The Hrant Dink Foundation’s discussion series, titled Ancestral Journeys: Reflections on Land and Belonging, which was launched in June 2025, will continue on Monday, November 2, with Arlene Voski Avakian. The talk, titled “Embracing My Ancestral Homeland”, will take place from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. at the foundation’s Anarad Hığutyun Building. Aylin Vartanyan Dilaver will moderate the discussion.
The granddaughter of a family that survived the 1915 Genocide, Arlene Voski Avakian first heard part of her maternal grandmother Elmas Tutuian’s account of what she experienced in 1915 in 1954, when Avakian was just 14 years ld. Her grandmother asked her to tell the world what had happened to her. For many years, however, Avakian tried to distance herself both from her grandmother’s story and from anything associated with her Armenian identity. Yet her family’s past continued to make its presence felt in her life.
In her talk, Avakian will explore the journey from avoiding knowledge of her family’s history to accepting that history and making it part of her identity. Her account will trace the path from the moment of awakening she experienced in 1954 to the point at which she was able to embrace Turkey as the homeland of her ancestors.
She was also in Istanbul last year
Avakian was in Istanbul last year on the occasion of her book “Lion Woman’s Legacy”, in which she weaves together a powerful story of resistance stretching from Kastamonu to America with a feminist memoir. She met with readers and reunited with the Saturday Mothers, whom she had met on a previous occasion.
The discussion series explores the connections between past and present, experiences of discovery and reunion, and questions of belonging through journeys to ancestral homelands. The foundation also invites Armenians living abroad who have traveled to their ancestral lands, or who are planning to do so, to share their own stories.
Avakian is one of the founders and former chairs of the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Lion Woman’s Legacy: An Armenian-American Memoir. Alongside her academic work, Avakian has also been involved in social movements and initiatives that support marginalized communities.
