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FROM THE MARGINS | BY PATRICK AZADIAN
Los Angeles Times Valley Edition | Glendale News-Press | March 24 2007

Feeling included, sensing pride

A friend of mine brought something to my attention last week. After I told her yet another story about my father, she asked: "Have you always missed him so much, or is this very recent?"

My father passed away in 2002. 

I did not have an answer for her. She caught me off guard, and my stories dried up for a couple of days. I briefly became self-conscious about storytelling. 

Who knew? Maybe this was a phase I was going through; something my now-abandoned therapist would have had a label for. Perhaps I had a condition. I wouldn't be surprised if "Late Post Loss Syndrome" was listed somewhere in the encyclopedia of psychology.

 My self-imposed ban on "dad stories" lasted a few days. Meanwhile, even simple daily situations continued to remind me of my father, Njdeh. But the much-talked-about Glendale multilingual ballot and information pamphlet was the latest phenomena that brought him to mind.

 Here is why: After years of being physically separated from our family due to political upheaval, he was finally able to join us for a third and final time here in America. He was already in his mid-60s.

 Once we all had enough of the sentimentalities and our family unit was back to a quasi-normal state, he had a few pieces of important business he wanted to take care of. 

First, as the rest of his family members were American citizens, he put his citizenship documents into motion.

Simultaneously, he signed up for English as Second Language classes at an adult education center. He took pride in going to class every day and scoring perfectly in his exams. I have kept his exams. 

In the process, sometimes he ran my patience thin by asking me numerous detailed questions. Once he asked me the meaning of the word "ambivalent." It was not always easy to give satisfactory answers to his questions in Armenian. Often, certain words do not have a direct equivalent in another language. But he was determined and my answers often brought on new questions.

Njdeh wore out the English-to-Armenian, as well as the English-to-Persian, dictionaries at our house. I have kept them, too.

He graduated from his courses with the unofficial titles of "best student" and "teacher's pet." We were all proud.

Dad did not live long enough to take the oath of becoming an American citizen. This had been one of his dreams since I was born. He always reminded me that America was the best country in the world.

I did not shy away from telling him that being the best and being perfect were two different things 

One of the topics that we disagreed on was how the past can influence the future. I always emphasized that the injustices suffered in the past by minority groups can hinder their progress today. To him that was nonsense; his view always stressed taking responsibility for your own actions. He was a product of real-life situations in the Old World, I was a product of our public high school system and the UCLA sociology department in the New World.

On one occasion he said: "Son, you don't know how it is to live in a country where laws are subject to interpretation by corrupt officials." He was referring to a political system he had left behind, which had discrimination against religious minorities legislated into law.

Glendale's multilingual ballot would have been another reason for him to brag about America.

Njdeh would have secretly been happy with the multi-lingual ballots. I say secretly, because even after successfully completing his ESL classes, his English was not good enough to understand everything on the sample ballot and voter information pamphlet. Yet he was too proud to admit that he had not mastered the English language. Frankly, at his age, I am not sure if he would have been able to be fluent in English during his lifetime.

I can just see him coming out of the voting booth with the exuberance reserved for teenagers. He would've said: "Kvearkam, byats hayeren targmanootyoonuh bedk chooneyee." ("I voted, but I did not need the Armenian translation!" in Armenian). He would have probably followed up that statement with another one about the multilingual ballot: "Did you see the ballot? This is what I am talking about. This is what America is all about: tolerance and understanding."

In addition to his pride in his heritage, this would have been a moment when he would have felt very American. He would have felt included.

I wouldn't have argued with him on that day.

Copyright 2007 Glendale News Press