Second installment of ACOM's Oral History Project. An interview with Daved Najarian. Conducted via ZOOM on May 16, 2021. By Alarica Hassett.

To view Video click on this LINK

A transcript of the interview is available HERE

The ACOM Book Club met on Thursday, April 22, 2021, as a virtual meeting using Zoom. Attending this month were Francis, Kass, Azad, Tashina, Margaret, Andrea, Lowell, Joan, Al, Cynthia and me.
The book for the month was "Classified Woman" by Sibel Edmonds.
This book is a memoir by Sibel Edmonds of her dealings with the FBI and the U.S. government when she worked for a short time as a translator for the FBI and then became a whistle-blower trying to expose massive corruption and dereliction of duty that she observed.

The ACOM Book Club met on Thursday, March 18, 2021, as a virtual meeting using Zoom. Attending this month were Francis, Peter, Jim, Margaret, Tashina, Joan, Tom and me. Some of the members had difficulty connecting this month. Tom was unable to connect through Zoom and ended up calling Francis and just talking and listening through his phone. Azad was unable to connect at all.
The book for this month was "Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World" by Thomas F. Madden.

Doug Tiffany and Steve Usitalo

This was our first Virtual meeting for this series. So no socializing with beverages and appetizers but we still had a great session. Nairey Digris was the session moderator. Doug and Steve were joined by their spouses for this session since it was a virtual meeting. This created a new dynamic in the discussion where there was a couple interaction. Previous sessions did not have this interesting interaction. The presentation was followed by a question and answer session. 25 people participated in this enjoyable session.

The ACOM Book Club met on Thursday, February 18, 2021, as a virtual meeting using Zoom. Attendees this month were Francis, Azad, Mark W., Margaret, Tom, Peter, Joan, Garin (a new Twin Cities resident) and me. The book for this month was "Armenian-American Sketches" by Bedros Keljik.
Bedros Keljik was one of the first, if not the first, Armenian to live in the Twin Cities area. His grandchildren are some of the most active members of ACOM today, so there was a very great interest in reading this book.

A portion of the book had been published in 1944 in Armenian. His grandchildren had not been aware of the existence of the book until Mark Keljik, while at the Library of Congress, searched for the name Keljik on a whim. It shocked him when he found out that his grandfather had a book listed in the Library of Congress.
Another portion of the book consists of stories that were published in the Armenian-American newspaper Baikar between 1942 and 1949. Another story is one written by a friend that Bedros Keljik translated from Armenian to English in 1910.
The last portion of the book is the biographical essay that Mark and Tom Keljik wrote about their grandfather.

The ACOM Book Club met on Thursday, January 21, 2021, as a virtual meeting using Zoom. Attendees this month were Francis, Tom, Azad, Al, Jim, Margaret and me.
The book for this month was "Feast of Ashes: The Life and Art of David Ohannessian" by Sato Moughalian. The author is David Ohannessian's granddaughter.
The book starts out with several pages talking about how the author slowly learned about her grandfather while she was growing up, but had to do a lot of searching to get the full information about the genocide and how his family was able to survive it.

The annual ACOM Gaghant was held this year on Sunday, January 3, 2021 via Zoom. Hosted and emceed by John Parker-Der Boghossian (ACOM President), the celebration began with some introductory remarks by John. The current board of ACOM was then introduced, followed by the presentation of the elected new vice-president, Steven Usitalo, and a new board member-at-large, Alarica Hassett. 

The ACOM Book Club met on Thursday, November 19, 2020, as a virtual meeting using Zoom. Attendees this month were Francis, Margaret, Jim, Peter, Tashina, Andrea, Azad and me. The book for the month was "The Structure Is Rotten, Comrade" by Viken Berberian. This book is a graphic novel, largely told in the pictures with a much smaller amount of text than normal in a novel.
In days gone by I would write about how we shared a bottle of Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon along with whichever Armenian pastries Azad or Andrea provided plus nuts or apples from Francis or Mark or Tom. Well, in today's world all that I can say is that I enjoyed a couple of ounces of Appleton Estates 12-year aged Jamaican rum along with some southwest seasoned Dot's pretzels. Maybe by next September we can again share a bottle of wine.
I started out the meeting stating that this was the rare book that I didn't like. I challenged the rest of the group to say what they liked about it. Well, I was the lone outsider. Everyone else liked it.

Voski Ashoun (Golden Autumn) 2020 Edition

ACOM held the 2020 Voski Ashoun celebration in Virtual space this year due to the COVID-19 Virus. We used the Zoom platform as we did for the 2020 Genocide Commemoration.
Since these Zoom events are recordable, we are providing a link to the recording of the event for those who were unable to attend via Zoom.

There was time before the start time of the event for participants to socialize. John Parker-Der Boghossian, ACOM President, lead the event which featured Armenian artists. Peter Hajinian represented creative story writing artistry, Andrea Johnson presented poetry reading from her own poems and also from other Armenian Poets, and a Video showcasing Henry Gregorian performing Armenian pieces on the violin. Those who attended had a great time and we hope that those who view the recording are equally pleased. Many thanks to the people who put this event together:
John Parker-Der Boghossian, Peter Hajinian, Andrea Johnson, and Terry and Nairy along with Henry for the Music Video.

Click HERE for a link to the Event Video

The ACOM Book met on Thursday, October 15th, as a virtual meeting using Zoom. Attendees this month were Al, Tom, Azad, Kass, Tashina, Peter, Margaret, Jim and me, a nice representation.
The book for the month was "The Children of Armenia" by Michael Bobelian.
I'm going to do things a little bit different for this month's report because I think that this is a very important book that all of the followers of the ACOM Book Club reports should know about. I'll give you a brief synopsis of the book before I report what we talked about in the meeting.