Growing Up in an Armenian Neighborhood

Most people know that Watertown is home to a large number of Armenians. They are concentrated in the East End, which has three Armenian churches, a school, cultural centers, three markets within a couple of blocks of each other, and other Armenian businesses.

When I was growing up, Armenians in town proudly told me that Watertown had the second largest Armenian population in the country. Fresno, Calif., had the largest back then, though about 10 years ago an Armenian man told me that that the number one position had been taken over by Hollywood, Calif., with Watertown dropping to third.

I am not Armenian, but I grew up in an Armenian neighborhood.  Many of my neighbors had grapevines in their backyards, not for the grapes but for the leaves, which they used to make stuffed grape leaves. When I was older, I developed a taste for grape leaves, and after my mother told our next door neighbor, Mrs. Sulahian, she would often bring me some when she made them.

There were more elementary schools in the town back then, and the schools were pretty much neighborhood schools. Because of this, there were a lot of Armenian kids in my classes at the Hosmer. They all went to St. James Church on Mt. Auburn St. Most of them were second generation (born here), with English as their main language, but many knew how to speak Armenian, which I assume they’d learned at home. Some also went to Armenian school some afternoons, where they learned to read and write Armenian.

Because there were a number of adults in the area who primarily spoke Armenian, one couldn’t help but hear it spoken in the neighborhood. I would say that most of us non-Armenians learned a few words, particularly “eench-bes-yes,” which means “how are you?” (Note:  in that phrase, the ‘y’ is not pronounced.)

I remember when the kids learned their first “bad words” in Armenian, which they enjoyed using as often as possible, just as most kids do when they learn such words. The words were “esh” and “eshek,” which I was told mean ass and jackass, respectively.

I became quite familiar with Armenian names. The last names almost all end in ‘ian’, with a few in ‘yan’. I also heard many Armenian first names, such as Vahe, Vasken, Hagop, Krikor, Aznive.

My friend Carol Millian lived right up the street from me; when we were little, we were at each other’s houses all the time. When I was at her house, it was always a treat when her grandmother gave us some of her freshly baked choereg (an Armenian bread). I have fond memories of eating that delicious choereg, but I never really liked lamejun, an Armenian pizza-like food that all the kids loved.

When I was in fourth or fifth grade, Gail Aharonian had a birthday party on a Friday, and her mother made shish kebab and rice pilaf for us. Only two of us at the party were not Armenian. (I think the other girl might have been Susan Gemmato.) The two of us were Catholic, which meant we weren’t allowed to eat meat on Fridays, so Gail’s mother made and served us fish sticks instead of shish kebab. Though that was the right thing for her to do, I was still disappointed that I had to watch everyone else eat shish kebab while I ate fish sticks.

I currently live in the same neighborhood in which I grew up. Is it still an Armenian neighborhood? I don’t know. A family across the street has a large cookout every year at which they play Armenian music, and one weekend last year St. James Church had a big festival outdoors and I could hear the Armenian music when I was out on my porch. But other than that, I don’t particularly notice it being the kind of Armenian neighborhood that it was when I was growing up.

Of course, when I was little, I knew many of our neighbors, and today I know few. I’m also not out and about in the neighborhood like I was when I was a kid. Because of this, I may not be as aware of my neighborhood as I used to be. So though there are still many Armenian neighborhoods in Watertown, I’m not certain if mine is one.

Thank you to Carol Millian Falten for her help in spelling the Armenian words cited in this column.