The Armenian Student Association (ASA) commemorated the 111th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide on Dexter lawn Friday evening.
Members of ASA gathered around a prototype of the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex and a map of old Armenia to honor the victims and express their love for ASA.
City Councilmember Mike Boswell, who is a professor and chair of the City and Regional Planning Department at Cal Poly, began the event with a proclamation declaring April 24 as “Armenian Remembrance Day.”
Boswell called the memorial “beautiful” and said he was happy to attend as both a councilmember and a member of Cal Poly’s faculty. As a councilmember, he wanted to exemplify the city’s commitment to inclusion. As a faculty member, he wanted to be there for his fellow students.
“I love all my students,” Boswell said. “It’s important to listen to them.”
Marine Hunanyan, a business administration junior, is co-president of ASA. She believes the memorial was important to educate others on the genocide, which claimed the lives of as many as 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1916, according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia.
“Something like this should never just be a page in a history book,” Hunanyan said.
Hunanyan also wanted the event to be a chance for members of ASA to express thanks for what the association means to them. For her, ASA helped her to find people of similar culture and heritage at a predominantly white institution.
“I didn’t really know what it meant to be Armenian until I got here, and it was around people of the same culture who looked like me and were around the same age as me. I never had that,” Hunanyan said.
After opening remarks by Councilmember Boswell and ASA’s second co-president, Thomas Sargsyan, an English junior, attendees took turns sharing what ASA meant to them. Many, like Hunanyan, were thankful for a space on campus to explore their identity as Armenians, but many non-Armenians were also grateful for the community they found.
Sargsyan was proud of how many non-Armenian members of the organization came and shared what they may not be able to elsewhere. He called it “fantastic.”
“For ASA, this means that we are doing a great job at reaching out to people outside the small community of Armenians at Cal Poly and spreading awareness about something that many people do not know much about,” wrote Sargsyan in an email to Mustang News.
Diego Calusdian, an Armenian electrical engineering sophomore, also appreciated the number of non-Armenians who came and shared their experiences. He thinks it “shows the love” of ASA.
“I think the point of non-Armenians is kind of even more important because it kind of shows the community solidarity and support for the Armenian community,” Calusdian said.