Art Books
74 is about family separation and the connection between past and present use of this human rights violation. The text was inspired by an Ottoman Government document* from 1915 in the Krikor Guerguerian Archive at Clark University. What stood out to me was the note about the details of the deportation in my family’s hometown of Malatya.
“There were 1,191 Armenians in 134 households in the subdistrict and of these 1,115 were deported; 74 are children who have been left with those of charitable bent.”
Here was written proof of how my Grandmother survived the Armenian Genocide. I felt a sinking in the pit of my stomach. Only 74 children. My Grandmother was one of those. Coincidently, this was in 2018, the same time that the 1st Trump Administration’s Family Separation policy was being enacted. Here I am 100+ years later still talking about the Armenian Genocide. What of the thousands of children currently being separated at the US-Mexico Border in a purposeful, war crime level violation of human rights?
The number the Trump administration put out for separated children was what I used in my book: 2671. But we now know that the actual number was over 5000. Most have been reunited under the Biden administration but some have not. Since no one was held accountable for this atrocity, the 2nd Trump administration is committing even worse human rights violations.
*Guerguerian, Krikor, "Malatya 02" (2018). Malatya. 2. Clark Archives