Our Divine Roots: Preface

Armenia has been another source of my grief over the years.

Growing up learning about the horrors of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, I often wondered how the international community remained quiet for 7 years while 1.5 million innocent humans were brutally massacred. I resorted to blaming lack of technology at the time.

A century later, the Artsakh War of 2020 was the first time where I viscerally felt my ancestors pain in real time. Though I myself had the privilege of physical safety in the USA, I felt gut-wrenching pain as I witnessed not only the immense lack of accurate media coverage internationally, but Azeris and Turks proudly circulating horrific videos of human rights violations and revisionist propaganda on IG/across the Internet with no absolutely no repercussions (thank you technology?)

The last few years of that cycle has felt dehumanizing. Especially as an empath, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and helpless. To be totally honest, I found myself struggling to remain empathetic while countries that neighbor my homeland like Ukraine, Iran, Syria, Turkey, among others, get immediate media coverage during humanitarian crises (rightfully so) but somehow, Armenians remain invisible.

Once I recognized I started feeling apathy, I knew I had to take a leap and release this work to snap out of it. Armenians aren’t the only communities in pain, feeling invisible. If I think that my/our voices as Armenians don’t matter and remain silent, and other communities who don’t receive international support feel the same, and we start feeling apathy towards each other… our oppressors win. As someone raised in such a diverse community like los angeles, filled with all walks of life, I can’t let that happen on my end.

My intention with thIS series is not only to raise awareness for Armenia, but to personify and humanize issues in different communities across Los angeles so that we can hold space and learn from each others experiences and build community and allyship in order to heal intergenerational trauma and celebrate our divine roots.