Marash Girl walked into a bar in Watertown, Massachusetts, yes, the very bar that has the Irish Flag hanging next to the Armenian flag: Donohue's. And there she met the owner of the bar, AND the nephew of the man about whom her father, Peter, often related the following story:
When the Armenians first came to this country fleeing the genocide, they needed work, and work they found at the Watertown Hood Rubber, but there were so many Armenians who needed work, and so few who had enough language to find that work! (For those of you who want to know more, see Marashtsi Roger Hagopian's film on Hood Rubber.)
Peter told the following bitter-sweet tale about a fellow Armenian recently arrived from Marash, an immigrant with very little English, a man needing a job who came to Peter with his tale of woe.
Dedim,
"'Benim uçun, I don't care. Çocuklar evde acukdan gebeyorlar. Give me job.' That's English, ain't it?"
"Absolutely," Peter answered, laughing.
Translation?
"I told them, 'For my sake, I don't care, but my children at home are dying of hunger. Please give me a job!'"
N.B. The grand nephew of this man who was so concerned about his children is today a professor at a prestigious university in the Boston area.
Government, big government has to be the explanation for this success story. I mean, after all, the man arrived wounded, terribly wounde, because of the lack of fairness in his life. Add to that no education and the inevitable is a foregone conclusion, unless, of course big government can ride to the rescue. Thar has to be it. There it was, plain to see, if one only had the eyes to see, the masked avenger of all the unfairness in the world. Surely, a policy, or two, or maybe even three or four, and, by, and by, presto! Unfairness vanquished. Yep, that has to be the explanation. All along, there was this massive government apparatus righting the wrongs of the world, an earthly redeemer, if you will, and most of us were blind to its miraculous presence. Only the Shadow knew.
ReplyDelete