I remember the history class devoted to The Holocaust, during a lesson about World War II. As students, we attended high school in a New York City suburb, where the predominant religions remain either Catholicism or Judaism. As a result, many of us are quite familiar with history already, given the long duration of our faiths, which we learn about in supplemental classes held through churches or temples. In addition to our regular schooling, my brothers and I went to religious instruction once a week, from childhood to early teens, in preparation for the rites of passage towards adulthood.
So, as bored teens are wont to do, I started tuning out this public school overview about a time period I knew all too well. It's sickening, and I did not care to hear it again, certainly not in the context of a brief, basic summation: "Millions of people died horribly in concentration camps. The End.", accompanied by a slide show of Auschwitz victims. Some story. No, thanks, I'll pass. I had already read The Diary of Anne Frank in grade school or junior high, which had a profound impact on me. I got it. But then, something else happened which captured my interest.
A teenager who did not typically involve herself in class raised her hand, which was a divergence from the norm. She started speaking with a passion that was uncommon for her. She said, "I want to talk about the murder of millions of Armenian people. How come this is never in any history book?! I'm Armenian, and I've never heard about it about outside of my family." Or something to that effect. A powerful and sophisticated concept was introduced into the classroom. The teacher thought this was an excellent point, and so did I. The class went on to talk about the Armenian genocide, at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.
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| Armenian civilians are marched to a nearby prison in Mezireh by armed Ottoman soldiers. Kharpert, Ottoman Empire, April 1915. |
There are many holocausts for many people around the world, throughout time. Any ethnic group at some time in our collective memories has been the target of war and aggression, which is a rather sad commentary about the desperation conditions our ancestors lived under. Fight or flight, indeed. Early human life was a brutal scenario of tribal affiliations combined with survival of the fittest. And yet, in modern times, harsh as they can sometimes be, industrialized European nations should have no such driving need to burn, pillage, destroy, or rape to attain precious resources.
It brought to mind a bigger question: why do greed, selfishness, and avarice still exist? Granted, I was coming from a rather privileged American point of view (given our standard of living), and yet even then I knew if richer nations combined resources, it would end most of the worlds' suffering. It was sort of an epiphany along the lines of that old parental standard, "There are starving kids in Africa who would love to eat your broccoli!!", to which I would quickly reply, "Good. Let's send it to them!", summing up my thoughts about charity at a young age, as well as those about sodden, overcooked frozen vegetables leached of color and flavor.
This train of thought led to further questions: what good are advances in society and culture if they cannot be doled out equally amongst us? Why does this need to dominate at the expense of others still linger? Have we not had sufficient evolutionary time to adjust to the fact that we have had our basic needs met, and then some?! Are we so daft that all of our education goes out the window when we look at some shiny, new car with covetous lust? How strange it must be to want to harm others in pursuit of things; this is an ancient and ugly truth about mankind that springs to the surface over and over again—knowingly wronging a neighbor to satisfy baser urges.
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| St. John River Campaign: Raid on Grimrose (present day Gagetown, New Brunswick). This is the only contemporaneous image of the Expulsion of the Acadians |
It was with a heavy heart that I found an article with irrefutable proof about the sentiments regarding my paternal line's history, while web-surfing the other day. I have written to you, dear readers, somewhat about my mixed and varied ancestry, but never about the scar it has left upon my family's psyche. We hear about the Jewish horrors from World War II, and in graphic detail about slavery and prejudice towards African-Americans, both great evils to be sure. Are there not other stories to be told? I seek to address this imbalance by finally sharing with you some commonly held perceptions about French-Canadians.
The link to the article below, about the nasty French-Canadian influence upon delicate New England sensibilities, appeared in The New York Times from 1892, a scant 118 years ago, long after many societal injustices in this country had already been addressed and corrected. These prejudices still ring true today (I have had the unfortunate experience to hear them expressed to me, directly to my face), if you are lucky enough to encounter someone with these roots, given the extermination efforts directed against us.
My mother has a recollection from a trip we took to Nova Scotia from Maine, across the Bay of Fundy via ferry. It is a Canadian Maritime Province and an island with Acadian roots, for those of us with Huguenot ancestry. We attended Sunday service in Woodland, ME, before leaving for Canada. She said the priest delivered an entreating homily to the parishioners about how "we should treat these poor French-Canadians with 'Christian Charity', since they are people, too". No wonder my father never learned French, and staunchly characterizes himself in a jingoistic fashion as "American!" first and foremost in his loudest, firmest tone, like someone in fear of a McCarthy backlash. I asked him how we could have been separated out from other Canadian people. He replied: "Because we were darker", a slur about the common inter-marriages that existed between French descendants and Native Americans. The year of our family trip to Halifax was 1980.*
When I transferred colleges to attend the Rhode Island School of Design, I made quick friends with another student not fitting into the Ivory Tower school system, who is of Armenian heritage. As I recounted my unique history to him, it triggered the memory of high school history. What a detour that class took, because one brave girl had the courage to speak out to share her family's emigration story! My classmate grew serious, as he then told me his truth: "You are the first 'white' person I've ever met who knows about the Armenian massacre", thereby creating his own divisional line between he and I. The year was 1990.**
We, as humankind, have these histories in common, hard as that may be to accept. The next time you talk with someone, thinking that you know who they are, think again. And for G-ds' sake, ask questions. Please, please keep reading and learning.
Knowledge and information build more bridges than fear can burn.
