How can one date in history bear so much significance on one community?
On April 24, 1915, leaders of the Turkish Ottoman Empire rounded up about 240 Armenian leaders and intellectuals in modern day Istanbul and deported them from their homeland. This day became known as the start of the Armenian Genocide.
To some, Genocide is a history lesson or a far away historical concept that rarely happens. To Armenians, genocide is a trauma embedded into our lives and passed down to generations. The unfortunate reality of Genocide is that it is not a historical event, but a tragedy that lingers.
In 1915, the Ottoman Empire wanted to destroy the Armenian race. Its leaders wanted to deport, kill, starve and rape Armenians. And they did. But history does not, and will not, end there. In 1915, my grandfather, his family and millions of others were forced out of their homes and sent on death marches through the Syrian desert. I will never understand the literal and physical trauma of genocide, but I will always acknowledge the legacy of my ancestors’ perseverance.
I can recite these facts so automatically because I have been taught this history lesson countless times by my family, teachers, friends and history books. The biggest problem is that most Americans are not. One of the biggest tragedies of the Armenian Genocide is that it went, and still goes, unrecognized.
On April 24, 2021, President Biden officially formally recognized the acts of 1915 as a Genocide. One hundred and six years later? Yes. One hundred and six years. It took 106 years for the United States Government to use the word genocide to recognize the ethnic cleansing of one and a half million Armenian people. While the world turned a blind eye, for the past 110 years, Armenians have been fighting for justice and re-building their lives all over the world.
The story of Armenian does not end there. In 2020, Armenians faced the ultimate consequence of the world’s genocide denial. When history is not acknowledged, it will repeat itself. In 2020, Turkey’s neighbor and ally, Azerbaijan, launched an attack on the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh, Armenia’s breakaway state in the Caucus. Following the few year long “war,” better described as a humanitarian crisis, about 5,000 Armenians were killed and many more injured.
Perhaps the most uncanny resemblance to the Armenian Genocide of 1915 was the deportation of more than 100,000 indigenous Armenians from Artsakh. After the war, as of Jan. 1, 2024, the state of Artsakh was dissolved following military defeat to Azerbaijan. The war consisted of human rights violations including but not limited to cluster munitions, drones, artillery rockets and white phosphorus bombs that scorched forests and burned soldiers and civilians. With Azerbaijan’s military being twice the size of the Armenians’ and having the support from Israel and Turkey, this shouldn’t qualify as a war.
On April 24, 2025, President Trump released a statement commemorating the Genocide of Armenians by referring to it as a “great crime.”
Not paying attention to world events and politics is not an option anymore. Genocide, racism, ethnic cleansing and colonialism are unfolding before our very eyes in many places of the world.
William Saroyan, an Armenian-American novelist accurately depicts the Armenian diaspora’s response to genocide.
“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose history is ended, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, whose literature is unread, whose music is unheard, whose prayers are no longer uttered.
Go ahead, destroy this race. Let us say that it is again 1915. There is war in the world. Destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them from their homes into the desert.
See if the race will not live again when two of them meet, twenty years after, and laugh, and speak in their tongue. Go ahead, see if you can do anything about it.”
The perpetrators of the genocide considered Armenians, an unimportant people, and tried to end our history, but they just buried seeds.
The Armenian diaspora, the Armenian language, Armenian food, Armenian churches, Armenian music and Armenians themselves are still alive.
You may have never heard of the stories of the Armenian people, and you may not even be able to point out Armenia on a map. But now, you know who the Armenians are. We are more than just an ethnicity and also a legacy of perseverance and strength.
