Slayings Anger, Shock Armenians

To the large Armenian community here, the arson slayings of a mother and her six children--allegedly by the family’s father--raises a disturbing question.

Was this an isolated instance of one man’s madness--or a sign that traditional Armenian family values are breaking down under the stresses faced by recent immigrants?

Armenian Americans pointed to the incident as a possible harbinger of worse to come, as the latest wave of Armenian immigrants arrive from Iran. They face far worse economic prospects, immigrants said, than those who came in four waves that began in 1890 and established successful communities in Worcester, Mass., and later in Fresno, Pasadena, Montebello, Glendale and Hollywood.

“There has always been a sense that Armenians were different,” said Richard H. Dekmejian, political science professor at USC. “But in the past few years there’s a feeling that sense of specialness and civility has eroded.”

A recent immigrant from Iran, Jorjik Avanesian, admitted setting his apartment afire to kill his wife, whom he accused of infidelity, and his six children because “they were a product of the wife,” Glendale police said Wednesday.

Acquaintances said he was out of work, and pointed to police reports of previous domestic violence as a signal of mental instability.

In his neighborhood, Armenian Americans gathering at churches, social service organizations and schools to mourn the deaths expressed anger at what they called a “sick” and “disgusting” act. But they distanced themselves from Avanesian himself, saying the alleged act of a single man should not taint their community.

“Of course it’s hard for everyone when you move from your country to a new one. It takes two or three years at least to get used to new laws and society,” said Ana Eskandarian, secretary of the Glendale-based Armenian Society of Los Angeles.

“But I don’t think those are the kind of problems this guy had. He was just sick.”

Dekmejian, who himself immigrated from Syria at age 15, said a “sense of loss, of tragedy, of shame” has nevertheless enveloped the Armenian community as individuals wrestle with the notion that their cultural organizations may not be doing all they have in the past to integrate immigrants and help them prosper without losing their traditional culture.

“Armenians have been on this planet for 3,000 years and have always prided themselves on uprightness, good solid values and hard work,” he said. “This incredible shock lays bare a crisis of culture and a crisis of identity that we have not dealt effectively with.”

Social workers at Glendale Adventist Hospital were planning to use the tragedy to encourage greater acceptance of psychological counseling in the Armenian community.

Shakeh Yegavian, a marriage, family and child counselor who leads a weekly Armenian women’s support group at the hospital, said she hopes the incident will help to erase the stigma that many Armenian immigrants attach to the notion of seeking help outside the family.

Yegavian said most incidents of domestic violence in Armenian families go unreported because women are afraid to speak out against their husbands, who are traditionally accorded unquestioning respect. The women who attend her support group, she said, often deny violence exists in their homes even when there is clear evidence to the contrary.

“Anger is allowed for men,” she said, and so is violence. “As much as I tell them to call the police, they just can’t,” she said. “You just don’t talk bad about the family.”

Dennis R. Papazian, a University of Michigan professor and founder of the Armenian Research Center, said he has sometimes seen a “neurotic jealousy” among immigrant Armenian men toward their wives if the men cannot get jobs. Unemployment is regarded as shameful for the man but does little harm to his wife’s standing in the community, he said.

“The woman is largely able to maintain her status and her social circle, but the man cannot associate with his former peers because he lacks the strongest unit of personal measurement--economic success,” Papazian said.

“The father bears the brunt of the family’s misfortune.”

Yegavian added that women who immigrate from Iran and are suddenly liberated from the veil required by Islamic laws there take on new roles and for the first time demand mutual respect. “That adds to feelings of culture shock,” she said.

Armenians have suffered such shocks repeatedly through history, as their geographically strategic homeland has been conquered successively by empire builders from neighboring Turkey, Russia and Persia, now called Iran.

Papazian said Armenians were first forcibly resettled in Persia in 1604 by a shah who coveted their skills as craftsmen in gold and wood. But the first significant wave of Armenian immigrants to the United States were forced from their homeland by Ottoman massacres in Turkey in the 1890s, he said.

The next wave of immigrants were spurred to the United States amid massacres that culminated in 1916, and Fresno became an important destination because its climate reminded Armenians of home, Papazian said. Later, many Armenians fled Lebanon and Syria during the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s; Pasadena was a prime destination. In 1979, many Armenians fled Iran for Glendale upon the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini and his Muslim fundamentalist revolution.

In the mid-1980s, the professor said, another wave of Armenians fled the Soviet Union and landed in Hollywood as glasnost opened a window of opportunity.

The big picture seemed a lot smaller and personal, though, on Wednesday at a park at the corner of Wilson Avenue and Adams Street in Glendale. There, the conversation among white-haired Armenian men who gather daily to talk and play cards or backgammon centered Wednesday on Avanesian and his past.

“He was a troublemaker, even when he was young. He would do crazy things, not just to his family but in general. They used to call him ‘Mad George,’ ” said Zhora Grigorian, 60.

Samson Madatyan, 74, who, like Avanesian, is an Iranian Armenian, said his own niece was engaged to Avanesian years ago in Tehran, but she broke off the engagement after learning about his “psychological problems.”

“We’re saddened that he’s Armenian, and that he did such a horrible thing, but this is the act of a sick man. It has nothing to do with being Armenian,” said Arshak Matevosyan, 60.

Others disagreed.

“A disgrace of one kind of Armenian is a disgrace of all Armenians, no matter where they are from,” said Glendale psychologist Levon Jernazian. “I am a Russian Armenian, but I feel the same kind of grief and disgrace as if a Russian Armenian had done this. He violated a value that is so basic to his culture, the sacredness of the family.”

Efforts were being made through the Glendale-based Armenian Relief Society to raise $17,000 for funeral expenses. A spokeswoman for the organization said donations will also be used to set up a crisis-intervention hotline with a multilingual staff to help prevent similar problems in the future.

Donors can call the organization at (818) 241-7533, or send checks to their office at 517 W. Glenoaks Blvd., Glendale, CA 91202. Checks should be made payable to the ARS Avanesian Funeral Fund.

Markman is a Times staff writer. Abram and Ryfle are correspondents.