By an overwhelming majority vote Tuesday, the United States House of Representatives finally recognized the Armenian genocide after decades of the Armenian American community fighting to earn recognition of Armenian suffering.
From 1915 to 1923, over 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Empire. On the house floor, California’s 27th District Rep. Judy Chu spoke about the genocide after returning from a trip to Armenia.
“I cannot get the pictures that I saw out of my mind of Armenian women and children murdered in mass graves,” Chu recalled. “Armenian leaders hung as examples to others and Armenians forced to long death marches without food or water.”
Members of the Los Angeles Armenian community feel like they haven’t been able to get closure because of the government’s failure to recognize the atrocity.
“There’s no closure so we haven’t been able to move on because it's a little ridiculous that not every country has said that it happened … my people are still suffering,” said Cathren Killedjian, a graduate student studying journalism.
Salpi Ghazarian, director of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, said this recognition is very significant to the Armenian community but she hopes this impacts other communities.
“I would like to think that the House recognition of the Armenian Genocide means that as a country we are ready, willing, and aware of our responsibility to recognize human rights violations crimes everywhere,” Ghazarian said.
According to Jim McGovern, chair of the House Rules Committee, America’s passivity on the issue is a “dark stain” on the U.S. human rights record.
“Nothing has called it like it actually was: a genocide.” McGovern said, “49 of our 50 states have formally recognized the Armenian Genocide but the Federal Government has not.”
This decision comes weeks after President Trump’s decision to remove troops from Northern Syria to let the Kurdish people “fight their own battles.,” Representativesfear that another genocide might occur, this time to another group within Turkey.
“Recent attacks by the Turkish military against the Kurdish people are a stark reminder of the danger in our own time,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
Pelosi pushed for the resolution with Rep. Adam Schiff of California’s 28th District to bring the bill to a vote.
“This is a vote I have waited 19 years to cast,” Schiff said, “One that tens of thousands of my Armenian American constituents have waited decades to see.”
Schiff represents a large part of Los Angeles, including Glendale, which has an Armenian American population of over 30 percent.
On Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan came out condemning the U.S. government’s recognition of the genocide.
“We are saddened that a slander against our country is being accepted by a country’s parliament,” he said. “We would consider this accusation the biggest insult towards our nation.”
Alina Edet, president of the USC’s Armenian Law Student Association, is happy that Armenians are finally getting the government’s recognition for their ancestors’ suffering.
“Every year in LA the Armenian community marches for justice,” Edet said. “The justice is that the genocide is recognized and this is not done by any means yet.”
Each year on April 24, Armenian Americans from all around LA meet in Little Armenia to march for six miles to the Turkish consulate in hopes for the genocide to be recognized by both governments.
However, Edet said some are wary of the resolution and the U.S.’ intentions; regardless, she said the recognition is a huge step in the right direction.
“It’s about recognizing the victims and how it’s a dangerous time now with what’s happening with the Kurds,” Edet said. “We need to acknowledge that it happened in the past and we are not going to let it happen again.”
Ghazarian sees this resolution as a gateway to continue to highlight the USC Armenian Institute’s efforts.
“[The resolution] will help find ways to collaborate with scholars in turkey, scholars of turkey, so that we can study post-genocide events trends phenomena so that we can better understand what happens after a determining historic event,” Ghazarian said.
For those interested in learning more about the Armenian Genocide, the USC Shoah Foundation has over 115,000 hours of visual testimonies of the genocide.