UCLA Archives

UCLA: Interculturalism and the integration of Syrian-Armenian refugees lecture by Gabriella Djerrahian

October 26, 2017 by administrator

Gabriella Djerrahian (Concordia University, Montreal)

The Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law

Interculturalism and the integration of Syrian-Armenian refugees to Montreal, Quebec A lecture by Gabriella Djerrahian (Concordia University, Montreal)

In the wake of the civil war in Syria, over a thousand Syrian-Armenians arrived to Montreal, Quebec as refugees privately sponsored by Hay Doun, a non-for profit founded by volunteers from the local Armenian community. As the latest wave of arrivals weaved into the tapestry of Montreal’s long-established Armenian community, religious and cultural organizations as well as two Armenian schools mobilized their efforts to answer the needs of Syrian-Armenian newcomers. In this talk, anthropologist Gabriella Djerrahian provides an overview of the sponsorship program and explores some of the challenges concerning the arrival, settlement and integration of Syrian-Armenians to the city. Unlike immigrants who choose to live in other Canadian provinces where English is the main language, integration to Quebec requires learning French and becoming familiar with its history and political struggles. By tracing the intercultural, social and relational premise of a French learning program devised for these refugees, Djerrahian explores how Syrian-Armenians are making their way in Québécois society and the local Armenian community we well.

RSVP Here

Cost : Free and open to the public

Sponsors: Center for Near Eastern Studies; The Promise Institute for Human Rights; The Richard G. Hovannisian Chair in Modern Armenian History

Watch GagruleLive Queens of Syria: a documentary tells the story of fifty women from Syria, Video

October 23, 2017 by administrator

Los Angeles: Queens of Syria (the documentary) Film screened at UCLA Northwest Campus Auditorium,

Tells the story of fifty women from Syria, all forced into exile in Jordan, who came together in Autumn 2013 to create and perform their own version of the Trojan Women, the timeless Ancient Greek tragedy all about the plight of women in war. Not one of them had ever acted before.

What followed was an extraordinary moment of cross-cultural contact across millennia, in which women born in 20th century Syria found a blazingly vivid mirror of their own experiences in the stories of a queen, princesses and ordinary women like them, uprooted, enslaved, and bereaved by the Trojan War. It was a process charged with emotion and fraught with challenges, as long buried issues came to the surface, and at times the project itself hung in the balance.
Post-show discussion and reception to follow.

Watch GagruleLive Coverage “Intent to Destroy” Film Screening, The Promise institute UCLA

October 16, 2017 by administrator

By Wally Sarkeesian

UCLA: October 12th the The Promise institute for Human right presented Special Advance Screening of the critically-acclaimed documentary Intent to Destroy directed by award-winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger. The room 1458 was packed with attendees young and old, the Director of The promise Institut Asli Bali PHD. began welcoming the audience with brief introduction. shortly After the film, she convene a panel featuring Intent to Destroy producers Dr. Eric Esrailian, Carla Garapedian and legendary Hollywood film producer Mike Medavoy. Followed with reception.

By shining a light on the mechanism of denial over the past century—and the aggressive suppression of genocide depiction—he aims to extinguish the notion of any “debate” by revealing the absurdity of denial against the irrefutable facts he comprehensively lays out in the film.

Pulling back the curtain on Genocide censorship in Hollywood due to U.S. government pressure to appease a strategic ally, Intent To Destroy embeds with a historic feature production as a springboard to explore the violent history of the Armenian Genocide and legacy of Turkish suppression and denial over the past century.

Joe Berlinger’s thirteenth feature documentary film captures the cinematic and political challenges of producing a historically meaningful, big-budget feature film in an environment rife with political suppression and threats of retaliation. By intertwining these three separate threads – the modern day production of The Promise, the history of the Genocide and the century of international repression – Intent To Destroy coalesces to provide a comprehensive view on the atrocities of 1915 to 1923 and their resounding aftermath right up until the present day.

As Elie Wiesel has so eloquently stated, the final stage of Genocide is denial. Intent to Destroy pulls back the curtain of political resistance and historical amnesia to finally present a more complete account of Armenia – the Genocide, its delayed recognition and a nearly forgotten history of suffering and heroism in the hope of inspiring a collective sense of international justice and humanity.

UCLA The Promise Institute: The integration of Syrian-Armenian refugees lecture by Gabriella Djerrahian Concordia University,

October 16, 2017 by administrator

The Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law

Interculturalism and the integration of Syrian-Armenian refugees to Montreal, Quebec

A lecture by Gabriella Djerrahian (Concordia University, Montreal)

Cost : Free and open to the public

Sponsors: Center for Near Eastern Studies; The Promise Institute for Human Rights; The Richard G. Hovannisian Chair in Modern Armenian History

UCLA lecturer harmonizes Armenian, American cultures through song

September 17, 2017 by administrator

Karenn Chutjian-Presti’s recently published book, “My First Armenian Songbook,” is a bilingual collection of 16 nursery rhymes and children’s songs translated from English to Armenian. (Hannah Burnett/Assistant Photo editor)

By Andrew Warner,

Karenn Chutjian Presti began translating nursery rhymes and American folk tunes into Armenian about 6 1/2 years ago, when her first daughter was born.

“A lot of people talk about having a baby and your brain turning to mush and it wasn’t like that at all,” she said. “I was learning new words, I was learning new vocabulary and I realized how many words I was missing, being born in the U.S.”

The Herb Alpert School of Music lecturer published her translations in “My First Armenian Songbook,” a bilingual collection of 16 children’s songs on Aug. 17. Chutjian Presti said music has helped her raise her children in a multilingual environment because it makes it easier for them to break down the sounds of various languages.

Although Chutjian Presti and her husband are raising their children to speak Armenian, German, Italian and English, she said she feels particularly passionate about Armenian. The dialect of Armenian that Chutjian Presti speaks, Western Armenian, is classified as definitely endangered by UNESCO, and is a minority language in every country where it is spoken in.

“It’s not a language that’s spoken (officially) in any country – in Armenia, they speak Eastern Armenian,” she said. “So, we have this sense of responsibility growing up Armenian to keep the language strong.”

Chutjian Presti also said Armenian speakers of her generation had less access to supplementary materials in Armenian, such as television shows and books, than children today do. As a result, her Armenian vocabulary was somewhat limited, and she didn’t know basic terms she wanted to use with her children, such as playground vocabulary.

Now, Chutjian Presti speaks to her children almost exclusively in Armenian, only addressing them in English when they have monolingual friends around.

“I think one of the drawbacks of (being bilingual) is you’re not really part of one culture completely, you have one foot in one culture and one foot in the other. At least, this is my experience,” she said. “They are American and yet they are Armenian, so I wanted to find a way to connect these two things.”

Chutjian Presti also created piano and vocal arrangements for her translations, which her sister, Stephanie Betjemann, sang on a CD recording that accompanied the book. Chutjian Presti said she chose to use western instrumental arrangements, rather than traditional Armenian instruments, to retain the familiarity of the songs.

“That’s the bridge I wanted to have, the Armenian words with the American melodies,” she said.

Betjemann, who also studied linguistics in college, said music and singing can help improve a child’s skills in a given language because the brain processes and stores words set to music differently than words that are not.

She added that one of her favorite songs to sing is “The Zoo,” because it helped her learn the Armenian names of some animals she would not have known otherwise.

“It helps keep the language relevant,” Betjemann said. “A language is only as good as its applicability or function in a person’s life.”

For the book’s imagery and design, Chutjian Presti turned to her friend Alastair Sadler, a professional illustrator. Sadler took on the project, despite having no familiarity with Armenian culture or language prior to working on the project.

“That’s sort of one of the pleasures of the project, is having to deal with something that is completely new to me,” he said. “I had to go through a bit of a learning process with (Chutjian Presti’s) help, to figure out which of the words in Armenian corresponded to the words in English.”

He said the first song that appears in the book – “Zoom Zoom Zoom, We’re Going to the Moon” – was one of his favorites to illustrate because it reminded him of when he first introduced the song to Chutjian Presti at a toddler’s music group meeting when their kids were younger.

Now as Chutjian Presti reads the book to her own children, she said she wishes she had a similar songbook for herself as a child growing up in an Armenian-American household. She added she hopes the songs can serve as a bridge between Armenian and American culture.

“It was just more of a practical concern – why shouldn’t they think that we have … all of these songs in Armenian tradition?” she said.

source: http://dailybruin.com/2017/09/10/ucla-lecturer-harmonizes-armenian-american-cultures-through-song/

UCLA law school to receive $20 million for human rights institute to study the Armenian genocide and other atrocities

April 18, 2017 by administrator

Eric Esrailian, lead producer of The Promise, and Co-Chief of the Division of Digestive Diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA poses with Jennifer L. Mnookin, Dean of the UCLA School of Law. (Todd Cheney/ UCLA Law)

By Teresa Watanabe,

In a unique blend of Hollywood and human rights, the UCLA law school will receive $20 million in pledged proceeds from a new film on the Armenian genocide to expand its research and teaching of persecution, the university announced Monday.

The donation by a film company founded by the late Kerkor “Kirk” Kerkorian, an Armenian American philanthropist and businessman, will help establish the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law.

The institute, which also will receive other donations and support from UCLA, will help the Westwood campus expand its research and advocacy on genocide awareness and prevention as well as the intersections between human rights and health, refugees, immigration and civil rights, said law school Dean Jennifer L. Mnookin.

She said the gift will help UCLA hire more faculty, sponsor guest speakers, host human rights symposia and support students through fellowships. UCLA law students and faculty currently work with human rights organizations in countries including Bangladesh, Honduras, India and South Africa, and with the United Nations and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

“What we’d like to become is the West Coast powerhouse for the study and practice of human rights,” Mnookin said.

Eric Esrailian, a UCLA doctor and great-grandson of genocide survivors, helped Kerkorian launch the film company Survival Pictures in 2012, to expand awareness of human rights atrocities. Kerkorian, who owned the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio and is credited with helping develop Las Vegas with such hotels as the MGM Grand, donated more than $1 billion to charitable causes during his lifetime. He died in 2015 at age 98.

Survival Pictures’ debut production, “The Promise,” is set to open Friday as the first major film on the Armenian genocide. Historians estimate that 1.5 million Armenians and other ethnic and religious minorities perished at the hands of the Ottoman Turks beginning in 1915, although the Turkish government denies there was any official policy of ethnic cleansing.

The film is directed by Terry George — who directed and co-wrote “Hotel Rwanda” about genocide in that African nation — and stars Christian Bale, Charlotte Le Bon and Oscar Isaac. Co-producers are Esrailian, Phoenix Pictures chairman Mike Medavoy and veteran film producer William Horberg.

The company also has produced a documentary, “Intent to Destroy,” about the Armenian genocide that is set for release April 25 at the Tribeca Film Festival.

“As horrible as the Armenian genocide was, there are other ethnic and religious groups that have suffered persecution as well,” Esrailian said, adding that human rights crises exist right now in Syria, the Congo and South Sudan.

Both the feature film and the UCLA institute bear the word “promise” to reflect a commitment not to forget atrocities of the past and to fight against intolerance and persecution today, he said.

He said his team was inspired by the USC Shoah Foundation, which was launched by filmmaker Steven Spielberg to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and educate the public about it and has since expanded its work to other genocides. With genocide awareness and human rights work underway at the city’s two premier universities, Los Angeles is set to become a national hub of research and activism on the issue, Esrailian said.

The center is expected to open this fall.

Source: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ucla-armenian-human-rights-20170417-story.html

WESTWOOD, Calif: MOU Signed with UCLA for Mapping of Armenian Genome

March 1, 2016 by administrator

BY FEDRA DJOURABCHI

WESTWOOD, Calif.—As 2015 marked the 100th commemoration of the Armenian Genocide and global attention was focused on Armenia, a group of Armenian investigators set out to launch a research program that would map the Armenian genome. This initiative was made possible with a monetary gift generously donated by Sara Chitjian, a UCLA alumna whose father had witnessed and survived the Armenian genocide.

On Friday, February 19, Dr. Thomas Coates, director of the UCLA Center for World Health; Dr. Wayne Grody, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, pediatrics, and human genetics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; and Drs. Sevak Avagyan and Evgeni Sokurenko, co-founders of the ArmGenia Research Charitable Trust, Yerevan, Armenia, signed the memorandum of understanding (MOU) sealing the research partnership between the two organizations.

The main objective of this research project is to better understand the genetic roots of Armenian people. The timing of this project is also fortuitous as Armenia still has a large number of centenarians that could participate in this genetic mapping while they are alive. At the signing ceremony, Chitjian stated that her hope is that the findings from this genome project would be useful in historical studies of the Armenian population.

This MOU fits well with UCLA’s legacy of working towards the advancement of global health, education, and collaborative medical research. Not only will this genetic mapping have a great impact on the life sciences and offer enormous benefits in terms of better general health care for the Armenians worldwide, but the study could also lead to important findings on Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF), a genetic disorder that is more prevalent among Armenians than any other nation.

The project builds on UCLA’s 60-year-old FMF program — one of the largest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere — and provides comprehensive interdisciplinary expertise. Dr. Wayne Grody will be one of the principal investigators, performing the molecular work.

Salpy Akaragian, RN-BC, MN, director of the UCLA International Nursing Program, who was instrumental in connecting UCLA to the co-founders of ArmGenia Research Charitable Trust, Drs. Avagyan and Sokurenko, coordinated the all-day celebration. A number of VIPs, such as the Honorable Ara Najarian, esq. the Mayor of Glendale; the Honorable Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian, esq.; and Consul Armela Shakaryan from the Consulate of Armenia in Los Angeles, were also present to witness this historical moment.

UCLA Student Govt. Passes Resolution Calling for Divestment from Turkey

January 21, 2015 by administrator

WESTWOOD—University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) student body government on Tuesday night unanimously voted to divest $72.6 million dollars worth of University of California bonds and investments in the Republic of Turkey for their crimes in and the continued denial of the Armenian Genocide.

The resolution titled “A Resolution to Divest from the Republic of Turkey to End the Perpetuation of the Armenian Genocide” passed with a vote of 12-0-0 around 10:00 pm at Kerckhoff Hall in UCLA.

The resolution is part of a larger initiative (#DivestTurkey) spearheaded by the Armenian Youth Federation Western United States (AYF)– a grassroots community organization dedicated to justice– calling on institutions to divest from the Republic of Turkey.

AYF Central Executive Board member Gev Iskajyan stated, “the #DivestTurkey initiative began in order to connect and provide resources for university students and activists on campuses across America to divest all holdings in the Republic of Turkey’s government until reparations for the Armenian genocide are met and until genocide is no longer a profitable venture. The Armenian Students’ Association at UCLA was the first organization to accept this call for divestment from the community and successfully presented this resolution.”

The resolution passed with overwhelming support from the UCLA’s general student body and official UCLA student organizations.

“Tonight demonstrates the Armenian community is not alone in its fight for justice and reparations for genocide,” explained Razmig Sarkissian, an AYF member and UCLA alumnus.

Student organization co-sponsors included Armenian Dance Group, Alpha Epsilon Omega, Alpha Gamma Alpha, Armenians for Health Advancement, Hidden Road Initiative, and Samahang Pilipino. Student organization endorsers included Bengali Students Association, Indus, Jewish Voice for Peace, Native Roots, Samahang Pilipino, Sikh Student Association, and Students for Justice in Palestine.

“[#DivestTurkey] is about reaffirming student agency because students were not consulted in the decision to invest in the Turkish government,” said Mikael Matossian president of the Armenian Students’ Association at UCLA. “This is a proactive step in the ethical direction, of an Armenian student-led coalition calling on our student government to take a stand against funding genocidal regimes,” continued Matossian.

“The AYF plans to expand the #DivestTurkey initiative, working with several colleges and universities in order to introduce similar resolutions in the coming weeks and months,” confirmed Iskajyan. Campus organizations and interested individuals can contact Divestment@AYFwest.org.

Event Honoring UCLA Prof. to Benefit Armenian Studies Program

May 17, 2014 by administrator

LOS ANGELES—The annual banquet of the Friends of UCLA Armenian Language and Culture Studies, honoring the 30th anniversary of Prof. S. Peter Cowe’s scholarly career and the 45th anniversary of the Narekatsi Chair in Armenian Studies, will benefit the expansion of the Armenian Studies program and particularly Western-Armenian instruction at UCLA.

Organized jointly by the 30th Anniversary Committee and the Friends of UCLA Armenian Language and Culture Studies, the banquet will take place on the evening of June 1 at the London West Hollywood. Following a cocktail hour at the hotel’s Marble Terrace, the banquet will be held at the Kensington Ballroom, featuring the culinary creations of globally renowned chef Gordon Ramsay. There will also be a number of special surprises in celebration of Prof. Cowe’s Scottish background, the organizers said.

“UCLA probably has the largest Armenian Studies program outside the Armenian Republic,” said Cowe, who heads the Narekatsi Chair. “This year our primary goal is to raise funds to support our program in Western Armenian and expand instruction in that medium by establishing advanced-level courses.”

“Apart from its impressive history and the constellation of writers that have elevated its capacity to express the whole spectrum of human thought and emotions, Western Armenian remains an indelible part of Armenian culture and has the potential to serve as a nuanced modern medium of communication,” Cowe continued. “At the same time, it is clear from a number of metrics that Western Armenian is severely challenged, and hence has been placed on the UNESCO list of endangered languages. It is therefore all the more important for the local Armenian community and the various Armenian schools to collaborate with academic programs like that at UCLA to achieve a better assessment of the issues involved and develop strategies to tackle them.”

In this connection, Cowe explained, it is vital to sustain the UCLA program in Western Armenian, under the direction of Dr. Hagop Gulludjian, and expand it to include a set of third-year-level courses, beyond the first- and second-year levels currently available.

A full-fledged Western-Armenian program will benefit not only the regular student body at UCLA but also members of the local Armenian community, enabling them to develop their command of the language, communicate fluently in both oral and written forms, and thereby participate more fully in Armenian culture and its development in Southern California.

The Armenian Studies program at UCLA has seven instructors, who offer a total of 26 courses in Armenian language, history, and culture. Apart from an undergraduate Minor in Armenian Studies and a concentration in the new Major in Middle Eastern Studies, the Narekatsi Chair offers Masters and PhD programs, and currently has seven doctoral students under Prof. Cowe’s supervision. UCLA is also home to the recently inaugurated Armenian Music Program, with a course taught by Vatsche Barsoumian and an Armenian Music Ensemble; as well as the Armenian Archaeology and Ethnography Program, established in 2013 through a $2-million gift from Mrs. Zaruhy Chitjian.

The Narekatsi Chair maintains an active program of lectures and seminars by visiting academics. In addition, together with the Armenian Graduate Students Association, the Chair organizes an international graduate-student colloquium in Armenian Studies annually.

Cowe was appointed Visiting Associate Professor of Armenian Studies at UCLA in 1996. Two years later, he established the Friends of UCLA Armenian Language and Culture Studies, as a conduit to foster community involvement through academic and cultural events and raise financial support for the expansion of Armenological offerings at UCLA. In 2000, he was named holder of the Narekatsi Chair in Armenian Studies.

“It has been a great honor for me to work with Prof. Cowe for the past 17 years,” said Anahid Keshishian, the Narekatsi Chair’s lecturer in Eastern Armenian. “He has continuously inspired me, first as a teacher, then as a colleague. I have witnessed his countless efforts to raise the stature of the Narekatsi Chair. I have also seen the enthusiasm of students who have been under his guidance. I wish him many more years of successful teaching and research.”

Tickets to the June 1 banquet are priced at $150 per person. To reserve your seats, call (818) 645-5571.

Los Angeles Community to Honor UCLA Prof. Cowe

April 12, 2014 by administrator

Dr. Cowe to be honored on his 30th anniversary of teaching Armenian Studies; celebration to take place at The London, West Hollywood, on June 1

LOS ANGELES—A newly formed Cowe Anniversary Committee, along with the Friends of UCLA Armenian Language and Culture Studies, will honor Professor S. Peter Cowe at its annual banquet on June 1st, marking the 30th anniversary of his research and instruction in Armenian Studies. The event will take place at The London, a landmark hotel in West Hollywood, Los Angeles.

“We are delighted to honor Prof. Cowe, one of the world’s foremost scholars of Armenian studies, at our banquet this year,” said Dr. Hagop Gulludjian of the Anniversary Committee, which comprises UCLA professors, graduate students, and community activists. “Along with his students, our colleagues, friends, and the Armenian community as a whole, we look forward to saluting a remarkably affable teacher appreciated for his brilliant intellect, continually positive attitude, and extraordinary dedication to the field of Armenology,” Gulludjian said.

Before coming to UCLA, from 1984 to 1996, Cowe taught Armenian language and literature at Columbia University, where he also established the Visiting Professorship in Armenian Studies program through the support of noted philanthropist Dr. Nikit Ordjanian.

In 1987, Cowe was invited to deliver the keynote address in Armenian at the 30th-anniversary celebration of his predecessor Prof. Avedis Sanjian’s contribution to the field of Armenian studies. Cowe’s formal association with UCLA began in 1996, when he was appointed Visiting Associate Professor of Armenian Studies, teaching all three standards of the Armenian language (classical, modern Eastern, and modern Western) as well as literary history. Two years later, Cowe established the Friends of UCLA Armenian Language and Culture Studies as a conduit for fostering community involvement through academic and cultural events, and raising financial support to expand Armenological offerings at UCLA. In 2000, he was named holder of the Narekatsi Chair in Armenian Studies.

Commenting on Cowe’s qualities as a teacher, Shushan Karapetian, a UCLA Armenian Studies Program graduate student who will be completing her doctoral dissertation later this spring, said: “Over ten years ago, after a week into my first undergraduate course with Prof. Cowe, I was hooked — enrolling in every class he offered — and my future was determined. Without a second thought, I embarked on a journey into Armenian studies under the captivating direction of my guardian. As a scholar, he is simply unparalleled; as a teacher and mentor, he is versatile and open-minded, extremely supportive and engaged. My experience at UCLA would not be the same without his matchless imprint.”

The banquet will take place at the Kensington Ballroom of The London Hotel’s Gordon Ramsay Restaurant. “It is interesting to note that celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is of Scottish descent,” said Dr. Hrach Khudatyan of the Friends of UCLA Armenian Language and Culture Studies and added: “In view of Prof. Cowe’s Scottish descent, our banquet will feature a number of special surprises, in celebration of his background.”