My mom grew up with no Armenian schools, no active churches, no community centers and was forced to hide her Armenian identity on the land of our ancestors; the very land where they were driven out, massacred and robbed of everything they owned.

She was able to retain her ethnic identity through tradition and culture that was passed on to her. She learned our language later on in life (outside of colloquial usage of our regional dialect). I still remember watching her struggle to read my childhood Armenian textbooks.

In diaspora, she has been criticized for her lack of Armenian proficiency, scrutinized for speaking “the language of the enemy”, called a Turk (as if being a Turk would have been in her control anyway) and ostracized by people who grew up with the luxury of hate in their hearts.

Imagine overcoming Turkification as a descendant of genocide survivors and retaining your ethnic identity in Turkey only to be rejected in diaspora.

Yes, there are forces that make it easier to assimilate in diaspora - some of those forces come from within our own communities.

My mom taught me that as individuals, we are more than what we are born into but no matter what, we do not abandon our culture; we breathe new life into it. We do not forget where we came from. We do not forget who we are. It cannot be taken from us - not even by our own kind.