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Interview with Henry Kachadourian
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Transcription
Armenian Oral History Project
Interview with: Henry Kachadourian
Interviewed by: Jackie Kachadourian
Transcriber: Cordelia Jannetty
Date of interview: 16 January 2017
Interview Setting: Binghamton
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(Start of Interview)
0:06
JK: My name is Jackie Kachadourian; I am interviewing Henry Kachadourian for the Binghamton University Oral History Project. Today is January 16, 2017. Can you please start with some basics, your name birth place, biographical information? So what is your name? Please state your name?
0:25
HK: Henry Kachadourian.
0:28
JK: Who were your parents?
0:30
HK: My parents were Parsegh and Yeghsa Kachadourian. My mother’s maiden name was Arslanian.
0:39
JK: And where are they from?
0:42
HK: They are from the state of Harput which is now part of Turkey.
0:49
JK: And how did they immigrate to the United States?
0:53
HK: Well, it was an unusual situation, my grandfather came here first and was sending money to them back in Armenia to migrate– My mother to migrate here, with her mother and her other brother and sister. My father migrated from France to United States. My mother went to Montreal and at the time when she got here they cut off the immigration quota, she could not come in legally so she smuggled into the country with the help of her brother, my uncle, Charlie Arslanian. My father he took a boat from Toulouse, France to the United States. He was supposed to go on to go the boat, the boat stopped in Boston, Massachusetts and the boat was supposed to go on to Ellis Island but he got off at Boston because his godfather was there in Worcester, Massachusetts. So he got off at Boston and he came to United States to Worcester, to Boston to Worcester, Massachusetts. My mother smuggled from Montreal to Boston with the Montreal-Boston train and, and with the help of her– my uncle, Charlie Arslanian.
2:26
JK: And what was their reasoning for coming to the United States?
2:31
HK: To have a better life.
2:33
JK: Was it during the genocide?
2:35
VK: To escape the genocide.
2:37
HK: Yes, basically the genocide, the Armenian genocide in Turkey.
2:43
JK: Now did they leave– were they effected by the genocide at all, did they any–
2:49
HK: Yes, my mother lost her brother, and her mother and her mother and mother was killed by the Turks and her younger brother was taken by the Turks and brought up as a Turk, she had lost contact with them she had to march through the center of Turkey in genocide when she was transported by the Turks to– she ended up in Beirut, Lebanon and from there, a relative helped her to come to America.
3:28
JK: Okay and was there– you were saying your father, he lived in the mountains as a– your father lived in the mountains–
3:39
HK: My father and his family were sheep herders, they had very little education and my mother who came from the village, where there were schools, my mother was well educated and her family was well educated. My father was a sheep herder but he came to America, he could not even read or write Armenian even. My mother had to teach him how to speak, he knew how to speak Armenian but he could not read and write and my mother had to teach him.
4:15
JK: And what was the story about your father with involvement with the Turkish government and how they were escaping?
4:24
HK: Well, when the genocide started they went after, the first state they went– The Turks went after, interior Turkey so other nationalities or other people in Turkey would not have known there was a massacre going on. They started with the inner Turkey, the first state they went after, they went into was Harput, the reason for that was it was inner Turkey and there was less contact to the outside world. Also it was known for a fact that the Harputsis were real Armenian fighters, I mean they were like some of them were like renegades and the Turks wanted to that bunch first, that group of Armenians first before they got out of hand and the next state they went after was Arapkir, which your grandmothers from and her parents from and that was the second state they went. When they came to get my father they only sent five or six Turkish soldiers at there up there in the mountains. Well that did not cut, they did not work out because my grandfather, my father’s clan were warriors and they took care of those Turks. Before you know it they sent a brigade and captured my father’s clan and other mountaineer people and marched them down to village. When they were marching them down the village, my father and my uncle and another Armenian man dove into the river or lake there and swam for it. The other Armenian man died which I do not know his name, he got wounded, I think my uncle might have got wounded too, and that was how escaped from being slaughtered. My mother she was told to the fields to work, my mother did not listen to anybody, she went to school, went to classes and while in classes she was not supposed to be there she still stayed there. She wanted to be educated and when the slaughter started to take place in the village of Harput, that was the state but the city was named Hoğe. She was called Hoğesis.
7:04
VK: Oh Hoğesis.
7:05
HK: Right. My father was from Astvad [Astvadzadzin], that area was called Astvad in the state of Harput and he was they were Astvadsis. When the slaughter took place where my mother was, they marched all the young people out and got rid of the elderly people, they took my mother’s brother and made him into a Turk, adopt him into a Turk family and mother eventually ended up after the march some place into Beirut, Lebanon and her uncle, her uncle, Minas Kaprelian helped her come to America and that was how she got here.
7:56
JK: Wow, okay so how did your parents meet, did they meet in America or you were saying how–
8:04
VK: Well, my mother smuggled into this country on the Bos– the Montreal-Boston train and she got a job as a salad girl in the Biltmore hotel and plaza in Providence, Rhode Island. [laughs] And from there, another Armenian who had an eye on my mother and mother did not care for him, he went and turned, turned my mother in and her brother. They were working there, another Armenian did, that they were–that her– she was in the country illegally and her brother smuggled her here from Montreal. When my mother was still at work, they picked up her brother, Charles Arslanian. Garabed–the first name in Armenian is Garabed, they had arrested him and they were waiting for my mother. One of the other chamber maid Armenian women that worked at the hotel at Biltmore in Providence warned my mother the police were waiting for her. So she never went back to her room and went strictly to Boston, I mean Worcester, Mass to the first church and the priest there and his wife hid my mother in the first church of Armenian Church in North America. It was a small, like a one room church with a backroom to it and that was where they hid my mother and my father who was looking for a wife heard about my mother and he came to Worcester at first and came to Binghamton because of our cousin Ohanian wanted him to come under– come to Binghamton he had job for him at Endicott-Johnson. On weekends my, Charlie, his friend Chuck [unintelligible] and my father would drive from after work on Friday all the way to Worcester, Mass and that was how my mother met, my father met my mother. After the second trip, he met; going back he brought a wedding– an engagement ring. Well my mother did not care for my father but she liked the ring [laughs] so the priest says wait a minute, if you want this fella’s ring you got to have the fella. [laughs] And that was how they met, my mother, my father brought my mother they got married they came to Binghamton, they got married and then– and for fifteen years, the federal authorities were looking for my mother. She– my mother was on the run, so when World War II started all the– all aliens or non-citizens had to register for World War Interviewer. The minute my mother registered, that was when they caught her and that was the registry took place some place on Charles and Clinton Street in Binghamton, New York and after that my mother was placed on house arrest and we all, my father, my mother and um that was 1940. And my sister, my two brothers we all had to go to a federal court in Syracuse, New York to be deported.
12:21
JK: Oh my gosh, so what happened after that?
12:38
HK: The war broke out and they ̶ my mother, my mother went on to become a citizen.
12:51
JK: That is crazy.
12:54
HK: I did have the picture where she got her citizenship, I do not see it here. Here is my mother’s picture when she became a citizen and it was 1945.
13:19
JK: Wow.
13:21
HK: She went to night school to learn how– my mother learned how to speak English from reading the funnies. She was self-educated, looking at the pictures like Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy that was how she got a basic idea how– the understanding of English. Another thing, one thing unique about my mother and father like most Americans that immigrated here, most foreign people they wanted to become Americans back then, it was not like today. They learned the language, they dressed American and father wore a suit and tie, every day after work.
14:08
JK: So they assimilated to the culture of America, they assimilated to the culture–
14:13
HK: Right, they wanted to be Americans and show that they were better than other Americans that were here.
14:20
JK: Now in the community, have they, when they came to Binghamton and lived here did they stay here their whole lives?
14:35
HK: Yeah, they mi– when they, they became, they came to– about 1936, (19)37 they bought their first piece of property and in 1938 and in 1940 they ended up– in 1936 we got evicted out in the street because we could not pay the rent, all our furniture was put out in the street.
14:56
JK: Oh my gosh.
14:57
HK: And we were on the corner of Jarvis and Clinton and from there my mother went to the– Welfare came and helped up and put us back in, payed the rent to landlord. A pharmacist on Clinton Street, near Philadelphia sales, they paid the month’s rent, I think the rent was either five or six dollars a month. [laughs] And my mother went to Binghamton city bank, who held a mortgage on the building [phone rings], held a mortgage on the building, that we were living on the corner of Jarvis and Clinton. Somehow, somewhere my mother got enough money to make a down payment and bought the building for five thousand dollars.
15:53
JK: Wow.
15:54
HK: I was with here, it was a day of rain– it was raining and we walked back all the way back to Jarvis Street. My mother could not believe that she bought the building, she made us walk back in the rain, to verify that we had bought that piece of property and everybody in the neighborhood ridiculed her and joked about her buying the building. They said you do not own it but she did, the bankers told her, ‘you bought the building Alice, the building belongs to you.’
16:26
JK: That is crazy, that is amazing, wow. So growing up, in Binghamton, did you guys have a lot of Armenian experiences and culture going on here? Was there other Armenians?
16:40
HK: Growing up, there were two factions of Armenians, there were the Tashnag party and the Hunchak party and because we were very poor, we associated with most, even though we went to the church which was controlled by the Hunchaks here, that was the Tashnag, I associated because they were poor like we were and they had an Armenian school on Jarvis Street and my friends mother, Mrs. [unintelligible] taught Armenian school there. And that was where it, it helped me to learn Armenian.
17:17
JK: Now did you attend normal high school in like Binghamton or did you go to the Armenian school?
17:23
HK: No, we went to public schools, we were very poor, my brother, the doctor who is a doctor now, and I we were taken out of school because we wore bathing suits, we did not have clothing. We wore bathing suits to– we did not have normal clothing to go to school because we were on welfare. We wore bathing suits to school and we were–they were ready to take– break the family up, take us away from our parents, so we had to like for some reason or another we went through that period and eventually got back on our feet and before we moved into the second floor on Jarvis and Clinton and we were tenants there and got evicted and eventually buying the place, we lived in our cousins. Because my father came to Binghamton because his cousin was here and my cousin got him a job, we lived in the basement.
18:37
JK: Wow.
18:37
HK: And then from the basement, of course we had to pay rent to our cousin [laughs] and we went from the basement up to the attic and the rooms were separated with a clothesline with a blanket. [laughs]
18:57
JK: Wow.
19:00
HK: And uh, the toilet was a potty. [laughs]
19:05
JK: Wow, crazy.
19:07
HK: That was how tough it was and then I grew up, I grew up I had to be tough in that area, anybody who knew the first ward was one of the toughest areas to grow up, it was a very poor area, quite a few people in poverty, there was other people in the same shoes or even worse than we were.
19:35
JK: Wow. So when you were in high school, did you have other Armenian friends?
19:39
HK: Yeah, I had a lot of Armenian friends here but there was not that many families, basically we did not have regular church service, we had church maybe once every oh I would say once every couple of months they would, a priest would come from out of town to how service here in our church, 38 Corbin Avenue which is called Saint Gregory Armenian Church.
20:07
JK: Which is still here today?
20:08
HK: What?
20:08
JK: Which is still here today, right?
20:11
HK: Yeah, from, that church was acquired sometime around nineteen twenty-nine when a group of Armenians here in the area and then it was very difficult in those times. I used to have to, when there was some– when I was a young boy; I used to have to shovel coal into the furnace to keep the church warm during services. And then if I forgot, I would get a bop over my head and get down there and throw more coal in the furnace.
20:43
VK: No wonder you do not have any hair. [laughs]
20:51
HK: And the only way to get furnace was to go outside the church, around the outside, pick up a wooden door, trap door and go down into the basement.
21:04
JK: Oh my gosh! They made you do that [phone rings], that is crazy.
21:11
HK: And also, there was another Armenian boy, that I grew up with, mostly were in the same area and they were my age or younger and there were a few that were older but quite a few went on to be, we have a community here, that was unique to any place else in the United States with the Armenians. We had had, somewhere between fourteen and seventeen young people went on to become M.D.s, doctors and that was unique in the United States, we had the most doctors, self-grown doctors in the United States, in the small community of Binghamton, New York.
21:56
JK: Wow that is crazy, so growing up, oh let me get back to this, did you have any siblings growing up?
22:04
HK: Yes I had one sister and two brothers.
22:09
JK: And what is their age difference to you?
22:13
HK: My sister is three years older than I am and my other brother, the doctor, he is a year and half younger than I am and the other one is four years younger than I am.
22:26
JK: And could you please state their first names, their first names.
22:32
HK: My youngest brother is Arslan, the next youngest is Aristaks and I am the second oldest, Henry, and my Armenian name is Harutun and Louise is the oldest, my sister and her Armenian name is Lalezar.
22:51
JK: So, your names, did they switch when you came to America, your names?
22:58
HK: No I was born, we all– my brothers and sister and I were born here.
23:05
JK: Okay got it, yes, and so growing up did you were your called Harutun or Henry more often?
23:14
HK: Well in church, I was called Harutun, among the old timers, I was called Harutun, in school I was called Henry, I was going to be called, when I was born in May of 1931, I was going to be called, my mother wanted me to be called Harry, because that was her brother that was taken by the Turks and when my mother found out there was already one Harry, Harry Kradjian here, she says nothing to worry I am not going to have two Harrys in town so said one of the RN has asked her why do not you– told her why do not you name him Henry and that was what she did.
24:07
JK: Do you know what Harutun means in Armenian, is it a direct translation?
24:11
HK: It means Harry.
24:12
JK: Do you know what about your brother’s and sister’s what they mean, are they–
24:17
HK: Lalezar I think Lalezar [tulip garden in Turkish and Kurdish,] means flower, Louise in Armenian, it means flower. Aristaks that name was, it is in the Bible, Aristaks my mother got that name and then my younger brother Arslan, he was named after the last name of the–her maiden name Arslanian. That means. Arslan means strong.
24:49
JK: Okay, There is, you know how your name means something, your last name in Armenian means, it was your occupation, like–
25:00
HK: No, I do not know that.
25:02
JK: You did not know that?
25:04
HK: No.
25:04
JK: So like my mom’s side, Kabakian it has to do with squash and pumpkins, so it would make sense that they sold– like had a farm and sold squash and–
25:25
HK: Well, in some– in the old–in pre–in the early times of Armenia– early periods you were named after your father, if your father’s name was Kachadour, you were called Kachadourian, that meant the son of Kachadour–
25:41
JK: Yeah.
25:44
HK: If your mother was Yaksan, your last name was–your mother–you were named Yaksanian, you were named after–but that changed over time. Whatever your grandfather’s name was, your father would take, and then you would take your father’s name but the Scandinavians today I do not–when I was–up until 1915, Norway and Sweden and Iceland or Denmark, they still carry on that tradition. If your mother’s name was Helda, you were called Heldadaughter and your father’s name was– your last name became Heldadaughter if your father’s name was John, you were called Johnson, Johnson, son of Johnson that was how was with the Armenians.
26:38
JK: Yeah, very interesting. Now, did you guys have any– in Binghamton– did you guys have any Armenian get together other than church? Like, picnics or dances?
26:55
HK: Yes, I can relate going back to the picnics going back nineteen thirties, we did not have an automobile and somebody would or some family who had automobiles would have to pick us up and take us to the picnics. Soft drinks– for example, we were so poor; soft drinks were a nickel they sold at the picnic because I was so poor John Kachorian would give me a soft drink and hide it– I would hide it and so other people would not see it and I never forgot that. He worked at Endicott- Johnson and he was sort of like the head of the picnic along with Mr. Manoog Bogdasarian. They were like the church elders and they always had the picnics and our picnics were about up around Port Crane along the river bank.
27:54
JK: That is crazy. I remember hearing that because, another person who did the interviews, he interviewed some other local Armenians of Binghamton and they would say they–
28:07
HK: We did not, because we were poor we were looked at–we were looked down and only the side that did not go to the church, the Tashnags, they associated with us until 1950, until the fellows of my age and they, the generation ahead of me like Dr. Bogdasarian and Dr. Garabedian and Dr. Markarian and Dr. Avedisian, not Dr.–not Avedisian it was Abashians– they had– each one of these families had two or three doctors in the family. They were very hard working people and the one who set the– I would say Dr. Robert Bogdasarian, he went to the University of Michigan and then quite a few followed soon after that.
29:11
JK: That is crazy.
29:12
HK: I did not associate with– and then the Korean War came along and we all went our separate ways and when we came back we got married and had our own families.
29:25
JK: And you stayed in Binghamton?
29:26
HK: No I did not, I met my wife in Philadelphia.
29:30
VK: No, she is saying you stayed in Binghamton.
29:33
HK: Yes, I came– we finally– by way– I came– we came to Binghamton
29:39
JK: So growing up, there were a lot of Armenians in the community, did they–
29:14
HK: There were– I would say growing up in Jarvis Street School, in [inaudible] I would say in my class ahead of me and the class the next two or three classes behind, there were approximately about fifteen to twenty Armenians boys.
30:02
JK: That is a lot.
30:03
HK: And girls.
30:04
VK: For a small community that is quite a lot.
30:06
JK: And did they all migrate different places or did they stay in Binghamton like growing up?
30:11
HK: They all eventually came here for the same reason– their parents came here for work, Endicott- Johnson and the other shoe factory in Endicott– Dunn McCarthy’s– they made– Dunn McCarthy’s were known for making ladies shoes.
30:27
VK: She asked if they stayed in Binghamton.
30:29
JK: Like, now today are most of them–
30:30
HK: Well quite a few stayed except for the fact that some of them went from here to Detroit because the factory–auto industry and some before the World War II and some migrated because there was a lot more Armenians in Detroit at that time. There was about twenty to twenty five thousands Armenians in the– although there were quite a few that migrated to California, there is a large contingent of Armenians that live there and that was why they went there, so the– so their children would become Armenianized and not lose their heritage.
31:05
JK: That is crazy. So you can speak Armenian but– you can speak Armenian but you cannot write it, is that correct?
31:14
HK: I can speak but I cannot write, no. The only member of the family that could write Armenian is my sister, she can read and write. I cannot read Armenian either, I can only speak it.
31:26
JK: And have you ever wanted or have you ever traveled back to Armenia to the villages?
31:31
HK: No, never have everybody in the family except for me and my wife Victoria.
31:38
JK: Would you– if you had the chance would you like to go or no?
31:42
HK: If I was younger age, not being over eighty-five, I would, I just do not– I just do not have the ambition anymore.
31:56
JK: Did they– did your brothers and sisters, did they enjoy themselves in Armenia, did they learn a lot?
32:05
HK: Yes, they had, they said they enjoyed– they went sightseeing, they went and saw historical places and they saw where the first church were, and the church that is the symbol of Armenians. Armenians were not the first Christians in the world, but they were the first country to accept Christianity. And the historical church there in Etchmiadzin is still there today. It has been there for over two thousand years and they, the Muslims for two thousand years tried to convert the Armenians from Christians to Muslims and after two thousand years they left the Armenians alone. They said you would have to kill every one of them otherwise you just leave them alone.
33:01
JK: Yeah, very strong, we were very strong.
33:05
HK: You had to be strong otherwise you would have never survive. Right, honey?
33:10
VK: Yep.
33:12
JK: So um you did attend Armenian language school correct, right? You attended Armenian language school, growing up?
33:23
HK: No, in– lot a part of the (19)30s and early part of (19)40s, there was no school here at per se, one of the elder woman, one from the family– Armenian families who would teach Armenian school, and you had pay like twenty-five cents to go to class.
33:49
JK: Oh wow.
33:49
HK: Twenty-five cents for every class you came, you had to bring a quarter.
33:54
JK: That is crazy.
33:55
VK: Yeah, I never heard of such a thing.
33:57
JK: Wow!
34:00
HK: The reason for that was to pay the taxes on the building in the–it was not associated with the church or anything and it was hard times, it was like when Dr. Bagdasarian sister who helped pay, he was going to University of Michigan and his sister Lilian Bagdasarian later on she married and became Lilian [unintelligible]. She would come to our house after work at five o’clock and give Louise and I piano lessons for fifty cents an hour or fifty cents a half an hour and then– and she did that every week and I did not pick up the piano that well but Louise did very well and she learned how to play the piano and read music.
34:52
JK: Wow. So growing up did you guys have– your family– did you guys have Armenian friends or normal American friends growing up?
35:05
HK: I had both. I could not say one or the other, the Armenian friends were social, we would associate on weekends mostly.
35:17
JK: Okay.
35:18
HK: And we would get together on weekends, primarily either from the church or from the picnics. And then, my American friends were basically from school, and playing sports.
35:38
JK: Okay and did your friends, your American friends, did they know about Armenia like when you said you are Armenian, they did not know.
35:47
HK: My American friends did not have the foggiest idea what Armenian was. They did not have the foggiest idea.
35:56
VK: Our school teachers did not even know what Armenia was.
36:00
JK: Oh my gosh
36:01
HK: Did not have the foggiest idea.
36:05
VK: Did your teachers know Armenian, none of my teachers knew what Armenian was.
36:10
HK: The reason why our Armenian community was never united, we never had church or community center to go to and become part of, a part of the whole community and when we first got our priest to come here and after we had the church, he was getting paid I think twenty dollars a month, five dollars a week. After a year or two, a year he wanted a pay raise of five dollars for the month, we could not pay him so we told him to leave. He wanted a raise from twenty dollars a month to twenty-five. And that was our– and after that we did not have any more priests until, let us see, I would say around 1960s around when Father Arakelian came here, when he got married he came as Deacon from St. Nersess. From that–from 1930 to 1960, in the (19)60s or early (19)70s– later (19)60s we had a visiting priest that would come here like once a month, from the Diocese out of New York City.
37:40
JK: That is very interesting, wow. So did your celebrate a lot of Armenian traditions like Armenian Christmas for example.
37:49
HK: Yeah, we followed the Armenian traditions for Christmas, Easter and all the other religious Armenian holidays and Martyr’s day.
38:04
JK: And did you guys have any– what was it like growing up in your household? Did you guys have all like Armenian food– growing up?
38:19
HK: My mother, my mother did not have a good background because she was a young girl she was only like eight or nine years old when she way taken away by the Turks and she had really no experience-she had knowledge of Armenian food but knowing the recipe and making it, she did not have the expertise like when I used to visit other Armenian families or other churches they would know exactly. Once you would taste their food, you knew you were eating the real thing. My mother had to make up her own recipe.
39:02
JK: Now, was your mom– back in Armenia– was she separated by any of her family members?
39:09
HK: Hm?
39:09
JK: Did she– when she was separated by her family members in Armenia, did they ever reconnect or anything?
39:18
VK: When she was separated from her family, did she ever reconnect with her family?
39:25
HK: No, the ones over there she never reconnected, when she came here her, her father was dead–buried in Edison Cemetery in Lowell, Mass, it is a municipal cemetery but the plot– the people from her village in Harput and the village of Hoğe. They bought a plot for about with fifty or sixty people to be buried there that lived around Lowell, Massachusetts and they could be buried there with no trouble– no cost at all. And that is where my Uncle and my grandfather are buried there, yeah her mother was killed by the Turks and brother was taken by the Turks.
40:24
JK: And was it like– were they killed in Armenia or were they?
40:31
HK: No, they were killed in Armenia.
40:34
JK: So how did your sister get to escape?
40:39
HK: My mother?
40:39
VK: Your father
40:40
JK: Yes.
40:40
VK: Yeah, how did your father escape too?
40:42
HK: My father escaped? He dove into a river and– you are talking about my father now?
40:50
JK: Your mother, how did she-
40:51
HK: My mother?
40:52
JK: How did she escape?
40:53
HK: They had a march. They marched all the Armenians into the– into the–
40:57
JK: The desert?
41:00
HK: In Syria, into the desert to kill them. Somehow my mother– she was a go getter and she knew what was happening, so she ran and hid and I do not know how she survived but she eventually ended up in Beirut, Lebanon where her Aunt– where her cousin was.
41:24
JK: So she found her cousin? That is crazy. She found her cousin? Oh my God.
41:29
HK: Yeah and it was my cousin who gave them money and he gave her so she could immigrate to American and get to her brother. But we– she repaid– we repaid our uncle– our cousins over there in Beirut, when the war started in (19)75 or the banks were closed in Beirut, so we gave them between five and six thousand dollars and they wanted repay it but we said no, you do not have you, this is for helping our mother come to America.
42:11
JK: Wow. Very nice
42:12
HK: Believe me on your grandmother’s side, the Kabakians and the Kachadourians, we got no help, we did not any help from any Armenians for anybody and if we did get help we got help from the Main Street Baptist Church and the Protestants, or the Kachadourians did and we never forgot that, we repaid the Main Street Baptist Church by– then when they had their seventy fifth anniversary we made the short fall for the missionary in Africa.
42:52
JK: Wow that is amazing, so getting back to your life here in Binghamton, did you end up going to college once you left high school? Or did any of your siblings went to college? After graduating from high school did any of your siblings, including yourself, go to high school?
43:14
HK: Yes– a college– my sister went into nursing and became an RN [Registered Nurse], Louise. My brother went to Wayne State and then to Syracuse University became a doctor and I attended Harpur and Syracuse University at two years accredited college and I left school to fly in the Airforce.
43:41
JK: And, how long were you in the Air Force for?
43:44
HK: Approximately four years, I was stationed in Keflavik, Iceland, in air rescue and I was stationed in Charleston, South Carolina and I was in military air transport which is called MATCH and also at McGuire Airforce base. I raised to the rank of First Lieutenant.
44:02
JK: Wow that is amazing. Very cool. So after, after the Airforce you came back to Binghamton and then you met–
44:15
HK: No, I did not meet your grandmother, I was stationed in Keflavik, Iceland and my brother who was at Syracuse University was attending a medical get together– medical association group in Atlantic City, ran into my future wife, Victoria, at the hotel, got her name, my mother was afraid I might an Icelandic or a Scandinavian girl. So she sent me, my brother gave her the address of my– of your grandmother, Victoria– in Philadelphia and my mother got a hold of the address and mailed it to me and up in Keflavik, Iceland after World War II, there was real separate– the Airforce, Airforce and Navy flyers all built together their officers and we used to read each other’s mail. And one of the Navy Airforce Officer’s wrote a letter to my wife because I did not want to write the letter, they wrote the letter.
45:38
VK: I am just finding this out now, I did not even know this.
45:43
HK: –Wrote the letter and your grandmother, Victoria sends a picture of herself and the flyer said– the guys that wrote the letter were reading the mail, he says “Henry if you are not going to Philadelphia to check this out, we going to go to Philadelphia” and that was how I met your mother I mean my wife–your grandmother.
46:05
JK: That is amazing. Oh my gosh.
46:08
HK: So I really, I never met– listen, Jackie that is a true story.
46:20
VK: I never knew that. You know what happened. I was in Atlantic City and he comes knocking on the door and there was a party. So he pops his head in and we are short one girl at our party, this is Art now. So I said to my cousin, I said oh okay we could go and he says “oh no just one”– oh no and so later on when we went downstairs to talk to the girl at the desk for the bus, what time the bus is going to leave um, he pops up Art pops up so he said well can I have your name and address and all this kind of stuff. So I say to myself how is he going to remember, he will never remember because he did not have a pencil or paper so I say sure. And not knowing he had a pretty darn good memory. So he ships the name and address over to him–
47:24
HK: You know this is a true story, I cannot make this stuff up, it is like surreal, you know, how things happened back then and that was how it was and in fact my mother and– or when your grandmother, your grandmother here, how their parents, their parents were put together. In other– you would meet the man and you would meet the family and your grandmother, your great grandmother would walk along with them and in like the movie The Godfather and that was how it was in the old days. There was no going out and going here and going there in a long courtship, it was like one two three and that was it. Am I right honey?
48:17
VK: [Speaks Armenian] My grandmother, I said mom.
48:23
HK: That was a period– the fittest survived.
48:27
VK: Yeah, the fittest. Here was how I was [shows picture]. Grandma and mama on one side, dragging me in to the–
48:42
HK: Vicki, I am talking, I am talking before you. It was not just your grandmother’s family and mine, it was thousands of Armenians just like us, who struggled, came to America wanted to be Americans, not like some of the people who come here today, they wanted to be Americans, they wanted to dress like Americans, they wanted to learn the language, they proved to the people that were living here they were just as good or better. They overcame, it was not just the Armenians it was the Slovak people, it was the Italians, it was the Irish, it was the Jewish people. They struggled and they wanted to become somebody and become something and there were–and they did it, no matter how great the odds were, they did not quit. They did not–the word quit was not in their vocabulary.
49:42
VK: The first priority was becoming American, speaking the language, learning the language, it was. it was not easy, it was not easy. Different culture there, different type of food and everything else. Different religions and they came and built their own–
50:06
HK: And you know what I cannot understand everybody that came here, whether black, white or yellow they were discriminated, the Irish were discriminated, the Italians, the Armenians and this discrimination will never end. You might temporarily, but the problem here is people make a big issue out of being discriminated. Discrimination was going on way before, thousands of years before we were we born. And it will continue on no matter what, you cannot change people. There will always be discrimination to some degree.
50:51
JK: Exactly. That is crazy. So, when you were getting married, when you were looking for a wife, did your mom and father, did they want you to marry Armenian?
51:02
HK: Yes, they wanted me to marry Armenians but then there was a lot of stipulations.
51:11
VK: [whispers] She hated me.
51:11
HK: It was period where we were first– I was first generation, my wife first generation– were first born here and we were going through a period– it became to easier for my daughter and your father to get married later on because, the American tradition, the way you are suppose– the way things are done over here, we had a mix– it had a mixture between the other side and America. And there were, we were trying to pacify our parents and grandparents we were trying to blend it and make the best out of the both worlds. Your father and your aunt and your other aunt’s and other– your mother’s fa–brothers and sisters did not go through that because they were the next generation. But the first generation was a little difficult like you just could not go out and marry somebody that was not Armenian, that was looked upon down.
52:22
JK: Wow. So did you want to marry someone Armenian?
52:27
HK: Hm?
52:27
JK: Did you want to marry someone Armenian?
52:28
HK: Oh yes, I did because you see not marrying an Armenian, not marrying an Armenian you lose– you do not have– you do not understand the tradition and the hardship that both the families went through, you lose the language and you lose the language you lose the church and if you lose the church you lose your heritage as far as an Armenians concerned. The church and the heritage and the language as Armenian go hand in hand without that being blend all together, your future generation is going to be watered down and the grand children or the great grandchildren and the great, great grandchildren will not even know where they came from.
53:20
JK: Yeah. Exactly. When you– older– later on you had two children and did you want them to marry Armenians. Did you put pressure on them to–
53:29
HK: I would like to–
53:30
VK: No we did not put pressure on them but they knew–
53:22
HK: I would like that but the problem here is that there is different– there is different Armenians. See when my parents and your– my wife’s parents came here that was another group– that was another generation– that was a generation of Armenians that was really called the Armenians. They were true, true Armenians right from the heart, it came from the heart. The Armenians that come over here hand been Sovietized or Russianized or they been Muslimized. Not that their Muslims, not that their Russians but they have been influenced and they leave a bad taste with other Armenians and also with Americans that are live here.
53:34
VK: Sometimes they think that this country owes them when they come here, in other words, Harutun do not you get that?
54:46
HK: Yeah, see when the Armenians that came like your, your Kabakian side, for example, the churches were here, the schools were here, they went out– in other words during the Depression it was tough, the Armenians did not have the money, they did not have– did not know the language, did not know the ins and outs of government how things work over here and they struggled they built these churches and schools. The ones that came after World War II, hey this is it, it was not that way, it was hard work and they struggled the ones that were here.
55:33
JK: Yeah, they went through a lot.
55:35
HK: You understand what I am saying.
55:37
JK: Yeah, of course.
55:38
HK: I am not trying to put a knock on anybody but that is the way it was. That is how I see it and the ones that came after World War II, everything was always already in place for them.
55:50
JK: They did not have to work for it.
55:51
HK: They did not have to struggle, besides, there were no jobs during the depression, where were they going to get the money? You know how much I was bringing? I did not even want to go to church sometimes because I could only put a nickel in the plate. I wanted my mother and father to give me at least a quarter, they did not have a quarter to give me.
56:12
VK: But we were discriminated against too.
56:20
HK: You mean we were discriminated because we did not have any money?
56:23
VK: No, no, no. They did not know– my teacher did not know if we had money.
56:28
HK: That was a given fact, they did not know what Armenians were, they did not have an understanding of Armenians and a lot of people thought Armenians were like Arabs, they were nomads. That is a fact, in the school books and the library when I was– and I looked up Armenians and they had Armenians are Nomads, they were wanderers.
56:50
VK: They were wanderers because they wandered away from the genocide. Unbelievable, unbelievable. Yeah I heard they were Nomads.
57:03
HK: What?
57:04
VK: Nomads
57:05
HK: Right that is what I read, I remember this where I saw that, it was in the library at Daniel S. Dickinson the basement library.
57:18
JK: That is crazy. So did– how would you consider yourself, like what would define yourself as? Being–
57:24
HK: A true American Armenian, American first without America I was– I was– my family, my wife’s family and all the others Armenians that came here after the slaughter, after World War I, would not be nothing without America. I consider myself, an American first and Armenian second.
57:51
JK: What about you?
57:52
VK: I agree–
57:53
JK: Same thing–
57:54
HK: When I say American first, I would give my life for this country.
57:59
VK: Well you were flying during the war, thank goodness you came out of it. Jeepers!
58:11
HK: You find a person’s true colors and when I was flying in the Airforce, the really the true Americans were from the mid-west or from the south-west. They were so patriotic or from the south, the flyers you said anything derogatory about America, there was no such thing as burning an American flag. Not the stuff that goes on in New York City and California. It was unheard of back then, if you did that while I was in the service you would have got murdered, you would have got clobbered.
58:53
JK: Okay were he–
58:54
HK: I do not consider– I do not consider those people–some of those people in California and some in New York City as Americans. It is only giving lip service.
59:08
JK: So, when– now you have two children now right?
59:13
VK: Yeah, that is all we have [laughter] and grandchildren, five. [laughter]
59:21
JK: Oh I am sure one of them is amazing. [laughter]
59:23
VK: Oh, I am sure that she thinks she is. [laughter]
59:33
HK: You know, I saw when I was in the Service Jackie, I saw a lot of good Americans that died during the Korean War; a lot of good Americans. They gave their– they gave their lives up for this country and the garbage that goes on today with the flag– burning the flag and taken sports at taking a knee! [laughter]
1:00:00
JK: So, your two children can you name how– can you say their names and how old they are?
1:00:08
HK: I have a son, his name is Mark Kachadourian. He is fifty-eight and I have a daughter–
1:00:20
VK: What about their middle names?
1:00:21
HK: Well, Mark Henry. Mark Henry Kachadourian and let us see he is fifty-six–fifty-eight, yeah he is fifty-eight years old. And Corey is– Corey Victoria Kachadourian, my daughter she is fifty-nine. One was born in August one was born in September.
1:00:51
JK: Crazy!
1:00:52
HK: How old did you think your father was?
1:00:54
JK: I do not know [laughs], fifty-seven.
1:00:57
HK: Your father was born in fifty-nine.
1:01:00
JK: Yeah. Crazy! I was thinking fifty-six or fifty-seven.
1:01:07
VK: He is fifty-eight!
1:01:08
JK: Crazy!
1:01:09
HK: Huh?
1:01:10
JK: Crazy! How fast time goes by?
1:01:14
VK: Yeah, in the old days that was old, but now that is middle age,
1:01:19
HK: Well the problem– your mother, your grandmother and I– we were married in fifty-seven, Corey was born in fifty-eight and your father was born in fifty-nine.
1:01:20
VK: One right after the other, yeah.
1:01:37
JK: Wow! Okay, so did you want them– did you– growing up– did they grow up learn Armenian or go to Armenian school or church?
1:01:43
HK: There was no– we did not have regular Armenian Church. We only had a visiting priest that came once every month or once every two months and we did have Armenian school but it was very difficult since we were a small community and the only time they would meet would be on weekends. It was not like it was a large Armenian community where there would be regular functions and dances or social get together. We did not have any of that in this community because we were a small community and at the present time there would roughly only be between thirty or thirty-five–or thirty or thirty-five Armenian families in the area left.
1:02:28
JK: Okay. And most of them moved away to get more–
1:02:31
HK: The problem there they– most of them left the area because the fact that we lost our industry here and the politicians never understood what made this community. It was– IBM and Endicott-Johnson and the other industries came here because we had cheap energy. And that cheap energy came from the coal mines around Scranton and Wilkes Barre, it was less than a half an hour, an hour away. We had the cheapest energy in the world and without indus– without cheap energy, you do not have industry.
1:03:09
JK: Yeah. So did you guys–did they ever attend Armenian dances once in a while?
1:03:15
HK: No there were no Armenian dances here.
[
indistinct]
1:03:21
HK: It was not– the Armenian dances did not take place until about– let us see– I would say– (19)50– go ahead– around the early part of (19)60s from when I was growing up, up until even when your father and your aunt were growing up in the area. From 1957 by fifteen– there was nothing we could– for fifteen year– in the Armenian functions– they did not– and fifty –fifteen or twenty years.
1:03:52
JK: Wow.
1:03:53
VK: Did not it go out of town
1:03:55
HK: What?
1:03:55
VK: When it was something going on in Atlantic City–
1:03:59
HK: Out of town but not here. Not locally.
1:04:01
JK: Did they go out of town– where would they go out of town?
1:04:05
HK: Basically, they went out of town to Armenian functions we went to Philadelphia or Atlantic City.
1:04:10
JK: And did you go ever so often–every year? Did you go every year?
1:04:15
HK: We tried to, I mean mostly in the summer months.
1:04:19
JK: Now, do they both know how to speak Armenian?
1:04:24
VK: Do they speak Armenian?
1:04:26
HK: Who is they?
1:04:27
VK: Corey and Mark.
1:04:28
HK: No.
1:04:30
VK: They understand–
1:04:31
HK: They understand– when they were– spent the summer home– at the summer house down in Toms River, New Jersey and they grew up there in the summer, they learned from their grand folks but they–they do have an understanding if someone is speaking Armenian they understand what they are saying.
1:04:49
JK: My dad said he knows how to– because sometimes he says something to my mom in Armenian.
1:04:56
HK: Yeah.
1:04:56
VK: Yeah he probably knows more than he is letting on. You know why–
1:05:04
HK: I wanted, I wanted very much to send you to Montreal and pay to go to Armenian school there with the Kabakians and the Liberians– they would have taught you Armenian but my son did not want you to leave the area.
1:05:22
JK: No I wish I did that that would have been amazing.
1:05:25
HK: It would have been a great summer– and I would have paid for it, it would have been a great summer and you would have become true Armenians. Not by just by name but you would understand the customs and the language.
1:05:39
JK: Yeah. There is so much more of an Armenian community in Montreal.
1:05:43
HK: Oh yeah. I am very–, I am– when I go to Montreal I am impressed. There– when you say Armenian community that is the true sense of the word up there.
1:05:54
JK: They even had a march on April 24th for the Armenian genocide to–
1:06:00
HK: Well your, your father, your grandparents, your– marched in the first march or– in United Nations and your aunt marched the first march of the genocide in the United Nations. I will never forget it.
1:06:19
JK: Really?
1:06:19
HK: It was a cold–
1:06:21
VK: New York City.
1:06:21
HK: Cold April day in New York City and the–the United Nations would not allow us to mark on–march on their side of the, the plaza– We had to cross the street and march across the street and we could not march on the grounds–the United Nations’ grounds.
1:06:42
JK: Wow
1:06:42
HK: And they– we and there– at that time there– I would say there was somewhere between fifty to seventy-five Armenians with signs marching and we did not have a sign, we marched along with them. Remember that, honey? Just to show our support.
1:06:58
JK: That is wonderful.
1:06:59
HK: We made that trip from Stanford, Connecticut on that cold, cold wintery day in, in April– in the springtime and wind was blowing off the ro– east river or the Hudson River even. It was just coming, you know, crisscross in Manhattan it was very dip– it was very hard times but the– it– we just made a show for– to show the world that the Armenians did not forget.
1:07:30
JK: Yeah. Do you think America will ever accept the Armenian genocide as an actual genocide?
1:07:37
VK: At this point, I do not think so.
1:07:41
HK: Hmm?
1:07:41
VK: Do you think America will ever accept the fact that the genocide existed?
1:07:53
HK: See I have– the two sides– the– to the story just like, like in Israel, America has a foreign policy and it has what has to be– and it protects the rights of people. It promotes freedom around the world, but the– they has to balance the one side with the other. It is a two sided– and it is very difficult to say–well– at this point I think they could– they should recognize it but if they– I am a firm believer if they recognize the genocide, this country, it will no longer be in place like it used to. The gov– the Turks and the United States government is doing the Armenians a favor by not recognize it because it is out on the forefront every year.
1:08:53
VK: That is right. It is–
1:08:54
HK: It is out on the forefront. In other words, we will go out there and make them have the risk of a government standby and say look these people were slaughtered and why do not you recognize it? But–and if, if they do recognize it, future generations will not go into the march, will not c– they will commemorate the date, but not like it is now. That is my personal feel.
1:09:23
JK: I agree with that. That is true.
1:09:25
VK: I do not think they are ever going to make any public announcement that this happened.
1:09:33
HK: See the trouble with this is, the presidents that want to get elected, like George Bush, Bill Clinton, Obama. They all promised the Armenians they would recognize the genocide and when they got in the office, what happened?
1:09:53
VK: They forgot all about it. [laughs]
1:09:57
HK: Obama’s speech before the parliament in Turkey says allege or so called, I will never forget the speech he made in Istan–in Ankara, Turkey. The allege massacre. Allege!! Why you– A man cannot stand behind his word. Obama broke his word and so did Bush and so did Bill Clinton. They all broke their word.
1:10:29
JK: They did.
1:10:30
HK: If a man’s word is no good, the man is no good.
1:10:33
JK: They did us a favor, it will never–
1:10:37
HK: Allege! I will never forget what the– Obama said it in front of the parliament, the speech was– you–there–h ad it on the news. The allege massacre!
1:10:50
JK: Terrible.
1:10:51
HK: How about I, I said the allege slavery in America?
1:10:59
VK: [laughs] That is a good one! [laughs]
1:11:03
JK: Crazy. [laughs]
1:11:04
HK: How would Obama like that? Massacre. Really?! The allege massacre?
1:11:11
VK: What about the allege slavery of the blacks and–
Pause in recording
1:11:15
JK: Is there anything you want to add about the Armenians or your history or anything?
1:11:22
HK: Yes. The only thing I could say is in my wife and I– in our lifetime– our parents were slaughtered in World War– our grandparents and our parents and their families were slaughtered in World War I and my wife and I, in our lifetime, we have seen nothing but war. We have seen World War I, we have seen the Spanish Civil War in Spain in the thirties. Then we saw World War II, then we saw Korea and then we saw Vietnam and then we saw the war in Iraq and then we saw the war in Afghanistan and now the war in Iraq and the problems in the Middle East. Only thing I only wish for– the remainder of my life there are no wars, hopefully, and from– not only for myself but for future generations over my children and my grandchildren and great grandchildren. That was how I will end it. You want to add anything to that Vicky?
1:12:39
VK: No you said it–
1:12:40
HK: And I hope, I hope, that we can live in peace for at least a period of twenty-five to fifty years.
1:12:40
JK: Wow. Nice. Okay thank you so much.
1:12:53
HK: Hum?
1:12:53
JK: Thank you.
1:12:54
HK: How did I do?
1:12:56
JK: Pretty good.
1:12:57
HK: Oh I do not think so.
1:12:58
VK: Did you read what Mark wrote?
1:13:00
HK: Yeah
1:13:00
VK: I mean he is––
(End of Interview)
Interview with: Henry Kachadourian
Interviewed by: Jackie Kachadourian
Transcriber: Cordelia Jannetty
Date of interview: 16 January 2017
Interview Setting: Binghamton
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
0:06
JK: My name is Jackie Kachadourian; I am interviewing Henry Kachadourian for the Binghamton University Oral History Project. Today is January 16, 2017. Can you please start with some basics, your name birth place, biographical information? So what is your name? Please state your name?
0:25
HK: Henry Kachadourian.
0:28
JK: Who were your parents?
0:30
HK: My parents were Parsegh and Yeghsa Kachadourian. My mother’s maiden name was Arslanian.
0:39
JK: And where are they from?
0:42
HK: They are from the state of Harput which is now part of Turkey.
0:49
JK: And how did they immigrate to the United States?
0:53
HK: Well, it was an unusual situation, my grandfather came here first and was sending money to them back in Armenia to migrate– My mother to migrate here, with her mother and her other brother and sister. My father migrated from France to United States. My mother went to Montreal and at the time when she got here they cut off the immigration quota, she could not come in legally so she smuggled into the country with the help of her brother, my uncle, Charlie Arslanian. My father he took a boat from Toulouse, France to the United States. He was supposed to go on to go the boat, the boat stopped in Boston, Massachusetts and the boat was supposed to go on to Ellis Island but he got off at Boston because his godfather was there in Worcester, Massachusetts. So he got off at Boston and he came to United States to Worcester, to Boston to Worcester, Massachusetts. My mother smuggled from Montreal to Boston with the Montreal-Boston train and, and with the help of her– my uncle, Charlie Arslanian.
2:26
JK: And what was their reasoning for coming to the United States?
2:31
HK: To have a better life.
2:33
JK: Was it during the genocide?
2:35
VK: To escape the genocide.
2:37
HK: Yes, basically the genocide, the Armenian genocide in Turkey.
2:43
JK: Now did they leave– were they effected by the genocide at all, did they any–
2:49
HK: Yes, my mother lost her brother, and her mother and her mother and mother was killed by the Turks and her younger brother was taken by the Turks and brought up as a Turk, she had lost contact with them she had to march through the center of Turkey in genocide when she was transported by the Turks to– she ended up in Beirut, Lebanon and from there, a relative helped her to come to America.
3:28
JK: Okay and was there– you were saying your father, he lived in the mountains as a– your father lived in the mountains–
3:39
HK: My father and his family were sheep herders, they had very little education and my mother who came from the village, where there were schools, my mother was well educated and her family was well educated. My father was a sheep herder but he came to America, he could not even read or write Armenian even. My mother had to teach him how to speak, he knew how to speak Armenian but he could not read and write and my mother had to teach him.
4:15
JK: And what was the story about your father with involvement with the Turkish government and how they were escaping?
4:24
HK: Well, when the genocide started they went after, the first state they went– The Turks went after, interior Turkey so other nationalities or other people in Turkey would not have known there was a massacre going on. They started with the inner Turkey, the first state they went after, they went into was Harput, the reason for that was it was inner Turkey and there was less contact to the outside world. Also it was known for a fact that the Harputsis were real Armenian fighters, I mean they were like some of them were like renegades and the Turks wanted to that bunch first, that group of Armenians first before they got out of hand and the next state they went after was Arapkir, which your grandmothers from and her parents from and that was the second state they went. When they came to get my father they only sent five or six Turkish soldiers at there up there in the mountains. Well that did not cut, they did not work out because my grandfather, my father’s clan were warriors and they took care of those Turks. Before you know it they sent a brigade and captured my father’s clan and other mountaineer people and marched them down to village. When they were marching them down the village, my father and my uncle and another Armenian man dove into the river or lake there and swam for it. The other Armenian man died which I do not know his name, he got wounded, I think my uncle might have got wounded too, and that was how escaped from being slaughtered. My mother she was told to the fields to work, my mother did not listen to anybody, she went to school, went to classes and while in classes she was not supposed to be there she still stayed there. She wanted to be educated and when the slaughter started to take place in the village of Harput, that was the state but the city was named Hoğe. She was called Hoğesis.
7:04
VK: Oh Hoğesis.
7:05
HK: Right. My father was from Astvad [Astvadzadzin], that area was called Astvad in the state of Harput and he was they were Astvadsis. When the slaughter took place where my mother was, they marched all the young people out and got rid of the elderly people, they took my mother’s brother and made him into a Turk, adopt him into a Turk family and mother eventually ended up after the march some place into Beirut, Lebanon and her uncle, her uncle, Minas Kaprelian helped her come to America and that was how she got here.
7:56
JK: Wow, okay so how did your parents meet, did they meet in America or you were saying how–
8:04
VK: Well, my mother smuggled into this country on the Bos– the Montreal-Boston train and she got a job as a salad girl in the Biltmore hotel and plaza in Providence, Rhode Island. [laughs] And from there, another Armenian who had an eye on my mother and mother did not care for him, he went and turned, turned my mother in and her brother. They were working there, another Armenian did, that they were–that her– she was in the country illegally and her brother smuggled her here from Montreal. When my mother was still at work, they picked up her brother, Charles Arslanian. Garabed–the first name in Armenian is Garabed, they had arrested him and they were waiting for my mother. One of the other chamber maid Armenian women that worked at the hotel at Biltmore in Providence warned my mother the police were waiting for her. So she never went back to her room and went strictly to Boston, I mean Worcester, Mass to the first church and the priest there and his wife hid my mother in the first church of Armenian Church in North America. It was a small, like a one room church with a backroom to it and that was where they hid my mother and my father who was looking for a wife heard about my mother and he came to Worcester at first and came to Binghamton because of our cousin Ohanian wanted him to come under– come to Binghamton he had job for him at Endicott-Johnson. On weekends my, Charlie, his friend Chuck [unintelligible] and my father would drive from after work on Friday all the way to Worcester, Mass and that was how my mother met, my father met my mother. After the second trip, he met; going back he brought a wedding– an engagement ring. Well my mother did not care for my father but she liked the ring [laughs] so the priest says wait a minute, if you want this fella’s ring you got to have the fella. [laughs] And that was how they met, my mother, my father brought my mother they got married they came to Binghamton, they got married and then– and for fifteen years, the federal authorities were looking for my mother. She– my mother was on the run, so when World War II started all the– all aliens or non-citizens had to register for World War Interviewer. The minute my mother registered, that was when they caught her and that was the registry took place some place on Charles and Clinton Street in Binghamton, New York and after that my mother was placed on house arrest and we all, my father, my mother and um that was 1940. And my sister, my two brothers we all had to go to a federal court in Syracuse, New York to be deported.
12:21
JK: Oh my gosh, so what happened after that?
12:38
HK: The war broke out and they ̶ my mother, my mother went on to become a citizen.
12:51
JK: That is crazy.
12:54
HK: I did have the picture where she got her citizenship, I do not see it here. Here is my mother’s picture when she became a citizen and it was 1945.
13:19
JK: Wow.
13:21
HK: She went to night school to learn how– my mother learned how to speak English from reading the funnies. She was self-educated, looking at the pictures like Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy that was how she got a basic idea how– the understanding of English. Another thing, one thing unique about my mother and father like most Americans that immigrated here, most foreign people they wanted to become Americans back then, it was not like today. They learned the language, they dressed American and father wore a suit and tie, every day after work.
14:08
JK: So they assimilated to the culture of America, they assimilated to the culture–
14:13
HK: Right, they wanted to be Americans and show that they were better than other Americans that were here.
14:20
JK: Now in the community, have they, when they came to Binghamton and lived here did they stay here their whole lives?
14:35
HK: Yeah, they mi– when they, they became, they came to– about 1936, (19)37 they bought their first piece of property and in 1938 and in 1940 they ended up– in 1936 we got evicted out in the street because we could not pay the rent, all our furniture was put out in the street.
14:56
JK: Oh my gosh.
14:57
HK: And we were on the corner of Jarvis and Clinton and from there my mother went to the– Welfare came and helped up and put us back in, payed the rent to landlord. A pharmacist on Clinton Street, near Philadelphia sales, they paid the month’s rent, I think the rent was either five or six dollars a month. [laughs] And my mother went to Binghamton city bank, who held a mortgage on the building [phone rings], held a mortgage on the building, that we were living on the corner of Jarvis and Clinton. Somehow, somewhere my mother got enough money to make a down payment and bought the building for five thousand dollars.
15:53
JK: Wow.
15:54
HK: I was with here, it was a day of rain– it was raining and we walked back all the way back to Jarvis Street. My mother could not believe that she bought the building, she made us walk back in the rain, to verify that we had bought that piece of property and everybody in the neighborhood ridiculed her and joked about her buying the building. They said you do not own it but she did, the bankers told her, ‘you bought the building Alice, the building belongs to you.’
16:26
JK: That is crazy, that is amazing, wow. So growing up, in Binghamton, did you guys have a lot of Armenian experiences and culture going on here? Was there other Armenians?
16:40
HK: Growing up, there were two factions of Armenians, there were the Tashnag party and the Hunchak party and because we were very poor, we associated with most, even though we went to the church which was controlled by the Hunchaks here, that was the Tashnag, I associated because they were poor like we were and they had an Armenian school on Jarvis Street and my friends mother, Mrs. [unintelligible] taught Armenian school there. And that was where it, it helped me to learn Armenian.
17:17
JK: Now did you attend normal high school in like Binghamton or did you go to the Armenian school?
17:23
HK: No, we went to public schools, we were very poor, my brother, the doctor who is a doctor now, and I we were taken out of school because we wore bathing suits, we did not have clothing. We wore bathing suits to– we did not have normal clothing to go to school because we were on welfare. We wore bathing suits to school and we were–they were ready to take– break the family up, take us away from our parents, so we had to like for some reason or another we went through that period and eventually got back on our feet and before we moved into the second floor on Jarvis and Clinton and we were tenants there and got evicted and eventually buying the place, we lived in our cousins. Because my father came to Binghamton because his cousin was here and my cousin got him a job, we lived in the basement.
18:37
JK: Wow.
18:37
HK: And then from the basement, of course we had to pay rent to our cousin [laughs] and we went from the basement up to the attic and the rooms were separated with a clothesline with a blanket. [laughs]
18:57
JK: Wow.
19:00
HK: And uh, the toilet was a potty. [laughs]
19:05
JK: Wow, crazy.
19:07
HK: That was how tough it was and then I grew up, I grew up I had to be tough in that area, anybody who knew the first ward was one of the toughest areas to grow up, it was a very poor area, quite a few people in poverty, there was other people in the same shoes or even worse than we were.
19:35
JK: Wow. So when you were in high school, did you have other Armenian friends?
19:39
HK: Yeah, I had a lot of Armenian friends here but there was not that many families, basically we did not have regular church service, we had church maybe once every oh I would say once every couple of months they would, a priest would come from out of town to how service here in our church, 38 Corbin Avenue which is called Saint Gregory Armenian Church.
20:07
JK: Which is still here today?
20:08
HK: What?
20:08
JK: Which is still here today, right?
20:11
HK: Yeah, from, that church was acquired sometime around nineteen twenty-nine when a group of Armenians here in the area and then it was very difficult in those times. I used to have to, when there was some– when I was a young boy; I used to have to shovel coal into the furnace to keep the church warm during services. And then if I forgot, I would get a bop over my head and get down there and throw more coal in the furnace.
20:43
VK: No wonder you do not have any hair. [laughs]
20:51
HK: And the only way to get furnace was to go outside the church, around the outside, pick up a wooden door, trap door and go down into the basement.
21:04
JK: Oh my gosh! They made you do that [phone rings], that is crazy.
21:11
HK: And also, there was another Armenian boy, that I grew up with, mostly were in the same area and they were my age or younger and there were a few that were older but quite a few went on to be, we have a community here, that was unique to any place else in the United States with the Armenians. We had had, somewhere between fourteen and seventeen young people went on to become M.D.s, doctors and that was unique in the United States, we had the most doctors, self-grown doctors in the United States, in the small community of Binghamton, New York.
21:56
JK: Wow that is crazy, so growing up, oh let me get back to this, did you have any siblings growing up?
22:04
HK: Yes I had one sister and two brothers.
22:09
JK: And what is their age difference to you?
22:13
HK: My sister is three years older than I am and my other brother, the doctor, he is a year and half younger than I am and the other one is four years younger than I am.
22:26
JK: And could you please state their first names, their first names.
22:32
HK: My youngest brother is Arslan, the next youngest is Aristaks and I am the second oldest, Henry, and my Armenian name is Harutun and Louise is the oldest, my sister and her Armenian name is Lalezar.
22:51
JK: So, your names, did they switch when you came to America, your names?
22:58
HK: No I was born, we all– my brothers and sister and I were born here.
23:05
JK: Okay got it, yes, and so growing up did you were your called Harutun or Henry more often?
23:14
HK: Well in church, I was called Harutun, among the old timers, I was called Harutun, in school I was called Henry, I was going to be called, when I was born in May of 1931, I was going to be called, my mother wanted me to be called Harry, because that was her brother that was taken by the Turks and when my mother found out there was already one Harry, Harry Kradjian here, she says nothing to worry I am not going to have two Harrys in town so said one of the RN has asked her why do not you– told her why do not you name him Henry and that was what she did.
24:07
JK: Do you know what Harutun means in Armenian, is it a direct translation?
24:11
HK: It means Harry.
24:12
JK: Do you know what about your brother’s and sister’s what they mean, are they–
24:17
HK: Lalezar I think Lalezar [tulip garden in Turkish and Kurdish,] means flower, Louise in Armenian, it means flower. Aristaks that name was, it is in the Bible, Aristaks my mother got that name and then my younger brother Arslan, he was named after the last name of the–her maiden name Arslanian. That means. Arslan means strong.
24:49
JK: Okay, There is, you know how your name means something, your last name in Armenian means, it was your occupation, like–
25:00
HK: No, I do not know that.
25:02
JK: You did not know that?
25:04
HK: No.
25:04
JK: So like my mom’s side, Kabakian it has to do with squash and pumpkins, so it would make sense that they sold– like had a farm and sold squash and–
25:25
HK: Well, in some– in the old–in pre–in the early times of Armenia– early periods you were named after your father, if your father’s name was Kachadour, you were called Kachadourian, that meant the son of Kachadour–
25:41
JK: Yeah.
25:44
HK: If your mother was Yaksan, your last name was–your mother–you were named Yaksanian, you were named after–but that changed over time. Whatever your grandfather’s name was, your father would take, and then you would take your father’s name but the Scandinavians today I do not–when I was–up until 1915, Norway and Sweden and Iceland or Denmark, they still carry on that tradition. If your mother’s name was Helda, you were called Heldadaughter and your father’s name was– your last name became Heldadaughter if your father’s name was John, you were called Johnson, Johnson, son of Johnson that was how was with the Armenians.
26:38
JK: Yeah, very interesting. Now, did you guys have any– in Binghamton– did you guys have any Armenian get together other than church? Like, picnics or dances?
26:55
HK: Yes, I can relate going back to the picnics going back nineteen thirties, we did not have an automobile and somebody would or some family who had automobiles would have to pick us up and take us to the picnics. Soft drinks– for example, we were so poor; soft drinks were a nickel they sold at the picnic because I was so poor John Kachorian would give me a soft drink and hide it– I would hide it and so other people would not see it and I never forgot that. He worked at Endicott- Johnson and he was sort of like the head of the picnic along with Mr. Manoog Bogdasarian. They were like the church elders and they always had the picnics and our picnics were about up around Port Crane along the river bank.
27:54
JK: That is crazy. I remember hearing that because, another person who did the interviews, he interviewed some other local Armenians of Binghamton and they would say they–
28:07
HK: We did not, because we were poor we were looked at–we were looked down and only the side that did not go to the church, the Tashnags, they associated with us until 1950, until the fellows of my age and they, the generation ahead of me like Dr. Bogdasarian and Dr. Garabedian and Dr. Markarian and Dr. Avedisian, not Dr.–not Avedisian it was Abashians– they had– each one of these families had two or three doctors in the family. They were very hard working people and the one who set the– I would say Dr. Robert Bogdasarian, he went to the University of Michigan and then quite a few followed soon after that.
29:11
JK: That is crazy.
29:12
HK: I did not associate with– and then the Korean War came along and we all went our separate ways and when we came back we got married and had our own families.
29:25
JK: And you stayed in Binghamton?
29:26
HK: No I did not, I met my wife in Philadelphia.
29:30
VK: No, she is saying you stayed in Binghamton.
29:33
HK: Yes, I came– we finally– by way– I came– we came to Binghamton
29:39
JK: So growing up, there were a lot of Armenians in the community, did they–
29:14
HK: There were– I would say growing up in Jarvis Street School, in [inaudible] I would say in my class ahead of me and the class the next two or three classes behind, there were approximately about fifteen to twenty Armenians boys.
30:02
JK: That is a lot.
30:03
HK: And girls.
30:04
VK: For a small community that is quite a lot.
30:06
JK: And did they all migrate different places or did they stay in Binghamton like growing up?
30:11
HK: They all eventually came here for the same reason– their parents came here for work, Endicott- Johnson and the other shoe factory in Endicott– Dunn McCarthy’s– they made– Dunn McCarthy’s were known for making ladies shoes.
30:27
VK: She asked if they stayed in Binghamton.
30:29
JK: Like, now today are most of them–
30:30
HK: Well quite a few stayed except for the fact that some of them went from here to Detroit because the factory–auto industry and some before the World War II and some migrated because there was a lot more Armenians in Detroit at that time. There was about twenty to twenty five thousands Armenians in the– although there were quite a few that migrated to California, there is a large contingent of Armenians that live there and that was why they went there, so the– so their children would become Armenianized and not lose their heritage.
31:05
JK: That is crazy. So you can speak Armenian but– you can speak Armenian but you cannot write it, is that correct?
31:14
HK: I can speak but I cannot write, no. The only member of the family that could write Armenian is my sister, she can read and write. I cannot read Armenian either, I can only speak it.
31:26
JK: And have you ever wanted or have you ever traveled back to Armenia to the villages?
31:31
HK: No, never have everybody in the family except for me and my wife Victoria.
31:38
JK: Would you– if you had the chance would you like to go or no?
31:42
HK: If I was younger age, not being over eighty-five, I would, I just do not– I just do not have the ambition anymore.
31:56
JK: Did they– did your brothers and sisters, did they enjoy themselves in Armenia, did they learn a lot?
32:05
HK: Yes, they had, they said they enjoyed– they went sightseeing, they went and saw historical places and they saw where the first church were, and the church that is the symbol of Armenians. Armenians were not the first Christians in the world, but they were the first country to accept Christianity. And the historical church there in Etchmiadzin is still there today. It has been there for over two thousand years and they, the Muslims for two thousand years tried to convert the Armenians from Christians to Muslims and after two thousand years they left the Armenians alone. They said you would have to kill every one of them otherwise you just leave them alone.
33:01
JK: Yeah, very strong, we were very strong.
33:05
HK: You had to be strong otherwise you would have never survive. Right, honey?
33:10
VK: Yep.
33:12
JK: So um you did attend Armenian language school correct, right? You attended Armenian language school, growing up?
33:23
HK: No, in– lot a part of the (19)30s and early part of (19)40s, there was no school here at per se, one of the elder woman, one from the family– Armenian families who would teach Armenian school, and you had pay like twenty-five cents to go to class.
33:49
JK: Oh wow.
33:49
HK: Twenty-five cents for every class you came, you had to bring a quarter.
33:54
JK: That is crazy.
33:55
VK: Yeah, I never heard of such a thing.
33:57
JK: Wow!
34:00
HK: The reason for that was to pay the taxes on the building in the–it was not associated with the church or anything and it was hard times, it was like when Dr. Bagdasarian sister who helped pay, he was going to University of Michigan and his sister Lilian Bagdasarian later on she married and became Lilian [unintelligible]. She would come to our house after work at five o’clock and give Louise and I piano lessons for fifty cents an hour or fifty cents a half an hour and then– and she did that every week and I did not pick up the piano that well but Louise did very well and she learned how to play the piano and read music.
34:52
JK: Wow. So growing up did you guys have– your family– did you guys have Armenian friends or normal American friends growing up?
35:05
HK: I had both. I could not say one or the other, the Armenian friends were social, we would associate on weekends mostly.
35:17
JK: Okay.
35:18
HK: And we would get together on weekends, primarily either from the church or from the picnics. And then, my American friends were basically from school, and playing sports.
35:38
JK: Okay and did your friends, your American friends, did they know about Armenia like when you said you are Armenian, they did not know.
35:47
HK: My American friends did not have the foggiest idea what Armenian was. They did not have the foggiest idea.
35:56
VK: Our school teachers did not even know what Armenia was.
36:00
JK: Oh my gosh
36:01
HK: Did not have the foggiest idea.
36:05
VK: Did your teachers know Armenian, none of my teachers knew what Armenian was.
36:10
HK: The reason why our Armenian community was never united, we never had church or community center to go to and become part of, a part of the whole community and when we first got our priest to come here and after we had the church, he was getting paid I think twenty dollars a month, five dollars a week. After a year or two, a year he wanted a pay raise of five dollars for the month, we could not pay him so we told him to leave. He wanted a raise from twenty dollars a month to twenty-five. And that was our– and after that we did not have any more priests until, let us see, I would say around 1960s around when Father Arakelian came here, when he got married he came as Deacon from St. Nersess. From that–from 1930 to 1960, in the (19)60s or early (19)70s– later (19)60s we had a visiting priest that would come here like once a month, from the Diocese out of New York City.
37:40
JK: That is very interesting, wow. So did your celebrate a lot of Armenian traditions like Armenian Christmas for example.
37:49
HK: Yeah, we followed the Armenian traditions for Christmas, Easter and all the other religious Armenian holidays and Martyr’s day.
38:04
JK: And did you guys have any– what was it like growing up in your household? Did you guys have all like Armenian food– growing up?
38:19
HK: My mother, my mother did not have a good background because she was a young girl she was only like eight or nine years old when she way taken away by the Turks and she had really no experience-she had knowledge of Armenian food but knowing the recipe and making it, she did not have the expertise like when I used to visit other Armenian families or other churches they would know exactly. Once you would taste their food, you knew you were eating the real thing. My mother had to make up her own recipe.
39:02
JK: Now, was your mom– back in Armenia– was she separated by any of her family members?
39:09
HK: Hm?
39:09
JK: Did she– when she was separated by her family members in Armenia, did they ever reconnect or anything?
39:18
VK: When she was separated from her family, did she ever reconnect with her family?
39:25
HK: No, the ones over there she never reconnected, when she came here her, her father was dead–buried in Edison Cemetery in Lowell, Mass, it is a municipal cemetery but the plot– the people from her village in Harput and the village of Hoğe. They bought a plot for about with fifty or sixty people to be buried there that lived around Lowell, Massachusetts and they could be buried there with no trouble– no cost at all. And that is where my Uncle and my grandfather are buried there, yeah her mother was killed by the Turks and brother was taken by the Turks.
40:24
JK: And was it like– were they killed in Armenia or were they?
40:31
HK: No, they were killed in Armenia.
40:34
JK: So how did your sister get to escape?
40:39
HK: My mother?
40:39
VK: Your father
40:40
JK: Yes.
40:40
VK: Yeah, how did your father escape too?
40:42
HK: My father escaped? He dove into a river and– you are talking about my father now?
40:50
JK: Your mother, how did she-
40:51
HK: My mother?
40:52
JK: How did she escape?
40:53
HK: They had a march. They marched all the Armenians into the– into the–
40:57
JK: The desert?
41:00
HK: In Syria, into the desert to kill them. Somehow my mother– she was a go getter and she knew what was happening, so she ran and hid and I do not know how she survived but she eventually ended up in Beirut, Lebanon where her Aunt– where her cousin was.
41:24
JK: So she found her cousin? That is crazy. She found her cousin? Oh my God.
41:29
HK: Yeah and it was my cousin who gave them money and he gave her so she could immigrate to American and get to her brother. But we– she repaid– we repaid our uncle– our cousins over there in Beirut, when the war started in (19)75 or the banks were closed in Beirut, so we gave them between five and six thousand dollars and they wanted repay it but we said no, you do not have you, this is for helping our mother come to America.
42:11
JK: Wow. Very nice
42:12
HK: Believe me on your grandmother’s side, the Kabakians and the Kachadourians, we got no help, we did not any help from any Armenians for anybody and if we did get help we got help from the Main Street Baptist Church and the Protestants, or the Kachadourians did and we never forgot that, we repaid the Main Street Baptist Church by– then when they had their seventy fifth anniversary we made the short fall for the missionary in Africa.
42:52
JK: Wow that is amazing, so getting back to your life here in Binghamton, did you end up going to college once you left high school? Or did any of your siblings went to college? After graduating from high school did any of your siblings, including yourself, go to high school?
43:14
HK: Yes– a college– my sister went into nursing and became an RN [Registered Nurse], Louise. My brother went to Wayne State and then to Syracuse University became a doctor and I attended Harpur and Syracuse University at two years accredited college and I left school to fly in the Airforce.
43:41
JK: And, how long were you in the Air Force for?
43:44
HK: Approximately four years, I was stationed in Keflavik, Iceland, in air rescue and I was stationed in Charleston, South Carolina and I was in military air transport which is called MATCH and also at McGuire Airforce base. I raised to the rank of First Lieutenant.
44:02
JK: Wow that is amazing. Very cool. So after, after the Airforce you came back to Binghamton and then you met–
44:15
HK: No, I did not meet your grandmother, I was stationed in Keflavik, Iceland and my brother who was at Syracuse University was attending a medical get together– medical association group in Atlantic City, ran into my future wife, Victoria, at the hotel, got her name, my mother was afraid I might an Icelandic or a Scandinavian girl. So she sent me, my brother gave her the address of my– of your grandmother, Victoria– in Philadelphia and my mother got a hold of the address and mailed it to me and up in Keflavik, Iceland after World War II, there was real separate– the Airforce, Airforce and Navy flyers all built together their officers and we used to read each other’s mail. And one of the Navy Airforce Officer’s wrote a letter to my wife because I did not want to write the letter, they wrote the letter.
45:38
VK: I am just finding this out now, I did not even know this.
45:43
HK: –Wrote the letter and your grandmother, Victoria sends a picture of herself and the flyer said– the guys that wrote the letter were reading the mail, he says “Henry if you are not going to Philadelphia to check this out, we going to go to Philadelphia” and that was how I met your mother I mean my wife–your grandmother.
46:05
JK: That is amazing. Oh my gosh.
46:08
HK: So I really, I never met– listen, Jackie that is a true story.
46:20
VK: I never knew that. You know what happened. I was in Atlantic City and he comes knocking on the door and there was a party. So he pops his head in and we are short one girl at our party, this is Art now. So I said to my cousin, I said oh okay we could go and he says “oh no just one”– oh no and so later on when we went downstairs to talk to the girl at the desk for the bus, what time the bus is going to leave um, he pops up Art pops up so he said well can I have your name and address and all this kind of stuff. So I say to myself how is he going to remember, he will never remember because he did not have a pencil or paper so I say sure. And not knowing he had a pretty darn good memory. So he ships the name and address over to him–
47:24
HK: You know this is a true story, I cannot make this stuff up, it is like surreal, you know, how things happened back then and that was how it was and in fact my mother and– or when your grandmother, your grandmother here, how their parents, their parents were put together. In other– you would meet the man and you would meet the family and your grandmother, your great grandmother would walk along with them and in like the movie The Godfather and that was how it was in the old days. There was no going out and going here and going there in a long courtship, it was like one two three and that was it. Am I right honey?
48:17
VK: [Speaks Armenian] My grandmother, I said mom.
48:23
HK: That was a period– the fittest survived.
48:27
VK: Yeah, the fittest. Here was how I was [shows picture]. Grandma and mama on one side, dragging me in to the–
48:42
HK: Vicki, I am talking, I am talking before you. It was not just your grandmother’s family and mine, it was thousands of Armenians just like us, who struggled, came to America wanted to be Americans, not like some of the people who come here today, they wanted to be Americans, they wanted to dress like Americans, they wanted to learn the language, they proved to the people that were living here they were just as good or better. They overcame, it was not just the Armenians it was the Slovak people, it was the Italians, it was the Irish, it was the Jewish people. They struggled and they wanted to become somebody and become something and there were–and they did it, no matter how great the odds were, they did not quit. They did not–the word quit was not in their vocabulary.
49:42
VK: The first priority was becoming American, speaking the language, learning the language, it was. it was not easy, it was not easy. Different culture there, different type of food and everything else. Different religions and they came and built their own–
50:06
HK: And you know what I cannot understand everybody that came here, whether black, white or yellow they were discriminated, the Irish were discriminated, the Italians, the Armenians and this discrimination will never end. You might temporarily, but the problem here is people make a big issue out of being discriminated. Discrimination was going on way before, thousands of years before we were we born. And it will continue on no matter what, you cannot change people. There will always be discrimination to some degree.
50:51
JK: Exactly. That is crazy. So, when you were getting married, when you were looking for a wife, did your mom and father, did they want you to marry Armenian?
51:02
HK: Yes, they wanted me to marry Armenians but then there was a lot of stipulations.
51:11
VK: [whispers] She hated me.
51:11
HK: It was period where we were first– I was first generation, my wife first generation– were first born here and we were going through a period– it became to easier for my daughter and your father to get married later on because, the American tradition, the way you are suppose– the way things are done over here, we had a mix– it had a mixture between the other side and America. And there were, we were trying to pacify our parents and grandparents we were trying to blend it and make the best out of the both worlds. Your father and your aunt and your other aunt’s and other– your mother’s fa–brothers and sisters did not go through that because they were the next generation. But the first generation was a little difficult like you just could not go out and marry somebody that was not Armenian, that was looked upon down.
52:22
JK: Wow. So did you want to marry someone Armenian?
52:27
HK: Hm?
52:27
JK: Did you want to marry someone Armenian?
52:28
HK: Oh yes, I did because you see not marrying an Armenian, not marrying an Armenian you lose– you do not have– you do not understand the tradition and the hardship that both the families went through, you lose the language and you lose the language you lose the church and if you lose the church you lose your heritage as far as an Armenians concerned. The church and the heritage and the language as Armenian go hand in hand without that being blend all together, your future generation is going to be watered down and the grand children or the great grandchildren and the great, great grandchildren will not even know where they came from.
53:20
JK: Yeah. Exactly. When you– older– later on you had two children and did you want them to marry Armenians. Did you put pressure on them to–
53:29
HK: I would like to–
53:30
VK: No we did not put pressure on them but they knew–
53:22
HK: I would like that but the problem here is that there is different– there is different Armenians. See when my parents and your– my wife’s parents came here that was another group– that was another generation– that was a generation of Armenians that was really called the Armenians. They were true, true Armenians right from the heart, it came from the heart. The Armenians that come over here hand been Sovietized or Russianized or they been Muslimized. Not that their Muslims, not that their Russians but they have been influenced and they leave a bad taste with other Armenians and also with Americans that are live here.
53:34
VK: Sometimes they think that this country owes them when they come here, in other words, Harutun do not you get that?
54:46
HK: Yeah, see when the Armenians that came like your, your Kabakian side, for example, the churches were here, the schools were here, they went out– in other words during the Depression it was tough, the Armenians did not have the money, they did not have– did not know the language, did not know the ins and outs of government how things work over here and they struggled they built these churches and schools. The ones that came after World War II, hey this is it, it was not that way, it was hard work and they struggled the ones that were here.
55:33
JK: Yeah, they went through a lot.
55:35
HK: You understand what I am saying.
55:37
JK: Yeah, of course.
55:38
HK: I am not trying to put a knock on anybody but that is the way it was. That is how I see it and the ones that came after World War II, everything was always already in place for them.
55:50
JK: They did not have to work for it.
55:51
HK: They did not have to struggle, besides, there were no jobs during the depression, where were they going to get the money? You know how much I was bringing? I did not even want to go to church sometimes because I could only put a nickel in the plate. I wanted my mother and father to give me at least a quarter, they did not have a quarter to give me.
56:12
VK: But we were discriminated against too.
56:20
HK: You mean we were discriminated because we did not have any money?
56:23
VK: No, no, no. They did not know– my teacher did not know if we had money.
56:28
HK: That was a given fact, they did not know what Armenians were, they did not have an understanding of Armenians and a lot of people thought Armenians were like Arabs, they were nomads. That is a fact, in the school books and the library when I was– and I looked up Armenians and they had Armenians are Nomads, they were wanderers.
56:50
VK: They were wanderers because they wandered away from the genocide. Unbelievable, unbelievable. Yeah I heard they were Nomads.
57:03
HK: What?
57:04
VK: Nomads
57:05
HK: Right that is what I read, I remember this where I saw that, it was in the library at Daniel S. Dickinson the basement library.
57:18
JK: That is crazy. So did– how would you consider yourself, like what would define yourself as? Being–
57:24
HK: A true American Armenian, American first without America I was– I was– my family, my wife’s family and all the others Armenians that came here after the slaughter, after World War I, would not be nothing without America. I consider myself, an American first and Armenian second.
57:51
JK: What about you?
57:52
VK: I agree–
57:53
JK: Same thing–
57:54
HK: When I say American first, I would give my life for this country.
57:59
VK: Well you were flying during the war, thank goodness you came out of it. Jeepers!
58:11
HK: You find a person’s true colors and when I was flying in the Airforce, the really the true Americans were from the mid-west or from the south-west. They were so patriotic or from the south, the flyers you said anything derogatory about America, there was no such thing as burning an American flag. Not the stuff that goes on in New York City and California. It was unheard of back then, if you did that while I was in the service you would have got murdered, you would have got clobbered.
58:53
JK: Okay were he–
58:54
HK: I do not consider– I do not consider those people–some of those people in California and some in New York City as Americans. It is only giving lip service.
59:08
JK: So, when– now you have two children now right?
59:13
VK: Yeah, that is all we have [laughter] and grandchildren, five. [laughter]
59:21
JK: Oh I am sure one of them is amazing. [laughter]
59:23
VK: Oh, I am sure that she thinks she is. [laughter]
59:33
HK: You know, I saw when I was in the Service Jackie, I saw a lot of good Americans that died during the Korean War; a lot of good Americans. They gave their– they gave their lives up for this country and the garbage that goes on today with the flag– burning the flag and taken sports at taking a knee! [laughter]
1:00:00
JK: So, your two children can you name how– can you say their names and how old they are?
1:00:08
HK: I have a son, his name is Mark Kachadourian. He is fifty-eight and I have a daughter–
1:00:20
VK: What about their middle names?
1:00:21
HK: Well, Mark Henry. Mark Henry Kachadourian and let us see he is fifty-six–fifty-eight, yeah he is fifty-eight years old. And Corey is– Corey Victoria Kachadourian, my daughter she is fifty-nine. One was born in August one was born in September.
1:00:51
JK: Crazy!
1:00:52
HK: How old did you think your father was?
1:00:54
JK: I do not know [laughs], fifty-seven.
1:00:57
HK: Your father was born in fifty-nine.
1:01:00
JK: Yeah. Crazy! I was thinking fifty-six or fifty-seven.
1:01:07
VK: He is fifty-eight!
1:01:08
JK: Crazy!
1:01:09
HK: Huh?
1:01:10
JK: Crazy! How fast time goes by?
1:01:14
VK: Yeah, in the old days that was old, but now that is middle age,
1:01:19
HK: Well the problem– your mother, your grandmother and I– we were married in fifty-seven, Corey was born in fifty-eight and your father was born in fifty-nine.
1:01:20
VK: One right after the other, yeah.
1:01:37
JK: Wow! Okay, so did you want them– did you– growing up– did they grow up learn Armenian or go to Armenian school or church?
1:01:43
HK: There was no– we did not have regular Armenian Church. We only had a visiting priest that came once every month or once every two months and we did have Armenian school but it was very difficult since we were a small community and the only time they would meet would be on weekends. It was not like it was a large Armenian community where there would be regular functions and dances or social get together. We did not have any of that in this community because we were a small community and at the present time there would roughly only be between thirty or thirty-five–or thirty or thirty-five Armenian families in the area left.
1:02:28
JK: Okay. And most of them moved away to get more–
1:02:31
HK: The problem there they– most of them left the area because the fact that we lost our industry here and the politicians never understood what made this community. It was– IBM and Endicott-Johnson and the other industries came here because we had cheap energy. And that cheap energy came from the coal mines around Scranton and Wilkes Barre, it was less than a half an hour, an hour away. We had the cheapest energy in the world and without indus– without cheap energy, you do not have industry.
1:03:09
JK: Yeah. So did you guys–did they ever attend Armenian dances once in a while?
1:03:15
HK: No there were no Armenian dances here.
[
indistinct]
1:03:21
HK: It was not– the Armenian dances did not take place until about– let us see– I would say– (19)50– go ahead– around the early part of (19)60s from when I was growing up, up until even when your father and your aunt were growing up in the area. From 1957 by fifteen– there was nothing we could– for fifteen year– in the Armenian functions– they did not– and fifty –fifteen or twenty years.
1:03:52
JK: Wow.
1:03:53
VK: Did not it go out of town
1:03:55
HK: What?
1:03:55
VK: When it was something going on in Atlantic City–
1:03:59
HK: Out of town but not here. Not locally.
1:04:01
JK: Did they go out of town– where would they go out of town?
1:04:05
HK: Basically, they went out of town to Armenian functions we went to Philadelphia or Atlantic City.
1:04:10
JK: And did you go ever so often–every year? Did you go every year?
1:04:15
HK: We tried to, I mean mostly in the summer months.
1:04:19
JK: Now, do they both know how to speak Armenian?
1:04:24
VK: Do they speak Armenian?
1:04:26
HK: Who is they?
1:04:27
VK: Corey and Mark.
1:04:28
HK: No.
1:04:30
VK: They understand–
1:04:31
HK: They understand– when they were– spent the summer home– at the summer house down in Toms River, New Jersey and they grew up there in the summer, they learned from their grand folks but they–they do have an understanding if someone is speaking Armenian they understand what they are saying.
1:04:49
JK: My dad said he knows how to– because sometimes he says something to my mom in Armenian.
1:04:56
HK: Yeah.
1:04:56
VK: Yeah he probably knows more than he is letting on. You know why–
1:05:04
HK: I wanted, I wanted very much to send you to Montreal and pay to go to Armenian school there with the Kabakians and the Liberians– they would have taught you Armenian but my son did not want you to leave the area.
1:05:22
JK: No I wish I did that that would have been amazing.
1:05:25
HK: It would have been a great summer– and I would have paid for it, it would have been a great summer and you would have become true Armenians. Not by just by name but you would understand the customs and the language.
1:05:39
JK: Yeah. There is so much more of an Armenian community in Montreal.
1:05:43
HK: Oh yeah. I am very–, I am– when I go to Montreal I am impressed. There– when you say Armenian community that is the true sense of the word up there.
1:05:54
JK: They even had a march on April 24th for the Armenian genocide to–
1:06:00
HK: Well your, your father, your grandparents, your– marched in the first march or– in United Nations and your aunt marched the first march of the genocide in the United Nations. I will never forget it.
1:06:19
JK: Really?
1:06:19
HK: It was a cold–
1:06:21
VK: New York City.
1:06:21
HK: Cold April day in New York City and the–the United Nations would not allow us to mark on–march on their side of the, the plaza– We had to cross the street and march across the street and we could not march on the grounds–the United Nations’ grounds.
1:06:42
JK: Wow
1:06:42
HK: And they– we and there– at that time there– I would say there was somewhere between fifty to seventy-five Armenians with signs marching and we did not have a sign, we marched along with them. Remember that, honey? Just to show our support.
1:06:58
JK: That is wonderful.
1:06:59
HK: We made that trip from Stanford, Connecticut on that cold, cold wintery day in, in April– in the springtime and wind was blowing off the ro– east river or the Hudson River even. It was just coming, you know, crisscross in Manhattan it was very dip– it was very hard times but the– it– we just made a show for– to show the world that the Armenians did not forget.
1:07:30
JK: Yeah. Do you think America will ever accept the Armenian genocide as an actual genocide?
1:07:37
VK: At this point, I do not think so.
1:07:41
HK: Hmm?
1:07:41
VK: Do you think America will ever accept the fact that the genocide existed?
1:07:53
HK: See I have– the two sides– the– to the story just like, like in Israel, America has a foreign policy and it has what has to be– and it protects the rights of people. It promotes freedom around the world, but the– they has to balance the one side with the other. It is a two sided– and it is very difficult to say–well– at this point I think they could– they should recognize it but if they– I am a firm believer if they recognize the genocide, this country, it will no longer be in place like it used to. The gov– the Turks and the United States government is doing the Armenians a favor by not recognize it because it is out on the forefront every year.
1:08:53
VK: That is right. It is–
1:08:54
HK: It is out on the forefront. In other words, we will go out there and make them have the risk of a government standby and say look these people were slaughtered and why do not you recognize it? But–and if, if they do recognize it, future generations will not go into the march, will not c– they will commemorate the date, but not like it is now. That is my personal feel.
1:09:23
JK: I agree with that. That is true.
1:09:25
VK: I do not think they are ever going to make any public announcement that this happened.
1:09:33
HK: See the trouble with this is, the presidents that want to get elected, like George Bush, Bill Clinton, Obama. They all promised the Armenians they would recognize the genocide and when they got in the office, what happened?
1:09:53
VK: They forgot all about it. [laughs]
1:09:57
HK: Obama’s speech before the parliament in Turkey says allege or so called, I will never forget the speech he made in Istan–in Ankara, Turkey. The allege massacre. Allege!! Why you– A man cannot stand behind his word. Obama broke his word and so did Bush and so did Bill Clinton. They all broke their word.
1:10:29
JK: They did.
1:10:30
HK: If a man’s word is no good, the man is no good.
1:10:33
JK: They did us a favor, it will never–
1:10:37
HK: Allege! I will never forget what the– Obama said it in front of the parliament, the speech was– you–there–h ad it on the news. The allege massacre!
1:10:50
JK: Terrible.
1:10:51
HK: How about I, I said the allege slavery in America?
1:10:59
VK: [laughs] That is a good one! [laughs]
1:11:03
JK: Crazy. [laughs]
1:11:04
HK: How would Obama like that? Massacre. Really?! The allege massacre?
1:11:11
VK: What about the allege slavery of the blacks and–
Pause in recording
1:11:15
JK: Is there anything you want to add about the Armenians or your history or anything?
1:11:22
HK: Yes. The only thing I could say is in my wife and I– in our lifetime– our parents were slaughtered in World War– our grandparents and our parents and their families were slaughtered in World War I and my wife and I, in our lifetime, we have seen nothing but war. We have seen World War I, we have seen the Spanish Civil War in Spain in the thirties. Then we saw World War II, then we saw Korea and then we saw Vietnam and then we saw the war in Iraq and then we saw the war in Afghanistan and now the war in Iraq and the problems in the Middle East. Only thing I only wish for– the remainder of my life there are no wars, hopefully, and from– not only for myself but for future generations over my children and my grandchildren and great grandchildren. That was how I will end it. You want to add anything to that Vicky?
1:12:39
VK: No you said it–
1:12:40
HK: And I hope, I hope, that we can live in peace for at least a period of twenty-five to fifty years.
1:12:40
JK: Wow. Nice. Okay thank you so much.
1:12:53
HK: Hum?
1:12:53
JK: Thank you.
1:12:54
HK: How did I do?
1:12:56
JK: Pretty good.
1:12:57
HK: Oh I do not think so.
1:12:58
VK: Did you read what Mark wrote?
1:13:00
HK: Yeah
1:13:00
VK: I mean he is––
(End of Interview)
Date of Interview
1/16/2017
Interviewer
Jacqueline Kachadourian
Interviewee
Henry Kachadourian
Biographical Text
Henry attended Harpur College along with Syracuse University, but left to fly in the Airforce. After being stationed in Iceland and South Caroline, Henry earned the rank of First Lieutenant. He currently resides in Binghamton with his wife, Victoria. Together, they have two children and five grandchildren.
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University
Digital Format
Audio
Interview Format
Audio
Rights Statement
This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as Armenian Oral History Project, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries for more information.
Keywords
Turkey; genocide; Armenia; assimilation; Tashnag; Hunchak; politics; family names; Endicott Johnson; Binghamton; Armenian language; traditions; discrimination; identity; church; dance; Armenian Genocide march; United Nations
Files
Citation
“Interview with Henry Kachadourian,” Digital Collections, accessed May 16, 2025, https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1311.
