It's not even worth lying about. I did not read the syllabus that explicitly stated and described the 25-page paper I would need to write about my family's immigration to the United States.
I should have read the syllabus before enrolling in the class.
Alas, that is not what happened. I enrolled in Sociology 304 because I thought it would be interesting to learn about immigration to America over the years. The class took care of some important credits I needed, including 4 credits of my sociology major.
I had never written a paper that long before, and so when it was introduced on the first day of class, I was not amused.
On top of that, I knew bits and pieces of my family's immigration story, but I never once thought about compiling it all into a concise, educational read.
I had to talk to my grandpa in order to get information about his parents' (my great-grandparents') journey from Turkey to the United States in the 1910s.
My great-grandfather Sahag Keramedjian came to the United States in 1913. An Armenian, he came from a village called Yozgat in Turkey. At this time, and for hundreds of years before, Armenia was under the control of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish people. It was a terrible time. The Armenians were persecuted, violently attacked, raped, and abducted. Their villages were burnt down and their priests were killed. When the Armenian Genocide began in 1915 and over one and a half million Armenians were killed, Armenians became refugees.
Those who were alive and healthy, escaped if they could.
My great-grandfather beat the Genocide by two years. He went to America in search of work, stable pay, and good living conditions. He wanted to be able to raise a family, start his own business, and no longer fear for his life. He actually followed a man from a nearby village in Turkey who had found success in America by opening up hotels, boarding houses for new Armenian immigrants.
Specifically, my great-grandfather heard of a certain Henry Ford who paid well in his factories, and so he went to Detroit specifically to work at an automobile plant.
He worked for Ford for several years, before opening a restaurant, and later opening hotels in Detroit. He brought over his mother, my great-grandmother (his wife), and her sisters. Eventually, my grandfather and his brother were born.
As I wrote my paper, I couldn't help but wonder what life was like for them, how difficult it must have been. There was no technology, there were no directions. They were banished from their homes. They couldn't speak the Armenian language, participate in Armenian customs, or even practice their own religion.
They had nothing but the clothes on their backs and bags in their hands. They left everything behind.
The Genocide had a lot to do with why they left, my grandfather told me when I interviewed him for my paper, but really it was to improve their lives overall. There was nothing for them at home. They knew they would have to work hard in America, but it was the land of the free. It was what they wanted. It would be safer than where they came from, and there would be more opportunity.
The reasons for coming to America are usually simple. There are forces pushing one out of their home country, and forces pulling them to America. It is upon these forces that an entire life is built anew.
It is important to recognize your roots.
This is what I learned from writing my paper. While we still eat Armenian food and practice the Armenian religion, my family forgets where it all came from and why. We forget our ancestors were refugees, fleeing for their lives, much like people do today.
Are we not still the children of our ancestors, however different our lives may be? We forget too easily.
If ever given the opportunity to write a 25-page immigration paper, I recommend you do. You may learn something. It may interest you. And if not, you will, probably, at the very least, get a good story.
