ABSTRACT
What does it mean to say that my parents were Armenian? There is a country in the Caucasus called Armenia, but my parents had never been there. They were born and lived in Ottoman Turkey, but they were not Turks. After they married, they settled in the French Mandate of Syria, but they were neither Syrian nor French. They moved to Lebanon and became Lebanese citizens, but they were never “really” Lebanese. Finally, my mother emigrated to the United States and died in California, without “really” becoming American. Yet my parents always thought of themselves as “Armenian,” more specifically, Aintabtsi-Armenians from Aintab. And they would say so within five minutes of meeting another Armenian.
