The New Americans Recent Immigration and American Society Edited by Steven J. Gold and Rubén G. Rumbaut A Series from LFB Scholarly This page intentionally left blank Becoming American, Remaining Ethnic The Case of Armenian-Americans in Central California Matthew A. Jendian LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC New York 2008 Copyright © 2008 by LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jendian, Matthew A. (Matthew Abram), 1968- Becoming American, remaining ethnic : the case of Armenian- Americans in central California / Matthew A. Jendian. p. cm. -- (The new Americans : recent immigration and American society) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-59332-261-8 (alk. paper) 1. Armenian Americans--Cultural assimilation--California--Fresno County. 2. Armenian Americans--California--Fresno County--Ethnic identity. 3. Armenian Americans--California--Fresno County-- Statistics. 4. Social surveys--California--Fresno County. 5. Ethnicity-- California--Fresno County. 6. Interethnic marriage--California--Fresno County. 7. Fresno County (Calif.)--Ethnic relations. 8. Fresno County (Calif.)--Social conditions. I. Title. F868.F8J46 2008 305.891'992079482--dc22 2008021807 ISBN 978-1-59332-261-8 Printed on acid-free 250-year-life paper. Manufactured in the United States of America. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: ASSIMILATION AND ETHNICITY.........................................1 CHAPTER 2: UNCOVERING ETHNICITY..................................................11 CHAPTER 3: ARMENIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE..................................39 CHAPTER 4: ARMENIANS IN CENTRAL CALIFORNIA..............................61 CHAPTER 5: BECOMING AMERICAN, REMAINING ARMENIAN...............73 CHAPTER 6: ETHNIC IDENTITY..............................................................99 CHAPTER 7: INTERMARRIAGE..............................................................115 CHAPTER 8: ETHNICITY IN LATER GENERATIONS...............................141 CHAPTER 9: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS..................................149 APPENDIX...........................................................................................161 REFERENCES.......................................................................................191 INDEX.................................................................................................205 v This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This publication is a result of many years of study, research, guidance, and reflection on the issues of assimilation and ethnicity as they pertain to Armenian-Americans. First and most importantly, I would like to thank the respondents, the 294 men and women of Armenian descent in Central California who participated in the study. For the insights regarding ethnicity and ethnic identity contained herein, I am intellectually indebted to Anny Bakalian, John Tinker, Richard Alba, Milton Gordon, Herbert Gans, and Ed Ransford. I want to acknowledge and thank Roseann Giarrusso for sharing her methodological expertise in survey construction, research design, sampling, strategies to increase response rates, etc. as well as Eun Mee Kim, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotello, and Elaine Bell Kaplan. A number of others were of assistance in a variety of ways, including Richard Hrair Dekmejian, Nomie Derderian, Barlow Der Mugrdechian, Bob Fischer, Steve Gold, Tim Griswold, Ara Hairabedian, Deborah Helsel, Glen Hunt, Allan and Rosemary Jendian, Megan Jendian, Micah Jendian, Pam Jendian, Isabel Kaprielian, Dickran Kouyoumjian, Pat Ledesma, Hector Lopez, Phil and Jackie Manoogian, Al McLeod, Kevin McNeill, Beth Najarian, Ed Nelson, Elizabeth Nelson, Lars Newlander, Rubén Rumbaut, and Laurie Schmidt. For financial support, I appreciate the generosity of Isabel Lion of Fresno and the Armenian General Benevolent Union. vii This page intentionally left blank PREFACE This body of work originated from research that I began in the fall of 1990. As a self-described Armenian-American, I was interested in assimilation and ethnic intermarriage among Armenians in California. In consultation with Professor John Tinker, I decided to examine the marriage licenses of people of Armenian descent in Fresno County (California) for the years 1930, 1960, and 1990. Access to the data for 1940 and 1980, collected by Beth Najarian (1982), allowed me to combine the two data sets to make one large sample. The marriage licenses contained information about where the participants and their parents were born, where the ceremony was performed, occupation, and, occasionally, education of the bride and groom. From this data, I was able to document the rates of intermarriage for the given years and control for generation. Table 1 is a multivariate crosstabulation with intermarriage as the dependent variable, year of marriage as the independent variable, and generation as the control variable. TABLE 1 Intermarriage Rates of Armenian-Americans in Fresno County by Year and Generation, 1930, 1940, 1960, 1980, & 1990 1930 1940 1960 1980 1990 Total Both Parents 10.4% 14.7% 42.0% 63.6% 42.3% 28.5% foreign born (48) (68) (50) (22) (26) (214) Both Parents 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% 89.2% 87.9% 90.4% born in U.S. (0) (0) (13) (37) (33) (83) Total 10.4% 14.7% 54.0% 80.0% 67.8% 48.5% (48) (68) (63) (59) (59) (297) Source: Fresno County Marriage Records. *Note: Read the table in the following way: In 1930, 10.4% of the 48 marriages in Fresno County of people whose parents were born in a foreign country were intermarriages. **People with one parent born in the U.S. and one foreign-born parent are not presented in this table. They represented only 30 (9%) of the 327 total marriages. The cell frequencies were too sparse for meaningful comparison. ix