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Reconstructing Eden: the Armenian community of Yettem, CA

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Reconstructing Eden: the Armenian community of Yettem, CA

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Content RECONSTRUCTING EDEN:
THE ARMENIAN COMMUNITY OF YETTEM, CA
by
Ani Mnatsakanyan
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF HERITAGE CONSERVATION (MHC)
December 2021
Copyright 2021 Ani Mnatsakanyan
Dedication
I’d like to dedicate this thesis to the founders and the community of Yettem, the
survivors, and the souls that perished during the Ottoman Massacres and the Genocide
of 1915. Despite the adversities faced, this beautiful, unique, and culturally rich
community persevered and truly created a Garden of Eden at the footsteps of the Sierra
Nevada Mountains.
ii
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank my thesis committee chair, Trudi Sandmeier, for her support,
advice, and encouragement. Thank you for always being there to reel me back into the
real world when it felt like everything was falling apart. I’d like to thank my committee
members, Alison Hirsch and Vinayak Bharne. Vinayak, thank you for encouraging me to
pursue a thesis about the Armenian Diaspora culture, and being so supportive as I
explored different international Armenian Diaspora communities in your classes. It was
through your Cross Cultural Topics in Landscape Architecture course that I discovered
the town of Yettem and was intrigued to pursue the question of what it means to be a
Diaspora Armenian in California. Alison, thank you so much for your feedback and
always challenging me to think critically about the questions I had. Thank you for
introducing me to concepts of how intergenerational trauma and heritage are so
intertwined with our landscape.
I’d also like to thank the community of Yettem, California, for embracing me with
open arms. I have fallen in love with Yettem and all the Yettemites that were so selfless
in helping me learn more about their community and all the hard work their ancestors
put in creating this Garden of Eden in the Central Valley. I am touched by your stories of
resilience, perseverance, pain, and joy. John and Alan Farsakian, thank you so much
for taking your time and telling me about life in Yettem, Chomaklou, and your family’s
stories. Also, for connecting me to Mari Louise Menendian. To Myron Sheklian, thank
you so much for your generosity and providing me with resources. To Mari Louise
Menendian, you have touched my heart in so many ways. I am forever grateful for your
iii
kindness, hospitality, and selflessly providing me with so many beautiful photos of your
family and life in Yettem. I am forever in the debt of Yettemites.
Lastly, I would like to thank the friends I have made in graduate school, the
wonderful faculty and staff, family, and loved ones. Never would I have thought that I
would have faced a life-altering abrupt change, where my existence was uprooted the
weekend before my first midterms; followed by a pandemic; and topped off with an
injury, all during my time in graduate school. I wouldn’t have been able to get this done if
I didn’t have the support and love around me when I had no hope left in me.
iv
Table of Contents
Dedication ii
Acknowledgements iii
List of Figures vii
Abstract ix
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Conditions in the Ottoman Empire 4
Introduction 4
Geographic Context 5
The Armenian Agrarian Landscape And Socioeconomic Conditions 7
Mobility Control and Travel Restrictions 10
Chomaklou 13
Armenian Migration to the United States 18
Conclusion 19
Chapter 2: Why California? 21
Introduction 21
The San Joaquin Valley 23
Central Valley’s Agriculture 28
An Oasis of Opportunity 28
The Question of Armenian Identity 30
Armenians in the Central Valley: Fresno 35
Conclusion 44
Chapter 3: Replanting Roots 45
Introduction 45
Searching for the Armenian “Colony” 49
v
Founding of Yettem 54
Determining the Boundaries of Yettem 64
Yettem’s Growth and Early Agricultural Successes Post-Genocide 66
Moving to Yettem 67
Farming Successes and Failures 69
Conclusion 74
Chapter 4: Yettem’s Past and Present: Sites of Heritage 75
Introduction 75
Churches 78
St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church 78
Presbyterian Church 83
Education 86
The Yettem Grammar School 86
Diaspora Education: AGBU, Armenian School, Sunday School 93
The Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) in Tulare
County
94
Armenian School and Sunday School 97
Community and Culture 100
Intangible Heritage Practices 101
Travel and Pilgrimage as an Act of Heritage 107
Conclusion 110
Conclusion 111
Bibliography 117
Appendix A: Deed Transfers, 1903-1911 126
Appendix B: Maps of Tulare County 130
vi
List of Figures
Figure i.1: Yettem’s Founding Parade 3
Figure 1.1: Color Map of the Eastern Provinces of Turkey 5
Figure 1.2: Map of Caesaria/Gesarya (present-day Kayseri, Turkey) 13
Figure 1.3: Uptown Chomaklou 14
Figure 1.4: Downtown Chomaklou 15
Figure 1.5: Armenian Genocide Deportation Routes of 1915 15
Figure 1.6: Postcard of Chomaklou Armenians on a Picnic 16
Figure 2.1: Federal Map of the Central Valley Project 22
Figure 2.2: Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani (scirpus validus) 25
Figure 2.3: California Indigenous Tribes 26
Figure 2.4: Zaven Arkdian, Fresno resident, with an Armenian Cucumber 41
Figure 3.1: Founders of Yettem 55
Figure 3.2: Yettem fields 59
Figure 3.3: Stokes Mountains 60
Figure 3.4: Chomaklou, Turkey 60
Figure 3.5: Chomaklou, Turkey 61
Figure 3.6: Yettem Post Office 63
Figure 3.7: Map of Yettem and surrounding regions 65
Figure 3.8: Yettem Tomato Label 73
Figure 4.1: St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church 77
Figure 4.2: St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church 81
Figure 4.3: St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church 82
Figure 4.4: Lawrence K. Cone, architect of St. Mary’s Apostolic Church 82
Figure 4.5: Presbyterian Church 84
vii
Figure 4.6: Presbyterian Church 84
Figure 4.7: Bell from the Presbyterian Church 85
Figure 4.8: Presbyterian Church Bell Dedication 86
Figure 4.9: Yettem School, 1914 87
Figure 4.10: Yettem School children, 1913 88
Figure 4.11: Yettem Grammar School, 1921 89
Figure 4.12: School Children in front of the new Yettem School, 1922 90
Figure 4.13: Yettem School, 2021 92
Figure 4.14: Yettem Learning Center, 2021 92
Figure 4.15: AGBU Playbook, 1938 96
Figure 4.16: Charsheli Artin Agha Cast, 1938 97
Figure 4.17: Armenian language Saturday School class, 1960 100
Figure 4.18: Trndez at St. Mary’s Apostolic Church 103
Figure 4.19: Socially-distanced tables for church attendees 104
Figure 4.20: Feast of Assumption/Blessing of the Grapes 106
Figure 4.21: Yettem Grown Grapes 107
Figure c.1: Yettem directional sign 111
viii
Abstract
Armenians migrated to California’s San Joaquin Valley as early as the 1880s,
when anti-Armenian pogroms, laws, and massacres were escalating in the Ottoman
Empire, first settling in Fresno, and later moving to smaller towns in the region to farm.
As conditions were worsening in the East, a group of Armenians thought of
founding an Armenian town in the Diaspora where they could live freely and have
opportunities to make a living and own their own land. In 1901, three Armenians were
walking southeast from Fresno when they came across a region at the foothills of the
Sierra Mountains. They felt an inexplicable connection to the land and began singing
songs of their homeland. They set up tents and founded the town of Yettem - “Garden of
Eden” in Armenian. It is the only town with an Armenian name in the United States.
1
While most Yettemites no longer live in Yettem proper, the community’s
connection to their hometown is strong, and life and heritage in Yettem is still very much
alive and active. It is significant that an Armenian named town exists in the United
States; it is also important to recognize the efforts of community-driven cultural
preservation, memory keeping, and using this as a coping mechanism for overcoming
past traumas. In this process, the community of Yettem also developed a heritage that is
unique only to Yettem.
1
Markar Melkonian, “The Fool's Dream: The Fall of Another New Eden and the Utopian Appeal of Ethnic
Solidarity,” Utopian Studies 18, no. 2 (2007): pp. 223-235, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20719865.
ix
Introduction
“Man is transitory, but Mankind is lasting.”
- Revered Garabed Kalfayan (Hoviv Yettemi; The Pastor of Yettem),
Yettemagan Hooshardzan, 1950.
Armenian identity has become inadvertently interconnected to emigration and
trauma. Although Armenians are an ethnic group native to the Eastern Anatolian
plateau and Southern Caucasus, most of the Armenian population currently resides in
different corners of the world. Despite the global dispersion of the Armenian population,
the international experience of most Diaspora-Armenians is embedded in memories of
the ancestral homelands; and in some instances, a reconstruction of Historic Armenian
pastoral life.
Memory-building as a form of resistance and community conservation in close
ethnic enclaves in the United States is a fascinating phenomenon of displaced and
trauma-endured peoples. Cultural erasure and heritage eradication at the hands of an
oppressor are traumatic, but the slow, trickling loss of heritage through assimilation is
risky and even more difficult to process. As future generations become more
assimilated, the urgency to protect the nearly lost heritage grows stronger. Although
later generations of Armenians refugees in the Diaspora have not physically set foot on
their ancestral lands, oral histories, cultural practices, and intangible heritage preserves
the sense of belonging and connects their identity to a romanticized, nostalgic idea of
historic ancestral homelands.
Many of the Armenian families that settled in the Central Valley of California
established family farms, and later went on to play a significant role in California grape
1
and raisin industries. While the work done secured their fiscal well-being and economic
survival, the act of resettling in the Central Valley and establishing agrarian fields is also
an act of community-driven heritage conservation.
The first two chapters will provide the global and local context of the significance
of Central Valley Armenian agricultural work through an analysis of Armenian
agrarianism in the Eastern Anatolia region, historically known as the Armenian
Highlands. Though Yettem exists in its tangible form in the Central Valley, it is more than
just California heritage; it is a method of preserving a non-Western heritage through the
lands of California’s Central Valley. In a sense, the Central Valley became the
geographic surrogate for the reestablishment of Armenian culture. The attempt to
rebuild the agrarian landscapes of their homelands is an important aspect of cultural
identity and heritage conservation and possibly a coping mechanism for trauma
endured.
The third chapter focuses on the founding of Yettem and the efforts of
reconstructing an Armenian town in the Central Valley. It traces its conceptual roots and
the collective dream of finding a suitable place to buy tracts of land to resettle. It also
documents the town’s history prior to the Genocide, and after the Genocide. The
chapter also documents the economic and agricultural activity, as it is interwoven with
the history of the town. The fourth chapter focuses on community driven efforts of
cultural preservation through tangible and intangible means. It identifies some sites of
significance, both extant and demolished, as well as highlights some organizations
which helped maintain the spirit of the Armenian heritage through arts and culture in the
Diaspora. Although many Yettemites no longer live in Yettem proper, they still make the
2
pilgrimage there for church on Sundays, special events, marriages, and funerals. The
community is closely knit and maintains contact despite living outside the physical
boundaries of the town. The church actively engages the community through social
media, which has been an important vessel of community connections through the
COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Although Yettem is physically a very small place, its
heritage is so incredibly rich and dense that a simple thesis, nor a book, would not
suffice to document all that the town has to offer.
Figure i.1: Yettem’s Founding Parade, 1980s. Source: Courtesy of Mari Louise Menendian.
3
Chapter 1: Conditions in Ottoman Empire
Introduction
This section provides historical context on the conditions of Armenians under
Ottoman rule through a few focused lenses. Firstly, I will briefly provide a geographical
description of the region for context, which is important in understanding the reasons as
to why some Armenians chose to settle in California’s San Joaquin Central Valley. Then,
I will analyze the sociocultural, economic, and political conditions in Eastern Anatolia,
also known as the Armenian Highlands, that have defined the Armenian heritage and
cultural identity.
2
It is important to understand the travel restrictions placed on
Armenians, beginning with the Armenophobic policies and legal methods of suppression
under Sultan Abdul Hamid II’s rule. Later, to contextualize the migration to the Central
Valley, this section will also focus on agrarian Armenians of the Ottoman Empire and
specifically, Armenians from Caesaria’s town of Chomaklou, because this thesis
primarily focuses on the experiences of the Armenian farm owners and peasants that
were uprooted due to the anti-Armenian pogroms, massacres, and oppression under
Ottoman Rule.
3
3
Armenians under Ottoman rule were not all agrarians; some held high positions in government, others
were business owners in larger cities, etc. This chapter does not disregard other Armenian social classes
or occupations but focuses on one specific demographic’s experience.
2
From this point on, I will only refer to the Eastern region of the Ottoman Empire as the Armenian
Highlands or the Eastern Provinces as an attempt to decolonize the geopolitical region. The term
“Anatolia” was introduced later on as a method of “othering” Armenians and other ethnic minorities, and
was introduced as a method of unifying the various regions of the Ottoman Empire into a homogenous
identity. Prior to this change of name, the region was either called the “Armenian Highlands,” “Turkish
Armenia,” or “Ottoman Armenia.”
Sources: Ayla Gol, “Imagining the Turkish Nation Through 'Othering' Armenians*,” Nations and
Nationalism 11, no. 1 (2005): pp. 121-139, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1354-5078.2005.00195.x.
Ronald Grigor Suny, “Religion, Ethnicity, and Nationalism: Armenians, Turks, and the End of the Ottoman
Empire,” in In God’s Name, ed. Omer Bartov and Phyllis Mack (Berghahn Books, April 2001), 23-61.
4
Figure 1.1: Color Map of the Eastern Provinces of Turkey by Zadig Khannzadyan, 1924. Source: David
Rumsey Map Collection.
(https://www.davidrumsey.com/rumsey/download.pl?image=/179/13321031.jp2 target=_blank).
Geographic Context
4
Armenians are an ethnic group of people native to the Armenian Highlands.
5
Prior to its designation as Eastern Anatolia, mapmakers outside the Ottoman Empire
had considered the region as Armenia, or Turkish Armenia.
6
The region consisted of six
provinces - or vilayets, in Turkish; Erzrum, Van, Bitlis, Sivas, Kharpert/Harput (Mamuret
6
Ronald Grigor Suny, “Armenians,” in They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else: A History of the
Armenian Genocide, (2015), 31.
5
Berge Bulbulian, The Fresno Armenians: History of a Diaspora Community, (Word Dancer Press, 2001).
4
While I initially planned on a closer analysis of two or three specific regions, it would be a disservice to
not discuss the region and cultural heritage as a whole in this context, as closer analysis of specific
regions would require a more finite focus that would extend far beyond the scope of this thesis.
5
Al-Aziz), and Diyarbakir.
7
Cilicia (Adana) historically had a significant Armenian
population prior to the massacres and migrations of the 1890s. Although this region was
formally considered the Armenian Highlands, Armenians lived in other regions of the
Ottoman Empire as well.
8
Most Armenians of the Eastern Provinces were agrarian by
the nature of the economic opportunities provided by the landscape. Armenians, Kurds,
Turks, Assyrians, Jews, and Greeks lived harmoniously under Ottoman rule. The region
is situated between the Black, Mediterranean and Caspian Seas. (Figure 1.1) Most of
the mountainous region is currently within the borders of the Republic of Turkey; despite
this fact, many Diaspora Armenians still refer to the region as Historic Armenia, Western
Armenia, Armenian Highlands, Armenian Plateau,and the provinces by their historically
Armenian names.
The diverse continental climate and geographic location of the region allowed for
the cultivation of economically important crops and livestock, which became the primary
economic resource for Armenians in the region, who depended on crop and dairy
product farms and land ownership. The area is predominantly steppes, high peaks such
as the symbolic Mount Ararat, and large lakes, such as Lake Van, another region of
significant importance to Armenians. The area is ideal for growing varieties of grains,
fruit trees, and also for breeding livestock.
9
Archaeobotanical excavations have also
shed light on the historic presence of grapes and viticulture in the area. Large clusters
9
Ramaz Gokhelashvili, “Asia: Iran, Turkey, and Armenia,” WWF (World Wildlife Fund), accessed August
28, 2021, http://www.worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/pa0805.
8
Houshamadyan, “The Ottoman Empire and the Armenians,” Houshamadyan, accessed August 28,
2021, https://www.houshamadyan.org/introduction/the-ottoman-empire-and-the-armenians.html.
7
Armenians did live in other regions of the Ottoman Empire, but the heaviest concentration was in the
Eastern Provinces, which were historically always occupied by a significant Armenian population.
6
of grape remnants dating back to the first and second millennia BCE expressed the
significance of grape vineyards and grape processing in the region.
10
The Armenian Agrarian Landscape and Socioeconomic Conditions
Anti-minority and anti-Christian acts of violence, pogroms, and anti-minority
propaganda began many decades prior to the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Conditions
for ethnic and Christian minorities had always been less than second class.
While some Armenians in the cities were businessmen and some maintained a
higher social status with heavy restrictions, the majority of Armenians in the Eastern
Provinces were farmers. Since international trade and the demand for agricultural goods
counted for 56% of the Ottoman Empire’s national income by 1914, agrarianism was
more notably a predominant lifestyle for Armenians living in the Highlands. Initially,
many Armenians were agrarian landowners; living, owning, and working on their own
fields. Despite later attempts through data misrepresentation to eradicate Armenians as
active participants in the Ottoman Economy, many Armenians contributed financially to
the economic stability to the Ottoman Empire through agrarian means before the land
confiscations and violence of the Hamidian Massacres; this gave way to the elusive and
discouraged use of the phrase “Armenian Economy.”
11
Around the same time, the Ottoman Government under Sultan Abdul Hamid II’s
rule wanted to tax nomadic Kurdish residents, and encouraged settlement and the
11
Bedross Der Matossian, “The Taboo within the Taboo: The Fate of ‘Armenian Capital’ at the End of the
Ottoman Empire,” European Journal of Turkish Studies, June 2011, https://doi.org/10.4000/ejts.4411.
10
Chantel E. White and Naomi F. Miller, “The Archaeobotany of Grape and Wine in Hittite Anatolia,” Die
Welt Des Orients 48, no. 2 (October 2018): pp. 209-224, https://doi.org/10.13109/wdor.2018.48.2.209,
210.
7
takeover of Armenian agrarian lands.
12
Russian newspapers often wrote about the
economic and cultural conditions in the Ottoman Empire, and one noted: “It is useless to
raise the question of restoring to the true Armenian owners the lands that have been
seized from them by the Kurds. The Armenians must give up all such hope.”
13
Tensions
between Kurdish aghas (landowners) and Armenian and Assyrian rural farmers began
to rise when the government began collecting same-rate taxes from all residents in the
region. Muslim landowners did not appreciate being equated to lower ranked Christian
minorities, and same rate taxes amongst citizens was regarded as offensive. As a
result, the beys (provincial governors) made Armenians pay up to three-quarters of their
harvest as taxes and with heavy interest on loans.
14
Armenian landowners and farm
workers in the provinces were essentially left with no substantial means of self-support,
as lands were stripped away and all profits were forcibly handed over to beys. High
taxes, land grabs, and governmental loopholes were intended to destabilize the
Armenian landowners’ economic and land-owning power.
15
The agrarian landscape was Ottoman Armenians’ financial livelihood, their sense
of belonging, and their heritage. The direct hit on the agrarian landscape was
destructive to their geospatial affinity, particularly since their identity was so ingrained in
15
It is important to note that Assyrians also faced similar impositions, and were also regarded as “Zirr
Kurr” - slaves, but throughout this chapter I will only mention the Armenian trauma as this follows the
Armenian migrational patterns and Agrarian Heritage. See more: Shirinian, Genocide in the Ottoman
Empire, 24-25.
14
Beys were provincial governors in the Ottoman Empire. Armenians were eventually forced into a
serf-like relationship with their landowners. See more: George N. Shirinian, “The Background to the Late
Ottoman Genocides,” Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, January 2017, pp. 19-81,
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvw04g61.6, 24-25.
13
Dikran M. Kaligian. “Agrarian land reform and the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire,” The Armenian
Review, Vol 48, Nos 3–4, (2003), 25–45.
12
Hamidian is used in a descriptive manner to distinguish between the Ottoman Empire under Sultan
Abdul Hamid II’s rule, as opposed to the Ottoman Empire’s reformed state after the Young Turks rose to
power. This chapter primarily focuses on the conditions of Armenians prior to the Genocide since Yettem
was established before the Armenian Genocide of 1915 perpetrated by the Young Turks regime.
8
their cultural lands. Due to the lack of data that remains and the altered Ottoman history
for ethnic minorities from the time period, it is difficult to precisely pinpoint the numbers,
but evidence points to an overall changing of the region’s agrarian landscape through
the usurpation of Armenian agrarian landowners, farmers, and peasantry.
16
Because of the consistent oppression many ethnic minority groups began to
develop nationalist movements to protect their communities against the Ottoman rule,
and subsequently attempted to breakaway to create their own independent states. Two
Armenian agrarian regions in the Highlands, Sassoun and Van, are significant to note
for their attempts at self-defense and failed attempt at protecting the Armenian peasant.
These events were noted by Ottoman officials as the reasons for the Armenian
deportations and anti-Armenian violence, even though the government-mandated
violence predates the Armenian attempts at self-defense. The ever-growing threat of
Armenian revolt against the State was inadvertently connected to migration to Europe
and North America. The first Armenian political party was established in Geneva by a
group of Armenian students who had travelled to Switzerland from the Ottoman Empire
for education. The political revitalization amongst educated Armenian youth was a
perceived threat to Sultan Abdul Hamid II’s rule, and ultimately led to the attempted ban
of nearly all Armenian travel to the United States, with exceptions made for trade.
17
17
David Gutman, “Travel Documents, Mobility Control, and the Ottoman State in an Age of Global
Migration, 1880–1915,” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 3, no. 2 (2016): pp.
347-368, https://doi.org/10.2979/jottturstuass.3.2.08, 359.
16
Astourian, Stephan Astourian. “The Silence of the Land: Agrarian Relations, Ethnicity, and Power,” in A
Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire, (2011), 66.
9
Mobility Control and Travel Restrictions in the Ottoman Empire
As a result of the insecurity in the Ottoman Empire, the Armenian National
Assembly presented reform requests to the government in the 1870s, which were
ignored by the government.
18
The Ottoman government associated Armenian migration
with the rise of Armenian political and revolutionary organizations, which they feared
would create instability among the Armenian peasants in the Eastern Provinces. The
presence of missionaries from the West and their influence, the thought of a more
stable life, and better economic opportunities was enticing to young Armenians looking
to better their financial conditions in the economic disparities caused by legal limitations
and implications placed upon Armenian laborers. As a result, the State created a
system of documentation, mürmûr tezkeresi, to control internal travel and prevent
overseas migration among the Maronite Christians in Mount Lebanon and the
Armenians in the Eastern Provinces.
19
Ottoman officials were concerned that Armenians
who were leaving for the United States for work would “fall under the sway of ‘seditious’
Armenian political organizations operating in an environment of ‘complete and total
freedom.’”
20
Because the government felt that the Armenian revolutionary groups were a
threat to its stability, they attempted to implement methods of geographical control
within the country as well.
Yet, despite the bans, Armenians found alternate ways of receiving documents to
help migration to the United States. To reduce Armenian travel, the State began
20
Gutman, “Travel Documents,” 359.
19
Rough Translation: documents of passage. Gutman, “Travel Documents,” 348.
18
İIkay Yılmaz, “Governing the Armenian Question Through Passports in the Late Ottoman Empire
(1876–1908),” Journal of Historical Sociology 32, no. 4 (2019): pp. 388-403,
https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12249, 390.
10
unsuccessfully imposing cash bonds only on travelers of Armenian descent.
21
According
to Gutman, about 75,000 Armenians migrated to the United States from the Ottoman
Empire from the 1880s through the onset of World War I. Yet, this number does not take
into consideration the forceful migrations for the sake of refuge due to the Hamidian
Massacres, nor does it take into consideration the possibility of crypto-Armenians
travelling under the guise of other identities. The passports system was a method of
policing communities and keeping records on individuals, particularly those who were
poor, migrant, and seasonal workers. Due to the violent outbursts and massacres of the
1890s, many Armenians attempted to flee without registration.
22
As a result, even within
the Ottoman Empire Armenian seasonal workers were deported from Istanbul to their
hometowns, resulting in a loss of their jobs. Another aspect of mobility control was also
preventing travel through port cities, as they had the highest mobility rate of people and
ideas.
As the Ottoman Empire’s power slowly started to crumble, Sultan Abdul Hamid II
began to promote the concept of a “Turkey for Turks” that eliminated ethnic and
Christian minorities from the landscape of the Ottoman Empire, resulting in a
Pan-Turkish empire spanning from sea to sea. Armenians, Jews, Greeks, Assyrians,
and eventually Kurds became victims of rising tensions and violence. The Hamidian
Massacres of 1894-1896 perpetrated by the Sultan resulted in the death of about
22
Yılmaz, “Governing the Armenian Question Through Passports in the Late Ottoman Empire
(1876–1908),” 394.
21
Migration limitations on Armenians was a complex situation, because although it was a form of social
control to keep Armenians from becoming enlightened overseas, the Ottoman Empire’s economy relied
heavily on Armenian and Kurdish migrant workers who traveled to work in different farms across the
Highlands. Erzrum, at the time, was one of the highest production centers for cotton, which relied on the
travel and migration capabilities of Armenian farmworkers. Herein lies the predicament and challenging
relationship of attempting to impose travel bans on Armenians, yet understanding that the nature of
Armenian migration and travel is necessary for the economic wellbeing of the State.
11
300,000 Armenians, 50,000 orphans, and the displacement and flight of thousands of
others to other countries for survival.
23
After the violent uprisings and massacres, travel
was legalized for Ottoman Armenians, but with strenuous requirements, including
forfeiture of their property, their Ottoman citizenship, and a vow to never return to their
homeland upon their decision to leave. Considering the deep connection and
relationship of the Armenian population with the natural landscape of the Highlands, the
legality of travel under these requirements was essentially another method of
Government-sanctioned cultural erasure of Armenians from their landscape.
With the revolution of the Young Turks in 1908 who overthrew Sultan Abdul
Hamid II, the prospect of a new, modernized Ottoman Empire with better opportunities
for ethnic minorities was promised. Yet, although policy reform allowed easier travel and
movement, the continued threat of political instability due to the emerging Armenian
political organizations created deeper tensions between the State and the Armenians in
the Eastern Provinces. As Gutman argues, by 1914, “as the Young Turk government
sought desperately to prevent the departure of military-aged men, its stance towards
migration was in some ways more restrictive and illiberal than its Hamidian
predecessors.”
24
24
Gutman, “Travel Documents,” 367.
23
Akçam Taner, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility
(New York, NY: Metropolitan Books/Holt, 2007), 42.
12
Figure 1.2: Map of Caesaria/Gesarya (present-day Kayseri, Turkey) and surrounding villages, drawn by
M. Balayan, Cairo 1936. Red underlined city - Caesaria, Green underlined - twin cities of
Evereg-Fenesi, light blue underlined - Chomaklou. Source: Armenianweekly.com.
Chomaklou
Located south of Caesarea, north of Evereg-Fenesi, below the peak of Mount
Argaeus (Arkeos, to locals), Chomaklou was a village founded by Armenians who
arrived from the Eastern regions of the South Caucasus. (Figure 1.2) It is surrounded by
rolling terra-cotta-colored hills, green pastures, and dark caves carved by volcanic
activity of Mount Argaeus. (Figures 1.3 and 1.4)
Although Chomaklou was founded by Armenians in the 1700s, remnants of past
habitation, dating back centuries, were evident. Today, the region surrounding Mount
Argaeus no longer has the same thriving Armenian population as it did prior to 1915, as
Chomaklou was a targeted center for mass killings and deportations of the Armenian
13
population. (Figure 1.5) Remnants of Armenian owned homes and churches can be
found hidden beneath overgrown weeds. Chomaklou, in the regional dialect, refers to
the trunks of the decaying trees that were present when it was first inhabited by
Armenians.
Figure 1.3: Uptown Chomaklou, 1910. Source: Courtesy of Mari Louise Menendian/ Reverend Garabed
Kalfayan.
14
Figure 1.4: Downtown Chomaklou, 1910. Source: Courtesy of Mari Louise Menendian/ Reverend
Garabed Kalfayan.
Figure 1.5: Armenian Genocide Deportation Routes of 1915. Source: Wikicommons/Semhur.
There are three types of massacres depicted: red dot: in a control centre; pink dot: in a station; black
dot: in a concentration and annihilation center. Size of dot correlates to number of Armenians
massacred. Notice that Chomakhlou is in the region of Kayseri. Swords represent Armenian resistance.
Dots in Black Sea represent Armenians (predominantly women and children) drowned in the sea.
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Armenian_Genocide_Map-en.svg).
15
In 1930, Revered Garabed Kalfayan, a native of Chomaklou and later the priest
of St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church of Yettem, CA, published the most
comprehensive book about Chomaklou, including geographical location, rituals and diet,
economics, education, and stories of survivors of the 1915 deportation routes.
Chomaklou was a small town with roughly 300 homes and about 2,000 residents.
Though small, the community was tight-knit and proud; life, as described by Reverend
Kalfayan, was filled with pleasantries, cultural and religious celebrations, and
opportunities for social gatherings in the vast open fields, even though the threat of
dwindling income and consistently rising tensions with the Aghas was constantly
looming in the background. (Figure 1.6)
Figure 1.6: Postcard of Chomaklou Armenians on a picnic, circa 1800. Source: Courtesy of Mari Louise
Menendian.
16
Most economic support for Chomaklou Armenians came from farming, and
sometimes animal husbandry. Reverend Kalfayan notes that the once fertile soil no
longer yielded the same quality and quantity of produce, resulting in less work and
income for residents. Despite the weakened labor force and shrinking incomes,
Armenian farmers were still expected to pay landlords the same taxes, pushing them
into economic despair. In the hopes of finding new streams of income, farmers began
bush cropping a small, thorny bush called the French tamarisk, to harvest the eighth
layer of the plant’s sweet sap with a sharp knife.
25
The process was exhausting and
damaging to health, but had become the only source of income for families. Pay
continued to decrease, and after the taxes, barely any amount remained to justify a
meager lifestyle for a family; eventually, children also had to work with their parents.
Due to rising tensions and disdain over the decreased production, landlords began
looting the fields and subsequently burning them, cutting off one of the last remnants of
economic sustainability for residents.
26
Eventually, these issues were taken to the
courts, and after lengthy battles against the intolerant behavior of Aghas, Chomaklou
Armenians received some form of temporary justice through limited freedoms over their
land.
Similar to other Armenian towns and communities, Chomaklou Armenians were
eager to join the self-defense movement to protect its citizens. Rev. Kalfayan in his
memoir recalls the red and black smokey hue of Evereg in 1895, as Turkish raiders
pillaged through the town, where the “unarmed Armenian population was being rounded
26
Reverend Garabed Kalfayan, Chomaklou: The History of an Armenian Village (New York, NY:
Chomaklou Compatriotic Society, 1982), 35.
25
In Armenian, this process is called gazagortsutyun, which roughly translates as “gaz labor.” In Farsi,
Gaz is the sap of the French tamarisk plant and the term for Persian nougats that originated in Isfahan.
17
up and slaughtered like sheep.”
27
The experience of Chomaklou Armenians during the
Hamidian Massacres and the 1915 Massacres parallels that of Armenians from other
regions as well; but it is important to note the sense of regional pride and community
that survivors held on to as a method of identity protection and community rebuilding in
the Diaspora. Chomaklou identity remained strong despite the different paths survivors
took to escape the dire situations at the turn of the century, and later established the
Chomaklou Compatriotic Society in the Diaspora, which still functions today.
Armenian Migration to the United States
Although Armenian migration to the United States and elsewhere increased due
to the Hamidian Massacres of the 1890s and the Armenian Genocide and mass
deportations of 1915, Armenians began to arrive in the United States in smaller
numbers much earlier, usually in search of economic, educational, and business
opportunities. The first recorded Armenian in the United States, “Martin the Armenian,”
who arrived in New England and became a tobacco farmer in Virginia in 1618 became
the first encounter that many would have with Armenian merchants and tradesmen in
the continent. Armenian migration continued, but in relatively small numbers throughout
the 19th century. Although Armenians travelled from the Ottoman Empire for various
reasons, their connection to their Armenian identity remained strong. The work done in
the Diaspora ultimately returned people, or the products of their work, back to the
homeland. For instance, a group of Armenian students studying in Geneva, Switzerland
founded the oldest continuously operated Armenian political party, the Social Democrat
Hunchakian Party of 1887. Many Armenian men who had the opportunity to leave the
27
Kalfayan, Chomaklou, 79.
18
Ottoman Empire and reestablish themselves in the Diaspora before World War I
returned to the Eastern Provinces of the Ottoman Empire, also known as the Armenian
Highlands, to find themselves an Armenian bride, or attempt to find any surviving
members of their family to take with them back to their new homes. In fact, most
Armenians who did travel to North America initially did so in an effort to find economic
opportunities, with the intention to eventually return back to their homelands. This
strong sense of identity that was interwoven with their community and landscape, and
the act of a pilgrimage to the homeland, is still prevalent today in the Armenian
Diaspora’s intricate relationship to both the historic Armenian Highlands in present-day
Turkey, and modern day Armenia.
While Armenian migrational patterns and reasons have many overarching
similarities, regardless of their social status and occupation under Ottoman rule, each
class and region also had their own unique set of experiences. For Armenians who
escaped persecution prior to the forced deportation paths of 1915, trade, labor, and
education became a predominant factor in where they eventually settled in the
Diaspora.
Conclusion
Numbers of Armenian emigres surged because of two seminal moments of
violence in the Ottoman Empire, but many Armenian farmworkers and landowners who
could no longer sustain themselves and had the means to escape persecution found
themselves resettling in other countries, primarily in the United States. First settling in
East Coast states, Armenians eventually moved and resettled in California due to what
19
they recognized as geographic and climate similarities to the Armenian Highlands.
Although conditions, according to surveys by residents, were not great in California for
Armenians, and many eventually faced discrimination for their ethnicity, the risk of
moving to the States was still a better probability for Armenians under Ottoman rule
during that time.
28
Because the experience of the agrarian Armenian was so intertwined
with the land, settling in a region that was idyllic and reminiscent of the landscape in
their homeland was a potential coping mechanism for the trauma endured and the
restrictive life in the decades leading up to the 1915 Genocide.
28
Matthew A. Jendian, “Chapter 2: Uncovering Ethnicity,” in Becoming American, Remaining Ethnic, (New
York: LFB Scholarly Publishing, LLC, 2008), 36.
20
Chapter 2: Why California?
Introduction
In his 1939 book, Factories in the Field, Carey McWilliams described California
as “a fabled land...rich in the stuff of which legends are made.”
29
This myth that
positions California to be an oasis of many sorts - financial success, health, and
happiness - has long attracted hopefuls to its idyllic lands. The promise of potential
wealth as a result of California's Gold Rush of 1849 attracted thousands of hopefuls
looking to strike gold, but beyond the promise of financial success, the attraction of
California derives from the fabled belief that “life has always been easier and
abundance an acknowledged historical fact.”
30
Yet beyond the illusion of this
romanticized California, there is a hidden history and the traces of land and racial
exploitation, and American romanticism. And yet, even the retelling of California’s dark
past has morphed into a comfortable narrative to justify the existence and occupation of
this mythical land.
The myth of California attracted not only Americans from the eastern states, but
hopefuls from around the globe who sought to reestablish themselves in an area whose
only constant is change and novelty. California in and of itself is a large state so
historians have often suggested that geographically, the dividing line between the North
and the South is the Tehachapi mountains, and the two regions are culturally distinct.
Between the Coastal metropolitan regions of Northern and Southern California, the
Sierra Nevada mountain range to the east and the Coast Ranges to the west is a nearly
30
McWilliams, Factories in the Field, 3.
29
Carey McWilliams. “Chapter 1: Introduction,” in Factories in the Field, (University of California Press:
2000), 3.
21
40-50 mile wide and 450 mile long stretch of land known as the Central Valley. The
Central Valley can essentially be divided into two main parts; the northernmost third of
the land is the Sacramento Valley, and the southern two thirds of the land is called the
San Joaquin Valley. Furthermore, the San Joaquin Valley is divided into the San
Joaquin Basin and the Tulare Basin. (Figure 2.1) While it is important to take into
consideration the entire Central Valley, most of the focus of this chapter will be on the
industrialized agrarian landscape and the multicultural communities of the San Joaquin
Valley, particularly the Tulare Basin, where most of the early Armenian population
settled.
Figure 2.1: Federal Map of the Central Valley Project. Source: Wiki Commons/Shannon1.
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Central_valley_project-01.png)
22
To understand the significance of the Central Valley to the Armenian community,
and others alike, it is important to first understand Central Valley’s significance as a
center of agrarianism in California, and why it was so attractive to so many minorities.
Furthermore, it is also significant to contextualize the Armenian move to the Central
Valley. Yettem was not the first Armenian settlement in the United States -- in fact, it was
not even the first Armenian settlement in California. Many Armenians had already
settled into East Coast states and the Midwest. In California, Armenians were primarily
settling in Fresno, located just forty miles north of Yettem.
To the eyes of the Armenian Diaspora outside of the San Joaquin Valley, Yettem
and other Central Valley Armenian-populated towns such as Cutler and Fowler live in
the shadows of Fresno’s significance in the Armenian community. It is important to
understand the history of Fresno to contextualize the migration to, and establishment of,
the Armenian diaspora in towns surrounding Fresno, and extending into Los Angeles.
Armenians in Fresno faced a unique set of paradoxical challenges. While they
were successful in owning land and making money, most Armenians arrived with little to
money in their possession. Neighbors in Fresno, and the political conditions at the time,
viewed Armenians as “others.” Although their identity was questioned, Armenians
succeeded to “prove” and maintain their whiteness through the United States Courts.
31
Furthermore, while Armenians were pushed into isolation from their neighbors and
interdependence, attempts were still made to participate and assimilate in American
31
Japanese immigrants also challenged the “racial state” but did not succeed according to Garcia. See
more: Matthew Garcia, “The Importance of Being Asian: Growers, The United Farm Workers, and the
Rise of Colorblindness,” Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century, 2019, pp. 95-115,
https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520953765-007, 113.
23
culture, while maintaining their ethnic identity.
32
For some, the challenges of assimilating
into American identity in the pace that was expected of them was difficult to endure. By
the 1920s, 55% of the Central Valley’s Armenian community did not live in Fresno.
Fresno’s Armenian population, by that time, had dwindled to 7,919, as Armenians
sought better economic and social conditions.
33
The San Joaquin Valley
Prior to the arrival of the Spanish Missionaries and Americans from the Eastern
states, the Central Valley was home to the Yokuts and Miwok tribes. The Yokuts lived in
the region that can be traced from present-day Bakersfield to Stockton.
34
The Miwok
lived north of that region, from the Fresno River into the Sacramento Valley. (Figure 2.3)
The valley was abundant with fertile soil, game for hunting, seeds, and roots, which
made it relatively easy for people to settle down in a specific region, rather than travel in
pursuit of food and shelter. Around the edges of the valley’s streams and rivers grew a
specific type of bulrush, known as the tules. When the Spanish missionaries arrived,
they called the Indigenous folks Tulareños, after the tules bulrush.
35
(Figure 2.2)
35
Smith, Garden of the Sun, 3.
34
Wallace Smith and William B. Secrest, Garden of the Sun: A History of the San Joaquin Valley,
1772-1939 (Fresno, CA: Linden Pub., 2004), 4.
33
Jendian, Becoming American, Remaining Ethnic, 65.
32
Jendian, Becoming American, Remaining Ethnic, 73.
24
Figure 2.2: Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani (Scirpus validus). Source: Matt Lavin
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/plant_diversity/6134695794).
The Spanish missionaries first arrived from the northern regions, encountering
the Miwok tribe before the Yokuts.
36
According to Wallace Smith, in Garden of the Sun,
the Yokuts were unlike all other California natives, because they were “divided into true
tribes.”
37
(Figure 2.3) Each of the fifty Yokuts tribes had their own dialect, name, and
specific territory on which they lived, but the dialects were still close enough to each
other that social conversations were completely possible. The relative regions in which
communities lived can be drawn today. The Yokuts heavily relied on seed-gathering,
37
Smith, Garden of the Sun, 4.
36
The words Miwok and Yokuts both mean “people.”
25
acorns, wild plants, and berries. The region was not used for farming prior to the arrival
of Columbus.
38
All aspects of Yokuts life, including food, shelter, and clothing, were
reliant upon the valley’s land. Dress and shoes were made from bark, grass, or animal
furs for cold winters.
39
Jewelry often was made with seeds and feathers.
40
When there
was the risk of starvation during lengthy drought periods, people turned to fishing as
another source of food. There was a close relationship between the communities that
lived in the Central Valley and the land.
Figure 2.3: California Indigenous Tribes. Source: Kathy Moskowitz.
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jokut_tribe.jpg).
40
“About Us,” Tachi Yokut Tribe, accessed August 28, 2021, https://www.tachi-yokut-nsn.gov/about.
39
Smith, Garden of the Sun, 31-33.
38
“About Us,” Tachi Yokut Tribe, accessed August 28, 2021, https://www.tachi-yokut-nsn.gov/about.
26
The missionaries first encountered the Miwoks in the Central Valley as they
moved towards the West Coast.
41
There were no missions built in the Central Valley. All
the missions constructed during the Mission period were along the Western coast. As a
result of this contact, most of the Miwok perished or were missionized to the point of
nearly complete eradication because nearly whole villages were taken to the missions
along California’s coast.
42
Aside from harsh mission conditions and physical and cultural
erasure, smallpox, Spanish influenza, and syphilis that were brought by the Spaniards
became detrimental to the communities who had never encountered such diseases
before.
Despite having to pass through the Central Valley to get to the coast, the valley
was referred to as “terra incognita” in official documents by the Missionaries.
43
The first
colonizer, Pedro Fages, set foot in the region in 1772, three years after the founding of
the first mission in San Diego. Spanish Californians began settling in the region from
1836 to 1846, and the Gold Rush began in 1849.
44
Not only did the indigenous
communities perish, but the development of missions and the incoming white settlers
depleted the natural resources and supplies of wild animals by trappers and hunters.
45
Though the Gold Rush brought many people to California, many of whom trickled into
the Central Valley, one can argue that agriculture was California’s first industry, and the
Central Valley’s sun-drenched golden fields were more valuable than the nuggets of
gold that were discovered under the rich soil of California.
45
Smith, Garden of the Sun, 105.
44
Smith, Garden of the Sun, 116.
43
Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California , vol. 2 (Irvine, CA: Reprint Services Corp., 1840), 43.
42
Smith, Garden of the Sun, 3-5.
41
Smith, Garden of the Sun, 2.
27
Central Valley’s Agriculture
However, unlike the rest of the agrarian United States, rather than California’s
agricultural industry growing because of homesteads that were owned and operated by
small families, California agriculture stemmed from large ranches that evolved from the
early land grants.
46
After the Mexican-American War of 1846-1846, the Governor of
California Pio Pico began making hasty land grants to friends and family whose patents
did not properly go through when the United States acquired California. Twenty-four out
of the thirty land grants from California’s Mexican sovereignty were patented by the
United States. The expansive lands of once Mexican-owned cattle ranchers eventually
evolved into large agribusinesses, which led to Carey McWilliams’ to aptly title his book
about the region, Factories in the Field, specifically exposing the land monopolizations,
expansive fields, migratory work, and the produce factories that have defined more
recent history of the San Joaquin Valley.
An Oasis of Opportunity
Ethnic communities migrated to the region looking for agricultural work. The
Central Valley’s soil was ideal to grow different types of produce, and various
communities seized the opportunity to reestablish themselves or find work on one of the
expansive farms in the region. The Central Valley has the world’s largest patch of Class
I soil, which has few limitations that restrict its use.
47
Class I soil is productive and suited
47
Mark Bittman, “Everyone Eats There,” The New York Times (The New York Times, October 10, 2012),
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/magazine/californias-central-valley-land-of-a-billion-vegetables.html.
46
Sally M. Miller, “Changing Faces of the Central Valley: The Ethnic Presence,” California History 74, no.
2 (1995): pp. 174-189, https://doi.org/10.2307/25177491, 176.
28
for intensive cropping, perfect for farming.
48
As a result of this, Central Valley was ideal
for fruit and vegetable production. Over 250 different crops are currently grown in the
Central Valley, yielding about $17 billion dollars’ worth of produce that provides nearly a
quarter of the nation’s food. Approximately forty percent of the fruits, grains, and nuts
consumed in the United States originates in the Central Valley.
49
Many of the produce
grown are not native to California, but the Class I soil can nurture various crops from
around the globe. News about California’s fertile lands and opportunities for work
spread rapidly.
California’s economy at that time was just developing. In Changing Faces of the
Valley, Sally Miller states that California’s agri-economy was growing alongside the
other economies across the nation. Similar to the rest of the nation, the Central Valley’s
ultimate success as the center of agribusiness was heavily indebted to the consistent
flow of incoming migratory immigrant farm workers. The first large ethnic community to
arrive in the Central Valley as agricultural workers were the Chinese. By 1880, thirty
percent of the Chinese immigrant community lived in the Central Valley. By 1900, forty
percent of the Chinese community lived in agricultural regions, including the Central
Valley and other agrarian areas in California. However because of federal exclusion
laws and xenophobic sentiments, the Chinese population gradually began to decline.
50
Armenians, Sikhs, Japanese, FIlipino, Basque, Italians, and other communities
also began to arrive in the area as early as the 1840s.
51
Migrant farmworkers brought
51
Jendian, Becoming American, Remaining Ethnic, 64.
50
Sally M. Miller, “Changing Faces of the Central Valley: The Ethnic Presence,” California History 74, no.
2 (1995): pp. 174-189, https://doi.org/10.2307/25177491, 176-177.
49
“Central Valley | Usgs.gov,” accessed August 28, 2021,
https://gallery.usgs.gov/centers/ca-water/science-topics/central-valley.
48
A E Klingebiel and P H Montgomery, “Land-Capability Classification,” Land-Capability Classification §
(1961), 6.
29
with them seeds and plants from their homelands, many of which grew well in the
Valley. Many immigrants drew on knowledge of agriculture from their homelands and
utilized it in California. This is not to say that small farms or cultivation did not exist prior
to the arrival of immigrant farmworkers, but that they simply grew exponentially.
The Question of Armenian Identity
Until today, Fresno continues to be considered the heart of the Armenian
Diaspora in the Western Hemisphere, paralleling the significance of Bourj Hammoud,
Lebanon, as the center of the Armenian Diaspora on the other end of the globe. Despite
the entrepreneurial successes of Armenians in Fresno, many were met with mixed
sentiments from their neighbors, which became one of the reasons that many Fresno
Armenians eventually began to move away to look for new opportunities and work.
According to Jendian, Professor of Sociology in California State University Fresno,
Armenians in Fresno were met with both prejudice and discrimination, as opposed to
Armenians in other states who were often met with indifference.
A number of factors may account for this: 1) the rapid and unrelenting pace of
Armenian immigration combined with their clustering together in the city’s
southwestern area (just south of the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks); 2) their
relative economic success (although less than 10% of the population, Armenians
accounted for 25% of the country’s growers and owned 40% of the county’s
raisin acreage by 1930); and 3) their differences in skin color, dress, and
language.
52
In 1930, Richard Tracy LaPiere conducted a research survey in Fresno and interviewed
474 non-Armenians to understand white Fresno residents’ attitudes towards
52
Jendian, Becoming American, Remaining Ethnic, 66.
30
Armenians.
53
Many anti-Armenian sentiments were recorded in his survey. White
neighbors did not want their children to play with Armenian neighbors and they
advocated for barring them from becoming citizens. His study found that Armenians’
Christian beliefs did not ease those tensions either.
54
Ironically, Armenians desired to
become naturalized citizens quicker than other immigrant groups, because they were
found in a “stateless” position.
55
Despite the attempts Armenians were often excluded
from social groups, activities, and events.
56
In addition to general anti-immigrant sentiment in Fresno, racial covenants were
put into place specifically targeting Armenian, Indian, Chinese, African American, and
Japanese communities. According to Bulbulian, it took nearly half a century from the
time of the arrival of the first Armenian before an Armenian public school teacher was
hired.
57
These racial covenants barred individuals from owning homes, working, or living
in certain regions. Housing discrimination existed event before the legally sanctioned
Racial Covenants. Discriminatory additions were included in deeds that did not allow the
property to be sold or rented to ethnic groups. Until the covenants were lifted,
Armenians were able to buy homes by utilizing the same methods that Armenian
farmowners used to purchase lands - offered to pay much higher than asking price so
that sellers have no choice but to accept, leaving them in debt.
58
58
Bulbulian, The Fresno Armenians, 117.
57
Bulbulian, The Fresno Armenians, 114.
56
Barkan, “Land Labor, and Immigrant Communities,” 172.
55
Elliot R. Barkan, “Land, Labor, and Immigrant Communities: Hawai'i and the Mainland (Asians,
Portuguese, Armenians, and Scandinavians),” From All Points, n.d., pp. 155-184,
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2005wmq.26, 170.
54
Garcia, “The Importance of Being Asian,” 99-100.
53
Richard T LaPiere. The Armenian Colony in Fresno County, California: A Study in Social Psychology.
May 1930.
31
Armenians, along with Japanese and Indian immigrants, would eventually
challenge the perceptions and the legal definition of “whiteness” through the court
system. Bhagat Singh Thind, an Indian immigrant, was granted citizenship on the basis
of his Caucasian background, but government lawyers argued against his whiteness
and eventually won against him, further imposing a “common knowledge” test for
determining the whiteness of immigrants.
59
According to Ian Haney Lόpez, the United
States Courts offered different rationales to justify racial divisions, and two central
methods were the “common knowledge” and “scientific evidence.” The common
knowledge was arbitrary and focused on popular conceptions about race and racial
divisions in the United States. Someone’s citizenship appeal, for instance, could be
denied because of what the public’s held common beliefs about race were at the time of
the ruling.
60
Ultimately, the test was just another method of discrimination, as it was not
based on any evidentiary support because it was simply based on the commonly held
misconceptions about race held by average American citizens. Armenians entered the
United States under the racial perception of being Asian. However, due to the Cartozian
case, Armenians were eventually considered “legally white” because of their features
and Christian beliefs.
61
Because of this test, as well as the prejudiced views about
Armenians in the Central Valley, Armenian-Americans straddled the fine line of being
accepted as white by the legal system and being the “other” in their communities.
Matthew Garcia states that Armenians were able to see success because this case
61
Garcia, “The Importance of Being Asian,” 100.
60
Ian Haney Lόpez, “White Lines,” in White by Law: the Legal Construction of Race, (New York, NY: New
York University Press, 2006), 2-3.
59
Garcia, “The Importance of Being Asian,” 99.
32
opened the door for them to experience white privilege through a performance of
whiteness, which benefitted them more in business ventures than it did socially.
62
Despite the challenges of citizenship and discrimination that Armenians faced in
their day to day lives, the discriminatory and prejudiced conditions in the United States
were still preferable to the conditions in the Ottoman Empire. Ultimately, the Armenians
who were standing trial at risk of deportation won their court case, but not necessarily
because of an understanding of the Armenian ethnicity and identity, but because
Cartozian’s lawyers argued that Armenian men marry American women, which therefore
was seen as a sign of whiteness.
63
Armenians did eventually somewhat cross the racial
divide and reap the benefits of white privilege, but the perception of Armenians as the
“other” - both in the Ottoman Empire and in the West, remained predominant.
Legalities aside, Armenians faced discrimination in Fresno on a regular basis. In
the Midwest, “Starving Armenian” became a popular saying among families around the
dinner table to encourage their children to eat, while in Fresno, residents called them
“Dirty Armenians” or “Fresno Indians.”
64
Armenians had a reputation in Fresno of being
dishonest bargainers and were frowned upon for speaking their native-language by
some English speaking people.
65
When residents of Fresno were asked about their
perceptions of Armenians, 92.5% stated they would refuse to accept a marriage
between Armenians and their own, and many did not want their children to play with
Armenian children, nor did they want them to attend their churches, despite the fact that
65
Bulbulian, The Fresno Armenians, 111-113.
64
Jendian, Becoming American, Remaining Ethnic, 66. See also: Peter H. King, “Some Old Country
Wisdom,” Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles Times, September 12, 1993),
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-12-mn-34525-story.html.
63
United States vs Cartozian of 1925 was one of the first cases to challenge the citizenship of Armenians
in the United States. See more: Garcia, “The Importance of Being Asian: Growers, The United Farm
Workers, and the Rise of Colorblindness,” 99.
62
Garcia, “The Importance of Being Asian,” 100.
33
Armenians were Christian, just like the majority of white Americans in Fresno. Through
the 1940s and the 1950s, many Armenians were also not allowed to hold certain jobs.
Central Valley Armenian residents recall relatives not being allowed to become teachers
because of the “ian/yan” of their last names. Civil rights attorney and legal counsel for
the Black Panthers, Charles Garry, whose original name was Charles Garabedian, grew
up in the Central Valley. Despite graduating at the top of his class, Charles was not
allowed to speak as the valedictorian of his class because of his Armenian last name.
The principal of Selma High School stated, “Mr. and Mrs. Garabedian, I want you to
know that anyone with Garabed’s grades would normally make the valedictorian’s
speech at graduation. But of course you understand that it is impossible to have an
Armenian do that.”
66
The feeling of isolation in a foreign land was further enforced by the prejudiced
perceptions of neighbors in Fresno, and as a result Armenians became even more
interconnected, with lessening communication and interactions with odars
(non-Armenians). Furthermore, since Armenians often purchased farms at higher
prices, they had to capitalize on communal family work to ensure that they received a
quicker return on their investments. All Armenian family members worked together on
their ranches, and some family members would take on a second job by working in
packing houses or other nearby ranches.
67
Organizations such as the Sun-Maid Raisin
Growers Association and Armenian raisin farmers butted heads in a court case in 1923.
The Sun-Maid Raisin Growers Association was founded by local farmers to promote fair
prices for growers. An Armenian farmer, Mr. Papazian, refused to join as he voiced
67
McWilliams, Factories in the Field, 121.
66
Roger Tatarian, “Charles Garry: Armenian Streetfighter in the Courtroom,” HyeTert, June 9, 2020,
https://hyetert.org/2020/06/09/charles-garry-armenian-streetfighter-in-the-courtroom/.
34
concerns regarding who the organization is intended for - large or small farmers. After
threats of foreclosure, threats to their safety, and eventually having his house burnt
down, he adamantly argued in court that these conditions are methods in which the
organization would try to force small farmers into signing.
68
Armenians in the Central Valley: Fresno
Shortly after landing at the Fresno Yosemite International Airport during his first
official visit in 1998, Armen Melkonian, the consul general of the Republic of Armenia
stated: “I supposed that Fresno was in Armenia.”
69
The San Joaquin Valley, Fresno in
particular, is a special place for Armenians in the Diaspora because it is one of the
oldest Armenian communities in the United States. Often called “the capital of Armenia
outside of Armenia,” the significance of Fresno (and by extension, the San Joaquin
Valley) in the attempted rebuilding of Armenian life and culture outside of the Armenian
highlands is incomparable. For the longest time, Fresno had the largest population of
Armenians in the entire United States.
Fresno, located just north of Visalia, became the center of Armenian immigration
and farm ownership. When Fresno was founded in 1872, there were grain and wheat
farms, which required a lot of acreage. With the introduction of irrigation, people were
able to make more feasible sense by farming in smaller acres, although permanent
crops were still not planted. The economic opportunities that came with land owning and
farming were attractive to many people.
69
Charles McCarthy. “Fresno Armenian Community Gets View of Homeland,” The Fresno Bee, June 14,
1998, A16.
68
McWilliams, Factories in the Field, 122.
35
The first Armenians to arrive in the Central Valley, particularly Fresno, was
Mardiros Yanikian in 1874. When Mardiros first arrived in the United States, he felt like a
new man, and in celebration of his newfound persona, he changed his name to Frank
Normart, which literally translates as “new man” in Armenian. Though he returned back
to the East Coast, he boasted about the fertile lands to his peers, potentially igniting a
spark for them to move to California.
70
Mardiros eventually moved back to Fresno in
1885 and established a bicycle shop and later a taxidermy store which was family
operated until the 1990s.
When Armenians began to move to the region, often on the encouragement of
friends and family who had already moved to the region, many made risky financial
decisions in purchasing their own parcels of land. Armenians that moved to Fresno in
the 1880s often came as complete family units, contrary to the immigrant group that
followed after the massacres.
71
The Armenians that settled in Fresno differed from other
communities and later Armenian immigrants because they often came from commercial
backgrounds and arrived with capital and were capable of purchasing land.
72
Some of
the early Armenians who bought land were not as familiar with farming, but did so
regardless seeking not just financial stability, but a sense of ownership after feeling
tremendous loss of having to escape hostile living and work conditions in their native
homelands.
73
The migratory patterns here are important to note. Many Armenians who
connected, or in some instances reconnected, with one another, had ended up in the
73
Bulbulian, The Fresno Armenians, 54.
72
Jendian, Becoming American, Remaining Ethnic, 65.
71
Jendian, Becoming American, Remaining Ethnic, 63.
70
Berge Bulbulian, The Fresno Armenians: History of a Diaspora Community (Sanger, CA: Word Dancer
Press, 2001), 16-17.
36
United States for similar reasons. Since only those who received permission to travel on
the basis of trade or education were allowed to visit the United States, this led to others
finding alternative or illegal avenues of travel to escape the harsh economic and racial
conditions in the Ottoman Empire.
74
A class divide was automatically created within an
already oppressed community, as many Armenians were unable to have the legal
permissions to seek better opportunities. Although migratory patterns of Armenians
varied, ultimately, the goals for the migration were not just for financial reasons, but
safety as well.
Similar sentiments can be said about land ownership in the Central Valley. Since
economic opportunities and financial health was diminishing in the Ottoman Empire,
and Armenians in the States were reading letters from family about land and furniture
confiscations, purchasing land in the United States was a risky but important maneuver
for incoming Armenians. Some had an understanding of farming, but others did not.
Many Armenians who arrived in the United States as refugees were working in factories
on the East Coast, and the promise of potential land ownership was well worth the risk.
Although the Hamidian Massacres and the Armenian Genocide had not yet
happened yielding a refugee crisis, early Armenian travelers had set a precedent for
those who were to come afterwards due to the anti-Armenian violence. Furthermore,
because there were comparatively fewer Armenians entering the United States,
establishing relationships and remaining close to other Armenians helped create and
foster a sense of community and family in a foreign land.
74
Those who travelled on the basis of education did so partly due to the Western missionaries that had
been established in the Ottoman Empire. Some students who went to missionary schools would
subsequently get acceptances to Harvard, Yale, etc, and move to the East Coast States to pursue higher
education. See more: Smith, Garden of the Sun, 598.
37
The first Armenians to have bought land and settled in Fresno were the Seropian
brothers from Massachusetts in search of better climate conditions for Hagop’s (Jack)
health, who was suffering from tuberculosis.
75
It is uncertain if all the brothers, Hagop,
Garabed (Gary), and Simon, and their half-brothers Kevork (George), and Hovhaness
(John), arrived together or separately as multiple accounts have been documented
regarding their arrival. However, it is unlikely that Hagop travelled alone, since he was
gravely ill. After experiencing the success of the positive health benefits, the brothers
wrote letters to community members in New England and family in the Ottoman
Empire’s Marzovan region to encourage moving to the San Joaquin Valley. Initially, the
Seropian brothers worked odd jobs to make ends meet. Furthermore, the language
barrier made it even more difficult to communicate and assimilate in Fresno while
maintaining their identities. Not only were the Seropians the first Armenians to reside in
Fresno, but they were also the first Armenians to establish a business in the region.
First, they began selling fruits from a wagon, and eventually saved enough to invest in a
store.
76
Unfortunately, due to an adjoining restaurant catching on fire, their first store
burned down. Yet, the brothers continued selling fruit on the streets until they saved
enough money to open another store, with an Armenian coffee shop right next door.
77
In
between the two ventures, the brothers also began expanding on a tract of land that
they had purchased after saving up, growing about thirty acres of raisins, figs, tobacco,
and other fruits.
78
They began other businesses, including drying fruits, fruit packing,
78
Guinn, “History of the State of California,” http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm.
77
Bulbulian, The Fresno Armenians, 23.
76
James Miller Guinn, “History of the State of California and Biographical Record of the San Joaquin
Valley, California. An Historical Story of the State's Marvelous Growth from Its Earliest Settlement to the
Present Time,” California Genealogy and History Archives, accessed August 28, 2021,
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm.
75
Bulbulian, The Fresno Armenians, 17.
38
and shipping. They were the first to ship oranges and dried figs, a fruit that grew very
well in the Historic Armenian Highlands. In particular, Armenian immigrants helped
boost the production of Smyrna figs and white Adriatic figs in the Central Valley, as well
as grape and raisin varieties, and bulgur (cracked wheat).
79
Dried figs did not take off
immediately, as the public was unfamiliar with the fruit. In a quick and clever marketing
solution, the brothers wrapped the figs around nuts and marketed them as sweet fig
“dolmas.” While their fruit ventures were successful, their tobacco crops burnt down,
destroying the entire crop. Despite the troubles of having to experience two unrelated
fires destroying their businesses, the brothers continued to independently operate fruit
packing and shipping businesses.
While these statistical successes are impressive for new refugees fleeing from an
oppressive state, the choice in the fruits grown and choice in business are an interesting
point of analysis. Armenian figs, for instance, are a symbol of peace; grapes are a
symbol of wealth, abundance, and later adopted as one of the symbols of the Armenian
church; walnuts, a symbol of intelligence, possibly inspired by its physical resemblance
to a human brain. The choice to practice the culturally significant act of growing grapes
in Fresno is firstly out of necessity and survival. But considering the historical
significance of growing grapes in the Armenian Highlands throughout millennia, a fruit
that is so deeply rooted in the landscape and the Armenian culture, I am inclined to note
the symbolic growth of grapes in the Central Valley as a mode of resistance and rebirth
in a new region and a symbolic form of heritage conservation that is rooted in the
landscape. The physical act of growing and nurturing the fruits, and the establishment of
79
Nicole E. Vartanian, “A Fruitful Legacy,” Cobblestone 21, no. 5 (May 2000). Figs were already grown in
Fresno, including Smyrna figs, but Armenians successfully developed the commercial fig farming into a
lucrative enterprise.
39
farms reminiscent of their homelands, was a method of keeping that connective thread
between their new lives and old.
Armenians had a reputation of having a great understanding of viticulture and
other fruit and nut production when they first arrived.
80
While Armenians brought some
new varieties to Fresno, grapes were already farmed.
81
Armenians introduced the
specific sulphur-bleaching method to make golden raisins. Paul Boghosian created a
raisin seeding machine in 1904.
82
Armenians also introduced or catapulted the
production and shipment of certain fruits and nuts. In 1884, Arshag Peters planted the
first pistachio trees of the region in a nursery, which was then moved to Yettem and
developed into a commercial orchard by A. Minasian. Armenians also introduced certain
varieties of melons, and Krikor Arakelian became known as the “Melon King” throughout
the Central Valley.
83
Armenians also introduced the Armenian cucumber in Fresno
around 1910-1911 with seeds brought from Armenia. The Armenian cucumber is
slender and pale green, with a soft, edible skin and is technically part of the melon
family. The average Armenian cucumber is ten to twelve inches, but can grow up to forty
inches. (Figure 2.4)
83
Bulbulian, The Fresno Armenians, 72-73.
82
“History,” Armenian Museum of Fresno, accessed September 1, 2021, http://www.armof.org/history/.
81
“Armenian Immigrants,” Valley History, accessed September 1, 2021,
https://www.valleyhistory.org/armenian-immigrants.
80
“California Raisin Marketing Board,” California Raisin Marketing Board, accessed 2021,
https://calraisins.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Industry_Brochure-LR.pdf.
40
Figure 2.4: Zaven Arkdian, Fresno resident, with an Armenian Cucumber measuring forty inches, 1939.
Source: The Fresno Bee.
Prior to the arrival of Armenians, there was a fig boom in the Central Valley.
However, figs are a tricky fruit to farm commercially. They can be easily damaged during
the picking process and while they’re on the tree. It requires delicate but harsh labor,
which left some farmers discouraged and began farming Alfalfa. Armenians began
farming figs and fig prices became five times more expensive than they were before.
84
In 1902, Henry Markarian became the largest fig grower in the United States with an
estimated twenty percent of fig production of the United States. The Markarians
84
“A Fight for the Armenians,” Oakland Tribune, April 3, 1921.
41
introduced tree spacing and irrigation techniques to boost production of figs. They were
also experts in packaging and marketing, and introduced “fancy packs,” a dried fruit
variety pack sold during the holidays. In a 1921 Oakland Tribune article, the anonymous
writer of “A Fight for the Armenians” expresses their disdain for Armenian and Japanese
farmers, and states that “the interior valleys of California, great and small alike, can
never be in the fullest sense, a white man’s country, for he cannot do an honest day’s
work in the field.”
85
Armenian farmers, such as the Markarians, who had humble
beginnings, were now living lavishly and enjoying the fruits of their labor, which was
frowned upon by other farmers.
It would be erroneous to make the assumption that Armenians established family
farms in the region as a grand symbolic gesture of preservation, when it is first and
foremost for the financial survival of the family. However, in the act of establishing
agricultural fields in Fresno as a means of survival, these farmers inadvertently
conserved a very significant aspect of their heritage - one that faced eradication through
land confiscations and persecution in their homelands, re-establishment of the
landscape architecture in a new region, and now, the dwindling number of Armenian
farmers in the wake of rising urbanization. Oftentimes, the early Armenians in the
Central Valley are lauded for their business skills and resilient spirit, but they deserve
recognition for their preservation of lifestyle through the rebirth of the Armenian agrarian
landscape in the west.
Between 1885 and 1890, Armenians moved to Fresno in small, but steady
numbers. By 1894, there were 360 Armenian-identifying individuals in Fresno County.
86
86
Jendian, Becoming American, Remaining Ethnic, 64.
85
“A Fight for the Armenians,” Oakland Tribune, April 3, 1921.
42
In the next decade or two, Armenian presence in the Central Valley, and in general the
United States, began increasing steadily, particularly due to the rising violence and
massacres of 1894-1896. The first Armenian Church was established in 1897, and just
a year later, the Armenian National Church in America was established in the United
States. By 1897, most of the Armenians in Fresno were merchants or artisans.
Moushegh Seropian’s almanac recorded 329 Armenians in Fresno in 1897, of whom
there were 14 tailors, 8 watchmakers, 7 secondhand dealers, 5 produce men, 1 grocer,
1 stockman, 1 bicycle seller, 1 dentist, 1 pharmacist, 1 midwife, 1 printer, 1 singer, and
the rest of the Armenians farmers, or owned orchards and vineyards.
87
By 1900, there
were 1,326 Armenians in Fresno.
88
By 1910, Armenians in California had grown to
4,441 residents, with at least 85% living in Fresno.
89
While many Armenians were tradesmen, businessmen, and educated in the
cities, a vast majority of Ottoman Armenians were simple village folks. Because of the
restrictions on passports, most Armenians that had the earliest opportunities to escape
the Ottoman Empire were more financially stable with a pre-existing background in
business. So while assimilation and finding a sense of community was difficult in the
United States, some early Armenians, such as the Seropians, already had some
specific skills and assets that did help them in their establishment of businesses and
growing their wealth. On the other hand, according to LaPiere’s dissertation, between
1898 and 1928, there were 58,456 adult men and unaccompanied women and young
boys to arrive in the United States. Over 78% of those who arrived during those two
89
Jendian, Becoming American, Remaining Ethnic, 61.
88
Isabelle Menendian, “The Story of Yettem,” Los Tulares, no. 30 (March 1957), 1-3.
87
Reverend Garabed Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial and Memories of Echmiadzin, 1950, 17-18.
43
decades had less than $50 in their possession.
90
There is a significant discrepancy
between the successes of Armenians that arrived in the United States prior to the
Hamidian Massacres and those that arrived within the era of the Massacres and the
1915 Genocide. While some initially had commercial backgrounds and money upon
arrival and were able to buy land and establish businesses, most Armenians were farm
workers or worked in the packinghouses. Many accepted hard labor in unpleasant
circumstances to make a living. Despite the difficulties, there was an overall sense of
gratefulness for the opportunity to work. Yet, by 1908, Armenians owned about
three-fifths of the land in Fresno County, which was about 25,000 acres of land.
91
Armenians were ambitious in their desires to own land, often paying a higher price per
acre for their farms compared to other groups that were investing in land in the Central
Valley.
92
Conclusion
California has a lot to offer to communities looking for work and to reestablish
themselves, but underneath the romanticization of the West lies the struggles and
challenges that many newcomers endured in settling down in the state. California’s
heritage is due to the various ethnic enclaves that have brought with them not just their
culture but their native farming techniques and agriculture to grow in California. While
Armenians settled in other states, California’s vast landscape provided various
opportunities for economic and cultural security.
92
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial and Memories of Echmiadzin, 20-21.
91
Jendian, Becoming American, Remaining Ethnic, 65.
90
LaPiere, The Armenian Colony in Fresno County, California
44
Chapter 3: Replanting Roots
Introduction
California - particularly Central California - attracted many communities looking
for agricultural work. Central Valley’s multicultural enclaves have yielded the creation of
a very distinct Californian agricultural heritage.
93
While some communities moved into
established cities, others sought to create their own self-sufficient towns. For instance,
Allensworth was the first town in California founded, financed, and governed by African
Americans, established in 1908.
94
Yettem, similarly, was established by Armenian
refugees around the same time period in the same general region.
According to Reverend Nazareth Spenchian’s account, he and two Armenian
friends were wandering forty miles southeast from Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley,
when they came across a region at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
95
At
that moment, the three friends felt an inexplicable connection to the land, and each
burst into folk songs about the agrarian fields of their Armenian homelands. Spenchian
sang “I Long to See my Cilicia,” Baghdoian sang “Oh, Majestic Mount Alagyaz,” and
Jenanian sang “I Come Wandering on the Waves of the River Mother Araks.” Driven by
song and nostalgia of their birth countries, they made their way towards the mountains
and set up their tents in the region. The land, they said, was so similar to Historic
Armenia that the three began purchasing acreages with the intention of selling tracts of
95
History of St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, 1911-1976 (Yettem, CA: St. Mary Armenian Apostolic
Church of Yettem, 1977), 43.
94
State of California California State Parks, “Colonel Allensworth SHP,” CA State Parks, accessed August
9, 2021, https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=583.
93
See more: Wanda Dumermuth and Judith Wood, “Tulare's Multicultural Heritage,” Los Tulares, June
2000.
45
land to Armenian farming families.
96
Eventually, this region was named Yettem - Eden -
in Armenian. This was a utopian dream for Armenians who had left their homeland and
now had an opportunity to recreate an idyllic home in a region similar to theirs.
While the story has truth in the description of the feeling, reasons, and the
landscape that drew farming Armenians to the area, the establishment of Yettem, and
what was in the region before the arrival of Armenians, was not happenstance. The
dream of a utopian Armenian community was a concept that existed prior to the
establishment of Yettem, driven by the trauma of the massacres and hardships faced in
the Ottoman Empire, magnified by the Hamidian Massacres in the 1890s. As news was
coming in from overseas about the worsening conditions for Ottoman Armenians, early
Armenian migrants worked towards financial security in the United States to help their
family and friends in Ottoman Turkey leave and find refuge in the States. Armenians
remained in close quarters when they moved here, which provided cultural retention,
but made assimilation a little bit more difficult.
Because some Armenians found assimilation to be challenging, there was a
yearning for the homeland. Hagop Nshigian arrived in California in 1884 and
documented his firsthand experience in 1912. Armenians had arrived bearing the
trauma of conditions under Ottoman Rule, in a “desert-like country, unfamiliar
surroundings and people, homeless and unprotected, under a burning sun, they were
scattered a lot.”
97
The language barrier became challenging in their journey into
California. Because of the tremendous effort and financial stress it took to get to
97
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial and Memories of Echmiadzin, 18.
96
Markar Melkonian, “The Fool's Dream: The Fall of Another New Eden and the Utopian Appeal of Ethnic
Solidarity,” Utopian Studies 18, no. 2 (2007): pp. 223-235, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20719865, 229.
Reverend Garabed Kalfayan, Yettem: A Cursory Overview, trans. Dennis N Torigian, 1947.
46
California, as well as the conditions back in the homeland, Armenian emigrants had no
choice but to stay and continue to work. According to Nshigian, some who were able to
save money were able to purchase lands and begin farming, while others began to work
at their previous trades. It was only after they established themselves when they invited
other Armenians to join. The struggle endured by early Armenians became subdued by
the prevailing stories of success.
The social conditions that were outlined in the previous chapter for Fresno
Armenians, as well as the nostalgia for the homeland that was heightened by
challenges of assimilation, became some of the reasons why many Armenians not only
left Fresno for better opportunities, but left Fresno with the dream of establishing an
Armenian community. This dream was not exclusive to Yettem’s founders. Other
Armenian community members had similar desires, and actively searched for tracts of
land to purchase in different regions, focusing their efforts in the Central Valley.
Some of the early history of Yettem is hazy, as it was passed down orally and
many of the earliest settlers were predominantly focused on self-reliance, and financial
and mental well-being as they journeyed to the region to become a part of this
community. The children of the founders - second and third generation Yettemites,
began documenting the town after the fact and published a few information-rich texts
about the founding of the town in local publications. Perhaps the most thorough
documentation of Yettem, however, was conducted by Revered Garabed Kalfayan of St.
Mary’s Apostolic Church.
Reverend Garabed Kalfayan wrote a cursory overview of the town in 1947, and
in 1950 wrote Yettemagan Hooshardzan (Yettem Memorial and Memories of
47
Echmiadzin), dedicated to the 50th anniversaries of the founding of Yettem and the
Pastor of Yettem’s educational career. When writing the book, Reverend Kalfayan took
into consideration the fact that some of the precise dates and occurrences of events or
names of the earliest pioneering Yettemites might not have been meticulously
documented. Other significant sources of documentation of the town include personal
memoirs of residents, and an impressive map from 1915 created by Arshalous
Menendian Chitjian and Lucinne Menendian Bennet, children of one of the pioneering
families of Yettem who contacted and documented the precise locations of Yettem
families and important structures as they happened to be in 1915. Parishioner and
architect Michael Tellian transcribed their rough draft of the map into its final form for the
75th anniversary of the founding of the Church.
98
This chapter consults the aforementioned documentation by townsfolk, maps,
personal accounts from residents from memoirs and oral interviews, as well as local
publications from the founding of the town to construct the narrative of the town’s
founding. The Armenian population of Yettem declined eventually, but some residents
still live in or near Yettem. Since the town is so small, many of the residents in the area
live steps away from the recognized boundaries of Yettem. Those that do remain, are
the children of the pioneering families of town, who live in their parental homes on the
remnants of their acreages. This chapter will also look into the latter years of Yettem
and the decline of the Armenian population.
98
History of St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, Yettem, California, 1911-1986 (Yettem, CA: St. Mary
Armenian Apostolic Church, 1986).
48
Searching for the Armenian “Colony”
The aftermath of the 1890s Hamidian Massacres and premonitions of larger
orchestrated attacks on Armenians prompted Armenians in the “old country” to meet in
an undisclosed location to discuss means of protecting the Armenian community from
other massacres. During that meeting, participants, including Reverend Nazareth
Spenchian, proposed a committee to select land in the San Joaquin Valley for
Armenians to flee to, “especially those from the laboring and farming classes” and to
“establish a thoroughly Armenian community as a little Armenia in America.”
99
The
members of that committee were Protestant Minister Reverend Jenanyan from Adana,
Nazareth Spenchian of Malatya, and Gabriel Baghdoyan of Malatya.
100
The committee
members communicated with San Joaquin farmers and officials prior to their visit to
Visalia. In addition to the committee that Spenchian was a member of, there were also
other Armenian civic leaders that were noted by local papers who intended to purchase
tracts of land with the hopes of establishing an Armenian community. There is a chance
that they could have been part of the same committee, but there is no concrete
evidence in the documentation about the relationship between the founders of Yettem
and other individuals searching for land in the Central Valley.
Armenians from the Historic Homelands, the East Coast, and Fresno were
visiting different areas in the Central Valley looking for potential agrarian areas in which
they could buy large acreages. Those who had capital would purchase the properties,
and later entice Armenian refugees to settle in the community with opportunities for
work to promote self-sustainability, economic development and financial well being.
100
Note: In Yettem Memorial, it is noted that Spenchian was from Adana, but the Church’s yearbook
states he was from Malatya. Refer to Figure 1.1 for the map of Historic Armenian Highlands.
99
History of St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, 1911-1976, 43.
49
There was communication between Diaspora Armenians on both coasts, as well as
Armenians who were still in the homeland. Furthermore, their American neighbors also
had an understanding of what was happening, because local newspapers from both
coasts where Armenians had settled down were reporting on the killings happening in
the Ottoman Empire. There was an alertness about the conditions that were driving the
Armenian refugee crisis.
Many communities immigrated to Central and Southern California during the
agricultural boom of the late 1800s. By the 1900s, Swedish, Portuguese, Italian,
Armenian, and Norwegian communities had arrived in the Central Valley and
established small farming colonies, contributing to the multi-ethnic agricultural history of
the San Joaquin Valley. The colony system was a method of land transfers and land use
generally under the operation of one community leader.
101
There are various
interpretations in what defines a California farming “colony.” For instance, William H.
Bishop states that farming colonies were not necessarily founded by groups “bound
together” but that the lands were sold to whoever wanted to buy them. John Haes states
that a colony is a “company or association of settlers, who buy their land in one block
and divide it themselves.”
102
The colony system was encouraged for individuals who
depended on labor for financial security. In Benjamin C. Truman’s Homes and
Happiness in the Golden State of California, the author states:
The colony system is one of the special boons to a poor man whose capital is his
labor. He cannot buy a farm, establish a manufactory, purchase a stock of goods,
102
Winther, “The Colony System of Southern California,” 94.
101
Oscar Osburn Winther. "The Colony System of Southern California." Agricultural History 27, no. 3
(1953): 94-103. Accessed September 2, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3739845, 94.
50
or pay for opening a mine; but he can buy ten acres of land in a colony, where
capital has brought out the water to the door of the settler…
103
Generally, colonies were advertised by groups promoting the economic benefits of
purchasing acreage in the tract, organized and led by a representative. Abiko Kyutaro,
for instance, purchased tracts of land and established the Yamato, Cressey, and Cortez
Colonies in the late 1900s and 1910s to entice Japanese Americans to return to farming
in the Central Valley.
104
Similarly, Armenian leaders who had capital attempted to
establish a “colony” that would entice Armenians to work and eventually purchase land,
while also providing a community for Armenians refugees. The colony system was not
just for economic well-being, but also to establish and foster a sense of community.
There were mentions of Armenian activity in Central Valley newspapers about the
intent of establishing an “Armenian Colony” as early as 1901.
105
On a nearly parallel
timeline, both Tulare and Stanislaus County newspapers were reporting of Armenians
shopping to purchase tracts of land in their respective counties. More than likely, this
could have been the same committee sending different representatives to look for ideal
acreages for Armenians to settle down in. In January of 1901, the Stanislaus County
Weekly News reported of three Armenian councilmen looking to buy four sections of
land in the Mitchell tract of the Turlock district of Stanislaus.
106
They regarded
106
There is an established Armenian and Assyrian community in Turlock with active community churches
to this day. Many Armenians and Assyrians in the region arrived due to the Genocide with agricultural
skills looking for work.
105
Prior to 1901, there was little to no mention (if any) of Armenian intent to establish an entirely Armenian
community in American newspapers, although discussions about it existed within the Armenian
community. Armenians who had settled in established cities and towns such as New York, Boston, and
Fresno were discussed in local news, but there was no reporting of the desire for an isolated community.
According to the dedication on the old Presbyterian Church’s bell, Armenians arrived in the region in
1892. (Figure 4.7)
104
Barkan, “Land, Labor, and Immigrant Communities”, 164.
103
Glenn S Dumke. "Colony Promotion during the Southern-California Land Boom." Huntington Library
Quarterly 6, no. 2 (1943): 238-49. Accessed September 2, 2021. doi:10.2307/3815668, 242.
51
Armenians as “good workers and intelligent crop raisers,” urging community
encouragement of a potential Armenian farming community.
107
Similarly, the Visalia
Daily Times reported of a potential Armenian community being established in Stanislaus
County in the northern Central Valley.
108
In the Daily Delta, N. H. Soogian alerted the
local bank of an estimated 300 to 1000 Armenians coming to California during winter
and spring of 1901 and that “their intentions are to form colonies and settle on desirable
tracts of land in the valley.”
109
Bishop Soogian was working with Mr. Nishkian of Fresno
and Bishop Saradjian from the east coast in their search.
Similar to the development in Modesto, officials were also welcoming the
investment of Armenians in Tulare, who they considered to be “an industrious folk.”
110
These sentiments were appreciated and vastly different from those experienced in
Fresno, but did not actually acknowledge the struggles which Armenians endured in
order for their capital to become well-respected in the Valley, including purchasing lands
at higher prices from non-Armenians.
111
Dick Iskenderian, for instance, purchased a
twelve acre peach orchard for $5,000 from Joe Zindell and George D. Smith in the
Yettem region in 1912, paying double what the sellers bought the land for.
112
Another brief in the Visalia Daily Times in January of 1901 vaguely references a
“colony project” in Modesto, as well as reports on the arrival of Bishop Saradjian to
Visalia, who was the chief of the Armenian Church in the United States.
113
Bishop
Saradjian was welcomed by Armenian families who were already living in Visalia, and
113
Visalia Daily Times, January 18, 1901.
112
“Made Nice Profit on Investment,” Tulare County Times, March 21, 1912.
111
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial and Memories of Echmiadzin,18-19.
110
Daily Delta, January 17, 1901.
109
Daily Delta, January 17, 1901.
108
Visalia Daily Times, January 18, 1901.
107
“Colonists Here,” Visalia Daily Times, January 25, 1901.
52
he was shown around the county for prospective tracts of lands where a new Armenian
community could be established.
114
If he was satisfied, it was estimated to have resulted
in the sale of 5,000-6,000 acres of land.
115
The efforts of this visit were successful, as
the Visalia board of trade adopted a resolution on January 16, 1901 and extended a
cordial invitation for Armenians to settle in Visalia County. In January, Bishop Saradjian
wrote a letter of appreciation to Mr. S. Mitchell, president of the Visalia board of trade
thanking him for the moral assistance and welcoming atmosphere.
116
The bishop
concluded his letter:
Hoping that through the efforts of your esteemed board a
desirable location for my people may be secured, and that this
undertaking may be brought to a successful issue,
I remain, Yours very truly,
H. Saradjian, Bishop
117
The potential land transactions were not as desirable as the Bishop had hoped,
but the welcoming atmosphere from the board was very much appreciated by the
community after experiencing persecution. In March, Visalia Daily Times reported that
Armenians still have not given up the concept of looking for land in the region, and
inspections of potential tracts of land to purchase were ongoing.
118
In 1902, Visalia Delta
Times reported on a third potential of an “Armenian colony.” M. Markarian, a resident of
Fresno since 1882, visited Tulare’s lake country looking for a place suitable for 300 to
400 Fresno Armenians to move to and establish their own community.
119
American
119
Visalia Times-Delta, November 4, 1902. It is important to note that newspapers would often spell
Armenian names and last names incorrectly, and the inconsistencies will be noted. In this instance,
Markarian was erroneously spelled “Markarin.”
118
Visalia Daily Times, March 14, 1901.
117
“Appreciate Their Interest,” Daily Delta, January 24, 1901.
116
“Appreciate Their Interest,” Daily Delta, January 24, 1901.
115
Visalia Daily Times, January 3, 1901.
114
Visalia Daily Times, January 3, 1901.
53
newspapers spoke about the Armenian capital, and the preparedness to purchase
property, painting an image of pre-existing wealth, without acknowledging that the
majority of those arriving were poverty-stricken laborers lured by financial independence
and labor.
There is no indication in Yettem’s documentation that the land committee led by
Spenchian and the individuals discussed in the Valley’s newspapers were all connected,
but there is no doubt that there was, at the very least, communication between different
members of the community in realizing this shared dream. There is also the possibility
that they could have all been a part of the same committee. The Armenians involved in
the search for a colony in Stanislaus County and Lake Country were not documented as
the founding members of the town of Yettem. Furthermore, those individuals are also
not documented as early Yettemites. Local newspapers also do not mention them in the
forthcoming years as residents of Yettem. Ultimately, those early searches for desirable
locations in California were not fruitful, as the committee members were unable to come
to an agreement on which region was right.
Founding of Yettem
The earliest Armenians known to have visited Yettem proper are Yettem’s three
founders: Reverend Haroutiun Jenanian, Reverend Nazaret Ispechnian, and Kapriel
Baghdoian. (Figure 3.1) In his book Yettem Memorial, Reverend Garabed Kalfayan
does note that he is not entirely certain on either the exact founding date of Yettem or
other potential founders because he documented first-hand eyewitness stories of
residents, whose memories could have been hazy. In addition, most of the founders of
54
Yettem had died by the time that the story of Yettem was being documented, and early
settlers did not necessarily pay attention to very specific details about Yettem’s early
days.
120
However, the aforementioned story about the founding of Yettem, though
undated, happened prior to either in 1900 or the first half of 1901. After this initial visit,
the committee came to the region several more times, but could not agree on a specific
parcel of land to purchase. By mid 1901, the founders had already returned to the
region and set up tents. This was the humble beginning that was considered the
founding of Yettem.
121
Figure 3.1: Founders of Yettem, Top Left: Arshavir Kemalian; Top Right: Reverend Jenanian; Bottom
Left: Kapriel Baghdoian; Bottom Right: Nazaret Isbenchian. Source: Courtesy of Mari Louise
Menendian.
121
Revered Father Archpriest Vartan Kasparian. “St. Mary, Yettem,” St. Mary Apostolic Church, Yettem,
1911-2011, 20.
120
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial and Memories of Echmiadzin, 24. Note that Yettem was not yet officially
recognized by the county of Tulare.
55
Revered Spenchian once told Reverend Kalfayan:
During the trip when we turned east at the sight of the present Calgro station and
turned our windblown faces towards the snowy Sierra Nevada Mountains on
whose crests the emerald woods stood like a sparkling necklace, we saw the red
soil of this wondrously beautiful God-made valley under our feet. In that moment,
I thought that an ocean burst forth from the depths of my soul.
122
In 1901, Baghdoyan purchased eighty acres of land and built a small house on his
property two and a half miles north from the town of Churchill. His property was mostly
dry bog when he purchased it; by 1904 he was able to cultivate the land and have vines
that grew three feet in the season. The Tulare County Times considered his vineyards to
be “the prettiest vineyards in all this section of the country.”
123
In the same year, Movses
Jenanyan built a large house on his newly purchased 140 acres. Nazareth Spenchian
purchased eighty acres near the other committee members. Shortly after, Spenchian’s
cousin Haig and his son-in-law Misag Jeirian joined.
124
In 1902, the Tulare County Times reported that an Armenian “colony” was
established south of Cutler station, and that more Armenians were expected to move to
the region and participate in grape and fruit farming.
125
In 1903, Reverend Jenanian and
the other founders purchased 320 acres of land northeast of Visalia, near Monson. By
1903, the founders had already purchased about 1,600 acres of land.
126
After this
purchase, Jenanian travelled to Philadelphia with the intention of bringing Armenians to
the growing community. The first of twenty-five Armenian families from New Jersey that
126
Tulare Advance-Register, November 12, 1903.
125
Tulare County Times, September 25, 1902.
124
History of St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, 1911-1976, 4.
123
Tulare County Times, May 5, 1904.
122
History of St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, 1911-1976, 4.
56
were expected to arrive did so shortly thereafter.
127
By 1904, there were fifteen
Armenian families in the region.
128
As more families arrived, the founders began
purchasing more tracts of land. In 1904, Yettemites purchased 2,600 acres of land east
of the town of Churchill.
129
Before Armenians began purchasing acreages, the land was completely
dedicated to wheat farming, and later was left unattended or used for grazing. Locals
believed that the land was untenable and did not pay much attention to it. Therefore,
many did not believe that the Armenian land purchases at such high costs would yield
any crops. Yet, in 1904, the Tulare County Times stated,
These people, in a small way, have demonstrated that the soil is adapted to
grape culture, and the Wheelock orange grove is evidence of what can be done
there in that industry. In a few years from now that section will be one of the most
prosperous parts of this end of the county, and some of our old-timers will be
wondering how they let such a good thing slip through their hands.
130
Yettem resident Haig Eginian recalls that their American neighbors thought that the
Armenians must be crazy, because the soils were considered to be poor when they first
began cultivating.
131
Another Yettemite, Hovhanness Nazaretian, recalled:
Before we came here Yettem was a genuine desert, covered with indigenous
grass and weeds. And an expanse of hardened soils. Here and there there were
solitary trees, oak and juniper. The nearby hills were swarming with snakes and
the canyons were the dens of thieves. To turn this place into a Yettem (paradise)
required superhuman effort. This the Armenians tried to do. They had no
resources - no tractors or machinery of any set. Our muscles were our tractor
and our machinery our patriarchal plow shares.
132
132
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial and Memories of Echmiadzin, 30-31.
131
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial and Memories of Echmiadzin, 30.
130
“The Armenian Colony,” Tulare County Times, March 3, 1904.
129
“North End News,” Tulare County Times, March 17, 1904. See appendix A for land transfers.
128
“The Armenian Colony,” Tulare County Times, March 3, 1904.
127
“Orosi News,” Tulare County Times, November 26, 1903.
57
In retrospect, many of the Yettemites wished that the founders would have chosen more
fruitful lands, which would have helped make farming easier; but the nostalgia-driven
decision was already made, and the seeds for Eden eventually prospered with hard
work. Language barriers, unfamiliarity with laws, in addition to weather conditions, poor
roads, and inadequate tools became exhausting barriers. Nevertheless, the community
persisted. Eginian recalls that “families lived on their land in houses they themselves
built. Very few had planted their own vineyards, instead had bought them at high prices
from non-Armenians.”
133
These are all firsthand accounts, and are based on when the
individuals arrived, and what they remember. It is possible that some purchased empty
tracts of land, while some newcomers purchased existing farms with their own
vineyards at high prices. In the deeds that were publicly available, some individuals
purchased lands from farmers, while some were purchased directly from the Bank.
134
There are no photographs of the earliest houses that residents built themselves, but
Nazaret Isbenchian’s writings suggest that they were made of twigs and mud, most
similar to homes made by the Apache. One side of the homes were for people, while
the other side was designated for animals.
135
Some Yettemites recall that the land was truly so similar to that in the Historic
Highlands, it may not have just been hard work, but an understanding of what the soil
needs in order for it to be properly nourished after being used for cattle grazing for so
many years. The comparative photos of present-day Yettem and the photos of
Chomaklou taken by Mari Louise Menendian, the daughter of Reverend Kalfayan,
display the uncanny similarities in the landscape between the two regions and bridge
135
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial and Memories of Echmiadzin, 32.
134
See Appendix A.
133
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial and Memories of Echmiadzin, 20-21.
58
the cultures of Yettem and villages in the Homeland. (Figures 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5) Yettem
resident John Farsakian recalls visiting his ancestral village of Chomaklou in Ottoman
Turkey and being surprised at the very obvious similarities between Yettem and
Chomaklou. The red claylike soil, which Spenchian noted in his account of the Valley,
was exactly the type of soil that Farsakians’ relatives would have cultivated in the town
of Chomaklou.
136
Figure 3.2: Yettem field, view facing east. 2021. Photo taken by author.
136
Ani Mnatsakanyan, Interview with John Farsakian and Alan Farsakian, March 25, 2021.
Due to limited availability of resources, I was unable to trace soil map comparaisons of Chomaklou and
Yettem from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and present-day conditions. It would be worthwhile to
analyze this comparison once resources are available again.
59
Figure 3.3: Stokes Mountains photographed on Avenue 384, view facing east, 2021. Photo by author.
Figure 3.4: Chomaklou, Turkey. Source: Photo taken by Mari Louise Menendian.
60
Figure 3.5: Chomaklou, Turkey. Source: Photo by Mari Louise Menendian.
Some residents had previous farming knowledge, but others did not and learned
when they arrived to capitalize on the opportunity. Some of the earliest residents had
already grown accustomed to city life on the East Coast, and learned how to farm on
the job. Others arrived with only pennies and relied on the generosity of friends to get
on their feet. Armenians were enticed by a community where they could live and work
with other Armenians. Onnig Dzerounian, an early resident of Yettem recalled, “We
imagined that Yettem was a large and prosperous town where we could live comfortably
amongst Armenians.”
137
Every Armenian that arrived came with preconceived notions of
how Yettem would be based on memories of their hometowns, but upon getting off the
train at Yettem Station only found desolate lands. Because of the lack of shelter,
137
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial and Memories of Echmiadzin, 33.
61
residents either stayed in homes of Yettem’s founders or pioneering families, or
squatted in broken down stables, and used discarded tin cans for kitchenware.
138
Within five years, there were about twenty-five families in the region. According
to the Yettemagan Hooshardzan, when Armenians established themselves there, the
government gave them permission and necessitated that the community determine a
name for the settlement. The founding members held a meeting to settle on the name of
the town, and ultimately Yettem was chosen. There is no documented record of this
meeting other than its happening being passed down through oral histories, and
therefore the date, the participants, and other options for the name are not precisely
documented. Hovhanness Nazaretian’s testimony states that the names were Cilicia,
Marash, and Yettem. Yezigiel Gendigian’s testimony states the names were Cilicia,
Ararat, and Yettem. Isbenchian remembers the three options being Adana, Masis, and
Yettem. Perhaps, driven by nostalgia, each individual remembers a name connected to
their past. Charles Davidian recounts that Hagop Effendi Hamalian, the storekeeper and
postmaster, Yezigiel Gendigian, and Devlat Agha Moorsalian were instrumental in
changing the name to something that would honor the Armenian community, as well as
foster a sense of comfort, considering that the conditions were increasingly becoming
more harrowing in the Homeland.
Yettem translates to “Garden of Eden,” which they felt was more fitting and
inclusive. Choosing a name selected after a region does not encompass the
geographical unity of Armenians from different regions who have found comfort within
the company of one another in the Diaspora. In 1905, the Armenian Community in the
region got permission from the government to establish a post office called Yettem in
138
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial, 34-35.
62
the Churchill region as Yettem.
139
The post office therefore was established, and J. H.
Hamalian was the first postmaster of the town. In 1912, Yettem adopted its official town
slogan, “Get ‘Em to Yettem!”
140
The current post office in Yettem was built by Ed
Tellalian of Orosi in 1961. Before the structure was built, the Yettem post office was
usually inside of different grocery stores. To this day, the Yettem post office is the only
one in the United States that bears an Armenian name (figure 3.6).
141
Figure 3.6: Yettem Post Office, 2021, view facing northwest. Photo by author.
141
“Post Offices Face Ax,” Visalia Delta Times, July 27, 2011.
140
Tulare Advance Register, February 21, 1912.
139
“Cutler Items,” Visalia Times-Delta, April 13, 1905.
63
Determining the Boundaries of Yettem
There are conflicting stories as to what was there prior to the land purchases
made by Yettemites. Some stories state that the region chosen at the foothills of the
Sierra Nevadas was primarily undeveloped land, although some families lived scattered
throughout the region. Other accounts state that the town was initially known as
Churchill, which had gotten its name because there was a church atop a nearby hill,
where residents from the past gathered to pray there. Another potential of the name
was after the former owner’s name of the land, Churchill.
142
Charles Davidan’s
autobiography and account of his life in Yettem, A Warm Wind Through Yettem, states
that the town was called “Lovell.”
143
Reverend Kalfayan, author of the only existing book
documenting the history of the town, also suggested that it was known as Stone Corral
or Seville by locals who lived north of the region.
144
However, there is truth to all these
accounts, and together they construct the regional narrative.
Towns in this region of Tulare County are all so close to each other, that it is no
surprise that there may be some overlap in the description of historical and present-day
boundaries between towns. Today, Calgro abuts Yettem to the west, Seville to the east,
and Cutler and Orosi are located northwest of the town. Some addresses in Yettem may
fall under Cutler, even though residents technically consider themselves to live in
Yettem. Present-day Yettem is only 98 acres, even though the early residents of Yettem
purchased more acreage than is recognized within the boundaries of the town today.
144
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial and Memories of Echmiadzin, 30.
143
Charles Davidian, A Warm Wind Through Yettem (Beverly Hills, CA: Davidian House Pub., 1993), 5.
142
Menendian, “The Story of Yettem,” Los Tulares. And Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial and Memories of
Echmiadzin, 29.
64
(Figure 3.7) The conceptual boundaries of Yettem extend beyond the actual recognized
boundaries of the town.
Figure 3.7: Yettem and surrounding regions, Google Maps.
An 1876 map of Tulare County indicates that the region is subdivided into plots,
some vacant. The 1884 map shows that the Churchill Post Office is in the general
vicinity of present day Yettem, in Stone Corral Townsend. The 1900 map shows
Churchill to the east of Monson, near the Santa Fe Railroad. There is a stronger
possibility that the first acreages purchased by Armenians were not in Churchill proper,
but at the outer boundaries of the town. As more Armenians arrived, they slowly trickled
into the town of Churchill. Through the early 1910s, some accounts in the papers
mention both Churchill and Yettem. But there is no indication, unless specifically noted
65
in the papers, whether or not they used the names for the same region interchangeably
or as two distinct geographic regions.
145
When Yettem was established, Lovell was not a town. Rather, it was the Lovell
Station for the Santa Fe Railroad, which was about three miles away from Yettem
proper. In June of 1910, the Visalia Times reported that the Lovell Station was from then
on known as the Yettem Station in recognition of the Armenian community in
Churchill.
146
However, in 1911, a new town was established near the train station, called
Lovell, where they established the Lovell School District. Although the station is
currently gone, Lovell High School is currently part of the Orosi-Cutler school district
located three miles away from Yettem proper. Because of the distance and to avoid
confusion, residents petitioned to change the name of the railroad station back to Lovell
Station.
147
Yettem’s Growth and Early Agricultural Successes Post-Genocide
Since the beginning of Yettem’s founding, the town’s history has existed in two
places at once; because Yettem’s story is not just about the actual town, but the
conditions that yielded the founding of the town and the individual migrations that
resulted in the establishment of the community. It is, therefore, both local and global at
the same time, for the local history would not exist without the simultaneous treks that
survivors were on in order to reach this Garden of Eden. In addition, the knowledge, the
memories, and the trauma from the East carried over to their new lives in the West.
Some unfortunately were so grief stricken by the conditions, that they saw tragic fates.
147
“Town to Be Started at Lovell Station,” Visalia Times-Delta, August 15, 1911, p. 5.
146
“Lovell Station Henceforth Known as Yettem,” Visalia Times-Delta, June 15, 1910.
145
See Appendix B for Maps of Tulare County.
66
Jacob Gazarian was a well-off attorney in the Armenian Highlands but was incarcerated
for many years and later exiled to Macedonia. Upon arriving in Yettem, he was
committed to the asylum twice and eventually committed suicide at the age of 55.
148
Gazarian’s story was not unique; many others saw similar fates but were often
overlooked by local reports due to the stories of rapid financial success.
This was exacerbated in the 1910s as conditions worsened in the homeland.
Armenians arrived escaping the traumas of intensified persecution, and many
Yettemites sought to help in any which way possible. Many Armenians sought orphaned
or widowed brides from the Ottoman Empire to help them find safety. Furthermore,
Yettemites also sought financial help from local charitable organizations. The connection
between the two extended far beyond the similarities of the landscape; Yettem was not
truly a “Garden of Eden,” or a land of opportunity, if their families and neighbors were
suffering overseas.
Moving to Yettem
As financial independence seemed to be more of a security than a gamble in
Yettem, more Armenians began arriving to escape the conditions of the Ottoman
Empire. By this time, many of the Armenians had been deported from their homelands
for some time. It is important to note that because of the conditions and deportation
routes of the 1910s, Armenian refugees were not able to make the direct journey to the
United States in the same manner that the Armenians who arrived in the 1880s-1890s
did. Oftentimes, their journeys, if they survived, took a few years until they reached a
destination where they could resettle. Some were able to escape quickly and settle in
148
“A Verdict of Suicide,” Tulare County Times, February 2, 1905, p. 8.
67
different parts of the United States before moving to Yettem, and others had wandered
for years in Syria and other countries or moved from one orphanage to another prior to
arriving to Yettem.
It was also during this time period were many Armenians who were escaping the
1915 Genocide, particularly Chomaklou Armenians, began to arrive in Yettem.
149
“They
drew each other like magnets,” said John Farsakian, a Yettemite whose ancestral home
was Chomaklou.
150
Hrant Farsakian, one of the pioneering Chomakloutsis, considered
himself one of the fortunate ones to have escaped the Ottoman Empire in 1913 before
the organized Genocide of 1915. He lived in New York until August of 1935 when he
and his wife Mayreni moved to Yettem where they stayed with the Simonyan family.
Although they moved to Visalia in 1937, the Farsakian family, to this day, is very much
active in Yettem social and church life.
Siranoush Gashian (nee Barsamian) of Evereg, was deported through the
deserts of Der Elzor in 1915. After five years of homelessness, she arrived in Adana,
and met Onnig Zarounian who had returned to the region to find a wife. They married
and came directly to Yettem to establish their lives.
151
Sark Davidian arrived in the
United States as a two-year old in 1923, escaping the Genocide. They traveled
immediately to Yettem and established their roots, where he dedicated his life to
ranching. Mary Boudakian was born in Chomaklou to Armenag and Shatene
Elikouchoukian. Her father was jailed in 1917, and a month later her mother, her five
brothers, and herself were deported. Four of her brothers died along the way. After a
151
History of St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, Yettem, California, 1911-1986 (Yettem, CA: St. Mary
Armenian Apostolic Church, 1986). 19.
150
Mnatsakanyan, Interview with John Farsakian and Alan Farsakian.
149
Along with the Armenians from other regions surrounding Chomaklou. Mnatsakanyan, Interview with
John Farsakian and Alan Farsakian.
68
year in Damascus, Khacher Majanian became their sponsor and helped them journey to
the United States. After a brief stay in Ellis Island, the three survivors travelled to
Yettem, arriving on March 30, 1921, where they were greeted by the Yahnian brothers.
Armenians began focusing on bettering physical conditions in Yettem as well. In
1920, work had begun to pave the road (Avenue 384) to Seville.
152
By 1923, the number
of Armenians had grown to 1,500. However, repatriating and reconstructing life in the
Ottoman Empire appeared to have been a dream that many Yettemites had not
forgotten. Yettemites, led by S. H. Artinyan, H. Nazaretian, and A. Simonian, wrote a
telegraph to the Near East Conference, stating:
To the president Near East Conference,
Lausanne, Switzerland:
We, the Armenian people of Yettem, California, numbering 1500 souls
appeal to you for the sake of justice and peace to provide for us and the eight
hundred thousand refugees a national home, independent of the unbearable
Turkish rule, on some part of our historic land that we may return and begin
reconstruction work. After all the barbarities the Turkish government perpetrated
upon us it is impossible for any Armenian to live under Turkish rule. In the name
of our one hundred million martyrs we ask you to solve the Armenian question
once and for all.
Armenian Colony of Yettem, California.
153
Farming Successes and Failures
Isabelle Menendian, the daughter of one of the pioneering families of Yettem,
recalls, “Money was at a premium. It must have been the love of the soil and the desire
for financial independence that urged them on to another day and still to another.”
154
154
Menendian, “The Story of Yettem,” Los Tulares, 3.
153
“Yettem Colony Asks Conference to Save Armenia,” Visalia Times-Delta, December 27, 1922. The
contemporary estimate of massacred Armenians in the 1915 Genocide is 1.5 million. The hundred million
can possibly be a number that includes those that were forcefully deported, escapes, and earlier
massacres and pogroms leading up to the 1915 Genocide.
152
“Yettem Road to Seville is Started,” Visalia Daily Times, June 3, 1920.
69
This parallels the farmers' relationship to the land back East. Recall the conditions of
Armenians as described in the first chapter, where conditions were dire, financial
freedom was dwindling, and the land was becoming untenable when beys were burning
peasants’ lands. Despite those struggles, Armenian farmers continued on with the labor
to revive the soil and hope for financial security. Young Armenians who arrived in Yettem
to farm, either persuaded by the opportunities for labor or the landscape’s similarities to
their homeland, began declaring their intentions to become citizens of the United States.
The Adalian brothers who had arrived in New York in 1897, declared their intentions to
become citizens in 1911 after settling down in Yettem to farm.
155
For a brief period of time, Yettemites found success in growing tobacco.
However, the small farms could not compete with the well-established and controlled
tobacco industry. Armenians also experimented with growing cotton, as some would
have been familiar with growing and harvesting cotton due to cotton production in the
Highlands, as well as citrus trees such as lemons and oranges. Yettemites also
attempted to grow 200 to 500 acres of sugar beets because a new beet sugar factory
was erected nearby.
156
However, the soil seemed best suited for grape production,
which became the primary source of financial security.
Yettem quickly became the center of grape production, but some residents also
grew lemons and oranges. Most of the residents grew Thompson seedless grapes.
Nazareth Spenchian, for instance, grew Tokay, Zinfandel, and Thompson grapes. Most
of the residents grew Thompson seedless grapes successfully. P. Yeramian was noted
in Visalia Times-Delta for bringing in the first batch of grapes in 1912, which were only
156
“2000 Acres of Sugar Beets will be Planted,” Tulare Advance-Register, December 22, 1905.
155
Tulare County Times, October 11, 1911.
70
planted in March of 1912. The paper applauds Yeramian for bringing in the first grapes
from a sixteen month old vineyard. The paper states that a twelve year old field in
Fresno would ordinarily yield a ton and a half of grapes per acre, but Yeramian was able
to cultivate a ton and a half per acre of grapes with such a young vineyard.
157
Local papers often boasted about Yettem’s successful raisin crop, and farmers
were often the first to pack and ship their grape and sun-dried raisin varieties. However,
many of the farmers wanted to process grapes as they had done in their native country.
In this method, the raisins were treated with a lye solution extracted from ashes to
produce a lighter-color raisin. After experimentation, Krikor Arslanian was the first to
prepare the sulphur dipped bleached raisins in 1909. He travelled to New York to sell
the new variety there, and the new method of bleaching raisins took off.
Sulphur-bleached raisins were regarded as “fancy” in local papers, distinguishing
them from other soda-bleached raisins. In a single year, about six thousand tons of
sulphur-bleached raisins were produced in Yettem. However, the profits came to a halt
during the Great Depression. The work to bleach raisins was expensive and tedious,
and were not able to survive the conditions of the Depression. Natural processes
succumbed to mechanical farming. Yettem farmers began using dehydrators so that
grapes can be dipped and dried quickly and easily for a more affordable price. In 1938,
Yettem farmers began using dehydrating warehouses to produce their golden-bleached
raisins, which quickly spread through the region. The new sulphur-bleached raisins
used less sulphur and direct sunlight to create, resulting in a raising with a darker
shade, but one that was of better quality. The traditional methods became obsolete by
1953, and in 1954, about 26,000 tons of grapes were produced using dehydrating
157
“First Grapes Make Appearance,” Visalia Times-Delta, July 21, 1912, 4.
71
warehouses. Today, these Yettem-native raisins are known as the California Golden
Seedless.
158
Although refugees were arriving through the mid-1920s, World War I and the
Great Depression brought a lot of challenges. As it was, plant diseases, droughts, and
extreme temperatures were a challenge in the region, and raisins were the primary
source of revenue for Yettem farmers. Since many farmers and ranchers had purchased
lands at higher prices and often were in debt, they were unable to meet their obligation
during the Great Depression. As a result, the earliest pioneers of Yettem farming were
forced to leave the town and seek employment in the cities, particularly Los Angeles.
Those who did stay struggled throughout the Depression years. Some of the more
successful farmers moved to Visalia and operated stores on their fields. Around the
mid-1920s, the oversupply of raisins in Yettem lowered the price of the product and
farmers became dependent on bank loans, or begged the National Bank of Visalia to
extend pre-existing loans. Charles Davidian recalls that it was a common site to see a
group of Yettemites waiting every morning for the National Bank of Visalia to open its
doors.
159
Around 1932, some of the farmers had given up on their raisin crops and
dedicated themselves to cotton farming. Conditions were slightly better because land
improvements had become possible and the Alta Irrigation District allowed for more
water availability. As prospects were looking up, Armenians from the eastern United
States started making the journey to the region. However, as Yettemites were spreading
out to other towns in the region, the newcomers were not compelled to stay in Yettem
proper, although they still participated in Yettem events. They were still Yettemites, even
159
Davidian. A Warm Wind Through Yettem, 43.
158
Isabelle Menendian, “The Bleached Raisin Industry,” Los Tulares no. 30, March 1957, 4.
72
though their addresses did not reflect that. During this time, many other nationalities
also started arriving in Yettem, and it became, what Isabelle Menendian considered “a
melting pot.”
160
By the 1950s, Yettemites began farming vegetables. In the 1960s, they
started planting pistachios that were native to the Middle East.
161
In the 1970s, tomatoes
became the main source of work and income in Yettem. Mari Louise Menendian,
granddaughter of Reverend Garabed Kalfayan, recalls her childhood in Yettem and
spending summers putting sticker barcodes on the tomatoes to prepare for shipment.
(Figure 3.8) Although conditions changed, and many of their children eventually went to
different universities and left the family farms, the relationship between neighbors in
Yettem remained the same. Families helped each other farm, spent evenings and days
together, celebrated as a community, and mourned as a community. No matter where
they moved to or travelled, they maintained contact. Mari Louise Menendian, for
instance, travelled for decades and lived overseas before returning to Yettem to live in
her parental home and participate in community life.
Figure 3.8: Yettem Tomato Label. Source: Courtesy of Mari Louise Menendian.
161
Mnatsakanyan, Interview with John and Alan Farsakian.
160
Menendian, “The Story of Yettem,” Los Tulares, 3.
73
Conclusion
While memories have put at the forefront the romanticized version of the
founding of Yettem, it was mostly strategic and planned. The town’s history and heritage
are inextricably connected to the conditions that were continuously developing in their
homeland. Despite all the changes happening, Yettem’s existence in the Central Valley
seemed to be the only constant. Residents who remained after the Great Depression
continued to work in the fields and earn a living. This chapter was primarily concerned
with the early roots and the conditions during the formative years of Yettem; the next
chapter will identify sites of heritage and focus on social and cultural events and
practices of heritage in and around Yettem. Mari Louise recalls that although farming
was a method of conserving and continuing the old peasant life in the Highlands, there
was more to life in Yettem than just agriculture. Yettemites developed a rich thriving
cultural center to preserve language, food, and traditions. Most of the businesses
established and structures built by Armenians don’t exist in Yettem anymore. The fields
and the Church, as well as the school and a general store are still there, but Yettemites
are no longer predominantly of Armenian heritage. But the children of early Yettemites
still make the pilgrimage to the town for events, celebrations, deaths, and more.
74
Chapter 4: Yettem’s Past and Present: Sites of Heritage
Introduction
Economic stability was important, but the concept of reconstructing a utopian
Armenia in the United States was a dire effort at community-driven cultural preservation.
Livelihoods in the Ottoman Empire were at risk due to a direct threat of cultural and
ethnic cleansing. In the Diaspora, finding the balance between cultural retention and
assimilation would have posed a risk of a longer, slower acting cultural erasure, should
certain aspects of heritage not be practiced. Establishing an Armenian town was
possibly associated with the feelings of isolation and assimilation difficulties in Fresno,
but it was also a method of preserving identity and way of life in a foreign land. While
farming was a means of financial security in Yettem, it was not the cultural aspect of
Yettem.
Although Yettemites lived together in close quarters and found comfort in being
with their own communities, especially since many were reunited after escaping the
conditions in the Ottoman Empire, they were not isolated from the rest of Tulare County.
Some Yettemites owned businesses in Visalia and were able to find a better balance
between cultural assimilation and cultural retention compared to Armenians who were
living in other cities. The community organized cultural events and festivals, participated
in local events, and oftentimes, Mari Louise Menendian recalls how Yettemites of
different nationalities would participate in each other’s cultural events and
celebrations.
162
162
Mnatsakanyan, Interview with Mari Louise Menendian, April 27, 2021.
75
This chapter focuses on life in Yettem, spaces created by Armenian Yettemites,
intangible heritage and cultural practices, and the community’s efforts at preserving
Armenian heritage. Some aspects of heritage and culture from the Ottoman Empire
were lost, while others were preserved, which is a natural outcome of constant
uprooting and migration-based trauma. Each subsection focuses on an identified aspect
of Yettem heritage that is either no longer there or has been rebuilt. It begins with the
establishment of the Churches; through the various challenges faced by the community,
the Armenian Church has always been the epicenter of cultural preservation in the
Diaspora. It is the root of religious ceremonies, but also hosts cultural events,
community educational classes, and is an important asset to any Armenian who has
newly arrived in a foreign land.
163
In addition, it is important to note that Yettem’s
Armenian community established a general store, packing houses, a Hotel and a Cafe,
and other sites of livelihood that are no longer extant.
164
However, the largest and arguably most important part of heritage conservation
in Yettem is not in the buildings, but the active and conscious efforts in keeping cultural
practices alive. Although many Yettemites no longer live in Yettem, they still make the
journey to participate in Yettem Church life, weekly Church visits, special events,
164
Due to the limitations because of the COVID-19 pandemic, I wanted to recognize these sites but the
thesis will primarily focus on two significant aspects of heritage conservation - the church and education,
and the activity that sprouted from those two sites.
163
Although each Armenian Diaspora community has their own unique culture and characteristics, which
is an amalgamation of their regional heritage in the historic Armenian Highlands, their surroundings, and
their unique heritage created by the blend of various cultural elements of the old and the new, some
aspects of Diaspora heritage are similar across all communities. For instance,my own family arrived in
Los Angeles in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They found their first home near the local
Armenian church and school. As they did not know the English language and had few relatives here, they
were able to find comfort and solace in St. Garabed’s Armenian Apostolic Church. They began attending
services in Los Angeles and making friends through the church, even though they were not devoted
Church goers in Soviet Armenia. The Armenian church always preserves aspects of culture that are
instrumental to the survival of the Armenian people, including religion, language, cultural dance and song,
and more.
76
weddings, and more. To focus on the preservation of structures in an Armenian
community would be admirable, but mostly challenging for a community that has been
constantly uprooted, migrated, and had to preserve their heritage while traveling from
one part to another. Therefore, a focus on aspects of intangible heritage and ritualistic
practices that are preserved in the Diaspora, which are not always entirely reliant on the
existence of a physical structure, provides context into the Armenian Diaspora
community. The final and most significant aspect of Armenian heritage may arguably be
the act of pilgrimage - whether it’s pilgrimage to the Historic Highlands in present-day
Turkey, contemporary Armenia, or to Yettem from various parts of the United States.
Figure 4.1: St. Mary's Armenian Apostolic Church, Yettem, 1911. (Photo courtesy of Lucinne Bennett).
Source: Tulare County Library.
77
Churches
The church is a significant aspect of Armenian heritage. As the first state to adopt
Christianity in 301 AD, the church has always been a pillar in Armenian heritage.
165
The
first church in Yettem was not a church at all - rather, a group of the early residents met
under shady fig trees on Tateos Davidian’s property on Pentecost Sunday in 1903 to
pray.
166
All residents, despite their congregation, met together in the beginning before
the erection of their churches.
St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church
The Blessing of the Stones for the foundation of the new church was conducted
by Archbishop Hovsep Sarajian in May 1909 on Green Sunday (Ashkharhamadran). A
building committee was selected, consisting of Krikor Arslanian, Nazaret Spenchian,
Boghos Simonian, Mike Dervishian, Hovhaness Nazaretian, Melik Agha Sahroian, and
Eskender Iskenderian. Krikor Arslanian purchased the three acres on which the church
ground still stands.
167
The area surrounding it was sold to other Armenians so that the
Armenian community thrives around the church. According to the St. Mary Apostolic
Church’s Anniversary Book (1911-1976), the lands were purchased by Aram Kekligian,
Arshavir Kemalian, Boghos Simonian, Armenag Simonian, Hovhannes Nazaretian for
$60 each. Bishop Moushegh Seropian consecrated the church on July 3, 1911.
168
168
Revered Father Archpriest Vartan Kasparian. “St. Mary, Yettem,” St. Mary Apostolic Church, Yettem,
2011, 50.
167
See Appendix A for early deed transfers.
166
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial, 39-41.
165
“History of the Armenian Church,” Western Prelacy, accessed August 31, 2021,
https://westernprelacy.org/en/history-of-the-armenian-church/.
78
(Figure 4.1) The original church cost $2,378.67 and was a wood frame construction.
(Table 4.1)
Income:
Collections from Fresno $146.50
Collections from Yettem $684.25
Donations by Bricklayers $67.00
Donations from Dinuba $22.00
Profits from Sale of land $70.00
Gifts from the Consecration of July $280.00
From Church Collections $104.33
Total: $1,380.78
Borrowed Funds $900.00
Debts $97.89
Expenses:
Building materials and wages $1, 889.32
Religious Vessels $143.15
Plates and books $231.50
Announcements and travel expenses $114.70
Total Cost: $2378.67
Table 4.1: Income and Expenses for the construction of the first Church of Yettem. Figures supplied by
the Old Church’s architect, Krikor Arslanian. Source: Kalfayan. Yettem, A Cursory Overview, 1947.
79
The church was entirely designed, contracted, and built by the Armenian
community. Krikor Arslanian was the architect and Boghos Simonian was the builder.
Hovhannes Nazaretian, Sarkis Fereshetian, and Harry Adalian were the helpers.
Everyone in the community came together to carry stones and dirt and help build the
church. Unfortunately, the first church burned down in 1945 after a farmer lost control of
his trash burn. When the fire happened, Reverend Kalfayan was in Echmiadzin, in
Armenia. He returned on August 6, 1946. Upon his return, a group of parishioners met
for the second time and decided on rebuilding the church on the site of the old church.
The foundation of the new church was to be made of sixteen uncut stones, and with
each stone was a glass bottle with the name(s) of the Godfathers (sponsors of the
church), in it a handful of soil from Armenia. The stones were washed with water, wine
from Ararat winery in Armenia, and Holy Oil (Muron).
169
The blessing of the stones
occurred on September 26, 1946. The total cost of rebuilding the new church was
$44,671.56.
170
The architect for the new church was Levon Kandourajian.
171
(Figure 4.2 and 4.3)
Kandourajian also designed the Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church in Fresno,
which bears resemblance to the Church in Yettem. (Figure 4.4) In addition, he also
designed the Yettem School. In the 1920s, he changed his name to Lawrence K.
Cone.
172
Cone was predominantly a residential architect who designed modest
bungalows for immigrants in Fresno, including Armenians, Russians, Assyrians, and
172
In Armenian-English translations, there are often differences in spelling. Both Condradjian and
Kandourajian are spellings that were used in texts about him. His Anglicised name was Lawrence Karekin
Condrajian. He later changed his name to Cone in the mid-1920s. From this point on I will refer to him as
Lawrence Cone.
171
Guy Keeler. “Armenian architect’s work lives on,” The Fresno Bee, July 6, 1985.
170
History of St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, 1911-1976 (Yettem, CA: St. Mary Armenian Apostolic
Church of Yettem, 1977), 54-56.
169
Kalfayan, Yettem, 11.
80
Italians. Most of his residential properties do not exist, and the Yettem school he
designed was torn down. However, examples such as St. Mary’s Apostolic Church are
some of the few remaining examples of his work that must be preserved to demonstrate
his importance as a figure in Armenian-American history. Furthermore, the church is the
anchor of the community. It preserves cultural and religious traditions, has space for
educational purposes, a banquet hall, and a library.
Figure 4.2: St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church. Photo by author.
81
Figure 4.3: St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church, 2021. View facing east. Photo by author.
Figure 4.4: Left: Lawrence K. Cone, architect of St. Mary’s Apostolic Church. Right: Architectural
drawing for Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church. Source: The Fresno Bee.
82
Presbyterian Church
On September 10, 1910, the Armenian Presbyterian community purchased land
to build their own church. The articles of incorporation for the Presbyterian Church were
filed in September 1911. The trustees were Melkon S. Jenanyan, M.M. Philips, E. G.
Meldonian, B. Yeramian, and Samuel Chevidzian.
173
The cornerstone of the Armenian
Presbyterian Church was laid on May 12, 1911 and the building was completed in 1912.
The original building was a two-story stone building, where the second floor was for
worship and the bottom floor was for religious and social meetings, including the
Women’s Society, Sunday Schools, and the Young People’s meetings.
174
The first
reverend of the Presbyterian Church was Reverend Melkon Jenanyan. The
Presbyterian Church’s Sunday School hosted picnics and other social and fundraising
events. In 1923, a new church organization was formed, known as the Calvary
Presbyterian church of Yettem. Twenty-four of the former members of the Presbyterian
church formed the new church and thirty-four charter members were accepted upon its
establishment.
175
Unfortunately, the Presbyterian Church of Yettem also succumbed to a
fire in 1955, similar to the fate of St. Mary’s Apostolic Church. The new church, which
still stands today, was built in 1956. (Figure 4.5 and 4.6) The old bell from the first
Presbyterian church was one of the few pieces of the old Presbyterian Church that was
saved. In 1997, the Bell from the Presbyterian Church was donated to St. Mary’s
Apostolic Church. It is currently on display near St. Mary, situated to the west of the
Church. (Figures 4.7 and 4.8).
175
“Yettem Organizes a New Church at Recent Meeting,” Visalia Times-Delta, June 16, 1923.
174
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial, 63.
173
“Armenian Church Formed at Yettem,” Tulare County Times, September 14, 1911.
83
Figure 4.5: Presbyterian Church of Yettem, 2021. View facing south. Photograph by author.
Figure 4.6: Presbyterian Church. Photo by author.
84
Figure 4.7: Bell from the Presbyterian Church, view facing west. Photo by author.
85
Figure 4.8: Presbyterian Church Bell Dedication, 2021. Photo by author.
Education
The Yettem Grammar School
The Churchill School house was built in December of 1887.
176
It was a one-room
building which housed seventeen students, and Mrs. Ida GIlliam was the first teacher.
177
As the population was growing quickly, a single room schoolhouse no longer sufficed.
The Yettem School District’s Board of Trustees was established in August of 1912. A
meeting was held on August 31, 1912 to decide whether seven bonds totaling $3,500 in
177
Menendian, “The Story of Yettem,” 3.
176
“Notice of Sale of Real Property,” Tulare County Times, November 13, 1913, p. 4.
86
gold should be issued and sold to raise money to build a new school building, insure the
building, and properly supply the school with furniture and other necessities. The first
members of the Yettem School District’s Board of Trustees were M. S. Jenanyan,
Trustee; Fred Sahroian, Trustee; and J. H. Hamalian, Trustee and Clerk.
178
In October
of 1912, Visalia architects Davis and Pennebaker began work on the new two-room
schoolhouse with a budget of $3,000.
179
By November, the Yettem School’s Board of
Trustees had announced their call for bidders to work on the new schoolhouse.
180
The
new schoolhouse’s teacher was Mrs. Abbie Godfrey. (Figure 4.9 and 4.10)
Figure 4.9: Yettem School, 1914. Source: Tulare County Library.
180
“Notice to Contractors,” Visalia Times-Delta, November 19, 1912, p. 7.
179
“New Elk Bayou School Contract Is Leg,” Visalia Times Delta, October 24, 1912, p. 1.
178
“Notice of Yettem School District Bond Election,” Tulare County Times, August 8, 1912.
87
Figure 4.10: Yettem School children, 1913. Source: Courtesy of Mari Louise Menendian.
Just six years later in 1921, the population had grown so much that Yettemites
found it necessary to expand the school once more. They held an election on January
31, 1921 to vote on issuing and selling bonds in the amount of $14,000 to raise money
to purchase lots for the school, build one or more school buildings, insure the schools,
supplying the schools and general improvements to the school grounds.
181
The new
school’s plans were drawn by architect Lawrence Cone.
182
The old two-room
schoolhouse was removed from the grounds and sold to accommodate the new
three-room school. It opened for fall semester on Monday, September 19, 1921 with
Miss Susanne Phillip as the principal, who had been the Yettem teacher for three years
prior.
183
The school also had its own bus for school field trips with a capacity to transport
183
“Yettem School Opens Tomorrow,” Visalia TImes-Delta, September 18, 1921.
182
“Notice to Contractors,” Visalia Times-Delta, May 1, 1921.
181
“Notice of School Bond Election,” Tulare County Times, January 8, 1921.
88
thirty students.
184
(Figure 4.11) By 1922, over twenty students in Yettem grammar school
were Armenian, and twenty-eight Armenian students attended the Visalia High
School.
185
(Figure 4.12)
Figure 4.11: 1921 Yettem Grammar School, photographed 1955. Source: Tulare County Library.
185
“Edict Stirs Up Armenians,” Visalia Times-Delta, January 26, 1922.
184
“Visalia --- 10, 20, and 40 Years Ago,” Visalia Times-Delta, December 9, 1940, p. 10.
89
Figure 4.12: School children in front of the newly constructed Yettem School, 1922. Source: Tulare
County Library.
School extracurriculars at this time included basketball, football, and baseball.
Armenian students at the Yettem Grammar School also organized Armenian cultural
heritage performances. Yettem school’s Armenian students Queen Soldorian, Lucille
Menendian, Mary Kindigian, Margarite Findley, Mary Cole, Victoria Talelian, Ireta
Clayton, Hesta Hardy, Elfreta McQuone, Buelah Hardy, Mildren David, Vera Thompson,
and Rosie Garabedian had organized an Armenian dance with cultural garments and
presented it at the 1929 May Day Festivals at Mooney Grove, which became the
featured event of the festivities.
186
The schoolhouse evolved slightly in the 1930s and
186
“Armenian Dance Proves Feature of School Fete,” Visalia Times-Delta, May 7, 1929, 3.
90
1940s. Some lumber was stolen from the school in 1934, and a basement explosion in
1946 caused $750 worth of interior damages to the schoolyard. Through the 1950s,
Isabelle Menendian, one of the members of Yettem’s pioneering families, was a teacher
at the school, and in 1954, she became the principal.
187
In 1959, the school once again
expanded with a $42,000 bond for a two-classroom addition, which was serving 90
students by then.
188
In 1965, the Yettem School District was absorbed into the Orosi
Unified School District, along with Orosi, Cutler, Lovell, and Sierra Joint.
189
In 1983,
arsonists set fire to the Yettem Elementary School, resulting in $175,000 worth of
damages and hundreds of books and school materials destroyed. Presently, the old
schoolhouse has been demolished. (Figure 4.13) The Yettem continuation high school
closed down in 2014. The Yettem Learning Center, which opened in 1980, is the only
educational institution that remains intact in Yettem. (Figure 4.14)
189
“Orosi Unified Trustee Vote Set,” Tulare Advance-Register, July 14, 1965.
188
“Yettem School Bond Issue Passes Easily,” Tulare Advance-Register, March 4, 1959.
187
“Elementary School Heads Name Officers,” Tulare Advance-Register, May 7, 1954.
91
Figure 4.13: Yettem School, 2021. Photo by author.
Figure 4.14: Yettem Learning Center, 2021. Photo by author.
92
Diaspora Education: AGBU, Armenian School, and Sunday School
Although farming was the primary interest when Armenians settled upon the
land, Reverend Jenanyan also had a dream of establishing an Armenian school.
190
He
had hoped that the establishment of an Armenian school would draw in more
Armenians as there was a potential to retain the Armenian language and culture in the
Diaspora. After the Genocide, there was a concern that the Armenian language would
be forgotten, contributing to the erasure of Armenian culture in the Diaspora. This
concern was widespread after the Genocide, and many Diaspora Armenian
communities attempted to preserve Armenian heritage by establishing a unified
Armenian School system.
191
Since Genocide refugees had arrived from different parts of the Ottoman Empire,
they often spoke different dialects, wore regional traditional Armenian clothes, and ate
regional foods. Chomaklou’s dialect was unique, for instance, but very few, if any, speak
the dialect today.
192
Some Armenians who were just arriving from the Ottoman Empire
spoke only Turkish and had nearly forgotten the language, and Armenians who were
already settled were primarily speaking English out of necessity. The issue of language
is quite complex. In most families that were just arriving to the United States, Turkish
and Armenian were spoken equally, as they used both languages to communicate
amongst each other and with their neighbors in the Ottoman Empire. Some Turkish
speaking Armenians stated they only forgot the language because “if they or their
parents have forgotten Armenian, it was because if they spoke Armenian the Turks
192
Ani Mnatsakanyan, Interview with Mari Louise Menendian, April 20, 2021.
191
The Armenian community of Bourj Hammoud, Lebanon, for instance, was integral to the development
of Armenian education in the Diaspora and helped preserve culture. See More: Joanne Randa Nucho.
“Introduction,” in Everyday Sectarianism in Urban Lebanon: Infrastructures, Public Services, and Power
(Princeton, 2016),16.
190
Menendian, The Story of Yettem, 3.
93
would cut out their tongues.”
193
This trauma trickled into Diaspora communities; there
was a concern that the Armenian language was at risk of erasure if not preserved. On
the other hand, many Armenians continued to speak both Turkish and Armenian in
Yettem without any issues, since they were both considered their native languages.
194
To maintain and preserve Armenian culture groups such as the Armenian
General Benevolent Union (AGBU), the Chomaklou Compatriotic Society, the Church,
the Armenian Relief Society, and other organizations began sprouting in the Diaspora.
An important part of cultural retention in the Diaspora, closely associated with the
Armenian Church, was the establishment of Armenian schools, Sunday schools, and
libraries. Presently, there are twenty-one full time privately-funded Armenian schools in
the United States that function five days a week, predominantly located in Southern
California, Massachusetts, and New York.
195
In addition, there are various Armenian
schools that also teach Armenian language and heritage classes out of their facilities on
Saturdays, catering to Armenian students that attend American schools through the
school week. On Sundays, Armenian churches usually host Sunday Schools to teach
the bible. Depending on the community, different organizations lead the Armenian
educational mission.
The Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) in Tulare County
196
The Armenian General Benevolent Union, in addition to the Armenian Church, is
one of the most significant and largest organizations in preserving Armenian education
196
Zabelle Goolkasian, “Fiftieth Anniversary Tulare Junior League, A.G.B.U., 1932-1982,” December 5,
1982.
195
Four of the full-time Armenian schools were closed by 2018.
194
Mnatsakanyan, Interview with Marie Louise Menendian, April 20, 2021.
193
Kalfayan, Yettem Memorial, 75.
94
and heritage. The AGBU was established in Cairo, Egypt in 1906 as a non-profit
organization to preserve and promote the Armenian Heritage, as well as help support
the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire at the onset of the First World War. AGBU
helped Ottoman Armenians receive seeds, establish schools and orphanages, and
other necessities in the Ottoman Empire. By 1914, the AGBU had 142 branches across
the globe.
The Tulare County Branch of the AGBU was established in 1911 and had four
branches: Yettem, Tulare, Dinuba, and Visalia. The Yettem branch was established July
17, 1911.
197
The Tulare County Branch of the Junior League was organized in Cutler
Park on June 12, 1932. Elected officers were Sarkis Besoyian, president; Jack Peloian,
vice president; Zabelle Menendian, secretary; Aram Iskenderian, assistant secretary;
and Alice Koobatian, treasurer. With the establishment of the AGBU came the
establishment of the Junior League, where young Armenians had the opportunity to
host social functions and outings such as a Halloween Party, Armenian Plays, camping
trips to Sequoia National Park, and “Kef'' Night (Armenian party night). Armenian party
nights often involved folk dancing, a shish kebab dinner, traditional museum, and more.
The proceeds from the ticket sales went to charity, scholarships, and educational and
cultural projects undertaken by the organization.
198
The first meetings were held in members’ homes, but later moved to the social
hall of the Armenian Presbytarian Church. The branch also began publishing their own
newsletters in 1939. Since membership decreased overtime, the Junior League evolved
into the Intermediate League, and continued to organize and host the more popular
198
Dinuba Sentinel, November 6, 1975, p. 3.
197
Kalfayan, Yettem, 15.
95
events. Many of the cultural preservation practices, including the Armenian school and
Sunday schools, were the responsibility of the AGBU. The Junior League also
organized annual plays. The plays were not hosted in Yettem; they were generally set in
Visalia or the Orosi High School Auditorium. (Figure 4.15 and 4.16) The plays
performed by Yettem youth were usually written by the great Armenian satirists and
playwrights of the Ottoman Empire.
Figure 4.15: Charsheli Artin Agha (Mean Artin Agha), AGBU Playbook, 1938. Source: Courtesy of Mari
Louise Menendian.
96
Figure 4.16: Charsheli Artin Agha Cast, 1938. Source: Courtesy of Mari Louise Menendian.
Top Row: George Zarounian, (unknown), Nishan Majarian, Armen Menendian, Simon SImonian,
(unknown), Vasken Sadoian.
Seated: (unknown), Simon Kashian, (unknown), Clara Simonian, Jack Peloian, Lucinne Menendian,
Harry Marashlian, Vernon Zobian.
Armenian School and Sunday School
The non-denominational Sunday School was founded in 1909, according to Mrs.
Marian Pilibosian. The first Sunday School teachers were American preachers, who
taught the children the Bible in English. Mrs. Pilibosian taught the Bible in Armenian to
the girls, and Mr. Hamalian, the postmaster of Yettem, taught the boys.
The Armenian School was established in St. Mary’s Apostolic Church in 1912, as
documented by Hovhannnes Nazaretian, who was in charge of the school until 1917.
97
His wife continued his work until 1923. For the first thirty-five years, Armenian education
was sparse.
199
Revered Kalfayan recalled that the early Armenian schools were inadequate to
the task. Armenian and Sunday school were only taught on the weekend, usually for a
few hours per day, and only for six months at a time. Initially, Armenian and Sunday
school teachers taught without pay. The Women’s Society, which has been active in
Yettem since 1914, was also instrumental in the Armenian education in Yettem.
Language classes assured that one part of the Armenian-American students’
hyphenated heritage would not be forgotten. Interest in Armenian language classes
increased after World War II, when Armenian-Americans went overseas during the war
and returned to the States with a newfound interest in learning the language.
200
The
Armenian classes were taught for two hours on Saturday, and included reading, writing,
and conversational lessons. Students also learned Armenian poems, folk songs, and
prayers from the Armenian liturgy.
By 1932, there were three Armenian schools in the region which were under the
supervision of the Women’s Society and Trustees. The Tulare School was established
in 1931, and Goshen’s school was established sometime prior to the Tulare Armenian
School, but after the Yettem School. By the 1930s, the Armenian teachers of the Yettem
and Goshen schools were paid, though little, as opposed to the Tulare instructor who
was not paid yet.
Mrs. Maritza Chakmakjian, wife of the Presbyterian Church pastor Revered
Hagop Abraham Chakmakjian of Yettem, also taught Armenian language classes
200
Rosalie White. “Yettem Children Learn Old Armenian Language,” Visalia Times-Delta, April 2, 1960.
199
Kalfayan. Yettem, 18.
98
through the 1960s. (Figure 4.17) Mrs. Chakmakjian was born in Kharpoot, Turkey in
around 1902-1903.
201
She received her education at the Euphrates College and taught
at an orphanage for the blind in the Ottoman Empire.
202
After the Genocide, she
migrated to Syria.
203
She also taught at the Near East Relief Orphanage at Ghazir,
Lebanon, the Danish Bird’s Nest Orphanage of Sidon, and the Sidon Refugee Schools
of Syria and in churches. Mrs. Chakmakjian stated,
Because language becomes the tool that binds the present with the past, the
Armenian language has been one of the few factors (with church and family) that
has been instrumental in preserving the identity of the Armenian people
throughout its almost 3,000 years of history.
204
In addition to learning language and history, the students of both church’s schools often
hosted cultural events, dances, performed plays, and hosted picnics.
205
Many Yettemites learned the Armenian language through these classes. Classes
are currently halted because the Church is searching for an Armenian language teacher
and the pandemic has significantly stunted many activities for all communities.
However, there is the desire within the community to restart Armenian and Sunday
School classes at the Church.
205
“Yettem,” The Fresno Bee, June 20, 1938.
204
White. “Yettem Children Learn Old Armenian Language,” Visalia Times-Delta, April 2, 1960.
203
“California, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1959,” Ancestry.com.
202
White. “Yettem Children Learn Old Armenian Language,” Visalia Times-Delta, April 2, 1960.
201
“California, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1959,” Ancestry.com.
99
Figure 4.17: Armenian language Saturday School children taught by Mrs. Maritza Chakmakjian, 1960.
Source: Visalia-Times Delta.
Community and Culture
The Church is very active to this day and continues the tradition of Armenian
celebrations and festivities that are tied with the church. For some time, there was
uncertainty if tradition would continue in Yettem as they did not have a priest, however,
the Church’s new priest has brought new energy and has revived many cultural and
religious events.
206
Although the COVID-19 pandemic significantly shifted the way in
which Church services occur and cultural celebrations happen, the Church adjusted and
found methods of continuing services. During the pandemic, Church services happened
outdoors in a safe, socially-distant setting. For those who were not comfortable
206
Mnatsakanyan, Interview with Mari Louise Menendian, April 27, 2021.
100
attending Church in person during the Pandemic, Myron Sheklian, on behalf of St.
Mary’s, actively updated their Facebook page and streamed services and celebrations
through Facebook live every week. In addition, Myron took photos and documented the
events, which are available on the Church’s social media pages.
Intangible Heritage Practices
207
Two notable events that are practiced by the Armenian Apostolic Church, but
have roots in ancient Armenian paganism, are the Feast of Purification (Trndez or
Tearnyndarach) and the Feast of Assumption of the Virgin Mary/Blessing of the Grapes
(Khaghogh-orhnek).
208
Despite the Pandemic, St. Mary’s Apostolic Church found
methods of observing these practices safely following proper masking mandates and
procedures.
The Feast of Purification is celebrated forty days after Jesus’s birth, usually
happening on February 13-14 at the Armenian Church. After Church, a bonfire is lit,
upon which a prayer is said by the Reverend. Oftentimes the event can last through the
evening. In the Diaspora, although the Church lights the bonfire in the morning, some
208
Trndez literally means “the Lord is With You,” and Tearnyndarach translates as “to come to meet the
Lord.” Khaghogh-orhnek literally translates as “blessing of the grapes.” Prior to adopting Christianity in
301 AD, Armenians were sun-worshipping pagans. Many Armenian Church observances have roots in
Armenian pagan practices. Trndez is associated with the coming of spring and fertility. It incorporates
elements of fire, which have roots in Zoroastrian. Khaghogh-orhnek also has roots in Armenian paganism.
It is celebrated during Navasard (New Year) from August 11 to September 9, which is when Armenians
celebrated the New Year prior to adopting Christianity. The grape blessing was a celebration of earth’s
bounty and giving thanks to the gods that provided the harvest for the year. Navasard is a cultural
tradition that is still celebrated in Armenia and in the Diaspora with olympic-like sports competitions for
youth, concerts, festivities, and Church activities. My personal favorite that is practiced predominantly in
Armenia is Vartavar, a country-wide water fight. In Pagan times, this was done to celebrate the goddess
of water Astghik, who symbolized beauty, love, fertility. Vartavar is not generally practiced in the Diaspora
as wide-spread and under the organization of the Church as other observances, but some kids and adults
still indulge in the festivities in smaller groups.
207
There are many other events that happen that are both religious and cultural. I unfortunately was
unable to make it to the 110 anniversary celebration of the founding of Yetem on July 18, 2021 due to
limitations of the pandemic. This section covers two significant Church practices that I had the pleasure of
experiencing in person.
101
families continue the celebration in the evening by burning another bonfire at their
homes. Trndez is also considered a celebration of young love, marriage, and
engagements. In the evening, young couples hold hands and jump over the fire together
(or go around it) to symbolize their burning love for one another and to ward off bad
energy as they join hands in matrimony. Although it is generally practiced by couples,
everyone tends to join in on the festivity. Event-goers also sing folk songs and dance
around the fire. In the practice observed by the Armenian Christian church, the fire
symbolizes the Lord’s love and warmth for his followers. A candle is lit from the blessed
fire and people take home the blessed Church candle. Finally, a bountiful feast is set
and attendees enjoy a spread of traditional Armenian foods, fruits, and nuts. St. Mary’s
Apostolic Church observed the practice this year and live-streamed it for the public’s
enjoyment. (Figure 4.18) In addition, rather than hosting a feast in person, the church
prepared takeout lunch boxes so that members can either enjoy with their family units in
the church’s yard or at home. (Figure 4.19)
102
Figure 4.18: Trndez at St. Mary’s Apostolic Church, 2021. Photo by author.
103
Figure 4.19: Socially-distanced tables for church attendees, February 2021. Photo by author.
The Feast of Assumption of the Virgin Mary/Blessing of the Grapes is a tradition
that usually happens the second week of August. (Figure 4.20 and 4.21) Since Pagan
times, the grape has held spiritual and symbolic meaning. It was said that one should
not eat the new bounty until the grapes are harvested and blessed first. In the context of
the Armenian Church and Christianity, the grape is also significant because Jesus
blessed the wine as a symbol of his blood. Since wine comes from grapes, the grapes
also represent Jesus Christ. Reverend Father Mashdots Keshishian, who assumed his
role as Parish Priest in Yettem on September 13, 2020, discussed the significance of
the grape for the community and contextualized the history of the blessing of the
104
grapes. According to the Reverend, it is said that the first thing that Noah did when he
stepped off the Ark and onto the foothills of Mount Ararat was plant grape vines. After
the sermon, the priest blessed the grapes and invited everyone to take home as many
grapes from this year’s blessed harvest as they would like.
After Church, Yettemites had organized a bake sale and proceeds were donated
to the church. The bake sale is also symbolic of the year’s beautiful harvest. The grapes
that were blessed were all donated by local farmers, a tradition upheld in Yettem since
its founding. The items in the bake sale included peaches, nectarines, lush tomatoes,
and herbs from people’s gardens, delicious homemade jams, and freshly baked
Armenian sweets and breads. The Church banquet occurred right after the bake sale,
where each attendee was served a traditional dish of Armenian rice pilaf, chicken
kebabs, and vegetables. The entire event, including the decorations, food, and tables,
were organized by the Yettem community. The sense of unity and community in Yettem
is strong, and everyone works together to ensure the successful execution of cultural
events and practices.
105
Figure 4.20: Feast of Assumption/Blessing of the Grapes, August 15, 2021. Source: Courtesy of Myron
Sheklian.
106
Figure 4.21: Yettem Grown Grapes. Source: Courtesy of Myron Sheklian.
Travel and Pilgrimage as an act of Heritage
In Resmaa Menakem’s book My Grandmother’s Hands, the author discusses
intergenerational trauma and how, when the trauma is continued from generation to
generation, it evolves into historical trauma. Oftentimes, when trauma is endured from
generation to generation and gets passed on, it begins to look like culture. He argues
that it isn’t culture, but rather, traumatic retention that has lost its context overtime. He
states, “Traumatic retentions can have a profound effect on what we do, think, feel,
believe, experience, and find meaningful.”
209
209
Body to Body, Generation to Generation, p 32-33.
107
Travel, migration, and the act of pilgrimage have become ingrained within the
Armenian experience. The association of place and belonging is significant to the
community. After being uprooted and displaced countless times, the only permanent
aspect of Armenian heritage existed through our bodies and practices of intangible
heritage.
One of the most significant aspects of the Armenian Genocide were the
Deportation Routes through the Der Eir-Zor desert in Syria that Armenians were forced
to take by the Ottoman government in 1915. Those that survived took multiple migratory
patterns, arriving at various destinations before finally settling somewhere in the
Diaspora. Similarly, after the Soviet Union began allowing repatriation after the Second
World War, many displaced Armenians who had settled in the Diaspora travelled to
Soviet Armenia. Migration and uprooting during the Soviet Union occurred often as
people tried to flee the harsh conditions and Soviet oppression. Another mass
immigration wave occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when many families
fled the country in the early 1990s in search of better opportunities. Every era of modern
Armenian history includes some aspect of migration and travel.
Presently, Diaspora Armenians travel to Armenia or other Diaspora communities
where their families arrived after the Genocide. Although many Armenians fear traveling
to their ancestral towns in Turkey, some make the journey in small, organized tour
groups. This has become nearly a pilgrimage, during which Armenian individuals are
able to reconnect with their ancestors, and thread together familial histories that have
been defined by migration. Migration has shaped the experience of being an Armenian.
What asked about nationality in the Armenian Diaspora, Armenians always hyphenate
108
and include where their ancestors were from before the Genocide, where they settled
after, and where they are now. It does not suffice to say that one is simply an
“Armenian-American.” Armenian identity can be as multidimensional as being
“Armenian, with ancestral roots in Adana, family in Bourj Hammoud, currently in Los
Angeles,” even if the individual has not set foot in any of the places mentioned, location
and place are ingrained in our identity because it is a part of what has shaped that
individuals experience, cultural practices, and traditions. In the case of Yettem, one is
not simply an Armenian-American, there is pride - and rightfully so - in recognizing that
one is an Armenian with Chomaklou roots from Yettem. Though Armenian mobility has
roots in trauma, the recognition of places and the pilgrimage to those places can be a
coping mechanism in retaining identity once at risk of erasure, and preserving Armenian
Diaspora culture that is constantly evolving with every new generation. The act of
pilgrimage and migration, therefore, is a significant, yet often unspoken, act of intangible
heritage that Armenians practice.
Many Yettemites no longer live in Yettem. Regardless, they travel to the Church
for events, celebrations, and funerals from Visalia, Fresno, Los Angeles, and other
towns. The act of traveling to Yettem is almost like a pilgrimage, just as traveling to
Historic Armenian towns in present-day Turkey, or visiting Echmiadzin in Armenia is.
Yettem is a significant site in California’s Armenian Diaspora history. Although travel and
migration within Armenian history has roots in historical trauma, returning to familial and
bountiful agrarian lands reclaims that ancestral trauma of forced migration and can be a
source of healing and power.
109
Conclusion
Yettem was founded from the desire to live free of persecution, to regain a sense
of belonging, and to have the opportunity to reconstruct an idyllic Armenian agrarian
community in the Diaspora. Yettem was not closed off from its surrounding neighbors or
other ethnicities, but it provided opportunities to practice economic, agrarian, and
cultural heritage in the Diaspora and preserve a specific way of life that would have
been eradicated in the city. Few original structures currently exist in Yettem, but the
community still practices Armenian traditions, and continues to do so despite the
challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
110
Conclusion
Figure c.1: Yettem directional sign, 2021. Photo by author.
For Armenians as with many other cultures, nature, native lands, and their
heritage are all interwoven. Although the Historic Armenians Highlands are no longer
inhabited and barely accessed by Armenian people, pre-Genocide Armenian pastoral
life lives through memory, song, art, and literature.
Transplanted heritage like that of Armenians and other displaced communities
exists in a constant limbo; between multiple geographic points, locality and globality,
111
permanence and temporality. People want to experience the comfort of belonging to a
place. For uprooted communities, this may be a utopian myth.
The intangible heritage of creative outlets for Armenian peasants working on the
fields often resulted in arts, music, and poetry about the highlands. Most songs mention
a farm, a mountain, or the lakes. That adoration for the landscape manifested through
tangible means as Armenian farmers, who were uprooted from their agrarian lifestyle in
Eastern Provinces, restructured their lives in the West around the land first as a form of
economic sustainability and secondly, for a sense of connection to their homelands.
William Saroyan, a Fresno-born Armenian descendant of Genocide survivors
from the Bitlis region east of Lake Van, wrote extensively of the Armenian situation and
often made references to the Armenian cultural landscape under Ottoman Rule. The
most quoted excerpt from his short story “The Armenian and the Armenian,” states:
I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of
unimportant people, whose history is ended, whose wars have all been fought
and lost, whose structures have crumbled, whose literature is unread, whose
music is unheard, whose prayers are no longer uttered...Burn their houses and
their churches. See if they will not live again. See if they will not laugh
again...See if you can stop them from mocking the big ideas of the world, you
sons of bitches, a couple of Armenians talking in the world, go ahead and try to
destroy them.
210
To discern the depth of Saroyan’s words requires a restructuring of our geospatial
grasp of global heritages and possibly in this case, definitions of indigenous and native
landscape architecture. Because even though geographical location is significant in
most cases, the overwhelming pressure of it puts displaced and transplanted
communities in a precarious position; the complexities of transplanted heritage stand to
210
William Saroyan, “The Armenian and the Armenian,” 1935.
112
challenge our traditional understandings of the aforementioned terms.
When writing this thesis, I wanted to focus on transplanted heritage and cultures
of resilience after traumatic experiences. Yettem was founded by a group of
hardworking Armenians with a dream to live a life free of persecution, comfort, and have
the opportunity to own their own land without the risk of being uprooted. The story of
Yettem does not begin with its founding in the Central Valley in 1901. Rather, the story
of Yettem, similar to the story of countless other Diaspora communities scattered around
the globe, begins in the homeland, when the roots of oppression and persecution were
planted. The migration west was a method of physical survival, but the choice in
resettling in the Central Valley - beyond the economic implications - was also a
rekindling and cultivation of landscapes of Armenian heritage. This was an Eden born
out of necessity, cultivated by labor, and flourished through resilience.
Further Research and Questions
Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, there were many things that I would have liked
this thesis to achieve but did not have the means to. Many resources were unavailable
at the time of my research and prolonged wait times for other resources proved to be a
challenge. University of California, Santa Barbara, Riverside, Merced, as well as
California State University of Fresno have archives of Armenian history and studies that
are worthwhile to look into for further in-depth research that was stunted due to the very
sudden changes caused by the pandemic.
Therefore, this thesis evolved into a rather cursory overview of the roots of Yettem
and identification of significant sites of Armenian life in Yettem. I am thankful for the
113
opportunities I had to meet, interview, and mingle with Yettemites despite the challenges
faced during the pandemic. Without the help of the community, I would not have had
access to some of the primary resources used in this thesis. I hope to continue my
friendship with the community and further learn about this unique and rich heritage.
My trips to Yettem were one day trips, and I was not able to spend more time in the
region due to limitations caused by the pandemic. It would be worthwhile to spend a
longer period of time in the area and conduct analysis of the soils, fields, and see if
there are any agrarian infrastructural sites that are extant and bring the historic roots of
farming in Yettem to the forefront. Some packinghouses that were once established and
used by Armenians are still extant, but due to pandemic restrictions I was not able to
access property deeds and other pertinent information to draw cohesive conclusions
regarding the heritage and preservation of the packinghouses.
Yettemites have done an excellent job of documenting their own histories, family
narratives, and community events. There are Armenian methods of cultivation and fruits
that were grown in Armenia that were brought over to the United States and grown in
Yettem that I was unable to fully research and write about. The churches and
educational and cultural heritages all deserve their own spotlight as well. Yettem’s
community actively worked on maintaining sociocultural aspects of physical and
transplanted heritage through farming, familial life, and cultural groups and events. Yet
they were in no way isolated from other groups in the Central Valley; there was unity
and cross-cultural engagement through county wide events, festivals, and competitions.
From my own interviews with Yettemites, I was humbled by the blatant differences
between my experience as a Diaspora Los Angeles Armenian and that of Armenians
114
who arrived nearly a century ago for circumstances vastly different than my own family.
The world of transplanted heritage is just as active and spirited as the individuals
that are a part of it. Transplanted heritage is not stagnant; it will always grow and evolve
with each community and with each generation within that community. Communities that
experience transplanted heritage often face struggles that are unique. The study of
Yettem as one of the earliest Armenian communities helps understand the complex
social and cultural processes of migration, resettlement, and cultural retention of
communities that experienced trauma. One of the key questions regarding transplanted
heritage that arose in this thesis, which is also worthy of exploring in other transplanted
communities, is the conscious and subconscious decision-making processes on which
aspects of heritage are retained as they were practiced, adapted to their new
environments, or sacrificed for the sake of protecting one’s identity in a new land. The
psychological aspects of community-driven heritage are also important to explore to
understand how culture mutates through the decisions made.
In addition, there are some aspects of heritage in Yettem that are uniquely shaped
by their ancestors’ journey to the region, as well as the environment of the Central
Valley. For instance, experiencing the Blessing of the Grapes in Yettem with locally
grown grapes is vastly different from a Blessing of the Grapes that may occur in an
urban or suburban environment. While the practice is the same, the experience is vastly
different. Comparative studies between different Diaspora communities within the same
culture and between different groups can help understand the psychological and
environmental factors that go into the preservation of intangible heritage practices.
115
Lastly, because the Armenian Diaspora community is not a singular homogenous
entity, it is important to identify and conduct comparative research between different
waves of Armenian immigrants and the geographic and cultural differences between
different Diaspora communities. The conditions endured, the migration patterns taken,
and the conditions that drove Armenians to their final settling places in the Diaspora are
so vastly unique that a single study of Diaspora Culture will not do justice to the
experiences of each group. Documenting the transmutations of cultural heritage as a
result of uprooting and migration is a question worthy of pursuing.
Finally, I am in awe of each and every family in Yettem. I hope to continue my
research on Diaspora heritage long after my graduate career, and continue to learn and
write about transplanted heritage. Reverend Kalfayan and his family have such a wealth
of knowledge that even an entire thesis will not suffice on discussing his contributions to
the Armenian community and the Diaspora. In the original Armenian language book of
Yettemagan Hooshardzan, Reverend Kalfayan wrote the following words, which did not
make it to the English translation. Yet, if there’s any one clear and concise way to
understand the struggle of a Diaspora, it is that quote. And it is only appropriate for
Reverend Kalfayan to have the final word.
“We must have one goal - to secure a corner in our Motherland to rest our
tortured heads. This is the legacy of our dead, this must be the purpose of the
living.”
- Reverend Garabed Kalfayan
116
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125
Appendix A: Deed Transfers, 1903-1911
This a compilation of the earliest available deed transfers for the founding of Yettem
from 1903-1911. It is not a complete list. It does not cover deed transfers after 1907.
Also, some deeds are not publicly available due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns,
and early transactions might not be documented with complete accuracy.
Grantor Grantee Date Amount Property
Description
Sacramento
Bank
Nazaret
Spenchian et
al.
January 8,
1903
$2,000 East half of
southeast quarter of
section 28-16-25
Louis
Whitendale
H. S. Jenanyan November 9,
1903
$20 Part of lots 138 and
136, Brundage’s
Addition to
Farmersville
Louis
Whitendale
H.S. Jenanyan
et al
November 9,
1903
$8,000 W half of section
33-16-26
Sacramento
Bank
H.S. Jenanyan November 25,
1903
$1,600 Southeast quarter of
southwest quarter
and east half of
southwest quarter of
southwest quarter of
section 28; north
half of northwest
quarter of northeast
quarter of section
33-16-25
Sacramento
Bank
Nazaret
Spenchian
December 9,
1903
$400 North half of
northeast quarter of
northeast quarter of
section 33-16-25;
reserving 20 feet off
north boundary for
road
Frances E.
Yoakum
Krekor
Arslanian
December 11,
1903
$1 Southeast quarter of
northwest quarter
and northeast
126
quarter of southwest
quarter of section
35-16-25
K. Yoakum et
ux
Krekor
Arslanian
December 11,
1903
$1 Strip 6 feet wide
along east side of
southeast quarter of
northwest quarter of
northeast quarter of
southwest quarter of
section 35-16-25,
for ditch.
Nazaret
Spenchian
Elijah G.
Melidonian et
ux
December 21,
1903
$300 North half of north
half northwest
quarter of section
35-16-25
Oscar R. Cross
et ux.
H.S. Jenanyan March 29,
1904
$2,765 With half of se quar
of section 33-16-25
Sacramento
Bank
Nazaret
Spenchian
June 6, 1904 N/A Northeast quarter of
southwest quarter
and 5 acres of 27;
ne quarter of
34-16-25
H. J. Jenanyan Nahabed
Davidian
August 1, 1904 $800 South half of
northeast quarter of
southwest quarter of
section 33-16-25
H.S. Jenanyan
et al.
Hagop
Fereshotian et
al.
March 1, 1904 $2,240 North half of
northwest quarter of
southwest quarter;
southwest quarter of
southwest quarter of
section 33-16-25
H.S. Jenanyan
et. al
Dr. P. M.
Donigian
March 1, 1904 $1,200 Southeast quarter of
southwest quarter of
section 33-16-25
H.S. Jenanyan Jacob
Hamalian
April 15, 1905 $10 South half of
northwest quarter of
southeast quarter
and east half of the
127
southwest quarter of
southeast quarter of
section 33-16-25
H.S. Jenanyan George H.
Hamalian
April 15, 1905 $10 West half of
southwest quarter of
southeast quarter of
section 33-16-25
H.S. Jenanyan Peter A.
Moosoolian et
al.
March 1, 1905 $1,024.50 West half and west
half of east half of
the northeast half of
northeast quarter of
the northeast
quarter of section
4-17-25
H.S. Jenanyan Megerick
Thomansian et
al
March 1, 1905 $341.50 East half of east half
of the northeast
quarter of the
northeast quarter of
section 4-17-25
H.S. Jenanyan Henry
Eisentrager
July 21, 1906 $10 Se qr of sw qr of
section 28-16-25
E. Kendigian H.S. Jenanyan April 2, 1907 $10 Part of section
33-16-25
H.S. Jenanyan
et al.
Paul S. Iskiyan April 2, 1907 $10 Southeast quarter of
northwest quarter of
section 33-16-25
H.S. Jenanyan
et ux
H.S. Jenanyan April 26,1907 $10 Southeast quarter of
the northeast
quarter and
northeast quarter of
the southeast
quarter of 33-16-25
H.S. Jenanyan
et ux
Abraham A.
Davidian
May 29, 1907 $10 South half of
northeast quarter of
northeast quarter of
33-16-25
H.S. Jenanyan
et ux
Dickran
Eskenderian
May 29, 1907 $10 South half of
northwest quarter of
128
northeast quarter of
section 33-16-25
Krekor
Arslanian
Hagop
Arsianian
June 5, 1907 $10 Southeast quarter of
northwest quarter of
section 35-16-25
Hagop
Arslanian
Krekor
Arslanian
June 5, 1907 $10 Southwest quarter
of southwest quarter
of section 35-16-25
Hagop
Arslanian
John F. Adalian November 30,
1911
N/A Part of northwest
quarter of section
3-17-24
Hagop
Arslanian
Hagop
Kamalian
November 30,
1911
N/A Part of northwest
quarter of section
3-17-25
Nogoghes
Stephanian et
ux
Harabed
Stepanian
November 30,
1911
N/A Southwest quarter
of southeast quarter
of section 13, and
north half of
northeast quarter of
section 24-19-23
Harabed
Stepanian et
ux
Nogoghes
Stepanian
November 30,
1911
N/A South half of
southeast quarter of
northeast quarter of
section 29-19-23
129
Appendix B: Maps of Tulare County
211
Figure B.1: Map Of Tulare County California., Surveyed by P.Y. Baker, August 1876. Map courtesy of
David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries.
(https://www.davidrumsey.com/rumsey/download.pl?image=/D5005/3709000.sid target=_blank).
211
The cropped areas that accompany each map represent the general area that Yettem is located in.
130
Figure B.2: Map of Tulare County, State of California, Bannister, Alfred, Britton & Rey, 1884. Library of
Congress, Geography and Map Division; Call Number/Physical Location: G4363.T8 1884 .B3.
(http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g4363t.la000049)
131
Figure B.3: Map showing location of Big Tree Groves in Fresno and Tulare Counties, California, United
States Forest Service, 1900. List No 9892.021. David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map
Center, Stanford Libraries.
(https://www.davidrumsey.com/rumsey/download.pl?image=/179/9892021.jp2 target=_blank)
132
Figure B.4: Tulare County, California Highway Transportation Survey, 1934. California Division of
Highways. List No. 6345.076, Map courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map
Center, Stanford Libraries.
(https://www.davidrumsey.com/rumsey/download.pl?image=/D5005/6345076.sid target=_blank)
133
134

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Asset Metadata

Creator Mnatsakanyan, Ani (author)

Core Title Reconstructing Eden: the Armenian community of Yettem, CA

School School of Architecture

Degree Master of Heritage Conservation

Degree Program Heritage Conservation

Degree Conferral Date 2021-12

Publication Date 10/09/2021

Defense Date 09/08/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Armenian,Armenian genocide,Central Valley,cultural landscapes,diaspora,Grapes,Heritage Conservation,Historic Preservation,immigration,OAI-PMH Harvest

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Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Sandmeier, Trudi (committee chair), Bharne, Vinayak (committee member), Hirsch, Alison Bick (committee member)

Creator Email am2993@gmail.com,mnats.ani@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC16208032

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