User:Falc/Intermarriage
Any time two people marry, each brings something to the table. When people from two different cultures and heritages marry, there's the possibility that the offspring will inherit both traits, but they rarely inherit both cultural indoctrinations. So it was for this writer, and many others with one Armenian parent. This factor is complicated and made worse by that those Armenians who survived were raised in other lands and cultures. When an Armenian is raised in Lebanon or France, he is bound to inherit those cultures, traditions, foods, languages, etc. Now that we're a few generations removed from 1915, the ethnic heritage of Armenians, many thousands of years of it, is in very real risk of being lost altogether.
Already, there is an Eastern Armenian and a Western Armenian language. Already there are sharp distinctions between the small nation called Armenia and that which was the eastern half of Turkey until 1915. Then the influence of the nations which took our refugees in (a generosity which we Armenians will always remember and appreciate) and it's already diluted. Add just one generation of marriage to a non-Armenian, and those thousands of years are all but lost. It's a certainty that the other side of the family will have their foods, ways, languages, religions, cultures and traditions. When handed down to the next generation, what is specifically Armenian, and what is simply the way the child grew up?
My American mother wanted to learn to cook Armenian food, but my grandmother had no written recipes. It was a pinch of this and a dab of that, and so much of the other thing. So my mom followed my grandmother around for 3 days in the kitchen, writing down ingredients and approximations. Some of them came very close. Others never will be consistent. TO this day, though I've eaten then at many places, made by many chefs, not one has beaten my grandmothers baraks.
Dolmas were an interesting carry-over. Taking them with to school for lunch was quite the embarrassment at first. Children are pretty cold-hearted when it comes to mockery anyway... so while I was eating, I'd endure comments about maggots in a green blanket, etc. I laughed when one of the kids said they'd never trade their lunch for mine. "Good," I replied, more for me!" It wasn't too long after that some brave soul took a bite. Then another kid tried a little bit. Within a week, my mom had requests for double-rations. I didn't want to keep Dolmas all to myself, but I sure wasn't trading them for some lousy peanut butter and jelly sandwich!
Little things get lost along the way. How much is enough parsley but not too much? Where do you get good, large, TENDER grape leaves? Did grandpa own the garment factory, or just the store? Copper workers, we Armenians had been. But what of that? Can any of us today even recount how to do the simplest trade or craft? Are we doing it the Armenian way? Is it the Armenian way simply because an Armenian is doing it?
We can look to history to see how Intermarriage amounts to an aspect of assimilation. In writing about a region of present-day Armenia, we find "Given the centrality of religion to social life during that period, it is not surprising that in the following two centuries the Albanians merged with the Armenians. The nobility intermarried, the region's bishops were often Armenians, and by the seventh century the separate identity of the Albanians was lost." Likewise it would be for the Armenians, when they are the minority within any culture.
There have been many factors that contribute to the loss of the Armenian culture. Some of them are common in all losses of culture. Time and technology run roughshod over all cultures lately. The home, though, was where those cultures were preserved. One reason why Armenians stick together, why marrying a non-Armenian is somewhat frowned upon, is that it becomes all too easy, then, to lose sight of those traditions at home too. I was fortunate, in hindsight. My mother actively sought to learn and preserve some of the foods, and we'd go to the Armenian picnics that they'd have every Sunday in the parks outside of Chicago. Make no mistake, though: a culture which has survived through conquests and thousands of years is all but lost. The lion's share was done by the Genocide and the stealing of our homelands... but Intermarriage has also played its part in losing traditions in the home.