Tamar O’Brien Barsamian is a second-year law student at the University of Maine School of Law in Portland. 

“They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds.” — Dinos Christianopoulos, Greek poet

April 24 is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, honoring the 1.5 million Armenians who were deported and systematically killed between 1915 and 1923, many sent on death marches to concentration camps in the Syrian desert of Deir ez-Zor.

I am a descendant of a genocide survivor. My great-grandmother was the only member of her family to survive the Armenian Genocide. In Kharped, an ancient, ethnically Armenian village in modern-day Turkey, she watched as her father was forcibly taken out of their home in the middle of the night to fight against the Ottoman Turks. My great-grandmother, her mother and two siblings were also forced to leave their home immediately and march through the Deir ez-Zor desert. She survived by eating grass as she watched every single member of her family die during the genocide.

Sitting around a table with heaps of Armenian food was the norm in my home — kebab, traditional Armenian lavash bread and greens galore. It is around that table that I learned about my great-grandmother, Arousiag Demirjian. Arousiag was the only member of her family to survive the genocide.

As a third-generation Armenian-American, remembrance looks different today than it did for earlier generations. In 2021, the United States Congress formally recognized the Armenian Genocide, a milestone achieved through decades of tireless advocacy by Armenian communities across the country. That recognition carries deep meaning, not just as a politically significant moment, but as an acknowledgment of truth, memory and justice.

The work didn’t end there. With Armenia’s neighbors being Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iran, advocacy, continued diplomacy and peacemaking are critical now more than ever — especially following the ethnic cleansing that occurred in the Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in 2023. 

Armenian identity is often tied to this tumultuous history, but it is far more expansive than the genocide, and of course, the Kardashians. It lives in a shared language, a global dominant diaspora spearheading innovation in the public and private sector in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Argentina, France, London, Lebanon and beyond. The familiar endings of our names: “-ian” or “-yan” signals connection and a sense of belonging when meeting another Armenian. 

As the renowned Armenian-American writer William Saroyan once wrote, “For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” What defines us just as strongly as our history is our culture: it is that sense of connectedness, the unmatched hospitality met when you walk into any Armenian family’s home, our vibrant art and music and delicious cuisine.

This is how I choose to carry the light and legacy of my ancestors, by bringing people together, educating those in my community about our culture, our faith as the first Christian nation in the world, engaging in international nonpartisan advocacy work with the Armenian Assembly of America, staying connected with friends and organizations in Armenia and, as always, sharing an overabundance of food. 

So, if you find yourself walking or driving by the corner of Cumberland Avenue and Franklin Street in Portland (located directly across Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception), stop by and take a moment to meditate, reflect, pray or catch a breath from our busy lives at the Armenian Genocide Memorial.