About 15% of our students at Pasadena City College are of Armenian descent; Pasadena is part of the axis of the great Armenian Diaspora centered in nearby Glendale. Indeed, one of the periodic and cheerful debates we have ’round here is whether to classify Armenians as “white” or something else. My favorite form is one used at Glendale Adventist Hospital: there is one box to check marked “Caucasian” and another box marked “Armenian”. Some folks desperately, desperately need a lesson in basic geography! (If we’re going to start naming ethnic groups after mountain ranges, can I please be a mix of “Alpine”, “Pennine”, and “Sierran”?)
In any case, my women’s history course always seems to attract a disproportionate percentage of Armenians; on average, 20-25% of the women who enroll. And I’ve become familiar, after sixteen years of teaching here, with the particular brand of chauvinism that is so much a part of this otherwise marvelous culture. When it comes to the strictures of the modern double bind, no group seems seems as burdened as young Armenian-American women. Based on what I’ve learned from hundreds of students over the years, the pressure is uniquely overwhelming. On the one hand, most of my Armenian students are expected to study hard and do well in school and pursue the traditional careers of the first-generation upwardly mobile: medicine, law, engineering, business. (Gender studies is discouraged as a major.) On the other hand, there is a tremendous encouragement towards early marriage as well: no ethnic or religious group whom I have ever taught has as high a percentage of nineteen and twenty year olds with engagement rings on their fingers. (And yes, I’ve taught passels of Mormons, and anecdotally, they are less marriage-focused than first-gen Armenians).
Young Armenian women are generally expected to be beautiful (most wear make-up to school), to be feminine, and, it goes almost without saying, to be virginal until marriage (or at least, until engagement.) All dating is to be endogamous at the risk of rejection, ridicule, and rage. And even the best and the brightest young women are regularly told by their parents — I hear this story every semester without fail — that they can “forget” about going to university far away. The cultural rules require young women to live at home; USC and UCLA are filled with Armenians who would have loved the chance to go to Berkeley or Duke or NYU but who have been told in no uncertain terms that moving away is “not what a nice girl does.”
Some of my readers may be annoyed at this point. Is this another in my continuing series of posts that argue for the middle-class WASP virtues of self-discovery and autonomy at the expense of tradition and family? Is this another cluelessly elitist paean to the glories of daring to disappoint one’s parents? Maybe. But it’s based mostly not on what I think, but on the veritable catalogue of anguish and frustration and ambivalence I have heard from legions and legions of young Armenian-American women. And a few years ago, I got an idea about a sensible and culturally sensitive way to approach the problem.
I keep in touch with many of my former students, a task that Facebook has made infinitely easier. And a few of my Armenian women students have done an impressive job of extricating themselves from the confinement of cultural expectations. Some have found a way to move out without being married; some have bravely risked communal opprobrium and threats of being disowned. Some have majored in less practical subjects, dated boys who were Irish or black or Vietnamese. One or two have dated girls. And to varying degrees, they have claimed their autonomy while struggling impressively to hold onto an authentic identity as Armenian-Americans. For the most part, they have not wanted to throw out the baby with the proverbial bathwater; rather they have tried to forge a new way of thinking about Armenian-American womanhood. They are trying to create a modern Armenian feminism that fuses two very different worlds. And it has been an impressive thing to witness.
What I’ve been doing is “pairing up” former students with current ones. A student at UCLA, for example, now mentors a young woman here; a woman who horrified her family by taking a full scholarship to UNLV and leaving California now chats regularly with another student who has made it out to UC Riverside. For all the inspiration that an introductory course in feminism can offer, it — and its white male professor — can’t show a student from a very traditional culture each step on the path out. I can’t draw a map for a route I haven’t taken. Only someone who has negotiated (or is still in the process of negotiating) the treacherous terrain that leads towards a chance at self-determination can show another which steps to take. And it’s been my pleasure and my responsibility to play “matchmaker”, if you will, putting these pairs and trios of young women in touch with each other. All have taken my course, and at least have a preliminary vocabulary for what it is that they want in terms of independence and self-actualization. But what they actually discuss and share is up to them, not me. And that is, of course, as it should be.
This is not about turning out a generation of young women so throughly assimilated into white middle-class feminist norms that each has lost her connection to her family and her heritage. The goal is to create dialogue about how to make a new thing, something authentically Armenian in this case but also enthusiastically and unapologetically egalitarian. I’ve encouraged my newest mentor/mentee pair to consider starting a website or a blog, perhaps anonymously, as a forum for hashing out the unique challenges and joys that come with being a budding feminist in their particular culture. There is some initial excitement and promise, and I intend to offer as much encouragement as I can. I’ll post more as I learn more.
Hi Hugo,
I’ve been a long time reader. You’ve touched on a particular issue that hits very close to home. Specifically I come from the Chinese first generation Canadian background. It has always been interesting how this generation has found ways to move away from home, or work in a traditional sectors find ways to move beyond it in a socially acceptable manner. Specifically, I’ve see many friends choose Universities away from home to gain that independence to make their own decisions.
The challenge of negotiating the Canadian culture and the heritage culture can be exhausting. It can often put rifts between families, lead to higher youth suicides, and psychological anxiety for those whom are negotiating this difficult time. Further, many young women usually have the greatest challenge since women are seen to hold the family’s honour and culture. It is more acceptable for men to break new frontiers.
What’s upsetting is this challenge generally comes forth in women during a time of self-definition. Women in university may be trying to determine their career path, creating their own sense of politics, and to decide what type of life they want to lead. “Double Happiness” a film starring Sandra Oh was one of the few films that really showed the struggle a person has to go through to negotiate these boundaries.
It was exhausting when I went through it and I feel for other women who are going through the same thing. My friends are also going through these with mixed successes.
I know at least one of the girls you’ve helped in this way. It is making a difference, and it is something of which you really should be proud.