty Fellowship for research on mass communication and democratic movements in Armenia during the Soviet period.

Among Dr. Danielian’s extensive work in human and civil rights, she served as the first full-time executive director of the Armenian National Committee in Los Angeles, founding member of the Sassounian Defense Committee, organizing the Armenian-American response to the 1988 imprisonment of the Karabakh Committee, coordinating the former Soviet Union’s first independent election monitoring organization, was a founding member of Armenia’s first organization to defend the rights of political prisoners, was Board Chair of the Open Society Institute Armenia Foundation, and served as Provost and Vice-President of the American University of Armenia.

“Exploring new and creative means of activism is one of the most important projects we have this year as we enter a new phase of our Cause in the post-Centennial period. We are confident that the Alternative Activism panel will be innovative and provocative, and we are proud to have assembled such a stellar group of experts to discuss this topic,” stated ANCA-WR Chair Nora Hovsepian, Esq.

The ANCA-WR Grassroots conference will take place on October 23 and 24 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel. General admission to the conference is $85 and $50 for students. Visit www.ANCAWRGrassroots.org to register online or to learn about sponsorship and booth display opportunities.

This year’s ANCA-WR Gala Banquet will be one of the largest the organization has hosted and will top off a can’t-miss weekend for our community. The event, which has become one of the most anticipated events of the calendar year, will be held on Sunday, October 25 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel. For information about purchasing tickets, and corporate and tribute message sponsorship opportunities, please visit www.ANCAWRGala.org or call 818.839.1918.

The Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region is the largest and most influential Armenian American grassroots advocacy organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country, the ANCA-WR advances the concerns of the Armenian American community on a broad range of issues.