Azad Archives

The first thing Darius told me was a lie.

“Got an A. You?”
“Same,” I replied, keeping my paper face down.

We were each other’s first friend, I’d like to think. Despite being inches shorter than I was, he stood with confidence, as if he hadn’t landed two months prior. Dark tight curls covered his head, eyes brown with a tint of redwood if you looked close enough, and eyebrows thick above them. I envied his long eyelashes, even as a child. It didn’t take long until I found out he envied me, too.

“You fit in,” he told me once afterschool. “Help me dress like you, yeah?”

- from American Boys by on azadarchives.com

Bearing Witness comes from the mixture of real events and mnemonic imagination; events that Khedugian herself has not seen nor experienced yet shape her understanding of her internal world and her external Canadian identity. The realities of the genocide, particularly the acts of sexual violence and slavery enforced on women, might be overlooked when discussing war and genocide. “The embodied trauma of victims of sexual abuse and forced marriage have been, at times, deemed too personal and too emotional to be worthy of historical study.” Khediguian elaborates on the gendered sexual violence further: “This sexual violence as a weapon of war has lasting implications for the Armenian community’s perception of women’s sexuality. Victims of such violence were often viewed as “tainted” and ostracized. Even women rescued from sexual trafficking—such as those sold into slavery—were frequently shunned when reintegrated into Armenian society. This societal shame gave the violence its enduring power.”

- from Remnants, Reclamation and Resistance by Emitees Tajdari

Read the full piece on azadarchives.com (link in bio)

Art by .k.artist