On Monday, Armenian Americans mark the 108th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide — the mass killing of Armenians by Turkish forces during World War I. The bloodletting is widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.
On April 24, 1915, Ottoman authorities arrested Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople, leading to an estimated 1.5 million Armenians being killed. Turkey denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.
Local Armenian Americans also take note of another anniversary, one many say is bittersweet: it was just two years ago that the United States finally officially recognized the genocide.
Their pathos is made more somber by the current grim situation in Artsakh, also known as Nagorno Karabakh, where about 120,000 besieged Armenians remain trapped and suffering a blockage by Azerbaijani troops now in its fourth month. A series of clashes erupted along the Azerbaijan-Armenia border in September, resulting in at least 200 deaths. Following a ceasefire, Azerbaijan began a blockade of the Lachin Corridor Dec. 12, preventing humanitarian aid,basic supplies and outside support from reaching civilians there.
The U.S. waffled for decades before President Joe Biden finally issued the official U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide on April 24, 2021. Biden’s was the first federal administration to do so. State Senator Anthony Portantino said Biden’s official declaration finally ended “the decades-long gag-rule by Turkey against the United States.”
“By officially and properly recognizing and the Armenian Genocide, the United States has demonstrated that human rights, justice, and truth have prevailed,” Portantino said.
Pasadena Congressional Representative Adam Schiff said at the time that “President Biden … defied Turkish threats and recognized the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians for what it was – the first genocide of the 20th Century. In so doing, he has cast aside decades of shameful silence and half-truths, and the broken promises of so many of his predecessors, and spoken truth to power.”
“As we commemorate the … anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, we can now do so now, secure in the knowledge that our nation, both the President and the Congress, speak with one voice,” Schiff said.
After Biden’s declaration in 2021, former Pasadena Mayor Bill Paparian looked ahead.
“Until the Turkish government recognizes the Armenian Genocide, makes reparations, and returns our homes, and property, the struggle of the Armenian people continues,” he said.
More than 200,000 people of Armenian descent live in Los Angeles County, making the Southland home to the largest Armenian community outside of Armenia.
A bill establishing Genocide Remembrance Day as a state holiday to be observed on April 24 and permitting public schools and community colleges to close in observance of this holiday, was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom Sept. 29.
In 2022 The Pasadena Unified Board of Education Resolution 2653 which designated the month of April as PUSD’s month of remembrance of the Armenian Genocide.
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