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In Defense of Closing AGBU Manoukian High School

Three weeks ago, the western region of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) announced that it will be closing its AGBU Vatche and Tamar Manoukian High School in Pasadena, California. A flurry of protests and protestations flooded the public Armenian-American square, unanimously condemning the decision and imploring AGBU to reconsider. Unfortunately, many issues central to the Diaspora’s existence in the West that were inherent to the decision to close the school and were unexpectedly thrust into the limelight went largely ignored.

In my estimation, the closure of the AGBU Manoukian High School was the right decision and was precipitated by two main issues – purpose and economics – that haunt Diaspora communities today and will continue to compel them to face uncomfortable and unsavory realities about the future of their communities.

It is likewise my belief that rather than reflexively crying out that such a closure should be objectionable, exploring these factors and having a frank discussion about them will allow the Armenian Diaspora communities of today and the future to soberly and, more important, proactively chart their paths forward.

PURPOSE

A popular video from the protests shows AGBU Manoukian students singing a song called “Unite, Armenians!” (Հայե՛ր միացե՛ք), chosen for its noble, if trite, title, which doubles as a lyrical refrain. Rather than inspire, the dissonance between the song’s words and the students’ cause served as an argument about the inefficacy of spending millions of dollars so that students may know not only instruction but wisdom.

The first and most important question is why this or any Armenian school in the Diaspora exists. 

The most romantic among us might like to believe that the ultimate purpose of this exercise is the realization of Avedis Aharonian’s hopeful exhortation to Diasporan Armenians: “Believe that you will return to the land of your forefathers, to the land of brave men. We have come here in order to not stay, we have come in order to return…” But, after 25 years of a reemergent Armenian state, this can only be considered wishful thinking.

If not a means of preserving Armenian identity to return to the land of one’s forefathers where that identity and its culture can flourish, then what is the purpose of Armenian school in the Diaspora today?

In the Middle East, Armenian schools traditionally operated in what might be considered autonomous states within host nations. In places like Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, the Ottoman millet system, or some preceding variation of it, that governed these lands for centuries, left its impression: sectarian groups functioned with a degree of autonomy in exchange for some combination of taxes and loyalty to the state; the basic premise has changed little in many formerly Ottoman Middle Eastern countries where several groups coexist.

Schools were not only places where identity was preserved but institutions where culture lived and, as it does when alive, progressed. This was not limited to Armenians: distinct groups, often distinguished by religion, had their own schools, community centers, houses of worship and, in some cases, political institutions. In these self-contained oases, the school wasn’t a way of preserving identity so much as a function of a living identity.

The schools in the Middle East were Armenian because the Armenians in charge of the Armenian millet (or its successor) would open a school staffed by Armenians, attended by Armenians, and that existed almost exclusively among Armenians. That is, the decision was not the conscious opening and operation of an Armenian school tasked with preserving identity, per se, but the opening and operation of a school by Armenians which was Armenian in nature, where Armenian was the primary language of instruction, and its staff and student body were from the largely homogeneous community where it arose.

In the sectarian societies of the Middle East, this was a perfectly normal phenomenon as no member of one group would fathom attending the school of another group, except in rare cases. So, a Shia student in Beirut would not attend a Maronite school, nor would a Greek Orthodox child attend a Jewish one in Jerusalem, nor would an Alawite child attend an Armenian one in Aleppo, and so on.

With this happy confluence of circumstances, schools where Armenian was the primary, if not only, language of both instruction and casual communication flourished and, in the autonomous oases where they existed, produced great writers and poets who composed in the Armenian tongue or created art imbued with Armenian culture.

Serious demographic shifts and internal and geopolitical tumult has since radically reoriented the status of Armenians and other minorities in the Middle East but the model used by communities founded or invigorated by Middle Eastern Armenians – such as the one in Los Angeles – bespeak the Middle Eastern paradigms whence they hail.

Los Angeles, with an estimated 750,000-1,000,000 Armenians, has at least five Armenian high schools, including AGBU Manoukian, located in and around current or former areas of high-density Armenian neighborhoods: Hollywood, Montebello, Pasadena, and the Valley. With such a large population of Armenians and the relatively small size of the schools, there is no obvious reason based on the Middle Eastern model as to why these schools should not thrive.

Only, America is not in the Middle East.

The assumption in the Middle East that Armenian parents will send their children to Armenian schools as a matter of course is null in the American context. In particular, nobody will send their child to an Armenian school in the US for lack of alternatives. Besides the plethora of non-Armenian private school options available to anyone, the US also has free, adequate public education available to everyone.

In the absence of a sectarian system that automatically funnels members of the community through a school’s doors, the model where an Armenian school is self-sustaining because there exists an Armenian community with no alternative becomes invalid.

So, what is the point of an Armenian school education?

***

There is a running joke in my family that all of our nieces and nephews speak perfect Armenian until they start going to Armenian school, where they instead start to speak English. Although a slight exaggeration, this represents an inevitable trend in Armenian schools in the Diaspora, especially in the West, where not only the primary language of instruction is not Armenian, but the primary language of communication of the faculty, staff and, especially, the students, is not Armenian.

In an op-ed in the Armenian Weekly following AGBU’s announcement, Taleen Nazarian asked, “Are they [the Board of Trustees of the school] even slightly concerned about the risk of assimilation?,” noting, also, that the students held up signs that read, “Can’t afford our education? Well, we can’t afford assimilation.”

The Massis Post, in an editorial contending that the decision to close AGBU Manoukian needs to be reversed, wrote that “preservation of the Armenian identity is a daily struggle and a nightmare” in the United States.

Using these appeals published in the papers of two significant Diaspora organizations – the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (The Armenian Weekly) and the Hnchakian Party (Massis Post) – we can surmise that fear of assimilation and a resulting desire to preserve Armenian identity are foremost on the minds of those interested in keeping AGBU Manoukian and other Armenians schools open.

The fear is often repeated by community elders who regularly lament the decreasing Armenian language skills and cultural awareness of new generations of Armenians growing up in the Diaspora, although they themselves are rarely paragons of linguistic or cultural preservation.

The lamentations about assimilation as a threat, however, are largely pointless for the following reason: assimilation is inevitable. At best, the elements accreted throughout millennia that comprise Armenian – indeed, any – identity, from language to art to literature to religion to tradition will be deconstructed into a self-serve buffet to which Diasporans will help themselves according to their tastes. This is the rule, not the exception, as any Italian-, Polish-, German-, Swedish-, or Mexican-American will tell you.

If there is any lingering doubt about the likelihood of this future, one need only note the primary language used to protest the closure of AGBU Manoukian and to complain against the threat of assimilation. The Armenian language, a marker of identity that has persisted most obstinately among its users over the centuries, appears only as an accoutrement to the main language used by Los Angeles Armenians: English.

In the free and non-sectarian societies of the West, but also in the increasingly osmotic communities of the Middle East, assimilation is not an option but an eventuality.

The main question, really, is about how much assimilation the community is willing to accept. Does the ability to recite Armenian poetry for concert audiences and dinner guests with nary an understanding of the words nor, dare I suggest, the actual meaning of those strings of words count as a victory against assimilation any more than the ability to recount the words of a Charles Aznavour song would designate the reciter a francophone?

Or is assimilation a question of how much ethnic Armenians self-identify with their ancestry? In this case, what is an acceptable level of self-identification to allay charges of assimilation? Cruising and honking in cars adorned with Armenian flags on April 24 is annually lambasted as a mockery of the memory of the Armenian Genocide by Diasporans who readily dance to Armenian lyrics set to Turkish tunes and sung in the Azerbaijani mugham style.

I would posit that the reason contradictory and self-aggrandizing attitudes of Diasporan Armenian identity prevail is that there is no public discourse about what that identity is supposed to be. 

Once there is some understanding about what kind of assimilation is acceptable, and how much, the question becomes whether Armenian schools are the best way of securing these objectives or whether other endeavors by the Diaspora community will better serve those objectives.

ECONOMICS

The other issue is economics.

Armenian school is expensive, especially when it is compared to the cost of a (mostly) free public education. In addition to the tuition, parents have several other unstated but implied expenses they must account for, including school carnivals, performances, pictures, and other miscellany devised by school administrators to add streams of income.

Given the huge expense, families must answer for themselves why they should send their children to Armenian school. The most common answer is some variation of avoiding assimilation. But if the child is only going to gain only the most basic Armenian language skills and is only going to have a cursory knowledge of Armenian history, this argument holds little water.

Then the argument becomes emotional, often focusing on the sentimentality of having friends with a common cultural background. Although this is admittedly important, though not integral, for anyone who values the maintenance of Armenian identity, the question is whether the family is ready to invest a considerable portion of their income so their kids can have Armenian friends, something that can be as easily accomplished with the child’s participation in a variety of after-school and weekend activities, especially in a place like Los Angeles.

For many, the cost of Armenian school is not significant enough to warrant asking or answering any of these questions. In the case of these parents, the decision to send their children to an Armenian school where they will learn a bit of Armenian and a bit of history while being surrounded by members of the same community in a more placid and congenial setting than public school is sufficient reason for the indulgence.

But lest we forget, and with all due respect to Mark Twain, the primary purpose of schooling is getting an education. So, what if these more affluent Diaspora Armenians who haven’t a care for what they’re spending want to secure the best education for their children? These are the parents for whom their child’s knowledge of 1215, 1453, and 1776 is as important as their knowledge of 301, 405, and 451. Is it then worth paying for an Armenian private school when a non-Armenian private one will produce a better educated, better read, more worldly youth?

The point of these questions is not to suggest that all Armenian schools are inadequate on all counts. They’re not. Rather, the purpose is to ventilate the sundry consideration of any Diaspora Armenian parent deciding to what school they will send their child and to posit reasons as to why Armenian schools, especially high schools like AGBU Manoukian, have the difficulties they do in attracting students and the accompanying resources necessary to operate a school, much less a good one.

WHAT TO DO

The limited resources of the community – $2 million in the case of AGBU Manoukian, plus the thousands invested by the students’ families – need to be more intelligently distributed. My proposal is that the resources should be directed to two distinct areas: low-cost alternatives to school that preserve elements of Armenian identity and high-cost educational investments with a high return.

Low-Cost Alternatives

The social component of Armenian primary and secondary school, while mildly compelling, are insufficient to justify the existence of a whole school with its attendant staff, faculty, and facility costs. This is especially true when one considers the availability and vastly lower cost of participating in and maintaining cultural organizations, as well as creating new ones.

Community organizations and benefactors can continue to fund youth groups, musical and theatrical groups, scout troops, sports teams, professional organizations, and dance ensembles. These can be joined by book clubs, debate societies, and language exchanges as a way of preserving elements of Armenian identity while partaking of the culture’s kaleidoscopic beauty.

High-Cost Investments

Any Armenian school that exists should serve the purpose of offering an Armenian education par excellence. That is, the core elements of identity should not only be a part of the curriculum, there should be an unapologetic expectation that students assimilate the lessons taught or risk being removed, as is the case with any self-respecting private school. All schools that do not serve this purpose and that deign to operate on the basis of providing services that can be offered by low-cost alternatives should be proactively closed, lest they protract their march into obsolescence while diluting the resources of the community.

Those resources should be concentrated in fewer schools of higher quality where there are unambiguous and challenging goals like producing alumni who speak, read, and write Armenian fluently and who are deeply versed in Armenian history and culture. With these objectives in mind, the students of these more resource-rich schools could be offered educational experiences that would amplify their learning, like scholarly trips to the Republic of Armenia, Western Armenia, Artsakh, and Javakhk, and even years or summers abroad in Armenia or at storied Armenian schools like Djemaran in Lebanon.

The other high-cost focus area should be the university.

First, and most important, is making an education in Armenian language, history, and culture available. The currently decrepit state of Armenian studies at universities in the United States, even at most schools with endowed chairs (with a few notable exceptions), suggests a want for investment that has not yet been met by the community. Offering specialization in Armenian studies and allowing the field to develop by producing academics fluent in Armenian languages, histories, literatures, and traditions will require an investment of funds currently squandered on well-meaning but ultimately unproductive endeavors like the costly schools that are the subject of this discussion.

The second issue would be to address the woefully few scholarships available to Armenian university students, especially with the recent and unfortunate shuttering of the Luys Scholarship program. However, the scholarships in question here should be directed toward the study, research, and production of works with pertinence to Armenian identity. That is, while these scholarships should cover history, language, and literature, they should also fund educational endeavors that contribute vibrancy to the culture like for writing, theater, and musical programs.

This experience with the AGBU Vatche and Tamar Manoukian School should be a moment of reckoning and reflection for the Los Angeles Armenian community. Rather than respond reflexively and negatively, it should be seen as an opportunity to readjust the structure of the community in a way that acquiesces to the realities of living in the United States while soberly determining what the ultimate objectives of preserving an Armenian identity outside of the homeland are and accordingly directing the community’s resources toward more fruitful ends.

Alternatively, the community can take its cue from the lyrics that explain the title of the song the protesting students were singing: “Artsakh is calling, go and help…the land of the brave [Armenia] awaits us.” An auspicious, if fortuitous, entreaty as an Armenian school closes in the Diaspora.

20 Comments

  1. sos sos Nov 19, 2019

    Excellent piece of writing.

    • William Bairamian William Bairamian Post author | Nov 21, 2019

      Thank you.

      • Christopher Atamian Christopher Atamian Dec 28, 2019

        Also, William why do you think people keep saying “our limited resources?” We are seeing the largest transfer of generational wealth in American history and world history now. Odars and Armenians! COAF raised $6 Million in one Gala recently; Armenia Fund raises $10-$20 million in one telethon: we have something like 10 billionaires or near billionaires that I know of just persoinally or know personally,–want me to name them: 2 of the Hovnanian children; Carolyn Rafaelian of Alex and Ani jewelry; the Kardashians; The Mugars of Star Market; Reddit’s Alex Ohanian; MetLife CEO Michael Kandarian; the Manoogians and Cafesjians, the Batmasians of the eponymous real estate empire; and on and on.

        As for our numbers: the American census, finally, among the most accurate in the world places the Armenian American population at 492,000, period. Even with undercounting , it places the Armenian American population at about 550,000 including unregistered Hayastansis. There are not, nor have there EVER been 1.5 million Armenians here–in LA there are 250,000 period. We have a VERY successful and very WEALTHY community for such small numbers. How we marshall that wealth and intelligence is a different i
        ssue, right? do we build 300 more empty churches or do we build world class art centers and museums and schools like he Jews etc? Remember what happened to the Armenian Genocide Museum in DC? NOTHING to do with resources–all in fighting and self-destructiveness.

  2. Ashod Mooradian Ashod Mooradian Nov 19, 2019

    Your article expresses the difficult to hear but important to understand idea that the diaspora is supposed to be temporary. I am a first-generation Armenian American and I sent my children to Armenian Schools for two reasons: 1) it was the best chance for them to become “azkayin”; and 2) they would grow up in an Armenian environment surrounded by Armenian teachers, Armenians Friends and their Armenian community. It is these two above all others that has the best chance of creating an Armenian identity that will endure in the diaspora. I understand parents who instead value educational opportunities in US Universities (followed by great US jobs) as the goal of education. But they are risking that they are raising educated children who will not be Armenian by the time they achieve that US job. Every alternative, including my choice, has a price. Finally, let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good. They may not speak Armenian fluently or understand their culture and history as well as they should, but if they are “azkayin” they will most likely be among those who “return” to their homeland one day. It is that sloppy but sincere love of our language, culture and history that will preserve them in the storm of assimilation and allow them to find a home in Armenia–at first clumsy, but ultimately successfully.

    • William Bairamian William Bairamian Post author | Nov 21, 2019

      I don’t begrudge you for wanting that for your children – it’s a perfectly understandable wish. However, would you not agree that your interest, as stated here, would be best served if you had an educational institution with the highest standards which your children could attend and, as you say, become ազգային?

      As for loving our language, culture, and history: how can one love something they do not know well?

  3. Steve Dadaian Steve Dadaian Nov 20, 2019

    Good job teeing up the question. I for one would argue with many of your overly broad generalizations but the issue you have framed is a central planning issue for the California diaspora that needs more discussion and planning. For that I thank you for this thought provoking essay.
    My views like yours are informed by my personal experience. As a 3rd generation American Armenian, I will first correct your impression that the establishment of our first days schools here were some middle eastern import. In fact those schools were created and supported by older Armenian American as well as DP community’s. Additionally it was the American Armenian community who raised funds for the establishment of those middle eastern schools such as th “storied” Djemaran.

    Second, as the parent of 3 children (who are 4th generation Americans) all of whom attended armenian days schools and today self indenitify and serve the armenian nation either in actively advocating for Armenia and Artsakh with their elected representatives here in the US or in their service to Armenia in cultural exchange or technical know how, and regular interaction in the motherland as well as their service in supporting preserving some portion of Armenian culture here at our AYF Summer Camps, youth organizations, and in those same schools. These activists and activities I would argue have real value to little Armenia and Artsakh in there David and Goliath struggle for existence today. Without a cultural historically and politically aware American armenian community the Armenian nation will be without a vital force for advocacy and support in the United States.

    Ergo obviously an assimilated american armenian is of little real value for the nation.
    The Americans who repatriate to armenia are certainly of value and acting nobley to prevent assimilation but the American Armenian who remains American needs to be historically, culturally and politically educated to also serve our nation.

    I look forward to discussing these issues in a broader way here with you in the near future.
    Once again my compliments to you for diving deeper than the knee jerk bandwagon reaction.

    • William Bairamian William Bairamian Post author | Nov 21, 2019

      Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Steve. As someone who can speak with an understanding of the earlier Armenian-American immigrants, I’m especially happy you commented. Allow me to respond in order.

      First, most of the early (to be clear, I mean late 1800s/early 1900s) Armenian-Americans, those who settled in Rhode Island, Boston and environs, throughout the Midwest, and Fresno and SF in California were also from the Middle East, i.e. the Ottoman Empire. I’d considered that in what I wrote and should’ve been clearer that I didn’t mean just the ones who came from Beirut, Aleppo, and Tehran in the past 50 years. As for DPs, although not from the Middle East, they came from a similar societal structure which, though different, still had strong sectarian elements.

      The overarching point here is that almost all the places from which Armenian-Americans have immigrated to the US have been sectarian in some sense and this mentality, whether imported 100, 50, or 25 years ago pervades our thinking.

      As for Armenians in the US raising money for Djemaran: that’s great. It should serve as an example – and source of self-reflection – why the outputs of Djemaran and the schools opened, as you say, by the same people, have been so vastly different.

      Regarding your second point about the strong feeling of Armenian identity and their activism, you and they ought to be commended. However, you’ll surely admit that this sort of phenomenon – 3rd and 4th generation Armenian-Americans who still strongly feel connected to their roots and who act upon those feelings of identity – is the exception and not the rule.

      You know better than me how many communities from 100 years ago, vibrant communities, no longer exist because of total assimilation. My argument is not that we should use that as a justification to give up the fight but to reorient our resources so that families who are resolved to ensure their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and beyond not only identify as Armenians in America but are also provided with a place – high-quality, well-funded schools – where that identity can flourish, not just barely survive. For the rest who want exposure to the culture but don’t want to make the same investment, community groups like AYF, scouts, and dance should be more than enough.

      The long and short of it is that I agree there is great value in having a vibrant Armenian community in the United States but in order for there to be one, the current system needs to be reevaluated and overhauled to focus the limited resources of the community on fewer institutions and educational endeavors with higher standards, rather than spreading those resources thinly and ineffectively.

  4. Patrick Patrick Nov 20, 2019

    This is a reality that parallels the death of a loved one in our community. We keep it out of our minds until one day, the inevitable arrives and we have done too little, too late.

    Wonderful article. A well articulated expose on the loss of culture, language and the impending cloud of assimilation that gets little to no coverage in the media, but all the disdain in private conversations around gatherings. Looking forward to a public forum where this issue – and many pressing issues – can be discussed openly in the community so that we may progress towards a plan close to what you’ve outlined here.

    Love the idea of a focusing resources on a handful of schools that offer education that matches and even exceeds those offered in the American education system so that not only are we as a community turning out highly competent scholars and learned graduates that will be leaders of our community, but global citizens skilled in various arts and disciplines that evolve our community as a whole.

    • William Bairamian William Bairamian Post author | Nov 21, 2019

      Good analogy.

      At the risk of stating the obvious, I agree that these issues – assimilation but also others like the Diaspora’s relationship to Armenia – need to enter the public forum rather than stay constrained to private conversations where they serve no practical purpose.

  5. Dn. Charles Hardy Dn. Charles Hardy Nov 21, 2019

    The AGBU and the Ramgavars are notorious for doing these kinds of things. The selling of Camp Ararat in the East as well as the AGBU day school in Boston are but just 2 examples.

    • William Bairamian William Bairamian Post author | Nov 21, 2019

      I’m not familiar with these examples but thank you for your comment.

  6. Asbed Pogarian Asbed Pogarian Dec 5, 2019

    Great article, William. You bring up important issues that need to be discussed realistically, putting emotions aside. Let’s not forget that it is only 5% of Armenian students who attend an Armenian school in the Diaspora. The vast majority don’t and there is little talk about that bigger issue. I also want to add one more thing that is critical to this discussion. Years ago, when the Armenian schools in So. Cal. began taking their graduating students to visit Armenia, one of the teachers told me that those 2-week trips were doing much more than all the years of Armenian language and history classes they had been “shoving down their students’ throat” (that’s the term he used.) What a powerful statement! For centuries, we’ve been dreaming of having a free and independent Armenia and it’s about time we open our eyes and connect our children to it instead of trying to keep them Armenian in an abstraction.

  7. Avery Avery Dec 14, 2019

    {The lamentations about assimilation as a threat, however, are largely pointless for the following reason: assimilation is inevitable.}
    .
    A very sobering article by the author.
    Unfortunately, Diaspora “leaders” will continue to play the violin, while Rome (Diaspora) burns.
    And mainstream Diaspora media will continue the endless stream of mostly useless articles, or Globalist proselytizing or SorosaPropaganda.
    .
    {assimilation is inevitable}
    .
    I was in Singapore on business a few years ago, and my Chinese hosts, upon learning I was Armenian-American, took me to see the Armenian Church. They were very proud that their Government had restored, and was maintaining & taking care of it as a national heritage site. Of course, Armenians who built it and held services at one time, were long gone. (the famous, historic Raffles Hotel in Singapore was also built by Armenians: it is a National monument by Gov designation).
    .
    I read somewhere that there was a thriving Armenian community in Poland at some time. Now, hardly any are left.
    .
    And we don’t have to go to far to verify the accuracy of the above sobering/terrifying prognostication by the author: Fresno. Barely 4-5 generations after being established and thriving (gave us Willian Saroyan, George Deukmejian, Kirk Kirkorian,….) it is on its deathbed now. Largely assimilated or being assimilated, and mostly only the elderly being concerned about keeping Armenian traditions.
    .
    So what is the solution or the remedy to this dire situation?
    I have my own thoughts, but maybe other readers can comment and give their ideas first.

  8. Christopher Atamian Christopher Atamian Dec 28, 2019

    William: Thank you for this piece. I cannot write at length, so let me try to cut to the chase: I went to a French Lycée in New York–one of 30 or 40 French American schools in our country–and everyone there spoke fluent French and the school cost $40,000! Some were French and some were not. Some were wealthy and some were not; some were on scholarships, and yet others attended for free.French Lycées have produced entire generations of fluent French speakers–some of whom return to France, most of whom do not–we are just bilingual and read and write in both cultures to this day– as do students who attend Swiss, Italian, German and British schools abroad. There are hundreds of Jewish schools in the US as well, and a great Greek school in New York–in fact every single Greek-American i know attended Greek after school programs or a Greek school and they all speak fluently, more or less. The idea that we Armenians cannot do the same in America is simply inaccurate, a reflection of our own poor self-image and God knows what other notorious self-destructive impulses Armenians have developed. I did not grow up in an entirely Armenian family–I am half Italian–and yet if I adopt a child in the next 3 years as planned, it will also be with a non-Armenian partner–I would like my child to speak Western Armenian fluently and send my child to a great bilingual Armenian school. So now what? I cannot be the only one–hey what do you know I was at a dinner with some Armenian friends and SIX of them at the table with kids said exactly the same thing–why isn’t there a top world class Armenian bilingual school they can send their kids to? We obviously need to develop more curricula and programs like the ones the GULBENKIAN FOUNDATION is developing with ANI GARMIRYAN.

    If organizations running schools cannot do so professionally then they should get off these schools’ boards and run them be run like American private schools–with non-sectarian, non-religious boards who hold their members accounatable for finances and for academic performance. The Hovnanian School in NJ is a good example–a terrific school.

    I mean really William how long are we/you/others going to crow about the millet system (really that was in the 19th/early 20th century–even in Lebanon the remnants of this communitarian system is breaking down now) and the fact that we don’t have the same system in the USA–that seems kind of self-evident.

    The question s: why can’t we create more schools in our present context and your article leaves a lot of questions unanswered in this response. Pilibos and Ferrahian and Manoogian and quite good schools–there is no reason we can’t have 20 or 30 like them and better–it is just a lack of will and intelligence and investment. As you do well to mention, it is exactly like Armenian Studies Departments in Universities. There is enough money for both. There is not the directed willpower and desire, that is all.

  9. Mike Mike Feb 4, 2020

    there has been systematic school closer policy by Berge Setrakian not AGBU but only and only decision taker is Berge Setrakian alone!!!
    like godfather mafia he is deciding to close all the school, in los angels , Toronto, Beirut,Cyprus 11 in total, all was one man behind this move and he is name is Berge Setrakian !!! school closer is white genocide committed by Berge Setrakian alone!!! because you cutting off Armenian children from Armenian roots!!!
    time came Berge Setrakian to give his resignation immediately ! like mafia style Berge Setrakian closed over 11 schools and no one ,no one dare to talk today. YOU HAVE TO GO Berge Setrakian !!! YOU ARE LIKE Serzh Sargsyan!!!

  10. […] despite having such limited resources that they have difficulty managing their own affairs, like operating community schools or prolifically creating sustainable, long-term projects in […]

  11. Anoun Anoun Oct 15, 2020

    I just read this and I’m going to let it simmer for a while in my head 👀

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