Van Krikorian

00:00 - 00:16
Gregory Jundanian (GJ): First, thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. When we start out with your name and where we are.
00:15
Van Krikorian (VK): Sure.
00:15
GJ: We'll just take it from there.
00:17 - 01:03
VK: My name is Van Krikorian. We are at 437 Church Street in Whitinsville, which is now my cousin Jeffrey Stevens home. But it was the house that his father and mother built. Sebouh and Margaret Kalousdian. And we're in Whitinsville because deep family connections here. My grandparents were here. My parents lived here until 1959 until they moved to Framingham, Massachusetts where I was born in 1960. And after that, I was here, not in this house, but at my grandmother's house on 19 Willow Street, virtually every weekend and all summer long.
01:04
GJ: Nice. What were your grandparents names?01:06
VK: They were, Yessayi, or Isaac and Siranoush or Sarah, Kalousdian.
01:13
GJ: And where did they come from? What was their origins?
01:16 - 03:14
VK: Ah, their origin story. I think the project has it, but I'm happy to repeat because it's a good story. They were both from Shabin-Karahisar, so and I think it's an interesting comparison with my father's side as well. They were from Shabin-Karahisar, which, of course is famous for being where General Antranig was from. And we grew up learning that and remembering it at all times that, that you know, we came from such a place that that gave birth to such a hero that my grandmother essentially watched her whole family massacred. Was eventually a slave, then escaped, made her way to the Bird's Nest orphanage in Lebanon. And my grandfather, whose older brother had come to the United States first but then went back, came here before the genocide to earn money and send it back. As a lot of the men, Armenian men who settled in Whitinsville felt did. Well, His (Yessayi’s) family was obviously killed then as well. So he was left without a family, without connections. He then wrote to the orphanage and said he wanted to marry a girl from Shabin-Karahisar. And she was sent to Cuba, to Havana, Cuba, which was also a gateway for a lot of Armenian couples. They got married in Havana, Cuba. And then because at that point in the late 1920s, the United States had been in the middle of isolationism, and the quota system for immigrants was difficult.
03:14 - 05:01
VK: As his wife, she was able to come into the United States. I have, I have been to Havana, Cuba, and I have actually gone to the courthouse where they got married and seen not only their names entered in the registry from the 1920s, but also the names of many other Armenians. And subsequently one of my daughters was studying in Cuba. She went and did the same thing. And the people there were very warm and nice the whole time. So that's a nice little story. My father's family, my father was born in Worcester. His family's was from Chimishgazak in the old country, as we still say, and his family was warned by the Turks that they were coming to kill them.  And so they escaped and made their way to the United States and to Worcester, where my grandmother on that side died when my father was 12 or 13 years old. My grandfather was a barber in Worcester for many years, as well as a poet who recited poetry in public and did a lot of other things as well. But on my Whitinsville side, my mother's side, my grandfather Isaac, worked at the foundry, the Whitin Machine Works foundry. Jeffrey's father, my uncle worked there, my mother worked there also, as well as that, as well as helping out because the Whitin family and their business, I think, still on the cemetery, the Pine Grove Cemetery at that time.
05:02
VK: She also ended up helping with the books for the cemetery as well.
05:06
GJ: What was your impression of Whitin Machine Works as a kid?
05:10 - 05:50
VK: As a kid? My impression of Whitin Machine Works was that it was a giant, mysterious place that made my grandfather deaf; because his hearing was poor. And that's because they worked in poor conditions with deafening noise like a lot of other kids, you know?  We would we would either see him at lunch time or bring him his lunch If he didn't bring his lunch pail with him. But that was really it.
05:51
GJ: Did you ever walk into the foundry?
05:51 - 06:19
VK: I absolutely never walked into the foundry for some reason. Nope, that didn't happen. My own children and grandchildren readily roam around where I work. They take over my desk and chair and I just pray they don't ruin their computer. But nope, I never went there.
06:20
GJ: So what are your earliest memories of, you, did you say I forget…
06:24
VK: I was born in Framingham?
06:25
GJ: You were born in Framingham. So what were your earliest memories coming here and of your grandparents?
06:30- 07:52
VK: Well, well, there was a real continuum of memories, I would say. Because we were here from the time I can remember, pretty much every weekend. Yeah, some weekends, maybe not, but we were here all of the time to the point where in first grade we would be asked every Monday, “What did you do last weekend”? And my answer every Monday would be we went to Grandma and Grandpa house in Whitinsville and then on parent teacher night, my parents told me, the teacher said that, “Oh, we don't know why your son keeps giving the same answer or doesn't do anything different on weekends.” And they said, “No, actually that's that's what we do every weekend.” As I got a little older and not that much older, my uncle Sebouh, Jeffrey's father, who worked in Natick, would drive me here on Friday night to my grandmother's house. And then my parents would come either Saturday night or Sunday for church, and then we would go back again together. Every Sunday was dinner at Grandma and Grandpa’s house with the whole extended family.
07:52
GJ: What would you have to eat?
07:53 - 08:14
VK: Chicken and pilaf. And I will say a salad, a mix of vegetables. It was the Okra that I hated. I hated Okra. I hated it. Sorry.
08:14
GJ: Did you have to eat it?
08:16 - 08:37
VK: You know, like every Armenian kid, you learn how to, like, spread the food out to make it look like your plate empty and how to shelter it so that if there was something you didn't like, you didn't have to eat it. And I was not the only Armenian kid that did that. And I think we all know that.
08:38
GJ: So you grew up speaking Armenian?
08:39 - 10:23
VK: I grew up speaking Armenian before I spoke English. My grandparents spoke broken English, but in their house and even, you know, my parents raising me, we spoke Armenian. That was an issue. And first of all, you know, when I was very little, we just around family the whole time. But the first time in Framingham when I went out in the yard and other kids came over, it was a real problem because their Armenian, was nonexistent. They were you know, that was a difference between Framingham and Whitinsville, is that they had very few Armenian families and in Framingham, and they were very much spread out. So the difference between sort of living going to school there in a purely American and at that point very much multi-ethnic culture. On our street in Framingham the address was 28 Walnut Street it was up the street from Bowditch Field and walking distance to the schools. You know, I don't think we had two houses next to us, two houses on our street that were the same ethnic group. There were African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Greeks, Jews, Italian, Irish, English, Scottish, Portuguese, everything but none of them really spoke Armenian. So they thought I was from another planet. And after that I actually resolved to learn English very well. And I hope I've succeeded.
10:24
GJ: Well, you hung out in Whitinsville. I assume you hung out at the Lasell Field right across from your grandmother's?
10:29 - 11:17
VK: Exactly where I spent enormous amounts of time, with the group of boys that I grew up with here, were all playing sports and we were there playing sports the whole time. In the summers, uh, the town had a program where, you know, you'd go in the morning, they would have counselors there. We would… Lasell Field would have its own sports team and we would play the other teams, do crafts, play cards, and basically spend the whole day there doing those kinds of things when we weren't fishing or bike riding or getting into other mischief.
11:18
GJ: I Remember that fondly.
11:20 - 11:47
VK: Yeah, but it really had a lot of fun and it was a great, great thing to do and that sports aspect I know played a big role, you know, even for my parent’s generation and in Whitinsville and in Worcester, because Armenians like sports and it was a way to integrate with the rest of the society as well.
11:49
GJ: Were you in any other teams?
11:51 - 12:04
VK: I was a proud member of the Grey Barn basketball team when I was a teenager and just barely eligible to play in their summer basketball league.
12:04GJ: And what is the Grey Barn?
12:05 - 13:22
The Grey, the Grey Barn is one of the premier bars in the United States. It still exists.

I encourage people to patronize it. I appreciated that they picked me for their team. The older guys, none of whom were Armenian, were all very good to me. We had a very good team. I was puzzled why with a name like Grey Barn our basketball jerseys were red, but it was a summer basketball league that Whitinsville ran and I was just on cloud nine being the youngest guy on the team.  And that was great. I wish I could locate the t shirt because I would actually still wear it. And those games were also at the high school or the Lasell Field at that time, which was a good basketball. And there were multiple basketball courts. But it wasn't just there. We also, you know, that was in the summers, in the winters we were playing at the community center, all different sports, which also was, you know, one of the times when the Armenian kids that hung around together were playing sports with non-Armenian kids.
13:23 - 13:56
VK: I, I forget the guy's name, but I am 63 years old and I still remember the coach when we were running telling the Armenian kids either they were eating too much pilaf or not enough pilaf and why couldn’t we run faster? So that community center and their gym was also sort of a great place for people to integrate. And I think that's a rich part of Whitinville’s history also.
13:35 - 14:22
GJ: And that community center was built by the Whitin family and actually where Johnny Weissmuller used to swim. The man who became Tarzan. Im not sure why he swam there but… were there lessons or things your parents or grandparents would talk to you about that were particular to being Armenian or just life in general that were important to you?
14:23 - 16:19
VK: My No, they just kind of let me go on my own. They gave me no guidance whatsoever. Yeah, of course, the same values that I think every Armenian kid got growing up. Yeah. In this area at least were the same lessons, same lessons that I got. And not only that, but I think, you know, one of the things about Whitinsville being a small town to begin with, but also having a close knit Armenian community as well, is that other parents, other grandparents had no question about, you know, their right to give the same advice and to do the same monitoring and to teach the same lessons. As far as your own parents or grandparents would. In that regard, you felt like you were being raised by a community which is a really wonderful thing. That, for me, what's also a huge difference with Framingham where that, you know, existed to some extent, you know, because you had relationships with neighborhood families and you were close with their parents as friends would be, you know, you take care of each other.

But the language aspect, the religion aspect and that sort of bond that existed in the Armenian family, whether you are related or not, was enormously strong. You know, if I were a comedian, I would tell stories about, you know, being disciplined by people who are not my parents or grandparents when they would catch us doing something improper.
16:21 - 17:02
VK: And that, strangely enough, continued, you know, well beyond my youth here. When Atlantic City first opened up, I remember going from college in Washington to Atlantic City and being at one of the tables and feeling this enormous hand clamped down on my shoulder and this fellow saying, “I grew up with your mother. What are you doing here?” I'm like “Even here!”
16:52 - 17:04
GJ: My dad would always used to say, “if you bring shame upon yourself, it's really you bring shame upon the family and if you bring shame upon the family, then you bring shame upon all Armenians in Whitinsville.”
17:04
VK: That, that is that is true. And I think the converse of that is also true that if you bring honor upon yourself.
17:13
GJ: Yes.
17:14 - 17:25
VK: And that's why we're we are always extremely proud of, you know, when somebody did something or accomplished something we all shared in that accomplishment, that was a really good thing
17:26
GJ: Youre right out. We were always getting in trouble. So that's…
17:28
VK: We’re always getting in trouble.
17:31 - 17:38
GJ: But yeah, that's that's people are always pointing to pride when people succeed because we came out of nothing
17:39 - 17:57
VK: And, and, and even here there were just, you know, so many simple pleasures. You know, I will tell you, because, you know, your younger brother was a friend of mine as far up as we could climb in the tree in front of your house. That was an accomplishment for us.
17:57
GJ: That was crazy.
17:58
VK:That was a great tree.
18:01 - 18:14
GJ: We used to call it around the world. And Richard could do it the best, He would go to the edge of the branches all the way around the tree. It was like, unbelievable. I'd get up there, I'd be petrified. And I have to, like, take me an hour to get down. But…
18:15 - 18:44
VK: Well, that skill paid off for me because I will tell you, you know, one of the things that I also remember growing up here is during “toot” season, mulberry season, there were different trees around Whitinsville, you know, and my grandparents, knowing that I was a good climber, would take me to other trees and had me climb up them and shake the branches.
18:45
GJ: Yeah, we had one in our backyard.
18:47
VK: Yeah, well, we made the rounds because they knew I could climb trees.
18:51 - 19:00
GJ: That's very funny. So you went through when you got through high school in Framingham, where did you end up going to college?
19:00 - 21:02
VK: I, I went to college at George Washington University. I majored in international affairs and math economics, minor in philosophy, and then went to Georgetown Law School. And after that, I went and clerked for in the federal court in Burlington, Vermont, where I lived for a while. Then went back to Washington to work at the Armenian Assembly where I had actually started in 1977. And I went back there around the time of the earthquake. And then the whole Armenian world very much changed because not only dealing with the devastation of the earthquake, but also the independence movement and the independence movement of Nagorno-Karabakh or Artsakh, the violence that accompanied that the pogroms, which, you know, has not gone away. And then 19-um 1992, I think 1991 was independence, 1992 as Armenia’s first session in the United Nations General Assembly session. And they made me their deputy representative and council. And so then we moved to the New York area, and I left after that first session. But we stayed in that area since. So now I live in Rye, New York, but, you know, my wife, we have four kids, two grandchildren.
21:05 - 21:28
VK: When I was… I remember actually, and I don't know if they taped or recorded it, but we might have been able to save this time. I think when I was deputy representative, the church and church invited me back to speak at the anniversary dinner at the, I don't know which country club it was, Sutton Country Club or something like that..
21:28
GJ: Pleasant Valley.
21:29 - 22:24
VK: Pleasant Valley Country Club and I gave them credit because the experience of growing up here and that feeling of family and that feeling of, uh, responsibility toward people who deserve better, whose parents deserve better, who had been through so much, sort of very much stayed with me and stays with me to this day. But also I know the values on education, on being a good person, an honest person, and having integrity. Also stayed with me. And it and it was a, you know, very much joyful experience, frankly, because people were really proud of you and they wanted you to succeed. And that really is, I think, different from how most kids grow up today.
22:24
GJ: Yeah, that's a good point.
22:29 - 23:21
VK: It's interesting because I've been involved with Armenian Assembly and with Armenian organizations for all of that time. And I'm currently cochairman of the Armenian Assembly and chairman of the Armenian National Institute. I traveled to Armenia quite a bit and it's almost like when you go into some villages, you feel like the same kinds of things that existed here in Whitinsville are really similar to the way people live there, especially that communal nature of everybody knows everybody and everybody's watching everybody. But caring for everybody as well is really caring for people. That's what that I thought was great.
23:22
GJ: So you spent your career in the Armenian issues or did you have a separate practice?
23:30 - 24:49
VK: I had a I had a separate practice, but also an Armenian issue. So I did almost all international law. So after I left the United Nations, I was in some big law firms and did you know if a company wanted to make an investment in another country, whether it was a power plant or an agricultural project or an investment, you know, or all kinds of different projects, then I would be the lawyer who would go and negotiate all of that, pull it together, coordinate the other people and, you know, be their counsel. I also teach law. I teach international trade law, I teach international business transaction law and international arbitration corporations, antitrust, conflict of laws. I've taught a lot of different things over the years. So I have a kind of unusual career path. But the work I do for Armenian Assembly, Armenian National Institutes, it's on a volunteer basis. Of course.
24:50
GJ: So you spent a lot of time working around Armenia issues. And my question is, why?
24:51 - 26:16
VK: That's an easy one. There are a lot of issues people could work on. And people, you know, they have natural inclinations. But in my own view, if I didn't use the education and whatever skills I have to work on Armenian issues, unlikely that other people would.  So in a… if we don't stick up for people, we don't stick up for Armenians, If we don't give them a better future than the future that our grandparents went through, it's unlikely that other people will. So I also spend a lot of time trying to get other people, not just Armenians, but other people who espouse the same principles to apply them. And especially for me and, you know, to look back as well as to look forward. That seems that that's not something I think about a lot. That's a simple calculation for me. You know, I can't expect other people to do what needs to be done if I'm not willing to do it myself.
26:17
GJ: Right. And do you ever communicate with people from other ethnicities who are going to come from communities of similar- 
26:24 - 27:15
VK: All the time, even before independence, they organize a coalition of similar Eastern European Soviet ethnic groups because the commonalities are immense. Earlier this year, I actually spoke before the Tamil Congress in exile because they too suffered genocide. We speak to a lot of groups and deal with a lot of groups that are going through human rights issues because that's another important value that I think we have, is that it's not just Armenians, but if we can help others avoid our experiences, that's what we need to do.
27:17 - 27:28
GJ: And I assume those are lessons you tried you passed on to your children, or do you think have your children being one generation removed from your grandparents? How are they…
27:28 - 28:30
VK: They are like, uh, all children, mixed. I don't I don't have any friends whose kids are all. Exactly the same. But I will say that I, you know, all of my kids follow not only follow Armenian issues, but participate wherever and whenever they can and to different degrees. One of my daughters, actually, after she graduated from university here, went and lived in Armenia for a couple of years. Did you know was a research fellow at Yerevan State University and it still extremely active. They're all active in their own ways but yeah, they obviously didn't know my grandparents, right. You know, but, but they're in touch with their history they're in touch with their roots and in touch with their church, etc., etc..
28:33 - 28:56
GJ: So I guess I wanted to just shift the subject a little bit and ask you if I know you spent a lot of time with your grandparents, but you obviously didnt know your great grandparents.
28:47
VK: No.
28:49 - 28:56
GJ: Is there something you'd like to know that doesn't exist? I think with a lot of Armenians are so much unknown about their past.
28:58 - 29:11
VK: Not really. I know that's probably not the answer you're looking for, but really, I spent so much time with my grandparents and it was very clear that they had certain red lines.
29:12
Like what?
29:13 - 31:39
Well, they weren't going to talk about the horrors and they just were not. With respect to great grandparents on my father's side, actually, I did know my great grandfather well, who had also escaped, and he lived in Boston. Mesrob Sohigian was his name. Extremely, extremely brilliant person. Part of the reason why I became a lawyer, because he was an inventor and had actually invented quite a few things, but then was cheated by a lawyer who put the patents in his own name and reaped the financial rewards. And I, I remember that story. And, and I thought lawyers should never be like that. And it was it was one of the reasons I was also, you know, that I understood that that becoming a lawyer and studying international law would help me work for me and and help me, you know, accomplish what I consider to be my purpose in life. But that kind of dishonorable behavior really stuck with me. Also interesting that I… my mom passed away in 2019, spent a lot of time cleaning out the house because I lived life like everybody does, but because they lived in one house, you know, from 1959 to 2019. And came across some of my great grandfather's papers and a card of a lawyer who happened to still be alive.  And I contacted him and at first he didn't remember my great grandfather. And then he said, Wait a minute, he was the guy who was cheated by the other lawyer. So, that gave me a little bit of closure there as well. But he was a fantastic person. He was a designer and he would make he would take whatever pieces of metal could find and make me the neatest toys in the world.
31:40 - 32:58
VK: And none of them, nobody would let their kids play with those toys. Now, that would be much too dangerous. But, you know, when
31:48
GJ: Do you still have them?
31:49 - 32:22
VK: When you're a little kid, I do have some of them. I do have some of them. And, you know, at Boston, Common kids go and sell boats and float their boats in the pond there.  And he would do that with me as well. So I had that experience also. He died before I could ask him, obviously, any serious kind of questions with my grandparents here. You know, there there were red lines that you just you know, you didn't talk about those things.
32:23
GJ: Did they? Actually grow up the General Antranig?
32:27 - 32:52
VK: Never asked. But I had I, I, I could tell a funny story where, you know, you know, words to a song were changed and they involved General Antranig. And when I came home from camp singing at one time, I was severely reprimanded for any way bringing anything except full honor to General Antranig.
32:53
GJ: Wow
32:54
VK: And it was a harmless song, I thought.
33:01 - 34:02
VK: I'll say also in terms of family history, you know, like my grandmother saw her family killed and then much later in the 1950s, heard that one of her cousins who she thought was dead was actually alive. And then she conducted a worldwide search. She found him in Greece by putting, you know, which was common at that time, too Armenians looking for the Armenians ads in the newspapers. And she found him. He actually came to my wedding and he came to United States. We were lucky enough to have him come a couple of times. He still had the bayonet marks in his back where, you know, he was like maybe 10, 11 years old, and the Turks had bayoneted him in the back and left him for dead. Very nice man. Arshak Mannasian.
34:04
GJ: Do you happen to know where in Greece. Was it -
34:06 - 34:57
VK: Piraeus. I visited him there once, too, because I was traveling for business and was in Athens and then told the group that we have to go visit, you know, my mother's uncle. And so I. I dragged them all there. Lived in the very humbly had become it was a soap salesman I think, or just did odd jobs, lived very humbly but you know like any Armenian when I showed up, he just whatever he had, he shared with all of the business people and other lawyers. I brought with them. Very generous that way, nice person, classic Armenian. And those, that that nature, I think, is just is global for all of us, which is great.
34:57
GJ: Yeah.
34:58 - 35:54
But here in Whitinsville, you’re used to it in your family but then when you see it in other families, it makes a huge difference. And again, that comparison between, you know, spending the week and, you know, not having other Armenians in your class, not having other Armenians in your sports teams, you know, just growing up in a pure American society versus coming here and then feeling all of that where nobody asked you what's an Armenian, which for kids growing up in American cities and other non-Armenian places, that's one of the first questions you get. And I don't know how people who just grew up here dealt with it, because here when people grew up, they tended to move away, right. And now they're coming back.
35:56 - 37:45
GJ: You said your mother grew up with a lot of discrimination in town. We were talking earlier?
36:01 - 37:46
VK: Yeah a lot that there were, you know, for places where African-Americans weren't allowed, Armenians also weren't allowed. There was that level of discrimination. There was that kind of talk, that kind of, you know, if you want to call it bullying that existed. I think, you know, that was something that that I learned and remembered. Yeah, it was a completely different era. I know it's literally almost 100 years ago. We're talking about 1920s, early 1930s. It was a different world and sensitivities that we have now aren't there. And that's why that's why I think the acts of kindness that so many other non-Armenian show to Armenians was appreciated so much. So I think you know that. And before there was an Armenian church, you know, one of the other churches allowed the Armenians to hold services there on Sunday afternoon. So that was a big deal. I think, Whitinsville is still is also, you know, in a good place in terms of other Armenian American communities, because there was only one church here and a lot of other cities you have a Diocese church, you have a Prelacy church here was one church. I think that played a positive role as well in terms of bringing people together because, you know, we've seen what happened in the cities that have more than one church.
37:48 - 38:02
GJ: Do you - you talked a little bit about your career, but is there anything that you're particularly proud of working with the Armenian community where you work through a challenge and…
38:03 - 40:19
VK: There were this this is not to interview for that, but there were a lot there were really a lot. And, uh, you know, as, as difficult as working in a for and with the Armenian community can be as frustrating as it can be when you don't get everything supposed to get especially in terms of the lobbying and advocacy work we do. The feeling of helping people and really helping people overwhelms all of that. So, you know, in terms of doing the most productive things and perfectly comfortable with that, if I were to you know, people ask me that question a lot, you know, and there was a whole bunch of things that I could tick off. But a lot of times some of the most important things, especially, you know, as recently as this last week have been things that we've prevented lives that we've saved. You know, that there's just a lot, there was a lot that you feel good about, otherwise you wouldn't do it. But as people need help, they’re, you know, you go to some villages in Armenia and, you know, people are living the way they did really forever where, you know, people had been there know, they still dry manure and use that for heat in the winter. You know, real small towns, small villages living the way they had without a clue of how the actions taken, you know, in Moscow and in Washington and other capitals affect their lives. And as I said, that, you know, they deserve as good as we can give them. So I'll leave it there for now and we'll save other stuff for another interview, Greg.
40:20
GJ: Great. I think we're, unless there's anything you like that, I think we're in good shape.
40:24 - 40:55
VK: I think that's good. I have enjoyed doing it. It's caused me to think a lot about, again, comparing, you know, the Framingham side of my life with the Whitinsville side of my life. I have really just the warmest of memories, the warmest of memories about my friends here, growing up here, family here, connections here and everything else. So, I'm glad you guys are doing this project and happy to help.
40:56
GJ: Thank you so much.
40:58
VK: Thank you