A love letter to the Armenian Youth Federation

I was twelve when my mom first dropped me off at my first AYF Badanegan (Juniors for you East Coasters) meeting. It was after school on a Friday. My mom took my brother Hovig and I to Ferrahian Armenian school in Los Angeles and our first meeting was a song practice for an upcoming song competition among all the badanegan chapters in Southern California. The two vareeches (adult leaders) were Ungerouhee Madlen Aslanian and Unger Mardig. I remember Unger Mardig telling my mom that this wasn’t the best meeting to start with, but my mom insisted. My brother and I got in place and began to mouth words to a song we didn’t know.

Much to your surprise we went back the following week to our next meeting. My mother took us every Friday to our meetings. We were in the Arapo Chapter (for kids ages 8-12 I believe.)

Ungerouhee Madlen and Unger Mardig were the first two authoritative figures (outside of my parents) that I actually liked. I did like some of my teachers (I was a major brat to some other teachers), but this relationship was different.

From my first days in AYF, I always felt that I was treated as an equal. At our weekly meetings we discussed the history of Armenia’s political struggles, the current situation in Armenia, which had just recently gained independence, and we learned about Kharabagh and our present day heroes fighting for our lands.

And AYF wasn’t all lectures all the time. As “badanees” (members) we were empowered to elect our own executive body, run meetings according to Robert’s parliamentary rules, choose a committee to serve on, come up with ideas for activities and events and actually implement those ideas. AYF was the first place I learned that I had a voice, a vote, as well as the power and the capability to do something positive for my community. This empowerment lighted a flame inside of me which later turned into an out of control wildfire of hope, activism and political passion that continues to this day.

In a sentence: AYF made me who I am today.

When a kid has leaders in his or her life who treat them equally, who listen and who take what the child has to say seriously, nothing but good will come from that child. The AYF and its leaders, in my case, Ungerouhee Madlen, Unger Mardig and later Ungerouhee Tamar Abkarian and Unger Raffi were those adults in my life. I gained the confidence in my beliefs and actions I never would have had, had I not been a member of the AYF.

Also the AYF was MY community. It was a space as a teenage and young adult where I could contribute to the preservation of our history and culture. It was a space where I was give the room and encouragement to grow. As I look back now I see the innumerable value in having a separate space in which to grow, separate from your family and school. An added bonus was that in that process I made lifelong friends, like Kris Demirjian and Dikran Aslanian, who I still love to this day: 17 years later! There are kids who were born that are almost adults now in the time that I have had these friends in my life! Since I’m giving shout outs, I can’t continue my love letter without also recognizing other trailblazers who helped me and many others grow like Tamar Abkarian, Ara Khatchadourian, Stepan Haytayan, Kevork Kawedjian and Aram Mozian to name just a few.

I am now 29 years old. I worked for a United States Congressman at age 23. I worked at the Capitol of the United States of America, steps from the Capitol dome you see on the Sunday morning political talk shows, and had occasion to advise the Congressman on a number of important issues. That’s huge!

When I first got to Washington DC, I already understood how things worked because I learned parliamentary procedures as a member of the AYF. For example during our meetings someone would say “Loosapanagan harts ooneem,” and in Congress they say “Point of clarification please.” I didn’t have to ask anyone what that meant when I first heard that said on the floor of the House of Representatives.

I just had my first child. He’s a boy and his name is Van. When Van was born I realized the only Armenian songs I knew were heghapoghagan songs. I sang them in hushed tones to get Van to sleep. I wonder if he understood the words “meyain zenkov gah hayots pergootiun” if he would have fallen asleep so soundly. Knowing these songs has led me to learn the stories for which these songs were written and will provide a vehicle for me to teach my son about these stories.

Being an AYF member instilled a pride, a faith and an understanding of our nation and our people that I turn to everyday to be me. I wanted to write this article to recognize the AYF’s contribution to my life, and I hope to encourage at least one young person to join. One thing I know for sure is that I can never give back to the community what I have gained from AYF…but I will spend the rest of my life trying.

Post Palin-Biden Debate

Well I have to say I dislike Palin a little less after last night. Although she was seriously annoying at times, I did appreciate it when about 10-15 minutes before the debate ended, she stopped attacking Obama/Biden and began talking about their agenda.

I was also happy to see after the debate was over how cordial they were to each other. I know I know I wanted Biden to be hard on Palin and I still think he could have taken some easy shots to show her lack of experience I think he was very well composed and he didn't need to take any shots at her. He came off much better prepared and more comfortable with the whole situation than she did, which proves that he is more than capable of the office; much more than she is.

I give them both mad props for last night.

Joe Biden: please rip Sarah Palin a new one

Oh my goodness I am giddy with excitement for the debate on Thursday between the Vice Presidential candidates. I hope for Americans sake that Biden rips Palin a new one.

Biden should treat her the exact same as he would if she was a man. I remember one thing clearly, when Biden questioned Condi Rice about the Iraq war a few years ago during a Senate committee hearing and he leaned over his desk and yelled at her with the angriest face I have ever seen, because she was pushing for a war that his son was going to have to go fight.

Biden's son is in the military too for those folks who don't know. You probably don't know because Biden isn't trying to use his son's service in the military as a talking point to get more votes. In fact Biden's son is the Attorney General of Delaware and if Biden becomes VP, the governor of Delaware was going to appoint his son to the Senate seat but he can't because his son is getting ready to be deployed to the Middle East.

Also what is the McCain campaign trying to hide by preventing Sarah Palin from answering questions from reporters off the cuff? The night after the first debate between McCain and Obama, Biden was on many news shows discussing the debate and Palin was notably absent/silent. If the McCain campaign doesn't have enough confidence in Palin's ability to answer questions from the Press that she hasn't preped for, than how the hell can they have trust in her to be Vice President?!

This election is absolutely critical and McCain, instead of listening to his instincts and going with his first choice for VP Joe Lieberman, or even his second choice Tom Ridge, he decided to play the game and pick a candidate he hardly knows and clearly doesn't trust in order to pick off women voters.

What is so puzzling to me is that Palin cares for woman just as much as she cares about democrats...which is very little. She doesn't support equal pay for woman, and she doesn't support a woman's right to choose. Ok fine I'll give her the whole choice thing but how can anyone in this day in age not support legislation that would mandate that women get paid the same amount of money men do in their jobs?

Also now that I'm a mom I can't tell you how hard juggling your old life with your new life. I'm not going to judge her for accepting the nomination for VP, despite the fact that she has a brand new baby with special needs and a teenage daughter who is pregnant. However, there are a few extremely clear points that need to be stated here:
1. She has chosen Country first (over her family)
2. Abstinence only programs clearly haven't worked
3. She is totally irresponsible for having sex with her husband at age 42 without birth control, having already had 4 kids, and knowing the risk of having a Down Syndrome baby is huge.

Just because she can give a good speech and she's pretty, she shouldn't be seen as a good leader. I hope Biden rips her a new one.

The CRASH of the US as we know it

Wow. So as if a new mom isn't busy enough, I can't help but take a moment and write what I feel and think about this bailout and the House of Representatives voting against it.

Wow. Wow. This could either be a horrible thing or a good thing. Because the bill lost by only 20 votes, the Democrats can go back and write a better bill and get 20 more Dems to support it and pass it. The Republicans who voted for this bill will still vote for it because they obviously understand the dire consequence of not passing a bill, so I don't think too many of the 66 Republicans would jump off a new bill. If the Democrats can get enough votes for a better bill, this will turn out to be a good thing. What will make this bill better? Transparency, making sure that Wall St. finds a way to pay the Treasury back and REGULATIONS on these rules that allowed for these horrible sub-prime loans to be handed out.

Now if nothing happens, if we can't get a bill passed, the stock market could very well crash, everyone who has money in stocks even a tiny bit of your retirement fund, we will all lose it. Also international markets are suffering and if nothing is done, the whole world is going to get kicked in the nuts, not just our country.

This promises to be a major major world catastrophe and it is such a shame that Republicans in their reign of power from 1992 to 2006 paved the way for this catastrophe by deregulating the rules on banks and creating an anarchic capitalism which destroyed the country's credit and currency.

Now, if Barack Obama wins, he has to deal with this horrible mess and he will have to put his priorities of helping Americans on hold until this situation is solved.

We're basically screwed! The blame lies squarely on the House Republicans of 2008 and everyone who has ever voted in favor of de-regulating the banks. The House Republican leaders came out in favor of the bailout, however they urged their members to vote their conscience, basically giving them the green light to vote against the bill. Well, they ran the green light and now they are blaming the Democrats.

Guess what? Americans are not stupid and they are going to see right through the Republicans and vote for change. If they don't they're fucking idiots and deserve to be homeless.