Inner Dispute Clouds Future for Armenian Emigre Ranks

In the Giligia club, a dark, smoke-filled enclave in the heart of the Soviet Armenian community in Hollywood, Oganes Tarakhchyan throws down his cigarette in disgust. His relatives, set to leave the Soviet Union for the United States this week, left their jobs and their apartment in Yerevan, but were told in Moscow Thursday they no longer have permission to go.

“I am so worried I cannot sleep,” Tarakhchyan said. “My sister and family have no place to live. They’re in the streets. If they send them back from Moscow to Yerevan, what will they do?”

Seven miles away, in Glendale, Lorig Titizian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee, the lobbying arm of the community’s largest political party, applauds the very State Department decision that has emigres like Tarakhchyan enraged.

Fear of Depletion

“It is what we have wanted all along,” Titizian said. “We do not like to see people leaving Soviet Armenia in large numbers because the Armenians are leaving their homeland. We would not like to see our homeland depleted of Armenians.”

As word spread of last week’s State Department decision to suspend the refugee visas of Soviet citizens seeking to emigrate to the United States, many Soviet Armenians are calling the development a crisis, but most established community leaders are strangely elated at the news.

Their reactions are evidence of the submerged but deepening rifts between the mostly struggling Soviet Armenian emigres in Hollywood and the only leadership they have--Middle Eastern Armenians who say the large-scale emigration weakens the homeland and dilutes their claim to historic Armenian lands in Turkey.

An estimated 250,000 Armenians live in Southern California, the largest concentration of this scattered people outside of Soviet Armenia, and many have been here for more than a generation. But since October, nearly 10,000 refugees have poured into Los Angeles County from Soviet Armenia--the largest single influx of an ethnic refugee group into the county since the resettlement of Vietnamese boat people in the late 1970s, county officials say.

U.S. officials said the suspension, which went into effect Monday and is expected to continue until Oct. 1, was required because of a sudden surge in the number of applicants and budget constraints in Washington. The decision comes after discussions within the U.S. government concluded that thousands of Armenians were being given refugee visas improperly because officials had not determined that they had the “well-founded fear of persecution.”

Many Are Destitute

The new arrivals are mostly destitute, mostly on welfare and working in gas stations and auto body shops, if at all. They have no organized leadership of their own. The leaders of the community organizations in nearby Glendale on which they rely say that while they will do everything they can to help the Armenians who are already here, they would rather the Soviet Armenians not come at all.

“There is a certain degree of empathy for our brothers in the Soviet Union,” said Harut Sassounian, editor of the California Courier, an Armenian weekly here. “From a purely human rights point of view, we understand their yearnings to live in a more prosperous environment. But we cherish the small portion of the homeland that is left to us and we strive to preserve what little bit is left of its Armenian population. It is very painful to see our people fleeing from our land. It goes against our goals, our hopes, our dreams.”

For Soviet Armenian emigres such as Alice Egian, whose hopes to see her sister again after 12 years were dashed when she received word Thursday that their permits to leave the Soviet Union had been suspended, the attitude of Armenian leaders here is infuriating.

“If they are so worried about depleting the population, they should go to Soviet Armenia themselves,” she said, sipping Turkish coffee from a demitasse cup in a Hollywood apartment. “It is not enough to talk. Do it.”

Armenian leaders acknowledge the paradox of their position. And aware of the human rights implications of their stance, they stress that Soviet Armenia traditionally has had a measure of freedom not afforded other Soviet republics. They add that Soviet Armenia, like the rest of the Soviet republics, has become more open since Mikhail S. Gorbachev became general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

“If these people were really persecuted politically, I could have understood letting them leave,” Titizian said. “But while it is true that the standard of living is much lower in the Soviet Union than in the United States, the living conditions of Armenians in the U.S.S.R. are not as bad as they used to be.”

To Armenians from the Middle East who have grown up listening to glowing tales of their homeland, Armenia is a paradise--as much a concept as a place.

Pictures in His Mind

Zareh Meguerditchi, a slender man with deep-set eyes and an intense gaze, arrived in Los Angeles two years ago from Beirut, Lebanon. He has never seen Armenia, but when not wiping tables at his uncle’s restaurant, he says he paints landscapes of his homeland like he had seen them yesterday.

His uncle, also from Beirut, opened Yerevan Restaurant a year ago. When asked why the small takeout place on Sunset Boulevard is named after a city neither uncle nor nephew has ever seen, Meguerditchi shrugged.

“It is the capital of Armenia, our country,” he said. “What better name?”

In the community that has grafted itself onto the multi-ethnic community of Hollywood, however, memories of life under the Soviet regime are vivid and painful.

“It is a big jail. What is the difference?” Egian asked. “You don’t feel free to talk, to think, to sleep. Even when you sleep you are afraid that people will come knocking on your door.”

The split on the merits of leaving their homeland underscores the differing life styles of the two groups. The established Armenians, many of whom live in Glendale, are highly politicized and closely linked to well-organized church organizations. The Soviet emigres, carrying the legacy of life in a communist society, are wary of membership in community groups and unaccustomed to participation in religious life.

No Religious Ties

“The ones who grew up in Soviet Armenia don’t know anything about religious matters,” the Rev. Nareg Shrikian of St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church in Glendale said. “They know only to commemorate the death of their deceased, otherwise they don’t really come.”

The kind of well-organized and well-endowed community organizations for which the Middle Eastern Armenians are known are virtually non-existent among the new emigres.

“The persecution maybe instilled in them a fear in terms of participation,” said Apo Boghigian, editor of Asbarez, a daily Armenian newspaper. “They see that the community life is somehow related to politics so they try to pull away.”

And beyond the cultural differences that divide the communities is the problem of handling the influx of refugees, which Armenian leaders say has left their organizations, accustomed to dealing with a more prosperous brand of immigrant, strapped for manpower and funds.

Unlike the Southeast Asian community, whose large numbers are aided by a well-established network of private agencies serving Indochinese refugees, the Armenian community is virtually bereft of such groups.

Wary of Revolution

“The churches are worried,” Shrikian said. “How can we handle these people coming very fast? We are not against them coming as individuals, they have to do what they think is best for their family. But we would like to do this really not as revolution, but as evolution.”

Even if the State Department suspension is lifted, it is unclear whether the Armenians--who are not allowed to take money with them when they leave the Soviet Union--will be granted refugee status at all. That coveted status ensures much faster admission to the United States than ordinary immigrant status. Refugees are also eligible for many public assistance programs and funds not available to immigrants.

Soviet Armenian emigres say they do not know what they will do if their relatives come here without being given those welfare benefits.

“We suffered a very, very long time,” Alice Egian said. “I have no money for them now. One piece of bread we can divide between us, but the problem is the rent. Armenians don’t go homeless. Never.”