Lenna Kandarjian

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, May 20, 1957.

My mom was washing dishes when I asked her if we could start the interview soon. She had prepared enough food for at least five people for the short weekend I was home and was cleaning up from her latest dish, a massive cabbage salad full of garlic and lemon (one of my favorites). If she could only survive off of garlic and lemon, I'm sure she would.

She scurried to her room to change into something nice, worried about being on film.

I don't know if my mother has ever really openly contemplated her identity; to me, she always seemed to effortlessly absorb the parts of her life she enjoyed the most. Whatever language or food or religious practice that made her happiest.

As I was speaking to her, I could tell that she was struggling to focus on herself. She has four other siblings and about a hundred cousins I've never met before. It was almost as though she wanted to speak for them all, for the collective pain and struggle to get to where they are now.

I could also tell she was being more reserved at times. In the past, when I've asked my mother about her life in Lebanon and her childhood, she was never shy to tell me the gritty details and odd stories she'd collected. She would laugh to me about the time her grandmother cooked their pet rabbit for dinner, or somberly recount many times over how that same woman baked bread for Turkish soldiers in hopes that this act would keep her husband alive. It didn't. These stories came along with the fulfilled hopes of an American Dream that she felt her family achieved after having left the country where it all happened.

But this interview felt different.

This was not straightforward storytelling. This was about identity, about her reflecting instead of recounting. And after years of embracing and oppressing her culture at various points, it seemed almost like she didn't quite know what to say, that she didn't know for what to show pride or what to talk about given the breadth of her experiences. But what kept her present were the emotions that each thought and memory brought to the surface.

"I really tried to be an American. And as I got older, I realized there's nothing wrong with being American and Armenian."

Talking about her family and her past is a lot for her. It digs into the most painful but joyful moments in her life. Whenever she does talk about those things, it's never with a tone full of pessimism and despair, but one of thankfulness for what her life has offered to her.

If I'm being honest here, I was struggling not to break down as I watched her tear open the wounds, provoked by my questions. I think I would be heartless if I didn't feel that. I don't think my mom had ever had this light shined on her before, but I don't think it would be right if it never happened at all.

"I think if my family stayed in Beirut, I don't think we'd be alive."

She was apprehensive at the thought of others seeing this interview once we finished, thinking back on everything she had just told me. I told her this is important for people to see, to feel, to think about. It's not often people are exposed to stories like this, and I wanted her to have that recognition.

(From left to right) Back row: my mom's mother and father

Middle row: Her eldest brother, Bedros; my mother; her older brother, Robert; her older sister, Rose

In the front: Her youngest brother, Vahe.