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Abstract:
A century ago, W.E.B. Du Bois coined the term ‘double consciousness’ to describe an individual with an identity with several facets, particularly in the context of African-American experiences. A century later, Du Bois’ theory was expanded into a concept called ‘triple consciousness’ to acknowledge the intersectional construction of identities where race might have intersected with ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. to generate complex, multivalent forms of subordination. Expanding Du Bois’ concept of ‘double consciousness’ to Chicana experiences, and disrupting nationalist Anglocentrism, in Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldúa theorized the ‘border’ as a metaphor for geographical transgressions, sexual boundary crossings, social displacements, and linguistic and cultural dislocations. In conversation with these theorists, I examine Iranian Armenian ‘multiple consciousnesses’, by highlighting their various expressions of diaspora, their many ways of longing to return to a homeland (Armenia and Iran), and their multiple collective consciousnesses, particularly the shared memories of the 1915 genocide. I also provide examples from cultural productions which demonstrate the diasporic transnationalism of Iranian Armenian authors who maintain ties with their homeland while are simultaneously anchored and settled in their host nations.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. James Barry and Dr. Rolando Longoria for reading drafts of this paper and providing me with their insightful feedback.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 W. E. B. Du Bois (Citation2019) The Souls of Black Folk (Columbia, SC: Digireads.com Publishing), p. 6.
2 Ibid.
3 Juan Flores (2005) Triple-Consciousness? Afro-Latinos on the Color Line, Wadabagei: A Journal of the Caribbean and its Diaspora, 8 (1), pp. 80–85, p.84.
4 Gloria Anzaldúa (Citation1987) Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt Lute), pp. 5–6.
5 Juliet Hooker (Citation2014) Hybrid Subjectivities, Latin American mestizaje, and Latino political thought on race, Politics, Groups, and Identities, 2 (2), pp. 188–201.
6 When referring to Iranian Armenians, I avoid using a hyphen, which implies the inability to be truly accepted by the host nation. I also use Iranian Armenian and Armenian Iranian interchangeably to highlight the fluidity of identity.
7 Thomas O’Connor (Citation2004) The Armenian Experience: Roots of the Past, Realities of the Present, in: Marc C. Mamigonian (ed), The Armenians of New England (Massachusetts: Armenian Heritage Press), pp. 5–6.
8 Thanks to Dr. Hoogland who pointed out to me that the Turks occupied Tabriz briefly (1915) during World War I because, even though Iran was neutral, Russia, which was at war with Turkey, was occupying Tabriz (since 1911); Tabriz had a local Armenian population plus several hundred Armenian refugees from Van in eastern Turkey and several hundred Assyrian refugees from Urumiya, which Turkey also attacked. In the late 1960s, there still were many Armenians living in Tabriz who had fled Van in 1915.
9 See Janine Dahinden (Citation2010) The Dynamics of Migrants’ Transnational Formations: Between Mobility and Locality, in: Rainer Baubock and Thomas Faist (eds) Diaspora and Transnationalism: Concepts, Theories and Methods (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press).
10 Leonardo Alishan (Citation1991) Etymology of Exile, in: Dancing Barefoot on Broken Glass (New York: Ashod Pr.), p. 43.
11 Vahe Armen (Citation2015) Sarzamin-e Man [My Homeland], in: Pas az Obur-e Dorna-ha [After the Passing of the Cranes] (Tehran: Nashr-e Adabi), p. 62. (Author’s translation from the Persian).
12 Azad Matian (Citation1981) The Desert Flowers (New Julfa, Iran: Vank Savior Monastery Publishing).
13 Azad Matian (Citation2012) The World’s Emblem (Tehran: Fenjan Publishing).
14 Robert Safarian (Citation2020) Saken-e do farhang: diaspora-ye Armani dar iran [Living in Two Cultures] (Nashr-e Markaz), p. 125.
15 See Robert Safarian (2010–13) Dar Faseleyeh do Kooch [Between two Migrations]. Available at: https://vimeo.com/user35586486, accessed July 2020.
16 Vartan Gregorian (Citation2003) The Road to Home: My Life and Times (New York: Simon and Schuster), p. 98.
17 Nerses D. Mesrobian (Citation2014) Garod-e Hayi [Armenian Longing] (Glendale, CA: Yerevan Printing), p. 7. (Author’s translation from Armenian).
18 Ibid., Trchei mdkov dun [If only I Could Mentally Fly Home], p. 14. (Author’s translation from the Armenian).
19 Henry A. Sarkissian (Citation1981) Tales of 1001 Iranian Days (New York, Los Angeles: Vintage Press), p. 70.
20 See Emile Durkheim (Citation1982) Rules for the Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and Its Method, Steven Lukes (ed), W. D. Halls (trans) (New York: Free Press).
21 Carl G. Jung (Citation1970) Civilization in Transition: The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 10, 2nd edn. (Princeton: Princeton University Press), p. 322.
22 Maurice Halbwachs (Citation1980) The Collective Memory (Harper and Row), p. 84.
23 Ibid., p. 84.
24 Lorne Shirinian (Citation2004) The Landscape of Memory: Perspectives on the Armenian Diaspora (Ontario, Canada: Bule Heron Press), p. 35.
25 Ibid., p. 38.
26 Ibid., p. 38.
27 Ibid., p. 41.
28 Zoya Pirzad (Citation2014) The Space Between Us, Amy Motlagh (trans) (London: OneWorld Book), p. 48. For the Persian version of the story see Zoya Pirzad (Citation2011) Yak Rūz Qabl az Eid-i Pāk [One Day before Easter], in: Se Ketab [Three Books] (Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz).
29 Ibid.
30 For more information on Pirzad's works see: Claudia Yaghoobi, “Pirzad's Diasporic Transnational Subjects in ‘A Day Before Easter’.” International Journal of Persian Literature, Issue 3. 1 (August 2018): 110-132; and Claudia Yaghoobi, “The Fluidity of Iranian-Armenian Identity in Zoya Pirzad's Things We Left Unsaid.” International Journal of Persian Literature. Iranian Minority Women Special Issue 4. 1 (November 2019): 103-120.
31 Razmik Panossian (Citation2006) The Armenians: from Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 236–238.
32 Mesrobian (Citation2014) Aprilyan sev oreri 95-amiyak [The 95th Anniversary of the Dark April Days], p. 64. (Author’s translation from original Armenian).
33 Panossian, p. 239.
34 Gregorian, The Road to Home, p. 11.
35 Donald E. Miller and Lorna Touryan Miller (1993) Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide (Berkeley, LA; London: University of California Press), pp. 155–158.
36 Anzaldúa, Borderlands, p. 61.
37 Gregorian, The Road to Home, pp. 11–12.
38 Miller & Miller, p. 160.
39 Ibid., pp. 94–104.
40 Rosemary H. Cohen (Citation2002) The Survivor (Los Angeles: LICOC Publishing), p. 108.
41 Ibid., p. 56.
42 Ibid., p. 57.
43 Sonia Balassanian (Citation2006) Yerku Girk Banasdeghsootyun [Two Books of Poems] (Yerevan: The Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art), p. 192. (Author’s translation from Armenian).
44 James Barry (Citation2018) Armenian Christians in Iran: Ethnicity, Religion, and Identity in the Islamic Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 87–88.
45 Cohen, The Survivor, p. 3.
46 Ibid., pp. 143–144.
47 Sarkissian, Tales of 1001 Iranian Days, p. 8.
48 Varand (Citation1999) Vergin Dogh-e (The Last Line), in: An-veradarz [Irreversible] (Tehran: Alik Publishers), p. 60. (Author’s translation from the Armenian).
49 See Robert Safarian, Dar Faseleyeh do Kooch.